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These strange times have many of us off balance and out of rhythm, and our training routines have felt the toll as well. Stay at home policies across the country have closed fitness centers and kept us at home without our usual tools. Body weight core exercises are a great way to continue to improve your strength and functional mobility, and taking your strength workout outside is a great way to break your routine and inject some new energy to training. The Dartmouth cross-country ski team uses this type of workout (and it’s where many of the example exercises come from) as part of a base and strength building cycle each fall.
Choose a jogging loop that has areas that you will be comfortable getting down to the ground on (a park, forest loop, or city parkway).

• Set out for a good warm-up, 10-15 min at a gentle pace that is still conversational.
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• Find a comfortable spot (grass or a forest floor are much nicer than concrete!) and complete a set each of two different core exercises (pushups and crunches for instance). This style of workout will build more endurance strength since they use just body weight, so try to pick a number of repetitions that you can do several sets of, but still push you hard in the individual set. 60 full crunches and 40 pushups is a great example.
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• Jog easily for 200 meters. The active recovery of jogging easily will still allow you to recover, but will train your body to recover while maintaining at least some level of effort.
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• A set each of two more exercises (dips on a park bench and side planks). 
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• 200 meter jogging recovery. 
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• Complete a third set of exercises. 6 exercises is a great number to start from for your total workout.
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• Continue until you have done 3 sets of each exercise (9 total strength stops). 
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• Cool down and head home!

As you progress, you can vary the workout in the number of repetitions you do during each set, or by varying the total number of sets. Try to mix up the exercises that you use, so that you get a complete core workout, without stressing one group of muscles unduly. This a great workout to do with partners at a safe social distance. You can spice it up by having different partners choose the exercises for a given set, which can add variety and show you some new exercises to add to your routine. If you don’t have a loop that is suitable, try a couple of laps of a small park. While it may take some imagination to get going, getting outside and breaking up your strength routine is a great way to keep the upward progress of your training going!
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These three resources have a number of good core exercises for inspiration:
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/exercise.htm#cte
https://experiencelife.com/article/core-circuit-workout/
http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/circuit-training-exercises.html

Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts here on the RMI blog!

Mountaineering is thought of as a "slow and steady" sport. Indeed, the climbing pace when nearing the summit is amazingly slow given the effort required by the high altitude, especially in comparison to moving at the same speed at lower elevations. As a result, climbers often overlook the necessity of incorporating speed and intensity into their training routine and instead focus on long, slow aerobic-oriented workouts. This is a mistake. Interval training is an important component of conditioning for mountaineering as it raises your anaerobic threshold, effectively giving you "more gears" when climbing at altitude.   

Aerobic vs. Anaerobic

Generally speaking, aerobic activity is the zone of physical activity where the body is able to provide adequate oxygen to the cells to keep them fueled, reducing the rate of fatigue. Anaerobic exercise is when the physical effort is high enough that the body cannot provide enough oxygen to the cells, causing them to use other energy stores to make up the difference and causing a much higher rate of fatigue. Think of taking a casual walk through the park (aerobic) vs. sprinting up multiple flights of stairs (anaerobic) - which can you sustain for longer? As athletes and climbers, our goal is to raise our anaerobic threshold - the level of effort where our bodies transition between aerobic and anaerobic activity. A higher anaerobic threshold allows us to climb at increased effort levels (like climbing at altitude) without entering an anaerobic zone and tiring quickly. Some sources say that climbing in your anaerobic zone will deplete your energy stores as much as 16x more quickly than staying within your aerobic zone! Raising your anaerobic threshold provides huge gains to your fitness when you head into the mountains.   

Interval Training: Raising Your Anaerobic Threshold

Interval Training is one of the most effective way to raise your anaerobic threshold. Interval training consists of short, intense bursts of physical effort. Learn more about general interval training here. The best types of intervals for improving your anaerobic threshold are extended efforts at just below your maximal effort level (or maximum heart rate if you train with a heart rate monitor) repeated several times with an equal amount of rest between intervals. The exact intervals you complete depends on your fitness level and chosen activity. Discuss an appropriate interval plan with a trainer or fitness specialist. General intervals targeting your anaerobic threshold include:

• 4 x 4 mins with 4 mins rest

• 5 x 3 mins with 3 mins rest

• 4 x 800m with 3 mins rest

You can do intervals while running, hiking, biking, on a rowing machine, or any sort of aerobic exercise equipment, but the most effective for mountaineering will be footborne since ours is a footborne activity. Be sure to properly warm-up and cool down before and after every session. Like all training activities, anaerobic interval training is best incorporated into a broader training routine, be sure to continue to include aerobic, strength and core, flexibility, and balance and agility training. It is best to begin your interval training once you have a strong aerobic base and a period of high training volume so that your body is ready for the increased load. As with all training, plan your intervals to gradually ramp up in intensity and duration so that your body is able to absorb the training load and you remain injury free. In order to truly go "slow and steady" in the mountains, we need to first go short and fast!

