Hut-to-Hut Trek Training: What I Do Before Every Multi-Day Hike

The question I get most often about hut-to-hut trekking isn’t which refuge to book. It’s “am I fit enough?”

Usually the woman asking already walks, already gets to the gym, already does day hikes. What she wants to know is whether five days back-to-back is a different animal.

It is, a little. It’s also trainable, and it does not require a running habit.

For context on where this is coming from: I’ve walked five hut-to-hut treks solo. The Alta Via 2 short route, the northern half of the Alta Via 1, the Palaronda Trek, the Côte d’Opale, and most recently the Tour du Vallaisonnay in the French Alps. I’m not a coach, and I’m not an athlete. I’m a 40-year-old woman who kept showing up and eventually got smarter about how to train for her hikes/walks/treks.

This is my hut-to-hut trek training routine, refined over five treks in the Alps and the Dolomites.

I started this training program in June and walked the Vallaisonnay at the end of August, which worked, but I’d start in spring if I could do it again. You feel the results properly after a few months, not a few weeks.

This post pairs well with:

• Italy’s MADE Trek: The Quiet Trek You’ll Fall For
• Four Days on the Via Francigena Toscana: San Gimignano to Siena
• Palaronda Trek Itinerary: A 4-Day Solo Hike Through the Pale di San Martino
• Alta Via 2 Short: 4-day Itinerary
• Alta Via 1 Short: 4 Days on the Northern Section of the Alta Via 1

How Fit do you need to be to do a long-distance trek?

You need to be fit enough to carry your pack for several days in a row. Fit enough that the climbs don’t leave you winded and your ankles don’t turn on you by day three.

That’s it. Any single day on a beginner-friendly route is within reach for most active people. Four to six hours of walking, some climbing, some descent.

Day three is what catches people out. Your legs are tired, yesterday’s descent is still in your quads, and you slept in a bunk room. Training for multi-day hiking isn’t about building up to one enormous hike.

It’s about building a body that recovers overnight, and properly fuelling yourself during the hike.

My Starting Point:

You should know that:

• I am fairly fit; I work out quite a bit (now)
• 40 Years Old
• No known Injuries.
• I try to hike as much as I can ….
• I live in Belgium, where there are barely any mountains, but I used to live in Italy. I would be out on the trails as much as possible!
• Former fitness instructor who just fell off the wagon. Seriously, after I quit my corporate job I became a certified fitness instructor through ACE, but that doesn’t mean I know everything!

What I used to do, and why I stopped

For the record, training for my first two long-distance treks was terrible. I was getting iron transfusions in Italy during the summer of 2024 and honestly don’t know how I did the Alta Via 2 short route and the northern half of the Alta Via 1. I knew I wanted to prove to myself that I could.

So my training has slowly evolved. I got tired of the way I felt after hikes.

For years, my training was one thing: walking with weight on or simply going for a hike.

I’d take my Osprey 38L, stuff two 15-pound weights in it, and go. Sometimes I’d wear my husband’s weighted army vest instead and walk in that. On paper, that sounds like solid preparation, and it did help.

The problem showed up afterward. I was getting torn up after hikes. Not during, after. Sore for days, slow to bounce back, and aware that if I’d had to walk another hard day on top of it, I would have struggled.

That’s when I figured out what I was actually training. Walking under load builds tolerance for walking under load. It doesn’t build the strength that protects your knees on a descent, and it doesn’t build the aerobic base that lets you recover overnight and go again.

So I stopped freelancing it and got a program.

Before I started Meg’s, I spent about two weeks on basics: balance and core work, banded movements, treadmill running, walks. It wasn’t a plan; it was me building a foundation while I decided. The balance piece turned out to matter more than I expected, because mountain trails are loose rock, wet roots, and uneven ground for hours, often while you’re tired.

Why VO2 max matters for multi-day hiking

VO2 max is how much oxygen your body can actually use when you’re working hard. The higher it is, the less effort a given climb costs you.

That matters on a hut-to-hut trek for two reasons. A climb that sits near your ceiling leaves you cooked for the rest of the day. The same climb, further below your ceiling, is just a climb. And a stronger aerobic base means you recover faster overnight, which is the entire game when you’re walking five days in a row.

It helps at altitude too, though not in the way people assume. Being fit doesn’t make you acclimatize faster, and altitude sickness doesn’t care how strong your legs are. Better aerobic fitness makes the work cheaper when there’s less oxygen to go around.

This is what the endurance day in my week is for. Intervals, hills on the treadmill, the StairMaster with my pack on. Short hard efforts move VO2 max more than long slow ones, which is why the plan has one focused day rather than hours of steady cardio.

My weekly hut-to-hut training plan

Eight weeks, structured like this:

Four strength days. Legs, glutes, core, and the posterior chain work that holds you upright under a pack.

One endurance day. Sprinting, jogging, that kind of thing. I swap in the StairMaster or put the treadmill on an incline and do hills, because that’s closer to what a trek asks of you than flat running.

One outdoor movement day. Moving on real ground.

One recovery day. Built in, not optional.

Notice how much strength there is and how little running. If you come from a cardio background, it will feel like you aren’t training.

As the weeks progressed, the number of repetitions increased, as well as the number of rounds you do.