Stronger Rucking, Better Movement: Expert Training Advice from Coach Matty Hollingdale

0:00 Have you ever wondered which strength and conditioning workouts will give you the best bang for your buck to improve your rucking ability? Well, that's exactly what I talk about with my guest today. I'm joined by Coach Matty Hollingdale, a strength and conditioning coach with over 20 years of experience, and he's also the co -owner of HG Fit Gym in Bedfordshire over in the United Kingdom. In this episode, Coach Matty breaks down the exact foundational movements every rucker should train how to build a simple and effective three -day rucking strength program, and the functional fitness exercises that transfer directly to more powerful and more efficient miles under the pack. We also dig into injury prevention and building resilience. If you want to ruck stronger, stay healthy, and build a body that can actually support your rucking habit, this episode is going to give you a clear roadmap. You're listening to the Rucker's Edge podcast, a show all about rucking that is designed to help you improve your rucking routine, lose weight and ultimately gain your strength and energy back. Each episode dives into the science stories and strategies behind rucking. You'll learn from top ruckers, coaches, nutrition experts, and performance specialists who all break down what it takes to train smarter, recover faster, and stay ready for the next challenge.

1:14 So whether you're new to rucking or an experienced rucker that's already logged hundreds of miles, this is the show for you. I'm your host, Spencer. Thanks for listening today. Coach Matty unloads a ton of his knowledge and expertise in this one. Also, you might recognize his voice. Matty has been featured in episode 13 where he offered his best rucking tip. And I encourage you to go back and listen to that episode when you finish this one. All right. Here's my conversation with Coach Matty Hollingdale. Matty, thanks so much for joining me today on the Rucker's Edge podcast. It's really great to have you here. Thank you for having me. Now, I really want to lean into your expertise as a strength and conditioning coach. And I kind of want to... Pick your brain and get some insight into what new ruckers should be doing and what existing ruckers should be doing to boost their strength and see some gains in their rucking. A lot of people that I have experienced do too much too fast when starting out rucking. I'm a firm believer. I've mentioned this on the podcast before and starting out really slow, just walking and then doing some additional workouts to build. The muscle groups used when we ruck? Sure. I wanted to ask you, if someone's new to rucking, what workouts would you recommend to help them condition their body before throwing on a pack? Well, from the very beginning, I think it's all about getting some time on your feet initially. I think if someone was really interested in taking up rucking as a sport in particular,

2:45 I think actually starting with a decent amount of time walking, whether that is walking on mixed terrain, perhaps getting used to a variety of different conditions, elevations, and just actually... getting a decent amount of time on their feet to start with. And that could also be applied to starting with a lot of people in the UK get involved in a weekly park run, which is like a community -organized 5K running event, which is taking the competitive side of... running out of the equation and just gives people an opportunity to build up to the distance and so i think you know taking that approach to rocking you know is key you know like you would um most people before they do a a park run they might do a couch to 5k where they start to increase their running distance gradually building up to that first organized event i think the same would be very relevant to rucking if you're a dog owner that's an easy place to start you know maybe taking your dog to a variety of different places and and experiencing some different terrain if you are in proximity to your You know, your

4:20 children's school or childcare, maybe extending, you know, planning some additional time to extend your journey to those places, you know, choosing to walk over, driving if at all possible. taking the stairs in your workplace as opposed to taking the elevator if you are having to get to a higher level within the building. I think all of these things, for someone starting from kind of base zero, that's a really good place to start. Just time on your feet. Excellent. Yeah, I'm a huge advocate for taking the stairs over an elevator, anything to get you moving just a little bit more throughout the day. I'm always an advocate for it. What about some workouts to strengthen your back? I know when I first started, my back was significantly weak and I really felt it after those first couple of longer rucks. Would you recommend any specific exercises or workouts to strengthen your muscles in your back before getting started? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the real bang for your buck lies in having some time dedicated to warming up before you go out and ruck. I think that's possibly one thing that... I know I've been guilty of in the past. And I think, you know, when I speak to other people, both ruckers, runners, you know, hill walkers, there's often that classic thing.