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Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

RMI Guides Josh Geiser and Evan Sather joined many guide services last weekend in the first annual Sandy Camp clean-up project. Josh had the following to say about their weekend on Mt. Baker:

"We had a great time representing RMI for the first annual Sandy Camp cleanup on Mount Baker. After a summer of heavy use, it was great to put our Leave No Trace (LNT) principles into practice helping to clean up an area that we all share. It was also nice to see guides from so many other companies coming out to help and make new connections across guide services. In total, we cleaned up 74 used blue bags as well as a bunch of other trash scattered throughout the camp.”

Sandy Camp is an alpine camp used along the Easton glacier route of Mt. Baker, one of the most popular standard routes on Mt. Baker. All recreational activities including climbers are expected to pack out what they pack in and dispose of their waste properly (LNT Principle #3). Leave No Trace (LNT) principles are an important part of recreating, especially in the Mt. Baker National Recreation Area, operated by the USDA Forest Service. This includes all kinds of waste, especially human waste. The Sandy Camp clean-up event spent a lot of the focus on improperly disposed of human waste and toilet paper.

Proper disposal of human waste helps to avoid negative impacts on water sources, minimize the possibility of spreading disease, and maximize the rate of decomposition. As the fragile alpine settings of Mt. Baker and the surrounding trails are becoming more popular, it becomes increasingly important to practice Leave No Trace principles to ensure the long-term sustainability of these beautiful places.

Join us in practicing Leave No Trace principles while recreating! You can learn more about Leave No Trace principles at lnt.org.

If there is one period of training linked to success on a grueling alpine climb like Mt. Rainier, it is the base building phase. Our intensities while climbing tend to remain relatively low, but the elevation gained, distance traveled, and hours on our feet make it imperative that we can sustain those low intensities hour after hour. Your aerobic base takes time to build, and one of the keys to building it is proper recovery to allow your body to adapt to the training stress you put on it.

Every four weeks, it’s important to schedule a recovery week, in which your weekly training volume will be about 50% of the highest volume week of the period. This is the consolidation week that allows your body to make the changes in response to your training and come out the other side stronger. These weeks feel light and you may worry that you are losing valuable preparation time, but these recovery periods are critical.

Also important – throughout your training period – is how you recover. Excessive alcohol and sleep deprivation both will inhibit at least some of your training gains. Good nutrition to support the training stress on your body is vital. And some light movement, even on your rest days, is better than being completely sedentary – it helps to move some blood through your muscles and flush out the cellular waste. Be strategic about your training, and as importantly, be strategic about your recovery!

RMI Guide Adam Knoff originally wrote this for the training blog a few years ago. As we have all been more or less stuck in our homes, with life looming front and center for many, Adam's message again seemed apropos. 

Today I was surprisingly asked a question that, as far as I can tell, is as old as human curiosity, parental affection and plain ol’ sibling rivalry. This may seem strange because I only have one child, and my somewhat unhinged three wingnut dogs can’t speak and honestly don’t care about the answer as long as they are fed and played with. As you may have guessed, the question so abruptly put on me this morning was: “daddy, who’s your favorite?” Harder to guess was, who asked it? 

Things started normally enough; I made breakfast for my kiddo before packing him up and carting him off to preschool. I fed my dogs and chickens, cleaned the kitchen, and prepared for a day of light recreating before my afternoon duties began. It was when I entered the garage, home to my all important man cave and location of all my beloved fly fishing and climbing gear that things took a bizarre turn. Standing in front of me (I kid you not!) side by side, with puppy dog eyes looking up, stood my 12’6” Echo spey rod and my carbon fiber, oh so beautiful, Cobra ice tools. These sorts of things don’t just happen so I double checked my reality button. Dreaming? No I don’t think so. I have been up for three hours, had my coffee, and still felt the throb in my left big toe where I slammed it into the chest at the side of my bed. Ok, I’m awake. Drugged? No, I quit taking hallucinogens in high school and my wife, I think, genuinely cares about me. Then what? My two favorite activities in life, swinging flies for big trout with my spey rod and ice climbing, which is now doable in Bozeman, Montana, have come to a head. With a few free hours, my fishing rod and ice tools came alive and wanted me to pick favorites. Sheeesh! What’s a guy to do? 

