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To begin a conditioning plan for mountaineering, first establish the baseline of your current fitness level. This baseline allows you to compare your current strengths to what you’ll need on the climb. With this, we can compose a training plan that builds steady improvement between now and the day you set off for the mountains.
To illuminate the task ahead, and to build a plan, consider these questions:
• What are the physical requirements of the climb (ie. pack weight, number of days, hours spent each day)?
• How much time do I have before I climb?
• What are my fitness strengths?
• How much weight can I carry and for how long?
To determine the physical requirements of the climb, look to RMI’s office and
website. RMI provides details on the equipment we will be carrying, the itinerary, and the duration of the climb.
How much time is there before the climb? Take out a calendar or a blank sheet of paper and consider how to fit in the three phases of training:
1. Beginning (adaptation)
2. Building
3. Peaking (the final preparation before the climb)
Assessing your fitness strengths with a visit to a qualified athletic trainer will help to quantify your current level of fitness. Or, visit a park and hike your favorite loop or trail with a weighted backpack to gain realistic insight into your capabilities. What I like about assessing the time and weight is that it is simple and you can do it today.
As we move ahead, I encourage you to think about whether you prefer to approach your training scientifically or intuitively. Do you prefer hiring a coach, or do you like to be your own coach? Both methods are successful - sometimes a combination is a nice way to go about it. Throughout training, I encourage you to be consistently aware of two important factors: How long can I go? How much can I carry? On the mountain, these two things really matter.
As an exercise for this week, set aside time to visit a park, sports stadium, or a local hiking area. See how it feels. The purpose of this session is not to push to a maximum effort but to simply experience how it feels to carry a pack up and down inclines.
My encouragement is to not do too much. The "safety first" rule applies to training as well as the mountains. Too much too soon can have a negative effect, or even risk an injury. If this is new to you... don’t feel overwhelmed if today you feel that you have a long way to go.
Two years ago in October, I trained with my friend Kim Porto. She had her sights set on climbing
Mt. Rainier and trekking to
Everest Base Camp during the following eighteen months. She had never hiked before. On day one, we walked stairs for twenty minutes with our running shoes and no pack. It was enough. From there, we mapped out a plan that steadily increased the training with hiking, stair work, and strength training. By steady training over the months ahead, Kim accomplished both her Rainier climb and her trek to Everest Base Camp.
Remember that moderation and consistency are the keys to success in building endurance!
- John Colver
John Colver is a longtime climber, former mountain guide, and certified personal trainer with the American Council of Exercise. Colver introduced outdoor fitness classes to athletic clubs throughout the greater Puget Sound region before creating his
adventX brand. Currently, adventX leads training programs in Seattle and Colver presents clinics on outdoor fitness at companies such as Microsoft, Boeing, the American Lung Association, and REI. Colver lives in Seattle.
Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the
RMI Blog!
Fit to Climb: Week 5 Schedule
|
DAY |
WORKOUT |
TOTAL TIME |
DIFFICULTY |
|
1 |
Rainier Dozen / Easy Hiking ( 30 min) |
42 min. |
Medium |
|
2 |
Rainier Dozen / Stair Interval Training (50 min) |
62 min. |
Hard |
|
3 |
Rainier Dozen / Rest |
12 min. |
Recovery |
|
4 |
Rainier Dozen / Strength Circuit Training x 3 |
46 min. |
Hard |
|
5 |
Rainier Dozen / Rest |
12 min. |
Recovery |
|
6 |
Rainier Dozen / Cross Training (1 hr) |
72 min. |
Hard |
|
7 |
Rainier Dozen / Hike (3 hrs) |
192 min. |
Medium |
|
Total |
6 hrs 18 mins |
|
BRIEFING
This week's training plan looks very similar to last week’s. The day of your fitness test reverts back to your choice of cross-training. On day 7, the length of the hike increase by about an hour or lengthened about two miles. The primary training goal this week is to begin to extend your aerobic endurance, which you’ll achieve by the increase in length of the hike.