5:51 People make the time to do the activity, but they don't necessarily take the time to prep for it. So yeah, that's where you can quite, quite. easily incorporate some some strength some stability some mobility exercises and kind of bake it into the activity itself so if i was incorporating some accessory work to prepare me for a ruck i'd maybe start from the ground up Maybe some movements like some rock back calf raises and things that are going to get the calves and ankles going since they're going to be taking a lot of the initial force from people and kind of working your way up through the chain. People tend to get a lot of issues with their hips, hamstrings, lower backs, especially when they start to incorporate heavier loads and higher.

6:51 degrees of elevation so some things like squats lunges step ups things that are going to kind of prep the lower body and you know working around the the trunk in particular where a lot of people may find lower back issues from carrying heavy load very often that's because they've not prepared their trunk So my go to exercise daily, in fact, and certainly a regular feature in my warm ups would be the dead bug. OK, I'm not familiar with the dead bug. What is that one? I'm assuming you're on your back. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

7:34 Yeah. So the dead bug is essentially a core strengthening exercise in the power athlete world. You'll often hear that. a slightly different vernacular used. We always refer to it being trunk work as opposed to core work. The analogy being that apples have cores and they can rot in the bin when they're discarded, whereas trees have trunks and they grow strong and mighty and the trunk is the beginning to everything. So the dead bug is a trunk training exercise. credit to john wellborn from power athlete for that analogy by the way but it's one that i love i like that too yeah but so so dead bug is a trunk exercise essentially you're you're laying on the floor with your head shoulders tailbone almost as if they've been painted onto the floor with your arms and legs pointing straight up and there are you know different combinations of of movement from that position that could involve lowering opposite arms and legs. You can incorporate some loads, some slow tempo to that movement. But ultimately, it's a really great way of both improving trunk stability.

9:01 but also checking in with how your shoulders are feeling, how your hamstrings are feeling, how your ankles are feeling. It's one very simple exercise that serves as a great self -assessment tool. Excellent. Yeah, that sounds like a good warm -up activity to do right before a rock. So I'm thinking just like any exercise, you want to do it in like a slow, controlled manner, lifting and lowering your limbs. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So the whole idea is about you being able to stabilize your trunk, which is exactly what you would be looking to do if you're carrying a heavy load on your back. So it's being able to prepare your body to actually manage the load and keep you upright and keep you moving forward in a way that is. going to allow you to move with some strength and without caving under the load. Gotcha. Now, I'm curious, as a coach, you know, a lot of people don't have time to train every single day. If someone could only train for maybe three days a week, how would you structure it for maximum performance? I mean, are we talking about... sort of supplementary training to rucking in this scenario. Exactly. I mean, for me, if

10:32 it was only three days a week, I would certainly prioritize a full body training approach, you know, with a sport like rucking. A lot of people will think about the typical toll it would have on your legs. You know, that's something that people would expect. But it's also thinking about the shoulders, the upper back. You know, as I mentioned previously, the muscles around the trunk, which include the abdominal muscles and the lower back and the glutes and all of that stuff that actually gives your body that stability. So I would sort of structure it with. full body approach where for about three days of the week, I'd be looking to hit what we would define as kind of the seven primal movement patterns. So we would be looking maybe to on one training day, we might be looking at training a squat pattern. which could include any form of squat from an air squat to an absolute beginner where they're just squatting without weight, maybe just working at a nice slow tempo, all the way up to a back squat for a more experienced lifter where you're putting some load on your back and perhaps you're building to a relatively high

12:03 intensity in terms of weight. I would look at incorporating some kind of upper body pressing motion. It could be like a vertical press, something that trains the shoulders, whether that's a dumbbell press or a barbell strict press, and perhaps rotate that with some kind of horizontal press, like a bench press, dumbbell. floor press something you know that actually gets them moving their body in a different plane of motion and always incorporating some kind of trunk work whether that would be um your dead bugs your planks you know side planks things that actually are going to train the trunk from different angles um on a second training day i might kind of flip that and combine some kind of hinging motion like a deadlift or a sandbag clean or something that actually gets my athletes used to picking weight up from the floor and you know that as well as being a A good way to train the muscles in the back and the lower body. You know, I think any opportunity for someone who is excited about