As time stood still, I began to reflect on the week long steelhead fishing trip I took just two weeks prior to the Grand Rhond, Clearwater, and Snake rivers. Ohhh, the joy of that trip made me quiver. It made me want to reach out, grab my spey rod child and declare my love for him. 28 inch ocean run rainbows on the swing, the thrill of the next hook up, not wearing a heavy pack; the reasons almost overwhelmed me. Yes, yes, you will always be my favorite!!! Then I saw my ice tools. Hyalite Canyon is in! I can’t wait for the thrill of running it out on newly formed thin ice over a stubby ice screw, waking up before the sun, and realizing this day was bound to hold everything but the predictable. Ohh, ice tools, you are my favorite, “let’s go climb something!” I think you understand my dilemma. 

Parenting has taught me much in the five years that I’ve been at it. Love, patience and compassion are always at the forefront of dealing with children. Frustrations always arise. Liam spills my wine on the new rug, my spey rod whips bullets at the back of my head leaving welts the size of cheese curds on my scalp, ice tools rip out unexpectedly and send waves of sudden panic through me that make me want to puke. All part of the landscape I guess. So how did I answer the question, “who is your favorite”? Here I leaned on the invaluable lessons gleaned from seven years of blissful marriage. I compromised.

That day I took the ice tools out for their first climb of the season. I packed them up with the rest of my climbing gear all the while psyched I had just promised my fishing rod we would get out tomorrow. It’s a difficult web we weave, balancing work and play. I honestly felt troubled that I had to recreate two days in a row, climbing then fishing, but then again parenting is also about sacrifice. 

As readers of the RMI Blog, most of you are probably cracking a smile but are also curious how this story is relevant to the mission of mountain climbing, training, and/or preparing for an upcoming goal. Here is how I connect the dots: Fishing for me is the yin to my climbing yang. It is a glorious mental escape which allows me to shelve my daily stresses and exist purely in the moment. Everyone needs this periodic meditation to reset and clear the mind. For many, exercise accomplishes the same release but regular exercise does not necessarily constitute “training”. The expectations I put on myself when climbing on my own are very high and the specific training schedule I follow can at times be demanding, painful, and sometimes unpleasant. Here is where we tie in sacrifice. Everyone’s life is managed by time. Somewhere on that big round clock is time you can utilize for yourself. If you have a goal of climbing a mountain, running a marathon, or bench pressing a Ford truck, you need to prioritize and then commit! Finding enjoyment and purpose in life comes when these commitments are made. Being a husband and father keep me grounded. Being a passionate climber and guide keep me psyched and motivated, and the hunt for big fish calms me down. In the big picture I think I have found some balance. Remember it takes the black and the white, the yin and the yang, to complete the circle. The web you weave and balance you seek are your own, but seek it with conviction and purpose and you will be just fine.

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Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

RMI Expeditions is excited to be partnering with Uphill Athlete to provide our clientele what we believe to be the best training information and coaching available. We invited Steve House to introduce Uphill Athlete to our blog readers, which is what follows. RMI does not receive any financial compensation from Uphill Athlete, nor vice versa. We simply believe wholeheartedly in the effectiveness of the coaching and information that Uphill Athlete provides. 

Mountaineering Training and Uphill Athlete

By Steve House

“Man discovers himself when he measures himself against an obstacle.” – Antoine de St. Exupery

Mountains are, metaphorically and physically, the obstacles by which we measure ourselves. When you get to the base of the mountain you want to be ready. You want to be safe. You also may want to emerge as a changed person. If you agree with these statements, you are the reason my long-time coach, Scott Johnston, and I write books and a blog dedicated to how to train for mountain climbing.

The gist of what we wanted people to know is this: There is no magic to endurance training. Instead, there are 100 years of history and a well understood intellectual framework behind the theory and application that applies to the full spectrum of endurance sport. 

In 2002 as a professional climber I began training under Scott Johnston. Scott is an accomplished endurance coach with an extensive background as both an alpinist and high-level endurance athlete, During the ensuing years I, alone and with partners, achieved many landmark ascents. The training process transformed me from being merely good, to becoming one of the best in the world.

