Can Hiking Poles Improve Your Hiking Speed?

The straightforward answer is: yes, but not in the way you might initially think. Hiking poles are unlikely to turn you into a trail sprinter. Instead, they are a profound tool for enhancing overall efficiency, endurance, and sustainable pace, which ultimately leads to a faster average speed over the course of a long hike or trek. Their primary value lies not in boosting your maximum velocity, but in minimizing slowdowns, reducing fatigue, and allowing you to maintain a strong, consistent rhythm for longer periods.

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The Mechanics: How Poles Translate to Improved Pace

1. Propulsion on Ascents: The Power of Four-Wheel Drive
On uphill sections, poles directly contribute to forward momentum. With each plant and push, you engage the powerful muscles of your arms, shoulders, and back to actively propel your body upward. This effectively turns an upper-body-assisted "climb" rather than a leg-only "grind." By distributing the workload across more muscle groups, your leg muscles fatigue less quickly. This means you can maintain a steady, powerful climbing pace for longer without needing to stop as frequently to catch your breath or rest burning quads.

2. Rhythm and Efficiency on Flat Terrain
On rolling or flat trails, poles establish a powerful, metronomic rhythm that synchronizes your breathing and cadence. This consistent tempo prevents the unconscious speeding up and slowing down that wastes energy. The rhythmic planting and pushing create a flow state, promoting an efficient, energy-conserving gait. Furthermore, the slight forward lean and engaged core that proper poling encourages lead to a more purposeful and biomechanically efficient walking form.

3. Confidence and Control on Descents: Where Real Time is Gained
This is often where the most significant time savings occur. Without poles, steep, technical descents require cautious, tentative steps to maintain balance and mitigate knee-jarring impact. With poles, you gain two additional, secure points of contact. This allows for:

• Longer, more confident strides because you have stability on both sides.
• Active braking and speed control through your arms, reducing reliance on your quads as shock absorbers.
• The ability to navigate loose rock or roots more aggressively with reduced fear of slipping.

The result is a significantly faster and safer descent, which can dramatically improve your overall segment time.

The Endurance Factor: The Cumulative Advantage

The speed benefit of poles is cumulative and becomes more pronounced over distance and time. By:

• Reducing perceived exertion by up to 25% on climbs.
• Lessening impact forces on joints by a similar margin on descents.
• Delaying the onset of muscle fatigue, especially in the legs and lower back.

...you preserve vital energy reserves. In the latter third of a hike, when a pole-less hiker is significantly slowing down due to cumulative fatigue, a pole user is better equipped to maintain their intended pace. Their average speed, therefore, remains higher from trailhead to summit and back.

The Critical Caveat: Technique is Everything

It is crucial to emphasize that these speed and efficiency benefits are entirely contingent on proper technique. Incorrectly used poles—dragged beside you, held too long or short, or used without proper wrist strap engagement—can become cumbersome, metabolically costly accessories that actually slow you down. The power must come from a purposeful plant and a drive through the arm and strap, not from a tight-fisted grip.

Conclusion: A Tool for Sustainable Speed

So, can hiking poles improve your hiking speed? Absolutely. They are a force multiplier for the endurance athlete. They enable you to climb with more power, descend with more control, and traverse variable terrain with greater rhythmic efficiency. By managing fatigue and conserving energy, they allow you to sustain a stronger pace for a longer duration. The final result is not necessarily a faster peak speed on your GPS watch, but a tangibly quicker overall time from start to finish, leaving you feeling less exhausted at the journey's end. For the strategic hiker focused on performance and endurance, poles are not just an aid for stability—they are essential equipment for optimizing speed.