13:37 the sport of rucking to actually, you know, pick weight off the floor and be able to carry it, be able to move it safely, you know, is quite a key one. On that kind of day, for the upper body, I'd look at something like... a a pulling motion for the upper body like a strict pull -up or some kind of inverted row something that is going to build the muscles around the back and actually you know help in terms of preparing the upper back for load management with the ruck and then if i was to have a third day in the gym you know i'd maybe kind of fill in the gaps and perhaps do something that's a little bit more kind of functional in nature and things like farmers carries sled pushes things that are actually going to get you know somebody moving their entire body but actually taking a weight and moving it from a to b you know one of the big muscle groups that probably gets neglected in a lot of training programs typically but is likely to feel it the most from rucking would be the traps you know the muscles at the base of your neck the ones that you know usually when you've done a heavy ruck for a couple of hours that's the part of your body that and i know in my case ends up screaming oh yeah um so you

15:07 know heavy farmers carries you know taking some kettlebells some some um you know maybe some petrol cans or some ammunition cans and just carrying them from A to B, picking up heavy sandbags and, you know, getting, you know, getting accustomed to carrying sandbags using different types of grips and putting them on different parts of the body. You know, I think they're the kind of things that, you know, three days a week, I think would give a lot of bang for the buck. Excellent. Yeah, I really appreciate that insight, Maddie, because I know that a lot of new ruckers are sort of using rucking as sort of an entry back into their fitness. And maybe they've sat on the sidelines for a long time and they're looking for some sort of structure, having questions about. Where do I even start to start conditioning my body outside of rucking? So I think that gives a lot of valuable information to our listeners.

16:06 So thanks for that. Speaking of rucking being an entry back into starting a healthier lifestyle, I've sort of seen it as or viewed it as a gateway workout where I started rucking to get back into shape. After rucking, I was sort of motivated to get on the bike and start running. And I've seen other people do similar things. And now I've seen like certain hybrid races now have an established rucking division. And a lot of ruckers have also been doing CrossFit. I wanted to ask you, you know, you run a functional fitness gym, an HG Fit. And I want to talk about that here in a little bit. But how do you see rucking fitting into that world? I mean, I think it fits beautifully into this world. I mean, you know, sort of in my case, you know, I kind of came into rucking, you know, almost the opposite way around. I mean, at the time that I personally got into rucking, it was during COVID. And at that time, I had been a general manager at a large... CrossFit gym here in the UK. And we were shut down for a significant portion of time during the peak of the pandemic here in the UK.

17:26 And so I was looking for that thing to kind of fill my time and bridge that gap. And that's when I first came across the Go Ruck tribe training program. And when I started to look at the pieces that they had put together, both in terms of the the rucking challenges but also the supplementary training that went alongside it uh it very quickly dawned on me how you know there was you could see how it would attract a very similar type of person um you know i think that the typical rucker is someone who very often is quite self -motivated they are someone who is not afraid to put themselves in a position where they can be vulnerable or, you know, both emotionally, because sometimes, you know, time under the rug, it does bring out that side of you. But also, you know, that kind of physical discomfort, you know, it's that idea of overcoming obstacles and challenges. And I think that's where CrossFit, High Rocks, all these different branches of functional fitness. I think that's where, you know, they would appeal to the same type of person. You know, the typical person at HG Fit, for example, you know, they come because they appreciate the

19:02 community and the idea of shared suffering that comes from doing a tough workout. But what they most appreciate from a physical point of view is it's not about aesthetics or about what the body looks like in the mirror. It's all about setting a physical goal and actually, you know, working out and celebrating what your body can actually do and kind of finding your limits and expanding upon those. I like that, finding your limits. I just went on one of my longer rucks recently. I did a half marathon, and I definitely pushed my limits on that one. Talk about screaming, calves, my traps, like you mentioned earlier, were just absolutely burning. On that ruck, I had passed a CrossFit gym I had never seen before, and they were all outside doing some workouts, and I was like, man. If I wasn't so spent right now, I would definitely hop over there and maybe see if I could try and join them. I might have to do that at a later time. More with Matty in just a moment, including how he trains to stay healthy and injury -free. But I want to take a quick break to say thanks for listening to the podcast. Please text this episode to a fellow rucker that might find it interesting or a friend that could benefit from rucking. Sharing this episode will help the show grow and help more people improve their health and lives. Okay, back to it. I want to start talking about staying healthy and injury free while training. You have

