In this episode, I explore a method to structure and plan your strength training, which I believe is much more practical and effective than the 'traditional' approach many mountaineers take for their strength and endurance development.
CHAPTERS:
0:09 Strength Training for Mountaineering 1:46 The Resistance to Strength Training 3:12 A Better Approach Emerges 5:19 Moving Beyond Block Periodization 8:22 The Benefits of Concurrent Training 11:39 Structuring Your Strength Sessions 13:53 Practical Application of Training 14:46 Personalized Training Support EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: [0:00] Hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking about a better way of approaching strength training for mountaineering. [0:09] Now, historically, mountaineers, as a just generalization of the population, mountaineers have been pretty hesitant to embrace strength training. You know, there've been many, many reasons mountaineers don't particularly love this type of training. And obviously, looking at people in a gym environment, looking at body build is, you know, it's pretty obvious why people avoid it. But I often hear things from mountaineers about saying things like, hey, I don't want to do strength training because I don't want to put on extra muscle, which I have to lug up the mountain. Or I don't want to do strength training because it's just not relevant for mountaineering. It's not mountain fitness, it's gym fitness. [0:44] Or I don't want to do strength training because I can just go out and carry a pack and, you know, that'll get me strong enough or whatever it may be. And, you know, in all honesty, historically, mountaineers have been, you know, very hesitant about this type of training. But to be completely real with you you know these statements they are just wrong you know they are just so outdated they get still talked about a lot but they're just wrong because strength training realistically can have some incredibly incredibly incredibly good benefits for mountaineers you know just off the top of my head you know strength training if it's done in the right way it can be a significant thing to reduce the pain the risk of pain and injury on the mountain and in training, It can make elevation, both gain and loss, much, much easier. It can help with harder climbing. If you've actually got technical climbing going, it's a big factor there. It can support quicker speeds if you need to make weather windows or need to make summer windows. You know, it can help with that. It can aid with carrying a pack or a sled or any other type of heavy load and so much more. You know, there are just so many benefits of strength training for mountaineers. And you'll hear me heartburn about this a lot in the episodes in this podcast. [1:46] And over the years, you know, as much as historically mountaineers have been resistant to this, over the years, the guys at Uphill Athlete, you know, or probably the trailblazers in regards to strength and conditioning for mountaineers, they have done a really, really good job of just introducing strength training to the broader mountaineering community and sort of like introducing it and sort of saying, hey, this can be beneficial. Hey, you can do this in a way which is going to be useful for the mountain. And they've done a really, really good job of that. [2:13] Um but one issue that i have seen when it comes down to this is because they have been a driving force of spreading the benefits of strength training for mountaineers because they're probably the biggest voice or have been the biggest voice in regards to this everywhere you look when people are talking about strength training for mountaineering you know people pretty much just sort of say hey follow this one approach you know uphill athletes got a particular approach that they talk about. A lot of people will just sort of say, hey, this is what you should do. There's other coaches who've learned from uphill athlete, and they're like, you know what, this is the way to go about it. There's other people who've gone through their training programs, and they'll go on forums and say that this is how you do it. And there seems to be this trend of just saying there is one way of going about things. And you'll see this on blogs and podcasts, random comments online, in magazines, pretty much everywhere, any type of media, any type of content, you see it. Which does make sense, in all honesty, because what they do and what they advocate for works. [3:12] But what I want to tell you today is there is absolutely a better way. And there is absolutely a better way of approaching and structuring your strength training than what you may see typically online. And I want to dive into this today. [3:28] Now, before I go into what I recommend and what I lean towards these days, I'll talk you through what the kind of traditional, not traditional, but the typical approach to strength training from abneering, which I'm talking about here. And basically, the approach that you see all the time that was advocated from Uphill to Athlete, a lot of people talk about it and sort of talk about it all the time, it's something that's called block periodization, where ultimately how this works is you have an end goal that you want to prepare for. So in a mountaineering context, it's a climb or an expedition. You're like, on this date, I need to get on a plane or get on a mountain, and away I go. [4:02] And in the lead up to that trip, in the months leading up to that actual date, you follow a pretty set structure. And the way that is typically recommended for mountaineers is you'll start off doing base training meaning you get into a routine with your strength training and we won't talk about cardio today but we'll just talk about strength you get into a routine with your strength training and you're doing sort of moderate repetitions of just getting in a routine getting moving learning the movements this and that then you might do that for a month or two or whatever it may be then you move on to what's called max training or maximal strength training where you spent may spend a month or two or even three really really really honing in on heavy challenging strength training with the intention of developing maximal strength as much as you can. [4:42] And then you'll basically lead into a period where you just focus on endurance. So you'll basically start using less heavy weights, but doing more and more repetitions, really chasing the burn. So essentially you go from base, which