How Powerlifters Can Train For Mountaineering

​Powerlifting and mountaineering are on two opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to training. One is a pure strength-based sport. The other is a predominantly endurance-based sport. And for many, the thought of training for both of these things is a bit farfetched...
 
But the fact is, many people out there have a passion for powerlifting but also want to be training for the mountains.

And inside this episode, I explore a few strategies on how you can approach this training challenge and ensure you are covering all your bases!

Using Powerlifting To Train For The Mountains 

​Chapters

0:16 Introduction to Powerlifting and Mountaineering
4:15 Balancing Strength and Cardio
14:39 Emphasizing Cardio Training
22:26 Climbing Requirements for Mountaineering
24:51 Body Composition Considerations
26:11 Nutrition for Endurance Training
28:06 Mindset Shifts for Mountaineering
32:31 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] Right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking all about how someone who has a passion for powerlifting and a passion for carrying and lifting heavyweights,

[0:12] how they can train to climb mountains and perform in the sport of mountaineering. Now, the inspiration of this episode comes from a few places, like recently online, I've actually seen in a few different places on social media, in different forums, and different situations where people have actually reached out about this topic and they've sort of said, hey, I'm a powerlifter. I love powerlifting. It's a big part of my life. And I'm really, really interested in getting into mountaineering. Or I used to do mountaineering and I'm really interested in getting into some bigger mountains. And they are so often asked, like, how do I balance out my training? And the response pretty much every single time is people basically saying you can't do both and saying, look, you have to give something up. Look, you know, you're not going to be ready for the mountains if you're powerlifting or whatever may be. And people just with that really negative response. On top of that, you know, over the last few months, I've actually picked up, started working with a couple of mountaineers who just genuinely love powerlifting and they want to keep that as part of the thread in their training, but they also want to build up for big mountains in the future.

[1:13] And realistically, when it comes down to all of this, you know, the usual recommendations that you'll see when it comes down to this situation is people will just basically say, look, powerlifting and mountaineering are two polar opposites. Mountaineering is extremely on the endurance side of things. Powerlifting is extremely on the strength side of things. And realistically, you just cannot train for both at the same time. That's pretty much what everyone says online.

[1:38] But what if it's something you really, really, really want to? What if it is something you really, really, really want to aim for? Well, if that is you, just know it is possible. There is a way. You just need to be a little bit smart and a little bit more thoughtful with your training. In my experience with the people I've directly worked with who fall into these situations, it's kind of been three different sort of situations that I've seen from this with people. Number one are people who just have a passion for powerlifting. That is what they love. They love it. It makes them feel good. They absolutely thrive in the world of powerlifting. But they also love mountaineering or they love the idea of mountaineering. And that's absolutely fair enough. Another situation is when people whose social circle is all powerlifting. And a lot of people fall into this in the sense that at certain stages of our lives, sometimes our social circle and our community is actually the gym that we train at. A lot of people fall into this. And a lot of people have been part of this community for years and years. They're looking to get into mountaineering, but they're like, well, I don't want to give up my friends. I don't want to give up my community. I don't want to give up going into a gym and seeing people that I love spending time with each day. But I also do want to get into mountaineering.

[2:53] Or there's also been quite a few people over the years who have had a bit of a life change and they've sort of been maybe living the corporate life and they've just been work, work, work, work, work for years. Or maybe they've been with a young family and they've just been all about their kids for years, years, years. But they're at this point where they're looking a bit of a life change, giving up their career, finding something new, got a little extra time, whatever it may be. And essentially they've just set themselves some really big goals. And they were like, you know what, this year I'm gonna do a powerlifting meet for the first time because that's something I've dreamt about for years and I'm gonna do that. But also this year, another thing I've dreamt of is I wanna climb my first mountain or whatever it may be. You know, in all honesty, all of these are valid reasons. And, you know, they're absolutely valid reasons for wanting to keep a thread of powerlifting or keep that in your life while you are looking to build up mountaineering. And, you know, I hate to see online when people are just like, hey, you can't do both when people genuinely reach out in these situations and just try to make people feel bad. Like, you know, I think the mountaineering community, the fitness community as a whole, you know.