Adding an hour may seem like a small increment; but you are going from a medium length hike to a longer one requiring a fairly substantial effort.
There are several subtle but important things to consider as you increase the length of your hike. One of the biggest ones is energy consumption. Many people can do a two hour hike without any special preparation, and you'll probably have enough energy to complete it just fine. However, to be successful maintaining energy throughout a three hour hike, you'll want to be diligent in preparing, specifically with nutrition, to make sure you have enough fuel in your body for the entire hike. Be sure to pack enough snacks to keep you fueled for the entire time!
You'll also want to consider what you carry in your day pack. On a two hour hike, you may never be more than an hour from the parking lot. As you go further out, this creates additional consideration for self-responsibility and risk management. You'll want to make sure you have the
ten essentials in your pack and also have an emergency plan in case a mishap should occur. This includes letting people know where you're going, and/or also hiking with other people.
SUMMARY
Week five can be a positive breakthrough, the week where many people feel a demonstrable increase in their fitness. Often-times, the thing which people notice is an increased aerobic capacity; you simply can do more without getting out of breath. Some people also report feeling stronger. All of this makes sense. If you've done all the workouts, you'll have logged 25 solid days of training. This amounts to 25 improvement cycles! As long as you're practicing good self care, you can't help but feel stronger.
It's important to acknowledge the progress and perhaps celebrate in some way. You should feel confident about what you're doing; you've made significant gains and the foundation you're building at this point will result in greater gains still as the next few weeks unfold!
- John Colver
Have a question? See the
Fit To Climb FAQ for explanations of specific exercises and general pointers to help you through the Fit To Climb Program.
John Colver is a longtime climber, former mountain guide, and certified personal trainer with the American Council of Exercise. Colver introduced outdoor fitness classes to athletic clubs throughout the greater Puget Sound region before creating his
adventX brand. Currently, adventX leads training programs in Seattle and Colver presents clinics on outdoor fitness at companies such as Microsoft, Boeing, the American Lung Association, and REI. Colver lives in Seattle, and is working on his second book,
Fit to Climb - a 16 week Mount Rainier Fitness Program.
There are several terms in training articles that get thrown around in confusing ways: aerobic threshold, lactate threshold, anaerobic threshold, aerobic capacity, VO2 Max, anaerobic capacity, and functional threshold power or pace. Many of these terms have definitions that are quite similar to each other, with minute differences that matter in the field of sports science, but are basically equivalent for athletes training. These terms all fit into three main categories that are important for us to understand as endurance athletes.
Aerobic threshold (AeT)
The aerobic threshold is defined as the intensity of exercise at which lactate levels in the blood begin to rise from their baseline. Lactate accumulation indicates that the metabolic pathways that are fueling our muscles with energy have begun to shift to a combination of aerobic and anaerobic mechanisms, and if the intensity that we are working at stays the same, or increases, lactate will continue to build. This is in effect an endurance limiter. Aerobic capacity is essentially the same term – it refers to the amount of work that can be performed before the athlete reaches their AeT.
Lactate Threshold (LT)
Lactate Threshold is the level of intensity at which lactate in the blood reaches 4 millimoles/liter. This is a tiny amount and is something that requires a blood test during exercise in a lab to determine. The more useful definition for athletes is that it is the intensity at which lactate production exceeds its removal. This is also the defining line above which, exercise can only be sustained at that intensity for short periods of time before fatigue and slowing set in. Consider this the upper-end limit to endurance. While the definitions are slightly different, this is essentially the same thing as Anaerobic Threshold (AnT) anaerobic capacity, and functional threshold. They all refer to the point at which the metabolic pathways switch to a primarily anaerobic pathway that burns glycogen (carbohydrates), and the ability to sustain that intensity will be limited.