In 2010 a serious climbing accident cut short my high-level climbing career. Soon thereafter Scott and I decided to undertake a project to educate the climbing public about training for mountain climbing. Three years of work culminated with the 2014 publication of our best-selling book Training for the New Alpinism followed by the 2015 publication of The New Alpinism Training Log, and the 2019 publication of Training for the Uphill Athlete, our book aimed at mountain runners and skiers. 

All training is exercise but not all exercise is training

One important thing to understand is the difference between training and random exercise. Every effective training plan must adhere to these cardinal principles:

• It must be gradually progressive in loading the athlete.
• It must be individualized to the athlete.
• It must modulate the athlete’s training load.
• It must be applied consistently to the athlete.

Training is the structured and systematic application of specific amounts, types, and durations of exercise aimed toward achieving a performance result. It does this by increasing your capacity for physical work in the several realms that make up your event, whatever that is for you. When the time is right you will be able to utilize your hard earned exercise-capacity to its fullest extent and achieve your big mountain goals.

There are a lot of people selling exercise programs as training programs. The hallmark of an exercise plan is random physical activity. There is nothing wrong with an exercise program but don’t be fooled into thinking you are training by using that approach. Which one you choose determines not only your path but also your destination.

Today, our books and our website are the continuation of our mission of openly sharing proven training knowledge for the outdoor sports we love.

If you are ready to have your training transform you and explore your own boundaries, myself, Scott and the coaches at Uphill Athlete will be honored to share our knowledge and help you do the most effective training to meet your big-mountain goals.

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You might also be interested in the following articles:

• The Roots of Uphill Athlete by Steve House
• The Roots of Uphill Athlete by Scott Johnston

Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

Climbers heading to Rainier often ask the question, “water bottles or hydration system?” If you look around your local trail, chances are that most runners, hikers, and general recreationists are using a hydration system. Are these systems best suited to mountaineering, however?

In the past, many guides simply asked their climbers not to use hydration systems, but to carry water bottles instead. The belief was that the drawbacks of hydration systems outweighed the benefits. As hydration systems have improved to be less prone to leaking or punctures, this stance has shifted. There still are drawbacks to hydration systems, but given the right conditions, precautions, and expectations, they can be used effectively in mountaineering for a climb such as Rainier.

The main concerns we see with hydration systems are:

• The hoses freeze: During midsummer climbs with high freezing levels, this doesn’t tend to be as much of a problem. On cooler climbs, however, ice buildup in the hose can quickly block any water from getting through. The neoprene hose insulators are not particularly effective, and it doesn’t take much ice buildup to completely block the flow. Blowing the water back through the hose after every drink can help, but still isn’t 100% effective. The best practice is to bring an empty, water bottle (even if only ½ liter capacity) that you can pour the hydration bladder into should it freeze so that you still have access to water.
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• Rationing water: Climbers can only carry so much water for a climb before the weight becomes cumbersome. Typically we recommend 2-3 liters of water for a Rainier summit day. This is plenty, but requires climbers to ration it; for example, 2 liters allows a climber 1/3 of a liter of water at each break. If climbers are sipping more consistently from a hydration system, often they lose track of that rationing, and find themselves partway into a climb, with no water left. Diligent attention is the only way to solve this, and this is difficult when you can’t actually see how much water you have left.
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• Distractions: Trying to turn a hydration hose on and off and drink from it on the fly distracts from the climbing, the terrain, and the overall situation. When climbers are roped up and climbing, each member of the team is relying on all of the others to remain vigilant to catch a fall and to not cause a fall. A hydration hose is a distraction from this, and the solution is to either keep the hose tucked away inside the pack (where it is inaccessible) in climbing terrain, or for climbers to carefully assess the hazards of the terrain they are in at that moment, and to choose benign stretches to get their hydration.

Hard, plastic water bottles have been the standard in mountaineering for decades and still provide the simplest method of carrying water. They generally do not freeze, it’s easy to see how much you are drinking, and they are away in the pack while climbing. That being said, since they are tucked away in the pack, they are inaccessible and do not allow a climber the opportunity to get a quick sip of water on a long stretch. Hydration systems may have a place in your mountaineering kit, but practice with them, have a plan and know how to minimize the drawbacks. If in doubt, water bottles will still work fine!

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Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!