Here are the 6 best responses when someone asks “what is rucking?"

Yes, we all know that when someone asks you the questions “what is GORUCK?” you are always supposed to reply with the community-authorized and preconditioned response:

“GORUCK is a team-building endurance event based on special forces training.”

So, by derivation, if someone asks you “what is rucking?” you could reasonably answer that rucking is an endurance exercise based on special forces training.

While this response is in line with the official GORUCK response and is more than adequate in most settings, it doesn’t completely capture every element of rucking that makes it one of the most rapidly embraced activities in the fitness world, with scores of new participants becoming enthralled with this military-inspired form of training on a weekly basis.

In order to supplement our usual reply to the question all of us are so familiar with, here are the six best responses you can offer up when someone asks you what rucking is all about.

6. Rucking is the logical next step in functional sports training.

Countless people go for daily runs in their trendy fitness clothes, share their photos and progress to their social media accounts, and receive praise from their friends. We have nothing against running, which is arguably the simplest form of cardiovascular exercise to adopt (next to walking, of course), but rucking is simply a far more practical way to achieve fitness while replicating real-world environments, or even real athletic environments.

For example, football players commonly wear between 10 to 20 pounds of gear and padding, hockey players’ gear can weigh up to 50 pounds, and even lacrosse players wear shoulder pads and head protection that adds weight to them while they perform. While runners who play other sports may feel adversely affected by the additional weight being placed on them during competitions, for ruckers, the reverse is true; they’re already used to running around with far greater weights. Therefore, consistent rucking may be the simplest way to ensure that your body is fully prepared for everything that awaits it on the field of play.

5. Rucking is a community.

In most parts of the world, the sight of other humans running along the sidewalk wearing backpacks, either individually collectively, is still uncommon, and likely to raise more than a couple sets of eyebrows. As such, ruckers tend to adopt a strength-in-numbers approach to training, forming clubs around their shared preferences in workout styles, and thereby reducing the social stigma or sense of isolation that comes from publicly training in an atypical way.

Because of the ties ruckers share as participants in a fringe sport that is rapidly gaining in popularity, the bond between ruckers tends to be strong and increasing in strength, just as the culture of rucking - with its slang, slogans and achievement patches - becomes more pervasive with each passing day. People that formally identify themselves as ruckers are not only willing to accept the finger pointing of outsiders, but they will also be readily embraced by the many others who have taken the leap of training faith and gravitated toward a sport that encourages a community approach to fitness.

4. Rucking is survival preparation.

If a zombie apocalypse strikes your neighborhood and you need to flee with your family as expediently as possible, chances are you’re going to be taking a few things with you, and the most optimal means of carrying those items will be in the form of a backpack strapped to your back. In fact, for those of you with children, fastening at least one child to your back may be the most efficient means of transporting precious human cargo as well.

Be honest with yourself: In almost every scenario where you might need to flee a scene quickly, there are a few things you can’t live without that you’ll be stuffing into a bag to aid your survival chances. People who ruck are well prepared for the day when everything goes topsy turvy, and their training regimen makes it a certainty that they will be of the greatest possible use to their loved ones if things go haywire, and lives are placed in jeopardy.

3. Rucking is training for people who need to optimize their time.

There are a limited number of hours in the day, and large chunks of that time are routinely spent eating, sleeping and working. With the remainder of the day often carved up by assorted family obligations, workout time is often compressed, which means people have to squeeze the most out of every moment of their allotted time.

Rucking is one of the most efficient ways to optimize your workout time. Strapping 30 pounds of weight to your back has a similar net effect to holding two 15-pound weights in your hands, albeit far less unwieldy. Not only does this mean there is substantially greater muscle exertion when rucking as opposed to running across the same distances, but ruckers can also switch on the fly to various forms of lunges, squats and other bodyweight movements to enjoy the strength- and endurance-building benefits of those exercises as well.

At the end of the day, training with additional weight means ruckers get greater benefits out of every step, stride, lunge, pushup, and second when compared with the average runner.

2. Rucking is badass.

The terms “extreme” has been run into the ground with regard to sports, but one of the most respectable ways for a sport to be elevated into extreme territory is to take an activity that is already respected as a sport, and to push its boundaries in a challenging, yet logical way.

Through the sport of rucking, activities like running, hiking, or simply walking are enhanced to an extent that they are transformed into something hip, exciting and attention grabbing. Adding an additional level of difficulty to just about any sport makes it cooler, and strapping a backpack full of weight to a runner transforms the runner into a far more compelling athlete. It just does.

In addition, the military roots of rucking, and the fact that it is a practical training method for policemen, firemen, EMTs, or any other first responder who needs to get from one place to another as quickly as possible while carrying equipment in order to perform heroic deeds, does even more for rucking: It makes rucking a valiant and downright honorable way to train.

1. Rucking is an endurance exercise based on special forces training.

Because of course it is.

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