[3:55] Are pretty bad about that type of stuff, and they're not super accommodating, and it's not great to see. And yes, sure, in all honesty, in the perfect world, you would just train for one, but in all honesty, it is perfectly possible to balance both of these goals if you fall into these situations. So today, we're going to be exploring how. We're going to be breaking this down

[4:14] into quite a bit of detail. Now, essentially, what we're going to be covering today is we're going to be covering strength, cardio, climbing, body composition, fueling, and mindset. So each of these areas are very, very, very relevant and important to be aware of if you are looking at trying to do both of these things. So, let's start on strength, the obvious one.

[4:35] Powerlifters, as a massive generalization, are strong. That's literally what they do. You go into the gym, you're aiming to lift the heaviest weights possible. Powerlifters are strong. Even if you don't consider yourself strong in the powerlifting context, in the real world context, in the general population, you're strong. In all honesty, as a power lifter, you are going to want to keep this up. Personally, as a power lifter, if you're feeling really strong right now, you don't want to give up what you're lifting. You don't want to give up all this stuff you've worked towards and you probably want to keep it up.

[5:08] Now, traditionally, when it comes down to training for mountaineering, and also a lot of power lifters do this, is people often talk about block periodization when it comes down to strength training. And let's just use the mountaineering context and a lot of people will often sort of say hey when you're training for mountaineering you want to use this block periodization where you do a period of general strength where you do heavy weights for four or eight or 12 or 16 weeks where you're really really really getting heavy and then you want to convert that to muscular endurance so then you might do eight or 12 or 16 weeks of doing endurance work that works for a lot of people but in this context and situation and specifically for powerlifters, this probably isn't an amazing approach because if you want to maintain your strength, yes, you'll be able to do that during that strength period. But when you get to the endurance stuff, you're probably going to start having that little voice in the back of your head. And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm doing good endurance work. This is really helping my mountaineering. But in the voice in your back of your head, you're like, oh, I'm losing all this strength. I haven't really hit a 1RM or a 2RM in ages or whatever it may be. And it's fair enough. If you're a powerlifter, what I would recommend is taking a slightly different approach.

[6:18] When it comes down to it, as a powerlifter, going through a strength training program to complement your mountaineering, you can probably do your big three like normal, pretty much for the entirety of your training process. Maybe the last four or five or six weeks before a trip, you may want to adjust it, but pretty much for the entirety of your training process, just do your big three, your squat, your deadlift, your bench, as you would normal. Follow whatever periodization schemes you like, follow whatever programming you like, just smash that out, hit that heavy strength stuff, enjoy it. maintain your strength, happy days.

[6:50] Beyond that, and beyond just following your big three as that standard programming, however you approach it, there are a few things you need to keep top of mind and a few other things you need to emphasize with your training. Number one is accessories. Now, many, not all, but many powerlifters love, love, love doing their main lifts. They love doing their heavy squats. They love doing their heavy deadlifts. They love doing their heavy bench. But when it comes to their accessories, so the exercises they're doing as accessories to this to help support this and this and that, they end up just sandbagging it. They half-ass it, they kind of do it every once in a while, they don't really push, they don't really stick with it, you know, half the time they go, they're like, oh, you know what, I'm really busy actually, I've got to duck out of the gym, they end up skipping it or whatever it may be. A lot of people do this, in all honesty. I do this when I'm doing strength training and a lot of people do this. Now, if you're just training for powerlifting and all you were training to do is to lift these heavy weights, this isn't great.

[7:51] But if you're training for mountaineering, this is really, really, really bad. And we do not want to do this because when it comes down to mountaineering, we need a good spread of exercises to prepare us for all the different situations we're going to be on the trail. When it comes down to mountaineering, we need a good spread of different reputation ranges, different loads, different stresses on the body. And if we're doing all the heavy stuff with our big three that's fine but we want to use our accessories to hit all of these other areas so when it comes down as a power lifter training for mountaineering make sure you're doing your accessories absolutely now on top of that when you're looking at your accessories a few things you want to keep on top of number one focus on the eccentric now as a power lifter.

[8:37] You may be very, very, very used to focusing on the concentric part of a movement. So the pushing part or the hard part of a movement. So the up portion of a squat, the up portion of a deadlift, the up portion of a bench, because that's literally what you're doing. You're trying to just push as much as you can in those motions. And that's fine for powerlifting. When it comes down to mountaineering, we want to be making sure we are hitting the eccentric portions of the movement and really getting some good emphasis on that because we're going to be getting exposed a lot to these types of movements when you're out on the trail and out in the movements. And getting eccentric exposure and developing eccentric strength can be really beneficial for a bunch of things. So while you may not do this on your main lifts, if you're really just trying to lift really, really heavy, on your accessory stuff, you want to focus on the eccentric. Make sure the lowering portion of your movements, four seconds, five seconds, slow and controlled on these accessories. Don't neglect it. Don't fall in the habit of just absolutely going really, really quick, slow it down for your accessories.

