Training
When can you go from 10 kg to 15 kg?
A progression that adds weight or distance, never both in the same week — and what knee pain is actually telling you.
9 min read · updated 16 August 2026
The question in the title is the most common one in rucking, and the honest answer is: when your body has stopped noticing the current weight. That sounds evasive, so here is how to tell.
The one rule that prevents most injuries
Never add weight and distance in the same week
Pick one variable and change only that. This single rule prevents more rucking injuries than any amount of stretching, footwear or technique work.
The reason is that different tissues adapt at different speeds. Muscle responds within days. Tendon, ligament, cartilage and bone take weeks to months. Your muscles will happily tell you a session was easy while the slower tissues are still catching up from last week — and those slower tissues are precisely what gets injured.
The readiness test
You are ready to add a kilogram when, at your current load, all of these are true:
- You have done at least three or four sessions at this weight without incident.
- You are not sore two days afterwards.
- Your pace at this load is no slower than your unloaded walking pace by more than about a minute per kilometre.
- Nothing has ached during a session other than general muscular fatigue.
Miss any of those and hold where you are for another week. Nobody has ever been set back by an extra week at a weight that was working.
Step sizes
| Variable | Step | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Load | +1 kg (roughly 5–10%) | Every 2–3 weeks, when the readiness test passes |
| Distance | +10% of current | Every 1–2 weeks, alternating with load |
| Pace | Leave it alone | It improves on its own as a by-product |
Chasing pace deliberately is how people get shin splints. Under load, pace is an outcome, not a target.
Deload every fourth week
Every fourth week, change nothing. Same load, same distance. Adaptation happens during recovery, not during the session, and a four-week cycle of three progressions and one hold produces more progress over three months than progressing every week and then losing a fortnight to an overuse injury.
Enter your current comfortable load and distance and your target, and get a week-by-week plan with the deload weeks already in it.
Build your plan →What specific pains mean
| Symptom | Likely cause | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Shoulder and trap soreness | Normal adaptation, or a pack riding too low | Continue; check packing and strap tension |
| Lower back ache after sessions | Load carried too low, or core fatigue | Repack higher and tighter; hold weight for two weeks |
| Front-of-knee pain on descents | Too much weight for the current tissue tolerance | Drop 20–30% of load. Rebuild over a month |
| Shin pain, worsening session to session | Classic too-much-too-soon | Stop for a week. Return at a lower load |
| Numb or tingling hands | Shoulder straps compressing nerves | Loosen straps, shift weight to the hip belt |
| Hot spots and blisters | Footwear and sock choice under load | See the blisters article; do not push through |
The pattern worth internalising: muscular soreness that fades within 48 hours is adaptation. Joint pain, bone pain, or anything that gets worse across consecutive sessions is a signal to back off, and backing off early costs days where ignoring it costs months.
A worked example
An 80 kg person, comfortable at 10 kg over 5 km, wanting to reach 16 kg over 10 km:
| Week | Load | Distance | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 kg | 5.0 km | Baseline |
| 2 | 10 kg | 5.5 km | Distance |
| 3 | 11 kg | 5.5 km | Load |
| 4 | 11 kg | 5.5 km | Deload — hold |
| 5 | 11 kg | 6.0 km | Distance |
| 6 | 12 kg | 6.0 km | Load |
| … | … | … | Alternating, holding every fourth week |
Four months to add 6 kg and 5 km sounds slow. It is far faster than the alternative, which is reaching the target in six weeks, injuring yourself, and starting again from zero in month three.