20:33 over 20 plus years coaching. You were probably active even before that. So you've been training for quite some time. And I think I saw recently you completed a challenge that you called the Wade DeBruin. I don't know if I'm saying that correctly. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. It was five intervals, I guess you'd call it. 11 single arm dumbbell snatches, 11 single arm dumbbell thrusters, and then 11 weighted. uh, pull -ups. So first of all, that, that looked intense. Congrats on finishing that. How do you manage to stay healthy and avoid burnout and to continue to, to, to complete these pretty intense workouts? Well, well, first and foremost, um, just, um, kind of going back to the, the workout for Wade DeBruin, um, just because it's an important, um, you know, an important sentiment. But the Wade de Bruin workout is what we would call a memorial or a hero workout, which is, you know, a common form of workout in our space. But in particular, that workout has been put together by a charity called Wade's Army. who are a charity who support children and families affected by neuroblastoma, which is a very aggressive form of cancer that affects infants. And so the Wade DeBruin workout actually commemorates the life

22:04 of a very special little boy called Wade DeBruin, whose legacy lives on with the charity. And so that workout happens on the same day every year. And you'll see lots of people, especially various cross -sphere and functional fitness gyms around the world, and particularly the US, doing that workout. I say that not only to kind of give the charity a little bit of a plug because, you know, it's very close to my heart and I think it's very special, the work that they do. But sometimes it's those workouts that do really take me out of myself. And they're the ones where I actually do push the envelope a little bit more because it's easy for me to go to those slightly darker, slightly more uncomfortable places when there's a higher meaning associated with that workout. And it's almost like you offer the struggle up to something that is way bigger than yourself. And so, you know, again, that's where I often see the worlds of rucking and functional fitness and CrossFit all kind of come together because that is often a very common theme of these things. You know, you will often see athletes from Ruck Race League. You'll often see athletes

23:36 from the CrossFit world, you know, talk about these. you know these people that they'll that they use their use their workouts to maybe honor the memories of or just to put them in a place of of reflection and and celebration of of these people so that's quite a long -winded way of saying um that was a pretty tough workout but not necessarily typical of my of my daily workouts um and i think You know, what keeps me going at 43 and, you know, thankfully injury -free is knowing when to push and when to hold back.

24:25 You know, for me, I'm that classic, you know, I'll maybe train about... 75, 80 % of my maximum capacity most days with the idea being that I'd rather do a little bit of something every day than go absolutely insane on the Monday and then not be able to train for the rest of the week. So that's kind of my personal philosophy on training, but I'm also very deliberate about what I do. When it comes to any of my more gymnastic bodyweight movements in the gym, I've always prioritized strict movement over more kind of dynamic kipping movement. When it comes to things like pull -ups, I've always prioritized using... um scaling which is you know making movements easier or modifying weight in workouts and essentially individualizing workouts as a priority as opposed to you know that in the old days of of certainly the crossfit world there used to be sort of an attitude that unless you were doing the workout exactly as written it was not doing the workout if that makes sense yeah so you know for me it's prioritizing

25:57 good movement moving to a full range of motion you know taking pride in every single rep because that's where you know you get that consistency and I think consistency breeds better performance overall and then it's taking time to recover properly after a workout whether that's you know taking you know even as little as four minutes is enough for you to go through a cool down stretching routine that will help you know bring your central nervous system back down to an even keel and just kind of help you get into a more relaxed state and then what you do out of the gym in terms of having a good sleep routine, you know, making sure that you make smart choices when it comes to, you know, hydrating and, you know, nutrition and just, you know, making sure that the self -care is there. Yeah, I recently just had a conversation with a registered dietitian in Kyle Camp from Valley to Peak Nutrition, and he was just talking about how. I asked him a question. I was like, what do we need to eat right before we rock to give us the fuel we need?

