It’s not exactly rocket science to say that adding weight to your walk will burn more calories, that may seem obvious. But estimating caloric expenditure is an inexact science because everyone has a unique Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR) and the conditions have a lot of variables. As a general rule, rucking can burn 2x to 3x more calories than just walking.
A guesstimate is better than nothing, and the Pandolf Equation satisfies that intent. First published by Army researchers in the 1970s and updated a number of times over the years, it is the most frequently used method by scientists to estimate the metabolic cost of load carriage (what they call rucking).
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