Hitch Hiking From Sweden To Australia

Hej hej everyone =)


I am planning a trip next year here i will be hitch hiking from where i live in sweden to australia next year.  I will  be walking considerable amounts every day I imagine as well as camping out when possible,  so I will have a tonne of free time to focus on my training while I travel.
 

the point of this thread is to gather some ideas of what you the community would do if you had all day free to train and focus on improving as much as you could for 6 months to a year?  I am trying to figure out a routine which will benefit me most given my abundant free time.  so any tips advice or ideas are welcome!  

My body is used to training almost every day and I will be taking a pair of rings with me to hand from what ever i can find as well =) 

cheers =)

Your nutrition will be an issue. You won't be able to cook the way you normally do. Make sure you stock up on good vitamins, and have protein powder with you. Do  not try to use jerky, aside from being expensive it is also extremely low quality protein.

Sounds like an awesome trip! I often fantasize about how I would train if I had all day to train. Depending on how high your current volume is, you could increase the volume of your workouts, assuming that your sleep and nutrition will allow. The main thing I would do if I had all day to train is include much more skill work. A one-arm handstand is a skill I have lusted after ever since I first saw it performed, but I have never put in the hours of handstand work needed to develop this skill. Once you have an appropriate workout volume figured out, I would include a ton of skill work. This is a good opportunity to improve your handstand, or any other skills you wish to achieve. 

yea I have been thinking about putting in a lot of hours for handstand as i would love to have a press to handstand one day.  I figured with all that time it should come pretty quickly. as for work volume, wel quite a lot as I train a good 6 days a week several hours each day.  it is mostly rock climbing now that my ankle is better again.  but i still do some gst as well .

I thought about doing something like main strength exercises in the morning followed by one exercise GTG style, maybe manna work and then skill work aka handstands in the evening.  I think sleep will be plentiful on my journey as i am in no rush and plan on taking my time.  as for food well that may be lacking sometimes, which could be detrimental seeing as i will also be walking considerable amounts during the day.  I am not sure how much walking really will affect my performance or if you really need a lot of food after a long walk?  hopefully some one could chime in about the nutrition side of things here.

haha I missed your post josh!! yea i was a little worried about nutrition.  Do you think the epic walks will make a big impact on what i need for nutrition?  I planned on buying some protein powder for the journey and bringing some compact cooking equipment. something simple i can cook veggies and meat in. going to try some fishing a long the way when i can as well

also I was under the impression that vitamin tablets really aren't that great and don't supply much benefit to ones diet?

Personally I would probably use a similar volume to what I get with the WOD. I don't think it would be a bad idea to have one main strength workout each day, then choose a specific skill to GTG with the rest of the day, in addition to skill work like handstands.

Joshua will be able to address your nutrition question better, but in my experience when you are walking a lot each day you definitely need to up your caloric intake. I don't know if it would have any negative effect on performance as long as you are eating enough and have a decent macronutrient composition. I know that when I was in Turkey over the summer, I spent hours each day walking all over Istanbul, and my strength was not negatively affected, but I definitely came back leaner and a little lighter.

yea well at the very least all the walking will help me drop the last couple kilos i have =P.  Perhaps I can start with a smaller volume and work my way up to a point where it feels good.  as for the handstands well i think i might go a bit crazy with them and probably do it every day i love handstands! its going to be interesting to see how i develop over this time stil kinda worried about the nutrition side of things... im not interested in growing bigger just getting ridiculously stronger, so not sure how the nutrition ties in with all that because i know you need food to grow and to get stronger but i imagine getting stronger without getting bigger would require less food?

I just realised this would be a good time to focus more on flexibility as i am lacking.  Training for flexibility hmmmm i wouldn't even know where to begin to make a program for that....

Joshua Naterman said:

Your nutrition will be an issue. You won't be able to cook the way you normally do. Make sure you stock up on good vitamins, and have protein powder with you. Do  not try to use jerky, aside from being expensive it is also extremely low quality protein.

Would you explain how the jerky would be of low quality protein? I'm curious about this.

It is a wonderful trip that you are planning... will you be doing this on your own? Which route are you intent on taking?

I don't know how precisely you'll be traveling and on what sort of budget, but I somewhat doubt you'll have as much "free" time as you anticipate per day; unless you have a full time support team, you'll have to deal with supplies & logistics (that includes transport & accommodation), fatigue, security, hygiene, etc... tackling that on your own and a shoestring might be "a little bit" time consuming...