27:18 He's like, honestly, don't even think about that. You need to be eating healthy consistently throughout your entire day to day. That's going to make more of an impact than anything. And I was going to ask you, you know, outside of the gym, what are some habits that will have the biggest difference in performance and longevity? And you said something similar, like making sure that you're getting your sleep in kind of consistently. So I'm like, I'm hearing. Eat healthy always, all the time and get sleep. Those seem to be the two biggest habits outside of the gym that can help you with your performance and your recovery. Yeah, absolutely. Those points, you know, they sound so simple when we say them. And I appreciate that for many people, those things are often. the things that they struggle with the most and I think you know what your what your nutrition coach says is completely on the money you know I think sometimes we can really over complicate these things and I think you know just you know being mindful I think is is what I the word I would use to describe and you know it's thinking about creating habits that you know are sustainable for for you individually I know for some people you know sleep patterns can be a really difficult one if They are shift workers or people with young families. And I think in those cases, it may be things like trying

28:50 to embrace the power of a power nap at a weekend if the opportunity arises. Even just 20 minutes in the day, if at all possible, to go into a quiet room and just kind of power down and give yourself, even if it's not sleep, just a little bit of... quiet time away from the chaos of normal life and just having a consistent bedtime routine even if the bedtime itself changes, having that kind of ritual that gets you into that. relaxed state, maybe trying to avoid looking at social media just before you want to go to sleep, avoiding all the bad news and all the noise that's out there, potentially avoiding screens altogether, going through whatever routine allows you to relax last thing at the end of the day, whether that's reading, meditating, praying, you know, whatever that may be for the individual, just that, okay, this is my line, you know, in the sand that says, like, my day is ending, you know, how can I relax? Now, on the flip side of that, the opposite of relaxing. What are some common overtraining signs ruckers should watch out for

30:21 when they start doing some sort of functional fitness strength and conditioning? With the functional fitness side of things, I think overtraining can present in a lot of different ways. I think that one of the first things that people will often feel is, you know, it's kind of little niggles, you know, it's starting to understand the difference between soreness which may be the byproduct of you know introducing a more intense you know training program into your life you know a little bit of you know muscular soreness would be expected and that can sometimes be you know a fairly long process at the start but it's then understanding when muscle soreness then becomes a niggle and then when a niggle becomes persistent enough potentially to become an injury so i think just people checking in with how their body feels um and you know if something feels off then knowing when to when to hold back and and perhaps get a coach's advice on on how to navigate that scenario so it doesn't become an injury um but other things like fatigue. Some people might find if they're overtrained, they really struggle just to get going in the first place. Perhaps the overtraining itself can affect

31:54 their sleep patterns and make it really difficult to rest at the end of the day. Mood changes can definitely be a significant part of overtraining. suddenly someone becomes, you know, a bit agitated or anxious or just really demotivated, that can very often be a sign to look out for, for overtraining too. Okay. I want to move into talking about your gym, HG Fit. So tell me a little bit about it. What makes your gym different from, from others? We've been open for 10 years now, and I've come back as a co -owner within the last two years, actually having been the first coach there many, many years ago. Our gym, myself and my co -owner, James, we both come from very similar training backgrounds. pretty much started within the CrossFit space but over the years we've both kind of developed other areas of kind of interest and expertise and we feel like where we're at now we've created a really great blend of both

33:27 areas of expertise and created a training environment that although functional fitness is our our umbrella We do have a lot of specialisms that we run in -house as well. So, for example, my areas of expertise are senior fitness. And so I run a strength and conditioning program called Legends, which is specifically for over 60s. many of whom actually have started to embrace rucking as part of their extracurricular activities. In fact, shout out to one of my legends, Dennis, who was the mastermind behind my Stairway to Heaven route for Ruck Race League, which I still haven't quite forgiven him for, but certainly he's the guy to go to if you need advice on routes. uh in the bedfordshire area for for wannabe ruckers hikers and all the rest of it um but as well as as well as that we run conditioning classes that are geared more towards the hybrid racing population so with the boom recently with high rocks deca deadly dozen. There's all of these fabulous hybrid racing events now that have brought

34:58 in a new generation of runners and endurance athletes to our gym. And so we run training sessions that are a little bit more geared towards that population where there's more endurance baked into their workouts to accommodate the running volume and the time spent on cardio machines that they need to accumulate for these hybrid racing events. And then our bread and butter is a little bit more of a... kind of functional fitness approach that combines Olympic weightlifting and strength training with various body weight and athletic movements. I would kind of define that training as zombie apocalypse prep training, you know, being able to lift. throw, run, jump, and be able to take on a variety of challenges and be prepared to meet those head on. Excellent.

