Start a
ruck club
Two years ago there was barely a rucking scene in this country outside the military. It is being built now, one club at a time, by people who picked a car park and a time and turned up.
Why bother
Nobody keeps rucking alone through February
Plenty of people buy a pack, load it, and go out twice a week through the summer. Far fewer are still doing it when it is dark at half four and raining sideways.
The ones who are almost always have other people waiting for them. That is the whole case for a club. It is not about numbers, kit, or anything official. It is about three people standing in a car park on a Saturday morning who would all rather be in bed, and none of whom want to be the one who didn't turn up.
You do not need our permission to start one, and you do not need our kit to run one. What follows is what the clubs already doing it have told us works.
Part one
Getting it off the ground
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Pick a fixed spot and a fixed time, and never move them
This is the single thing that decides whether a club survives. Same place, same day, same time, every week, whether two people come or twelve. The moment it becomes a weekly negotiation on a group chat, it starts dying. Choose somewhere with parking, somewhere people can find on a map, and somewhere you are happy standing for ten minutes in the rain.
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Start with two. Do not wait for five
Every club that is now twenty people was two people for a while. One other person is enough to make it real. Ask the person who has been saying for months that they'd like to try it.
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Publish the standard before anyone asks
Distance, load and rough pace, written down and pinned where people can see it. "8km, 10kg, back by half nine" tells a nervous beginner exactly what they are committing to. Vagueness is what keeps people at home.
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Go at the pace of the slowest person
Not a suggestion. A rule, stated out loud on the first morning. A club that races drops everyone who most needed it, and a group that strings out across half a mile has stopped being a group.
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Make yourselves findable
A page people can land on, with the meeting point, the time and a recent photo. That is all. Someone who has just bought their first pack should be able to find you in one search and know where to stand on Saturday.
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Log it
Put every club ruck on Strava with the distance and the load in the title. It gives people a record, it shows newcomers the club is actually running, and it keeps the quiet members involved on the weeks they can't make it.
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Give people something to walk towards
A longer route once a month, a hill, a charity ruck in spring, an event you all enter together. It does not have to be hard. It has to be in the diary.
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Expect it to take months
You will have mornings where nobody comes. You will have a run of weeks where it is you and one other person in the dark. Every established club has been through exactly that, usually around month two. Turning up on those mornings is the entire job.
What a month could look like
Three sessions and a Saturday
Keep it repeatable. Most clubs run one session a week and build from there. Weights below are a starting point, not a standard. Beginners should start around 10% of bodyweight and build from there.
The steady one
- Distance
- 8 km
- Load
- 10 kg
- Time
- 75–90 min
- Pace
- Conversational
The sharp one
- Distance
- 5 km, hills
- Load
- 12–15 kg
- Time
- 45–60 min
- Pace
- Hard on the climbs
The long one
- Distance
- 15–20 km
- Load
- 8–10 kg
- Time
- Half a day
- How often
- Once a month
And the first Saturday of every month, the whole community goes out together. 8km, 10kg minimum, logged to the YOMP Co. Rucking Club on Strava before noon. Clubs that build their monthly long one around it get a bigger turnout than they would on their own, and their members appear alongside everyone else's.
Part two
Become an Official YOMP Ruck Club
Once your club is genuinely running, we will back it. There is no fee, and there is no obligation to use our kit, ever.
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01
Your club on the map
Listed on our club finder, where people who have just bought a pack go looking for somewhere to take it.
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02
A free pack and plate
One Y-CO 1 and a weight plate, sent to the club. Most use it as a loaner so someone can try a proper ruck before buying one.
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03
A 15% club code
A standing discount code for your members on anything they buy from us.
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04
First call on events
Early notice on race entries, cohorts and series, plus event discounts where we are able to offer them.
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05
The official name
Recognised as an Official YOMP Ruck Club, with the name and marks to use on your own page.
What we ask
Three things, and they are all about being real
We are not checking how big you are or how fast you go. We are checking that someone turning up next Saturday will find a club there.
Five regular members or more. Not a group chat with five people in it — five who actually come out.
Running for at least three months. Long enough to have been through the quiet weeks and kept going.
A social page of your own that you keep current, so people can find you and see the club is active.
Foundations matter more than experience
We don't ask anyone to be experienced, and we're not looking for coaches. We do want to know that whoever leads understands the basics: how a loaded pack should sit, what good form under load looks like, the cues to give someone carrying weight for the first time, and when to tell a person to take some out.
A beginner's first two or three rucks decide whether they carry on. Someone who finishes the first one with sore shoulders and a pack swinging off their back rarely comes back. Tell us in your application how you'd set a complete beginner up on their first morning. There is no right answer we're marking against, we just want to hear you've thought about it.
Staying official
One ongoing ask, and it is a small one. Post at least once a month as a club, so we and anyone looking at the map can see you're still running. Keep your meeting details current so nobody turns up to an empty car park, and tell us if the club winds down so we can take it off the map.
How to apply
Email community@yomp.store with:
- Club name and the town or area you cover
- Where and when you meet
- Roughly how many come out, and how long you have been running
- A link to your social page and your Strava club if you have one
- A couple of photos of the club out together
- How you'd set a complete beginner up on their first morning — fit, starting load and the cues you'd give them
- Who we should speak to, and how
Questions
The ones we get asked
Do our members have to use YOMP kit?
No. You don't need YOMP gear to run a club, and we'll never make it a condition. People turn up with what they have, and plenty start with a school rucksack and a bag of sand. We'd rather they came out.
Does it cost anything?
No. There is no fee to apply and no fee to stay official.
We have been going a month. Can we apply now?
Apply at three months. In the meantime, tell us you exist and we'll keep an eye on what you're doing. The three months is there because a club that has survived its first quiet spell usually keeps going.
Do I need to be experienced to start one?
No, and several of the people running clubs now started one within a few months of their first ruck. Being reliable matters considerably more than being fast. What we do look for is that you understand the foundations — pack fit, sensible starting loads, form under weight and the cues to give a beginner — because that is what decides whether your members enjoy their first few mornings enough to come back.
What do you expect from us once we are official?
Post at least once a month as a club so we can see you're active, keep your meeting details current so nobody turns up to an empty car park, and make newcomers welcome. That is it. If the club winds down, just tell us so we can take it off the map.
Are you only looking for UK clubs?
No. Most are in the UK at the moment, and we are keen to hear from clubs across Europe.
How long does a decision take?
We aim to come back within a week, and we will usually want a short chat with whoever runs it before confirming.
What if there is already an official club near us?
That is not a problem. Ten miles is a long way on a wet Saturday morning, and most towns can support more than one.
Pick a car park.
Pick a time.
Tell one person.
That is how every club on our map started. Once yours has been going three months, come and tell us about it.
YOMP.STORE