As others mentioned, food & rest are going to be your main concern.

Are you going to blog this trip, or report it here on the forums? I would like to follow your progress, see the pics, etc...

I am saving for a camera a we speak to take pictures and video a long the way i thought about blogging but i have never done it before and think I would be quite useless but maybe ill write something down a long the way as well =).  As for the time issue I have hitch hiked across some parts of europe and all of australia already so I have some idea of what is in store for me.  rest maybe be lacking sometimes but in general I think i should be getting a lot of sleep.  I have arranged for a lot of couch crashing with friends a long the way which is nice ( I have traveled a lot and have friends willing to put me up for most of my journey) .  

Getting enough Food for training is my main concern but I will see how that works out when the time comes.  As for the where I'll be travelling Well that really depends on which direction the people giving me a lift go =D but Id like to make my way from sweden to france through the netherlands then across germany through the ukraine to moscow then down to kazakstan into china down to pakistan through india bangladesh kind of in that general direction =).  My budget will be next to nothing as accomodation and most transportation along the way will be free =D.  No idea how this is going to work out but I will make it to australia eventually  

Jealous! Can I come along? Oh and I don't know if anybody else mentioned this, but if you're actually hitch hiking, be careful my friend!

cheers for the concern  I am sure it'll be fine I have done this sort of thing a lot, just perhaps not on such a large scale.  Also I am a believer in the more the merrier, which is why I will not be alone the whole trip.  The only trouble with that is it is harder to get picked up with more people! =P maybe I'll put something up on the community forums when I have time during the trip post some pics or something.  

Oh I forgot to ask what impact all this walking will have on my legs. I really don't want them getting bigger if anything I want them to shrink a bit. I have no idea how walking so much every day will affect my leg muscle growth if at all.

I don't see very many hikers with large legs. You'll be using slow twitch fibers, and a very small proportion of your leg musculature, so they will shrink if you aren't doing strength training as well.

good to know about the legs!  mine grow like weeds and it makes climbing and any ring work goals i have quite difficult.. As for the crossing of oceans the only time i have to worry about hitch hiking across water is getting to and from indonesia I will probably fly from bali to aus but first I am gonna try my luck hitch hiking for a boat! haha. have done it before but the distance was just across a lake...

Sounds like you will have an awesome time! Be careful hitching a ride on a boat from Indonesia to Australia, that's the way most boat refugees arrive, and our policies are pretty crappy when it comes to boat arrivals...

Cheers for the tips vagabond! I also plan on sleeping outdoors a lot an my idea was to just take a break in the afternoons or midday around lunch for training. Like I said earlier I'm in no rush and I don't mind missing a ride happy enough to keep on walking or waiting around ;D. Also ill have a friend or 2 joining me for a few parts of my trip so that could be handy. I'm going to take it really easy I don't even care where people take me as long as it is in the general direction of Australia haha. I have given myself 1 year I do this but if it takes longer or shorter it's no problem to me. Accommodation will be almost free along the entire trip thanks to all the people I have met on previous travels. Some of them had even offered to drive me for some of the way which is nice! But as you said I will probably have to drop some volume because of a lack if food but that's okay. My main goal is strength, size is of no concern to me so maybe I can cut the volume up the intensity a bit more and then when I need it just so skill work for a few days instead as some active resting. It's a pain to carry he extra weight but I'm bringing protein powder for the trip which should hopefully help out. Just a few kilos which I may try to restock I I run out later on.

Also I want to see a lit while I travel so u will be staying in some place rather than just passing through

Cheers for the tips vagabond! I also plan on sleeping outdoors a lot an my idea was to just take a break in the afternoons or midday around lunch for training. Like I said earlier I'm in no rush and I don't mind missing a ride happy enough to keep on walking or waiting around ;D. Also ill have a friend or 2 joining me for a few parts of my trip so that could be handy. I'm going to take it really easy I don't even care where people take me as long as it is in the general direction of Australia haha. I have given myself 1 year I do this but if it takes longer or shorter it's no problem to me. Accommodation will be almost free along the entire trip thanks to all the people I have met on previous travels. Some of them had even offered to drive me for some of the way which is nice! But as you said I will probably have to drop some volume because of a lack if food but that's okay. My main goal is strength, size is of no concern to me so maybe I can cut the volume up the intensity a bit more and then when I need it just so skill work for a few days instead as some active resting. It's a pain to carry he extra weight but I'm bringing protein powder for the trip which should hopefully help out. Just a few kilos which I may try to restock I I run out later on.