VO2 Max
VO2 Max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen that the body can utilize for energy during an all-out effort that is well above their AnT. Theoretically, the better your body is at delivering oxygen to where it needs to go, and the better adapted your muscle cells are to exercise, the more oxygen they will be able to utilize to make ATP (energy) and the more energy they will have to do work. Sounds simple enough right? VO2 Max has been a big focus in endurance sports for a long time, partly because it is easily quantifiable. However, ask elite coaches, such as those at Uphill Athlete, and they will tell you that VO2 Max doesn’t correlate very well to performance, and seems largely determined by genetics. Athletes for decades spent considerable effort training to increase their VO2 max, but recent studies suggest that that time would be better spent increasing the aerobic threshold.
Why do these terms matter? One dispels a popular myth related to training (VO2 Max), while the other two are the categories where we as athletes have the greatest abilities to affect our metabolic and motor pathways to achieve better performance. The balance of aerobic threshold and lactate threshold training that we do as we prepare for a large climb will determine how we perform. We’ll be diving into these two topics in more depth in the coming weeks so stay tuned!
_____
There are several great resources that provide a lot more information on these topics. For this article, we pulled from Joe Friel’s blog and from the recent book, Training for the Uphill Athlete, from the folks at Uphill Athlete. We can’t recommend the book enough if you are serious about training for endurance mountain sports!
Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts here in the comments!
Aerobic Base Training Aerobic Base Training is the foundation that the subsequent layers of your training will be built on. The first of the three standard phases of training, the goals of aerobic training are to increase muscle efficiency and endurance. During this building phase, your body develops its capillary network, delivering more blood (and oxygen) to your muscle fibers, minimizing lactate production, maximizing lactate disposal, and increasing mitochondrial density (which produces ATP to fuel your muscles).
Aerobic base training was initially pioneered by New Zealand running coach Arthur Lydiard1. In the 1960 and 1964 Olympic games, three of the athletes he coached combined for 6 medals, dominating the distance events. The world took notice, and soon some form of his theory of aerobic base training had become commonplace in nearly all endurance events. There were many misconceptions to his theory though that endured: namely that aerobic training involves lots of long slow miles, and nothing else. In reality, Lydiard typically included three workouts into his athletes base periods: long runs, shorter steady state runs at an increased effort, and fartlek type interval workouts.
Each workout in the period accomplishes a specific purpose, with the overall goal being to maximize the aerobic energy system before moving on to anaerobic training. While long workouts accomplish the goals that we usually think of such as increasing blood flow and muscular efficiency, the steady state workout is designed to increase the aerobic threshold (the level of effort the body can exert while maintaining aerobic metabolism and not producing lactic acid), and the fartlek workout is designed to mix up the pace, letting the legs turn over more quickly to stimulate the muscle fibers in a different way and develop the neuromuscular system as well.
As mountaineers, these same principles and goals apply. During our base phase, our goal is to maximize the aerobic energy system, and so long workouts, shorter steady state workouts, and fartlek intervals will all help to build that strong foundation that the rest of our training will come to rest on. Into that mix, we can also add endurance strength (light weights, but lots of reps) and core strength workouts to start to build the well rounded fitness that is so essential for our sport! During the base building phase, higher intensity workouts should still be done at a moderate pace however, perhaps around 80-85% of your max heart rate, rather than a 100% all our effort. This pace will continue to develop your slow twitch muscle fibers while beginning to develop your fast twitch fibers as well. This has the added benefit of reducing the chance that you get injured as you move into more intense workouts during later phases of training.
Mt. Rainier may not be the Olympics, but we can certainly train like an Olympian, and that foundation laid now, will provide the support for a great climb on your next big objective!
_____
(1: http://runnersconnect.net/coach-corner/base-training-running/)
Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!
Traveling through the mountains and climbing up and down rough and uneven terrain can take a toll on our knees. Knee pain can be debilitating in the mountains and the best strategy to avoid knee pain is to actively prevent it. Prevention begins early in your training process and continues throughout the climb.
