The UK's 'fittest woman' uses rucking to get fitter and stronger. Here's how she's training for the CrossFit Games.

• Aimee Cringle, a CrossFit athlete, is the UK's Fittest Woman for 2024.
• She's been using a ruck, which is a weighted backpack, to train for the 2024 CrossFit Games.
• Cringle's training regimen includes strength work, intervals, steady-state cardio, and gymnastics.

The UK's "fittest woman" has been training hard ahead of the 2024 CrossFit Games on August 8, and rucking is a key part of her arsenal.

Rucking — wearing a backpack containing a weight plate while walking or performing exercises — originated as a military-training tool but has soared in popularity among people hoping to get more out of their walks, including founders and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley .

Aimee Cringle, 25, earned the title of UK's Fittest Woman this year after finishing first in the country's CrossFit semifinals. She told Business Insider that wearing a ruck while training makes exercises more challenging so when she competes without a ruck at the games, exercises should feel easier.

Cringle broke down her intense training regimen and shared how she uses rucking to build strength and fitness .

Rucking helps to build strength

Cringle, whose background is in athletics, trains six days a week. She's from the Isle of Man but moved to mainland England last year to work with a new coach. She said her training has become a lot more structured and features less steady-state cardio like cycling, running , and swimming.

Instead, she's concentrated more on strength-building . She said she's also been using a ruck to make exercises such as legless rope climbs, tricep dips, and chest-to-bar pull-ups more challenging.

"I guess if you can do stuff with a ruck on, you can do it better without," Cringle said. "It makes everything harder."

After performing an exercise wearing a ruck, it feels a lot easier once you take it off, which Cringle described as "quite cool."

She's never done the same workout twice

Cringle said no two workouts in her training regimen are the same, but an average week might include:

• Monday morning: two 20-minute AMRAPs (as many rounds or reps as possible) including rope climbs, sled work, running, and rowing
• Monday afternoon: rope climbs, dips, and handstand push-ups wearing a ruck
• Tuesday morning: 400-calorie assault bike, 5-kilometer row, 400-calorie assault bike
• Tuesday afternoon: strength training, including squats and snatches, a shorter high-intensity workout, and accessory movements
• Wednesday morning: interval training
• Wednesday afternoon: gymnastic work such as handstand walks, ring muscle-ups, and glute-hamstring-development sit-ups
• Thursday: active recovery such as swimming or cycling
• Friday morning: running
• Friday afternoon: strength training
• Saturday morning: strength work such as bench press and conditioning
• Saturday afternoon: gymnastic-focused group training, including rope climbs, handstand push-ups, and handstand walks
• Sunday: full rest day or gentle walk or cycle

"I haven't done the same workout twice ever," Cringle said.

Cringle's priority is performance

As Cringle has improved her CrossFit skills , she's built muscle, and she previously told BI that accepting her growing body wasn't always easy.

But she's more focused on performance than aesthetics.

"If I can reach my goal then I'll do what needs to be done, and if that was to put on some weight," Cringle said. "With CrossFit, we're athletes, so we are bound to look stronger and larger than the average human. It seems to have worked, anyway."

Cringle continued: "Some of the stuff we can do, it's so impressive. Maybe not even me, but the weights some girls can lift — and a lot of girls aren't even that big and they can lift so much and do so much. So I think I'd rather do that, maybe weigh a bit more and just lift so much."

Despite being the third British woman to qualify for the CrossFit Games in the individual-elite category, Cringle said she struggles to feel proud of herself. But it's her consistent drive to do better and achieve more that has made her a rising star.