36:04 Now, it looks like you've built a pretty strong community over there. What have you learned about building not just strong athletes, but a strong sense of community? Well, I think community is everything to us. We've certainly found since the days of COVID that people have really started to gravitate again to being within a brick and mortar space where they get to train alongside other like -minded people. We sort of find in the UK in particular. You know, we kind of wear our hearts on our sleeves a little bit over here.

36:46 And certainly society as a whole, perhaps, is a bit more secular than it used to be. And a lot of people kind of fall into these silos where, you know, they have their persona at home as a. as a spouse or a parent or carer. They go to work for their, you know, 50 odd hours a week, you know, doing whatever it is professionally they do. And so somewhere like HG Fit ends up being that third space for a lot of people where they get that sense of friendship and community and they get to just do something that is completely for themselves. And I think out of that, you get that idea of shared suffering where it's quite hard to motivate yourself to do a really tough workout on your own. But when you're in a room full of other people and they're all approaching it at their own levels, it's just something really motivating and inspiring about doing that. And it also presents a wonderful platform to. you know, put some good into the wider community, you know, often, you know, whether it's fundraising schemes or, you know, supporting, you know, charities within the area, you know, spaces like HG Fit and similar gyms, they can really provide a service

38:19 for, you know, for the greater good as well. I'm sure your constituents are super happy with you and James for creating such an amazing community, what it looks like, and an opportunity of them to be part of a larger collective and really crush some workouts, not just solo, but with the motivation of others. Before moving into our rapid fire round, I just want to say, Maddie, thanks so much for giving me your time today. I really appreciate you sharing your expertise with us. I really appreciate the fact that you've carved some time out of your day to be with us. So thanks so much. This was a lot of fun. You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. All right, let's go into the rapid fire round. Just a few questions here. Whatever pops into your head.

39:04 What was your first rucksack when you started rucking as a form of exercise? It was a Go Ruck GR1. And it was gifted to me by the owner of the CrossFit gym I worked at at the time. What a great gift. That's awesome. Amazing. If you could only rock one trail for the rest of your life, what trail would that be? I would say we have a place near us called Rowney Warren, which is a kind of woodland area. And that's my go -to place locally for, you know, peace of mind.

39:45 It's a short trail, but one that always kind of gives me that little bit of peace I need. That's great. Yeah, there's something about walking around in the woods that's always really calming for me as well. What's your favorite non -rucking workout? My favorite non -rucking workout? I mean, I think it has to be the Wade's Day workout, the Wade DeBruin workout for what it represents. And yeah, just that's the one. Excellent. What do you listen to when you're rock or do you have the headphones in? Well, my music taste is very eclectic, but I dare say I like a little bit of country, but a lot of 80s hard rock and heavy metal. That's my go -to if I really want to go for it. Cool. Okay. That certainly gets your heart rate up and gets you ready to tackle a ruck. Nice. Absolutely. Lastly, what is your bucket list rucking trail? I would love to do parts of the St. James Way in Europe. It's the Camino de Santiago. It was something that my late father had always, you know, had always been on his bucket list to do. And he never lived to see it through. And I actually was just looking

41:16 at a guidebook for it last night. And it's every year I think about it. And, you know, I think that's definitely in the works. Awesome. Well, Matty, again, really appreciate your time. Thanks so much for joining us today. My pleasure. Thank you very much, Spencer. All right, that wraps up my conversation with Coach Matty. You can connect with him over at hgfit .co .uk or on Instagram at MPHollingdale. Hollingdale has two L's. If you want to reach out to me, head on over to theruckersedge .com or on Instagram at theruckersedgepod. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to follow or subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app so you're notified of new episodes. All right, that's it for today.

42:00 Thanks again for listening to this episode of The Rucker's Edge.