During Training
• Remember that getting up the mountain is only half the climb: you still face the entire descent back to the bottom. Keep this mind during your training and include downhill travel in your training routine in order to prepare your muscles and joints to the stress encountered in a climb.
• Build general knee strength. See
this article for an example of different knee strengthening exercises and discuss the specific areas that you need to improve your knee strength with a physical therapist or trainer.
• Take care of your knees during training: don’t beat them up too much and let small irritations turn into major injuries!
On the Climb
Be Prepared:
• Be aware of the weight you are shouldering and avoid carrying extra or unneeded gear.
• Be strategic when pack your backpack: keep the heavy items towards the back of your pack (close to your body) and centered so that the heaviest weight is closest to your center of gravity and your pack sits comfortably and squarely on your frame, not pulling to one side and throwing you off balance (
see more packing tips...).
• Bring trekking poles: poles are a great tool in taking a few pounds of weight off of your knees with each step and can help you protect a knee if it is feeling tired (
learn more about using trekking poles...).
Climb Smart:
• Take small steps on the climb up whenever possible to avoid straining the major muscles around the knees.
• Don’t fight the descent! Take smaller consistent steps coming down and try to avoid the big jarring steps that jolt your body.
• When coming down on moderate snowy terrain and no longer wearing crampons, try keeping the sole of your foot parallel with the slope and sliding a few inches with each step downwards. These little distances add up over the course of a long descent and make the downhill feel just that much easier.
Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the
RMI Blog!
It was another breathless, warm morning on the Ecuadorian countryside. Our beautiful hacienda was situated perfectly in a giant valley which runs directly from our dining room window unabated for 7000’ vertical feet straight to the summit.
Chimborazo, the farthest point from the center of the earth and closest to the sun, was mostly displaying her majesty as we sipped coffee and ate our eggs. As the morning wore on, she hid herself from view and we loaded the magic bus ready to take us to the Chimborazo trailhead. By 1:30 all our packs were packed, and it was off to high camp at 17,500 feet.
At this altitude nothing feels perfect, unzipping your trousers just to take a pee can leave you winded. But our seemingly invincible team has again handled things with grace under pressure and is doing well up here. Once again, the Ecuadorians have done it right, providing a giant dome tent for our lounging pleasure.
But don’t get too comfy bloglandia, the alarm is set for a mere four hour from not. It is then we will have our final test?
The is rest well with a positive psych ! Wish us well!
RMI Guides Adam Knoff, Hannah Smith and Team
Fit to Climb: Week 12 Schedule
|
DAY |
WORKOUT |
TOTAL TIME |
DIFFICULTY |
|
1 |
Rainier Dozen / Easy Hiking ( 30 min) |
42 min. |
Medium |
|
2 |
1-2-3 Stair Workout x 5 |
90 min. |
Very Hard |
|
3 |
Rainier Dozen / Rest |
12 min. |
Recovery |
|
4 |
Rainier Dozen / Fartlek Training Hike (2 hrs) |
120 min. |
Very Hard |
|
5 |
Rainier Dozen / Rest |
12 min. |
Recovery |
|
6 |
Rainier Dozen / Hike (3 hrs) |
192 min. |
Medium |
|
7 |
Rainier Dozen / Hike (7 hrs, 15 pounds of pack weight) |
432 min. |
Medium |
|
Total |
15 hrs. |
|
BRIEFING
At this point in the 16 week training program, you are all in and the end is not far off! This week adds a second hike to your weekend, the Day 2 stair session becomes a little more challenging, and you’ll be adding a new kind of workout in for a bit of variety: a fartlek hike on Day 4.
DESCRIPTIONS OF WORKOUTS
Day 1:
Rainier Dozen + Easy Hiking (30 Minutes)
Today’s hike is a recovery workout and you can always substitute it with a different activity, such as running, biking or swimming. The important thing is to move at a moderate pace for 30 to 45 minutes. The pace can be conversational and you do not need to be dripping with sweat at the end of the workout.