is just moderate training, to maximal training, which is really, really heavy, but low repetitions, to endurance training, which is less resistance, but higher reps. And then you hop on the plane or get on the mountain and away you go. And this is block periodization because you do one block, then one block, then one block. And absolutely, this approach, it can work and it's been successful for a lot of people. [5:16] And there's no doubt this can be a great way of approaching things. But for me personally, I don't use it with any of my mountaineers anymore. I used to, but I don't do it at all anymore. And in all honesty, I think there is a much, much, much better way. [5:32] Now, the reason why I'm saying this, and there are a lot of reasons why I'm saying this, is something I've thought about a lot, something I've tested a lot. And in all honesty, yeah, I've kind of come out of this. Now, if you've listened to this podcast before, in a previous episode, you know, I was talking about a subject around staying fit for mountaineering all year round. And in that episode, if my memory serves me correctly, I talked about an approach which is called concurrent periodization which basically is an approach with your strength training instead of training one quality of strength at a time meaning general strength maximal strength endurance strength instead of doing one of them at a time essentially we train both we train both maximal strength and also endurance strength so in a workout you would dedicate half of that to heavier strength training and then half the workout to more moderate high rep training and in previous you know, I used to just use this, but mountaineers who are kind of just trying to stay fit for all year round or trying to stay fit, you know, in season or out of season, but they didn't have a particular date going on. But over recent years, I've actually shifted all of my mountaineers, regardless if they have a big trip coming up or if they're just trying to stay generally fit to this approach. And I do this with every single mountaineer that I work with now. And I really, really do believe so much better. [6:51] Why? Well, there are a few reasons and you may you're wondering why this isn't let me break it down now number one I like the idea and one of the reasons I use this and make sure there's always some strength and some endurance in a program I personally like the idea of always having a thread of strength focus in a mountaineer's program from start to finish always making sure we are honing in on this heavier strength stuff. [7:16] Now the reason like a lot of mountaineers with this they'll look through the lens of strength training. And they'll look like, okay, I'm doing strength training to get ready for the mountain. But ultimately what I'm doing with strength and why I'm training maximal strength is I'm only doing this so I can perform better and get more out of my endurance training. A lot of mountaineers look about this and it's just a means to an end. My heavier strength training, it's just realistically just setting me up to do this endurance stuff just before I leave, which is going to give me the best results. But in all honesty, I think this thinking is flawed because yes, endurance is probably a little bit more relevant for mountaineers and if you're going to choose one or the other however the heavier strength and general strength and maximal strength or however you want to phrase it it does have its own particular benefits and it can be really really really beneficial even if you never trained endurance work and you just did maximal work that is still going to be really really beneficial for mountaineering in a number of ways so personally i like the idea of instead of just neglecting that towards the end, I just like saying, hey, you know what, we're going to train both because both of them are going to be [8:21] beneficial. I'm going to keep this going. So that's number one. I always like to have a threat of strength instead of just neglecting it towards the end. [8:28] Number two, I like this approach because it does give you a lot more flexibility if life goes wrong or if you get sick or something like that. Because realistically, it's very, very, very rare that any training process will be entirely smooth. If you're training for mountaineering, more than likely you are trying to string consecutive months of training in a row leading up to whatever you have. But during those months, you'll get sick. During those months, you will get busy. Life will take over the way. Work will change. Family members will visit. and you'll go on holidays, weather will change, whatever it may be. There are so many different things that can come up and disrupt a training process. And the issue here is if you happen to have, if you're following that block periodization, and if you happen to have a rough couple of weeks or three weeks in the middle of your strength block, or if you happen to have a rough couple of weeks in the middle of your endurance block, you know, this can actually risk just having your plan derailed and actually risk having one of these qualities just undertrained because you've just been hit with an issue and you haven't had enough time to properly train these things. So alternatively, on the flip side, if we are always training a little bit of strength and always training a little bit of endurance in our week, even if we get sick for a couple of weeks, it's still going to be a bit of a setback, but it's not the end of the world. And I think it gives a lot more flexibility. [9:43] And then the third one is, you know, this doesn't apply to everyone, but it is pretty relevant, is a lot of mountaineers do tend to have pretty long expeditions. There are some, like a lot of mountaineers, who'll be going and doing big mountains, and they'll go overseas, and they will be spending a long time as they're going through acclimatization, as they're doing multiple climbs, as they're doing this and that, and sometimes they are spending a long time on these expeditions. And while strength doesn't disappear overnight, it's not like if you stop maximal strength training, it'll lose all your strength in a week or two or three or even four weeks or anything like that. If you don't train it, yes, it will gradually decline. And if a mountaineer, if we lay this out and say a mountaineer trains all the way up to when they leave, but between when they actually leave and they stop training and they get on a plane, they go overseas and