[9:39] Number two is make sure you get a good variety of push and pull. So similar to like with your big three, your deadlift and your squats are balancing each other out. We want to make sure we're doing this with our accessories. So for our pushing exercises, we want to balance it out with a pulling exercise. This is both for upper body and lower body. So for every, let's say, leg curl you're doing, make sure you're doing something else quad-related to balance it out. For every shoulder press you're doing, make sure you're doing something pulling, a pull down or a row or something like that. Get a good variety of push and pull. Balance things out.

[10:16] Number three, make sure you get plenty of single leg work in your accessories. So powerlifting, typically everything's done on two legs or two limbs at a time. That's fine. You get that in your big three. But for mountaineering, a lot of this stuff is done on single leg at a time. There is different stability requirements for single leg stuff, obviously. And we want to make sure we're hitting this. So when you're doing your accessories, emphasize single leg stuff. Fit in your split squats. Fit in your single legged deadlifts. Fit in your single legged glute bridges. fit in your step downs or pistol squats or whatever it may be. Get a good emphasis on that type of stuff. And also on top of that, don't neglect the lower limbs. And when I say the lower limbs, I specifically mean the calves. For powerlifting, you don't really need calves so much for your movements. Some people train them. Some people just never touch them. For mountaineering, you 100% need it. Make sure you're hitting your calf raises. Make sure you're doing your straight leg calf raises, your bent leg calf raises. If you've got access to a calf raise machine, do that. a donkey calf raise, do that. Whatever it may be, make sure you are hitting your lower limbs and getting that exposure.

[11:22] Now, when it comes down to this, with these tips, most powerlifters, if you kind of put together your own programs, whatever it may be, taking that advice, you can probably sit down and figure this out without too much more direction. Alternatively, if you're like, oh, you know what, I usually work off a program, not 100% sure how to go about this, you can either Take this information to your powerlifting coach and say, hey, realistically, I'm training for a big mountain. How can I get all of this going in? Hopefully, they should be able to help you. If they're completely unwilling to help you, then you probably want to reach out to someone else, another coach who can balance this out for you.

[11:59] So make sure you're hitting all that. Now, another thing you also do want to be aware of is with your strength stuff is just making sure how your training flows into your cardio and your other training. In the sense that, you know, when you're just training for powerlifting, if all you need to worry about is lifting heavy, you will go through periods where you lift quite heavy, quite heavy, quite heavy. And every once in a while, you really, really, really push it and really ramp it up and try to hit a PB or whatever may be. And if we're just training strength, that's pretty easy to regulate. But if you're training for mountaineering and adding in lots of cardio into the week, which we're going to go into in a moment, you need to balance this out and make sure you're not compromising other areas of your training. So the most simple, simple, simple way to look at this is ultimately, if you are in a week where you're really, really, really pushing your strength and you're like, you know what, this week I want a PB on my strength, then with whatever cardio you're doing, maybe plan that week out to be a little bit less intense, a little less volume, just so you're working really hard on your strength, but it's a little bit easier on your cardio. Now, on the flip side of things, if you're doing a week where you're really, really pushing your cardio and you're like, yes, I'm really going to push this and flog myself with the sessions, then it may be worthwhile just backing off on the intensity or the volume of your strength work a little bit. Because sometimes doing big weeks for both at the same time, it can be a little bit tricky, particularly if you are used to working at quite high intensities with your strength stuff as a power lifter.

[13:23] Now, the last thing I'm going to say on the strength side of things is what do you do if you are leading into a big climb?

[13:31] What do you do if you're leading into an expedition and you've been doing all of this? If you are leading up to a big expedition, probably you can do what I've just advised for the most part. But probably in the last set of six weeks, maybe eight weeks leading into your actual trip, you probably want to make a little bit more adjustments. So maybe just back off a little bit on your strength and lean a little bit more into the more mountaineering specific stuff. So more cardio-based activities, which are gonna be honed towards the needs of your expedition. Now, I'm not saying you have to completely give up the heavy strength stuff. You can still keep a thread of that, but maybe in the last six weeks, just hit a couple of sets of heavy stuff on the big three, do the rest accessories and lean into your cardio and all of that. That's probably what you wanna be looking at. and make sure in this period, your accessories are pretty high reps.