Day 2:
Stair Interval Training: The 1-2-3 Workout
Warm up with some moderate paced stair climbing. Then, make three efforts: one moderately hard, one very hard, and one close to maximal effort, with rest periods in between. This may look like:
• 2 minutes at 50-65% intensity, followed by 3 minutes of rest (1 minute standing, 2 minutes descending)
• 2 minutes at 65-80% intensity, followed by 3 minutes of rest
• 2 minutes at 85-90% intensity, followed by 3 minutes of rest
Repeat this sequence five times.
Day 3: Rainier Dozen / Rest
Begin your day with the Rainier Dozen. Feel free to take another 30 to 60 minutes of light exercise if you feel like it (a brisk walk is a great option). If you feel tired, today is a good opportunity be good to take a complete rest day instead. Listen to your body.
Day 4: Rainier Dozen / Fartlek Training Hike (2 hrs)
‘Fartlek’ training is another version of interval training. The word originated in Sweden and means ‘Speed Play’. Fartlek training is popular with cyclists, runners and cross-country skiers. During your workout, you simply chose random ‘targets‘ like the top of a hill, a loop of a track, a tree or trail marker and then get after it with gusto! Increase your effort level as much as you feel like and mix up the length of the intervals for variety. I like this type of training because it replicates the unpredictable nature of mountain terrain: you can never be certain of the terrain or length of challenging portions of the climb. It’s fun too; it helps to pass the time while training alone, or adds a competitive challenge with friends. If you lack stairs, you can use any uphill grade and no matter the terrain, you can always increase intensity by adding weight to your pack.
Warm up with the Rainier Dozen, and then hike for two hours. Depending on how you are feeling, pick a spot on the trail that feels an appropriate distance away, and sprint to it. Alternate these high speed sections with walking at your regular pace. If you are doing the workout with friends, you can take turns picking the target.
Day 5: Rainier Dozen / Rest
Begin your day with the Rainier Dozen. Feel free to take another 30 to 60 minutes of light exercise if you feel like it (a brisk walk is a great option). If you feel tired, today is a good opportunity be good to take a complete rest day instead. Listen to your body.
Day 6: Rainier Dozen / 3 Hour Hike
The back-to-back hikes this weekend mimic the actual Mount Rainier climb where you complete two days of climbing in a row. The conditioning benefit is to get used to doing these long practice sessions close together. By this point, you’re getting so used to hiking so that this won’t seem like a significant challenge as it would be before the program.
Warm up with the Rainier Dozen and then hike for 3 hours. You may choose to include some pack weight if you’re looking for a little extra challenge.
Day 7: 7 Hour Hike (15 pounds of weight)
Warm up with the Rainier Dozen, and then hike for 7 hours, or about 12 - 14 miles. Be sure to hike at an even pace and bring all of the clothing, food, and equipment you need to be on the trail all day.
SUMMARY
This week is capped off with your first back-to-back hike. You may be tired when you start the second hike, or even have some muscle fatigue, but try and persevere. There are great benefits to be gained from introducing your body to the stress of multiple days of extended effort as it prepares you for the same challenges of climbing. We are headed into the final push of preparation over the coming weeks with several of these back-to-back days. When the climb comes you’ll know what to expect and how to take care of yourself over several days of climbing!
- John Colver
Have a question? See the
Fit To Climb FAQ for explanations of specific exercises and general pointers to help you through the Fit To Climb Program.
John Colver is a longtime climber, former mountain guide, and certified personal trainer with the American Council of Exercise. Colver introduced outdoor fitness classes to athletic clubs throughout the greater Puget Sound region before creating his
adventX brand. Currently, adventX leads training programs in Seattle and Colver presents clinics on outdoor fitness at companies such as Microsoft, Boeing, the American Lung Association, and REI. Colver lives in Seattle, and is working on his second book,
Fit to Climb - a 16 week Mount Rainier Fitness Program.
