Fitness For Mountaineering: Low vs High Intensity Training

In this video lecture, I explore why long-duration, low-intensity cardio is so crucial for a mountaineers fitness (and why focusing purely on high-intensity training is a mistake).

In the mountaineering world, people are traditionally told they need to follow the old school approach to endurance, which involves long periods of low to moderate intensity cardio, gradually built up over time.

But, unless you are a lifelong endurance athlete, this can often be easier said than done. This type of training comes with a BIG time commitment, so mountaineers who have a busy job, or a young family may struggle with this. Alternatively, for mountaineers who are not coming from an endurance sports background (and maybe they have come out of team-based or strength sports) this type of training can simply be BORING.

So the appeal of the high-intensity training approach, is that by working incredibly hard for a short workout, you can potentially get the same results with MUCH lower time commitments. But, unfortunately, this is flawed thinking.

While some amount of high-intensity training is important for a mountaineer to optimise their fitness, if you are trying to replace your longer sessions with this type of training, you are shooting yourself in the foot. You will never reach your full potential of fitness. And it will show when you are on the mountain.

And this video will tell you why.

You will learn:

• The big appeal of high-intensity training (and why so many mountaineers are drawn to it)
• The difference between structural and functional changes to the cardiovascular system (and how different types of training will produce different results)
• How the type of training you do, affects the composition of your muscle fibres (and how this can directly affect your performance on the mountain)
• The effects of low-intensity training, glycogen and ATP (this gets a bit sciency, but it is an important point to be aware of)
• How long duration cardio can affect the resiliency of your connective tissue
• One incredibly important aspect of mountaineering fitness which often gets overlooked (and why 40 minutes of torture in a gym cannot compare to 12 hours of 'embracing the suck' during cardio)
• How low-intensity cardio can directly affect how much benefit you get out of high-intensity cardio
  
  

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