[14:24] Yeah, so that's the strength stuff. And I think maybe I didn't mention it just before. Last thing I'll say is on the accessories, that's a good portion to get the higher rep stuff as well. So when you're doing your accessory stuff.

[14:35] 15, 20 reps on certain exercises can go a long way.

[14:40] So that's the strength side of things. Next up, let's talk about cardio. Now this is the opposite end of the spectrum. This is the power lifters bane. A lot of power lifters haven't done a lot of long cardio in a while, but when it comes down to it, as a mountaineer, you need lots of long steady state cardio. It is an absolute requirement of getting ready for mountaineering. As a power lifter, this may not be part of your regular routine. So you need to make sure if you're leading up into the mountains, you need to make sure you're building this up, building up your volumes and getting plenty of volume here.

[15:13] So when you're looking at your cardio, here's a few things I'd recommend as a power lifter. Number one is what you want to be aiming for is to get at least one long exposure every week of long, easy, sustained cardio. So it's not stop, start, not stop, start, not stop, start. It is finding a pace and just sustaining it for long periods of time and when i say long it's usually two hours or more and over time as you get closer and closer and closer to your trip that gets more that gets more let's get more this type of stuff it wants to be low intensity so typically looking at nose breathing pace or zone two pace or however you want to do it long intensity that we build this up a lot of power lifters will fall into the trap of saying oh you know what i'm in the gym they've got strong mount equipment, maybe I'll just do a little circuit and bang that out for 15, 20 minutes and that'll be enough. It's not. You need to get this long, low-intensity stuff in.

[16:09] Now, on top of that, even though this type of training is low-intensity, if you haven't really done this type of training a huge amount in the past, if you've really been the powerlifting side of things, you probably want to put a little bit more thought behind this than some other people. Because a lot of people, the first thought they have when they're like, okay, I need to do aerobic conditioning, I need to fit long intensity stuff in that's going to be relevant for mountaineering, what am I going to do? The first thought a lot of people think is running. And while running is great.

[16:39] If this isn't you and you haven't been running recently, you haven't done a huge amount of cardio, whatever it may be, you may, in all honesty, not be able to hit the duration and intensity needs for this. So what I mean by that is if you haven't done a lot of running recently, or if you haven't done a lot of cardio recently, and you start running now, you may run for 10 minutes and you'd be like, oh my gosh, I'm knackered. You may run for five minutes. You'd be like, my heart rate is jumping up. And that doesn't line up with the intensity or the duration that we want. If you are happy to go out and do a 40-minute run, you're like, hey, I can sustain my intensity. It's all good. Not a problem in the world. Cool. Go out and run. That's not a problem. But a lot of power lifters may struggle with this. So other options when it comes down to this long, low-intensity cardio is hiking. Simple enough. Hitting the trail with or without a pack. This is lower impact. This is great. You can build this up. It's walking. It won't stress out your joints, happy days.

[17:34] Alternatively, if you're a bigger powerlifter and if you're at the sort of heavier weight classes or whatever it may be, as you're getting into your cardio, you may even just want to start with some off-feet stuff. So maybe hiking might just be a bit much. Maybe you hike once or twice and you're like, oh, I'm getting sore feet or I'm getting sore knees or something like that. We don't want to have to stress that out too much. So if you're a bigger powerlifter, it may be worthwhile just starting off with some off-feet stuff for your longer sessions. So maybe just doing some cycling for those long sessions, sitting on a stationary cycle or getting an outdoor cycle and cruising along, and then just building up your walking and your hiking and your pack walking through some shorter sessions. So you may start off doing two or three hour cycles and then like 20 or 30 minute pack walks, and then slowly but surely build up those walking sessions and they can eventually transition into your longer sessions. So if you are a bigger power lifter, that is something to consider.

