How to Use Trekking Poles the Right Way: Strap Grip & Technique

Daily · Published 1/18/2023 ·

INFO

Personally, I think you’re better off using trekking poles whether it’s a short hike or a long one. They essentially turn you from a two-legged walker into a four-legged one, and they take a serious amount of load off your joints — knees, ankles, all of it. By spreading the effort across your upper and lower body, they cut down on the fatigue your legs would otherwise take on their own.

Previous image Next image

There are quite a few types of trekking poles out there, but most of them fold up like the ones you see here. The reason is portability. Mine happen to fold down even shorter, and they’re not the adjustable-length kind. They’re really light, and since I have a habit of tossing my poles ahead of me on the way down, they’ve already picked up a lot of scuffs even though I haven’t had them very long. These are the type you lock in place with a cord.

Previous image Next image

Now let’s learn how to actually use trekking poles.

First, lock the pole to length. The exact design varies a bit, but most of them are set up so you adjust the height somewhere between 100 and 120 and lock it there. Once it’s locked, adjust the strap to a comfortable length. The poles I use don’t let you adjust the strap length at all, but brands like Leki or Black Diamond have models where you can. Generally you want to set it with just a little slack beyond your hand. I’ll explain why in a moment.

Mine have a lot of slack in the strap, enough to slip your hand through even with gloves on. So slide your wrist through and spread your fingers as wide as you can. Then let your wrist bend down naturally so your hand wraps around the pole.

You put your wrist through the strap, then bend it forward and down so your hand comes around the pole.

The key thing here is that you’re not gripping the pole with your hand — you’re holding the strap and pressing straight down. You’re not grabbing the pole.

Once more… slip your hand into the strap and hook it…

Then bring it down and let your hand close around the pole. You’re not putting any effort into gripping the pole at all, and even when you press the strap down, you’re letting the natural weight of your arm and gravity do all the work.

Just hook into the strap like that and let it hang down.

I shot a video of it below.

As you can see in the video, if you grip the pole with your hand and stab it into the ground as you walk, you put strain on your wrist and your hand both. When you walk, your arms swing back and forth naturally, right? You just hold the strap with about that much effort as you go. Holding it this way might feel, at first, like you’re only getting as much support out of the pole as the strap can bear — but trekking poles were never meant to hold a huge amount of weight in the first place. And honestly? Gripping the pole and stabbing it down with every step is exhausting. Once you get used to holding it by the strap as you go, you start to feel like you’re hiking with maybe a 6:4 split, putting about 40% of the work onto the poles. I hope you’ll use your poles the right way and hike safely.

Thank you.

#트레킹스틱사용법 #등산스틱사용법 #등산스틱파지법 #스틱사용 #스틱그립 #스틱파지법 #등산스틱파지법

Contact: bumseok.view [at] gmail [dot] com