say there's a gap between two or three or four weeks between the end of training up to when their actual summer pushes where they really really really do need you know that strength that's a pretty long stretch, and sometimes depending on the trip sometimes that can be enough time for that strength to gradually begin to decline and on top of that if it has already been six or eight or even 12 weeks since you've really done any of this dedicated heavier maximal strength work and you just spent these last six to eight twelve weeks of your training really focusing on that endurance that's an even longer gap. [11:09] And yes, you know, doing endurance training, it can affect the quality of your strength. It can maintain strength and this and that. It's not like it's a be all end or 100% black and white or whatever it may be. But in all honesty, I personally believe it just makes sense to keep some strength stimulus the whole way through. So even in your final weeks before you actually start tapering, before you get on the plane, you're still doing some challenging strength stuff. [11:33] So the body remembers it. So the body maintains it. So the body doesn't disappear too quickly. And we can hang on to it. [11:39] So I personally think for these three reasons, this concurrent periodization is just such a better approach. [11:47] So if you've been listening to me harp on about this for a while, now you might be wondering, okay, that makes sense, Rowan. Yeah, okay. But how does it actually look? Like, how do I do this? How do I plan? Well, it's really, really simple. And it's not complicated at all. If you were looking at, say, a 60-minute strength session, And we'll break this down. And you may stay and spend, you know, the way I sort of typically look at a project, a 60-minute session. We may spend the first 15 minutes, you know, doing a bit of warm-up, you know, do some mobility work and maybe do some smaller accessory work. I like to do that as a warm-up where you might do some glute work and some core work and maybe some, you know, if you've got any particular issues, you can work on those. And about 15 minutes, 10 to 15 minutes warming up and really, you know, getting some lower load exercises done. Then for the next 20 minutes or so, we might end up doing some heavier strength work. So we'll do some heavier lower body stuff. We'll do some heavier upper body stuff. And then maybe a bit of core mobility, you know, in between all that. And typically this heavier stuff, when I'm saying heavier, I mean I'm using, you know, eight repetitions or lower. So using a weight which is going to be challenging for eight reps or seven reps or six reps or four reps or three reps. Probably don't really need to go too much lower than that, but that's kind of what I'm talking about with strength. So we might do about 20 minutes of that. And then the next 20 minutes, we might do some higher rep stuff for both the upper body and the lower body. So we might do 15 repetitions or 20 or 25 or whatever it may be and string that. [13:07] And essentially, we end up getting half the workouts that heavier strength, half the workouts that more endurance-based happy days. And then over the months, we'll just adjust this slightly. You know, sometimes we'll manipulate reps. So we may do, you know, four weeks where we do six repetitions for the strength stuff and then 15 repetitions for the endurance stuff. And then the next four weeks, you might do four repetitions for the strength stuff and then 20 repetitions for the endurance stuff and just manipulate reps around that. Or we might sort of say, OK, you know, we're going to change exercises a little bit. So we may do four weeks of certain exercises of six repetitions and 15 repetitions. And the next four week block, we'll just keep the same reps, but we'll change exercises. So it's a new challenge, whatever it may be. And we'll essentially just work around that. Everyone's going to be a little bit different, but it works out pretty well. [13:53] So in all honesty, it's really, really, really simple. And personally, I think if you are a mountaineer who's just getting into strength training or looking for an approach that maybe is a little bit more flexible, I honestly think this is the way to go. [14:06] Very, very simple. But I personally think just over the years of doing this, I think it's just so much more flexible, practical, and even effective than the traditional block periodization approach. So if you've been thinking about it, if you've been planning, if you're wondering, make it happen. And I will just sort of say, you know, if you're a mountaineer and you're listening to this and you're like, you know what, this makes sense. But in all honesty, I do need a bit of help putting this together. And I wouldn't mind exploring, you know, a little bit of personalized help for my training. If you're a mountaineer and in a position where you do want some help with your training, I would love to chat with you. You know, through Summit Strength, we help our mountaineers get fit, [14:42] strong, and resilient for their adventures through our online personal training programs. If you did want to learn a little bit more about these programs and learn about how we help our mountaineers, how we sort of apply our training, how our packages come together, and all of that, what I'd like you to do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer. That's summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer. On there, there's a bit of a video which talks through one of our packages and also gives you the option where you can book a call with our team. We can sit down, have a little bit of a chat, and ultimately just see if and how we may be able to help you, and if and how one of our programs may be right for you. So if you were interested and want to check it out, go to summerstrength.com.au slash Mountaineer, and you can check it out from there. So with that being said, I really do hope you've enjoyed today's episode. I really do hope it helps a few Mountaineers out there. And any questions of that, please reach out. I'm always happy to chat. So thank you so much for listening. and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.
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AuthorRowan is an online personal trainer who specialises in training for hiking and mountaineering. He helps get them fit, strong and resilient so they can conquer every adventure. Archives
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