[18:29] On top of this, one cardio session is probably not enough. You probably do need to fit in another cardio session into the week. Now, this one doesn't have to be super long. You can do another long session if you have the time and the inclination, but it doesn't technically have to be super long, but it does still want to be aerobic based. So it still does want to be, you know, a little bit lower intensity, nothing too outrageous and slowly build up. So start initially again with lower intensity stuff. Start with some walking, some cycling, some pack walking, just cruising along, just accumulate that time. And then over time, as you're building out your base of conditioning, your aerobic base as it gets said a million times in the mountaining community, as you build that up, then this shorter session can ramp up in intensity. You can start doing fun stuff. You can do intervals on a bike. You can do sled sessions. You can do whatever it may be. Over time, this shorter session can ramp up in intensity, but to begin with, just start lower intensity. And then finally, probably worthwhile, just fitting in some extra cardio where you can. So what I mean by this is just basically around your strength workouts, just fitting in a few little bits and pieces. A good place to start is just before your strength sessions, just fitting in five minutes of low intensity cardio at the start of a session. Just hopping on a bike and turning your legs over for five minutes or going on the treadmill and walking for five minutes as part of your warmup for your powerlifting. and for your strength.

[19:57] Now, this may not seem like much for some people, but for a lot of powerlifters who, again, maybe haven't been doing a huge amount of cardio, this can be a really good place to start. And this can be a nice thing of just fitting in extra movement through the week, fitting in extra exposure, and it's still going to be, you know, getting that blood moving, it's going to be beneficial for your strength. It's only five minutes, it's not going to be detrimental for sure. And on top of that is if you are a little bit tight on time, you can even add in some extra small bursts of cardio at the end of your strength sessions. So do your strength, do your lifts, do your accessories, and then at the end, maybe just do 10 minutes or 15 minutes of cardio at the end just to get a little bit extra.

[20:39] Examples of this might just be hopping on the treadmill and doing 15 minutes of treadmill walking on flat or on a medium incline or even on the full incline. It may be doing some longer cycling intervals. It may be hopping on the bike and doing three minutes relatively quick, one minute rest and doing that four or five times. Maybe doing some sled pushing and just putting a medium amount of weight on the sled and pushing that up and down for four minutes, have a minute rest and do it again. Or might be doing some stepping, like going on a step machine or a small box and just doing lots and lots of step ups or whatever. Little bits and pieces of this can go a long way. Now, you may be listening to this and you're like, oh, this doesn't really sound like much, Rowan, but look at it like this. If you're training the traditional power lift discipline and you're doing three days in the gym, you're doing a squat, dead, a bench day, three days in a gym, you do five minutes of low-intensity cardio for warm-up each of those sessions. You then do 15 minutes of low-intensity cardio at the end of each session, or you do some intervals here. That ends up being three sessions, five minutes at the start, 15 minutes at the end, 60 minutes in a week total. Over a month, that's an extra four hours of cardio. Over six months, That's an extra 104 hours of cardio. This is significant. And these small things apply consistently can really go a long way.

[21:55] So as a really, really example plan here, combining both strength and cardio, your week could potentially look like doing your three strength sessions in a week with a little bit of cardio at the start as a warm-up and 15 minutes of cardio at the end. You may end up doing one longer session. And then maybe one short cardio. That's five days a week. That's a pretty solid training week. And that works out pretty well. You get exposures to your heavy stuff. You get exposures to your accessory and your endurance stuff. You get your longer cardio. You get a little bit more cardio exposures. That can go a long way.

[22:27] And then on top of that, to follow that up is if you're really out of condition and you're just getting into the cardio side of things, then the first block, you may just sort of say, okay, for the longest session, I'm just going to do a long cycle, hop on the bike turn my legs over and for the shorter session maybe i'll just do a short pack walk for 30 minutes 40 minutes 60 minutes just walk around with a pack then the second block so you may do the next four weeks you might do a long hike as you're longer cardio and then you may do some cycling intervals as you're shorter one or some elevation walking as you're shorting walk and then the third block might just be the same but just build everything out and go a little bit longer or whatever may be so as you can kind of see you know just take a step at a time and can go a long way so that's enough on cardio next up let's talk about climbing if you are a power lifter looking to build into mountaineering early on you just need to establish what you need in regards to climbing same as any mountaineer you need to be aware of okay what am i aiming for, do i need to be doing technical climbing do i need to be doing non-technical climbing or like what what have i actually got involved here.

[23:29] If there really isn't any need of technical climbing in your goals or anything similar to that degree where you have to be doing any type of climbing, realistically, you can just avoid this. You don't even worry about this. You can just go out and climb for fun if you want, or just not even worry.