Hello again everyone,
All is still well here in the Khumbu as the team members made our way back to Pheriche. It was a busy day on the trail with climbers, Trekkers, yaks, and porters all bound uphill to basecamp. We slowly made our way through the maze of traffic and enjoyed a few last good views of Everest.
Pretty amazing how thick the air here at 14,000' feels compared to 17,500'. Spirits are high even with slightly tired legs after an eight hour day!
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
In the 1930s, Swedish running coach Gösta Holmér was trying to find a way to kick start a floundering national cross country running team that had been thoroughly trounced by a strong Finnish team throughout the 1920s*. Part of his answer was an interval workout with a name that most Americans have trouble saying with a straight face: fartlek. Fartlek translates to English as “speed play”, and the workout is just that. A free flowing and loose type of interval workout, Fartlek has many incarnations and can greatly benefit climbers as part of a workout plan.
Fartlek workouts have gained popularity in the sports of running and nordic skiing (both heavily Scandinavian sports) since Holmér’s creation, but they can be accomplished in a wide variety of activities: swimming, cycling, and walking are all conducive to playing with speed.
Completed within a continuous workout, such as a longer run, the fartlek portion typically lasts for at least 45 minutes. After a good warm-up, many people begin the fartlek with a few minutes of a sustained increase in effort. This effort shouldn’t be all out, but a bump of 15 to 20 seconds per mile from your normal distance aerobic pace. This continues the warm-up process and readies your muscles and body for the gear changes that make up the fartlek workout. After this period, you are ready to play. The fartlek consists of increases in pace of varying duration and intensity, always returning to your aerobic distance pace. This could be a few quick steps thrown in every 50 meters - to simulate a bump in pace or a few difficult steps to get through an awkward section of Disappointment Cleaver - or a sprint of 50-60 meters every few hundred meters, simulating a short stretch of steep climbing. Longer efforts of one to several minutes can be used, as well as harder efforts up hills, with recovery over the top and on the descent. One of the main points of the fartlek is that it is continuous. After your harder efforts, you should return to your aerobic distance pace. If you can’t sustain this and you find your pace slowing, back off the intensity of your harder efforts.
This is a great workout to do with a partner or group. Switch leaders often, vary the length and intensity, and have fun. Pick different points to push to; racing to signposts, up hills, and racing mailboxes (push for two mailboxes then back off, then push for four, and back off, etc.) are all great ways to keep the workout entertaining and fun. Checkout these different fartlek ideas on
Active.com and
Triathlete.com for inspiration.
Fartlek has benefits for climbers throughout the
different phases of a training plan. Early on in training, the goal is base fitness and building aerobic endurance. While aerobic endurance is incredibly important to the sport of mountaineering, the long slow nature of these workouts can leave athletes feeling sluggish and with a difficult time increasing the pace. During this phase, fartlek is a great way to maintain your ability to switch gears mid workout. As you move into your
threshold building phase, fartlek is a great mid intensity interval workout that helps train your body to recover between efforts - important in a sport where a few more difficult steps at altitude can leave you gasping for breath. Experiment with different formulas, and try throwing these workouts into your plan once or twice a week. The fartlek workout is a great way to add some creative freedom to your weekly training regimen. Lastly, don’t forget the “play” in “speed play”!
_________
*Source: Wikipedia article “
Fartlek”.
Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the
RMI Blog!
The Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir led by RMI Guides Brent Okita, Billy Nugent and Linden Mallory reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today. The team was walking into the crater rim at 8:20 a.m. Winds are 20 mph and there is a cloud cap on the mountain this morning. The teams will return to Camp Muir and continue their training of expedition skills. They will descend from Camp Muir to Paradise on Friday and conclude the program at Rainier BaseCamp.
Congratulations to today's climbing teams! Enjoy the rest of your time on the mountain.
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What a Russian Twist. Did I miss something? Also, on the stair interval training, do you recommend doing that with a weighted pack, or not?
Posted by: Linda McMillan on 3/11/2013 at 1:47 pm
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