[23:44] Alternatively, if there are climbing requirements and you're like, hey, I actually do need a bit of climbing on here, then you probably do need to look at where you're going to fit this into your week. Because if you're doing a three-day split for powerlifting, and you're also fitting in enough cardio as well, adding in your climbing may end up being a pretty busy week. So, you may have to do a couple of double days. You may have to lift in the morning and then climb in the evening or whatever it may be. Or if you're really tight for time, then you may have to drop your powerlifting split down to two days just to open up some more time so you have a bit of extra time to climb. So, just be aware of what the requirements are, what you need to practice, what you need to learn, and how you're going to fit this into your week. And be aware about that sooner rather than later. Now, I'm not going to go into specifics here because there is a huge amount of different, amounts of climbing you'll need for different trips and different needs and different skills and different techniques and all of that jazz, but just make sure you identify these things early and you figure out how this is going to go into a plan.

[24:44] Now, number four, you need to be aware of as a powerlifter training for mountaineering is body composition.

[24:52] You need to make a decision early on in this training process if you want to make a change to your body composition or not. Because depending on your weight class, whatever power lift you are, there may be some benefit in dropping a little bit for your mountaineering. If you are a heavier weight class and you're managing yourself climbing up the mountains, it may be beneficial dropping a bit. If you're a lighter weight class and you haven't really got that much to drop or it's not that big a deal, doesn't really need to be too much of a worry about it.

[25:24] You need to just make a decision about this early because if you are going to take action on this, starting sooner rather than later is better. Alternatively, if you're not going to take action on this, you're like, I'm fine, then you can just basically defeat that voice in the back of your head going, oh, maybe you should be doing this. Or on top of this, to be really, really clear, if you have a history of issues with this, which I know a lot of people do, and you're like, you know what? I don't really like dropping weight. You know what? I don't like that sort of side of things. I've battled with this previously or whatever it may be. Then as long as you make a decision early about, hey, you know what? That's not what I'm going to change. I'm fine with this and I'm just going to get fit and strong and do this and that. Then at least you will have some peace about not having to worry about it. So just ask yourself, am I going to change my body composition? Yes or no?

[26:11] Yes. Start taking action sooner rather than later. And if you don't know how to do that, reach out to a sports dietician, have a chat with them, get some comprehensive and personalized advice or if no then cool happy days let's get on with the train moving on next one learn about fueling powerlifters nutrition you know what it's not much to it some people take it seriously most powerlifters doesn't really matter to a very big degree you can eat anything and still be very very strong very very very powerful however But fueling for your endurance, fueling for your cardio sessions and your mountaineering, you need a lot more thought behind this.

[26:54] You need a lot more thought around how you're getting enough fuel to help with your recovery, help you perform during your sessions, help you stay attentive, save you being in a good mood and all of this.

[27:04] But if you haven't really thought about this a huge amount before, it has such a huge potential upside. Getting your nutrition right in an endurance sport, it's night and day compared to just eating whatever and eating right and eating optimally. Not even optimally, eating better than just normal. it can go so so so far so if you're not aware about how you can approach fueling for endurance activities you want to spend a bit of time learning about this follow people online who talk about endurance sports or even better go and see a sports dietitian have a chat with them and say you know what i've traditionally been doing this i'm leading into mountaineering i need to fuel myself for multiple hours worth of sessions or whatever it may be how can i help what do i need to do, and they will give you direction. It's worth its weight and goal getting a consultation like that, and I fully encourage it. But make sure you are not neglecting fueling. Make sure you're not eating like a powerlifter. If you're training for mountaineering, make sure you're smart.

[28:07] And then finally, the last thing I want to cover is a mindset switch. Powerlifting requires mental strength.

[28:17] Mountaineering will cry as mental strength. But the mental strength between the two is very, very different in the sense that when it comes down to powerlifting, we need to psych ourselves up, get those arousal levels super, super high, motivate ourselves to lift that heavy weight and get it off the ground and really, really, really make it happen. But typically, even in our longest sets in the gym it's like 60 seconds and it will be done if you're just doing a one one rm might be five seconds and it's done.

[28:51] Requires a lot of mental strength, but it's short. Mountaineering on the flip side requires mental strength and that grit for hours and hours and hours and hours. And many mountaineers, many powerlifters, I should say, when they're making this switch, they do struggle a little bit with keeping motivated for longer pushes, keeping engaged for longer duration things, keeping themselves in that mindset of going hard for minutes and minutes and minutes at a time, or just purely just grinding out multiple hours worth of movement so it is very very very worth training this a few different things when it comes to it number one is getting exposure to long repetitive stuff early on so just getting exposure to sitting on a bike for two hours and going and pedaling and pedaling and pedaling for some people that's a nightmare but it isn't necessary so get used to it early on. All the same thing, even hiking and walking. Some people love it. It's their happy place. They absolutely thrive. Other people, when they're hiking, they're like, oh my gosh, is it over yet? I'm not physically outrageously tired, but I'm just so bored. You need to get used to this because mountaineering may involve you going for six, seven, eight, 10, up to 24 hours, depending on your trip of movement, of repetitive step after step after step after step. You need to get used to this.

[30:14] Number two on this, it's very worthwhile coming up with some mantras. So mantras are just like simple things you say in your head, which you can just lean on when things get tough. As a power lifter, you may have a little mantra you say yourself to get you psyched up, to get you pumped up, to get that arousal super, super, super high, which is great. As an endurance athlete, you want something that's a little bit more steady. You want something you can just repeat to yourself again and again and again for minute after minute. when you're going through those grueling stretches of training, whether you're climbing up a mountain or climbing up a hill, which is taking hours. Have a think about this. What can you repeat to yourself over and over and over again, which can be positive, which can keep you in the moment, keep you grinding through? Definitely worthwhile thinking about. Sounds a little bit hippy-dippy, but I promise you, really important.

[31:02] And then finally on this, it's probably worthwhile learning how to relax under stress. So powerlifting, you don't want to relax. Relax powerlifting you want the absolute peak levels of arousal where you are pumped up and pushing mountaineering on the flip side there may be sections where you are pushing going quite hard whether you've got a really tough climb you've got a section of the trail you're trying to beat a weather window or something like that there may be sections where you're pushing but we don't want to be outrageously stressed out we kind of want to be relaxing while we're pushing hard to a degree It's a funny balance to get if you haven't really done a huge amount of this. So this can be good to practice in your training. A nice way of sort of exposing yourself to this is doing some sort of longer interval training. So getting on a bike or a rower or an elliptical or something like that and doing intervals, high intensity intervals of like four minutes or five minutes or six minutes at a time. And going at a pace which you can sustain, a quick pace which you can sustain for four or five minutes at a time. It's a weird feeling if you haven't done it before, because you may go way too quick in the first 20, 30 seconds. You're like, oh my gosh, how do I maintain this?

[32:14] But if you've done it for a long, long, long time, you kind of get to this point where you hit the speed you need. It's hard. It's tough. You're grueling through. You feel the burn. You're getting huffed and puffed, but you can kind of relax into it. It takes practice. It takes time. Definitely a skill worth learning.

[32:32] But ultimately when it comes down to this whole subject if you are a power lifter who have mountaineering objectives in your site just know it is perfectly possible to balance out your training yes technically in the perfect world you would do one or the other because they are definitely on the opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to fitness requirements but with a little bit of creativity a little bit of thought you can be really really good with your training on both ends of the spectrum and get yourself in a really good spot.

[33:02] So have a think about this. If you are a power lifter, make sure you're doing the right strength. Make sure you're getting those accessories in. Make sure you're hitting your endurance with your accessories and getting all those other bits and pieces I mentioned. Number two, make sure you're working through that cardio, getting that long exposure, controlling the intensity, fitting in things where you can. You know, make sure you're aware of your climbing requirements. Make sure you're aware of what you want to do with your body composition. Make sure you're learning about endurance fueling and getting that and expose your mindset to this different type of mental strength. If you can cover all those bases, it can really, really go a long, long way. And you can absolutely get yourself ready for some amazing mountains, even while keeping super strong through the whole process.

[33:43] So with that being said, I think I'm going to wrap up there. Last thing I will sort of say is if you are someone in this situation and you're like, you know what? I love powerlifting. You know what? I really want to get into mountaineering. And you know what? I need help putting this all together. Then I would love to help with you, talk with you. if you want to learn a little bit more about how we and me help some help mountaineers prepare for their adventures you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer on there there's a page which talks has a video which talks about our program a little bit and then on the page there's also a link where you can book a call with our team we can have a little bit of a chat get to know you learn about your situation and see if and how we may be able to help you out so if you want to learn a little bit more go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer and we can take it from there, So with that being said, thank you so much for listening today. Hope you've enjoyed it. Hope you got a little bit out of it. And we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

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