Quick Strength Tips For Mountaineers

​In this episode, I explore some quick (but very useful) tips to help a mountaineer get better results from their strength training. 

Episode Chapters:

0:06 
Quick Strength Tips for Mountaineers
1:37 
Balancing Assistance in Exercises
3:09 
Improving Squat Depth
4:06 
Managing Pain in Exercises
5:36 
Adjusting Strength Training Sets
6:37 
Manipulating Weight Difficulty​

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today, we are talking through

[0:03] some quick strength tips, the mountaineers. And I'm going to be firing through a few really, really, really simple tips that probably don't really need a full episode behind them, but they can be very, very useful for a mountaineer to get the most out of their strength training. So I'm going to be talking through six very, very simple tips, which can be very, very useful. Now, the first tip is if you are doing a lower body exercise, if you're doing a a lower body exercise with your strength training, and you feel like your grip is holding you back, use lifting straps. Now, what I mean by this is if you're doing typically a deadlift, a Romanian deadlift, a single leg deadlift, anything where you are holding a weight in your hands, and as you're doing that exercise, you feel like it's not your hamstrings and your glutes which are failing, but it's your hands which are failing, use straps.

[0:59] Because when we're doing these exercises, the main priority is to target those leg muscles. The main priority is to load that area up. And if you feel like the weak link is your grip, which it will be once you eventually get strong enough, you don't want that limiting you. Some people say, ah, using straps is just for powerlifters or it's just for bodybuilders, it's kind of cheating, you want to work your grip strength? Yeah, to an extent, but not by sacrificing your legs. Work your grip in other areas, that's totally fine, but don't feel bad about using straps. If you're doing a lower body exercise and your grip is holding you back, use straps, work those legs, definitely recommend it.

[1:37] Tip number two is if you are doing a single legged exercise and you feel like your balance is holding you back, use some assistance. So if you're doing a split squat, if you're doing a single leg deadlift, if you're doing a step down or a pistol squat or a skater squat or a shrimp squat, anything like that, and you feel like you are spending the majority of that exercise wobbling around, making sure you don't fall over, as opposed to being able to actually push the exercise and challenge your muscles, use some assistance. Hold onto a chair, hold onto a trekking pole, hold onto a barbell, like whatever it may be. Do whatever you need to do to give a little bit of balance assistance. Sometimes people with these exercises, they get so carried away really enjoying the balance and stability component. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm wobbling all over the place. This is going to really help me on the mountain. That's fine.

[2:34] But just remember, the first reason we're doing strength training is to build up our strength. And if we are limited by balance so much that strength isn't getting challenged, we're getting a little bit backwards. If you really want to work balance, do separate balance exercises. That's fine. But make sure your strength exercises are proper strength. Some people will never have to use this assistance. Some people are perfectly happy deadlift squatting or single leg squatting or whatever all day without any issues. But if you are one of those, use a bit of assistance. It's not cheating. It's smart.

[3:10] Number three, this is specifically for squats. So if you're doing back squats, front squats, goblet squats, hack squats, whatever it may be, if you struggle to get low on this movement, if you're the type of person, you're like, you know what? I can barely hit 90 degrees. I'm only really doing quarter squats, whatever it may be. The most simple thing you can do to dramatically improve that is use a heel raise, meaning get a couple of small plates or get a plank of wood and put it under your heels. Changing that angle at your ankles will allow you to go deeper will take ankle restrictions out of the equation quite as much and allow you just to enjoy your squats this is also a really really good tip for anyone who struggles with knee pain during squatting sometimes just raising the heel ever so slightly will just take the pressure out of the knees let you do that exercise exercise. So if you struggle with squatting, give that a go.

[4:06] Number four, if an exercise, when your strength training causes you pain, nine times out of 10, you can reduce the range of motion and make it more comfortable. So for example, if you're doing a squat and down the bottom of a squat, you get into pain, reduce the range of motion. Don't go down so low. Get a box, get a chair, pop it underneath you, control your range of motion, find something that you can do which is 100% comfortable. You can still squat, you can still challenge those muscles, you get out of pain. If you're doing Romanian deadlifts and you get into pain at the bottom of the movement, well, reduce the range of motion. Don't go down quite as far or do a block pull, a rack pull. Set the bar up at a point which isn't quite as low and work from that. It's not cheating, It's smart. If you do hip thrusts, so you're doing working off a bench with your shoulders on a bench and a barbell or a deadlift and thrusting up and working your glutes, if that's painful, do a glute bridge. Same movement, but it's off the floor. Reduced range of motion. If you're doing split squats or lunges, and down the bottom of that split squat or lunge is pain, then only go down three quarters.

[5:23] Get like a foam pad or something. Pop it under where your knee goes so you don't go all the way down to the floor. Reduce that range of motion. One of the most simple things you can do to still get a really effective exercise without causing pain.

[5:37] Tip number five if you walk into a strength session one day and you were low on energy and you're like i haven't got much in me just adjust the number of sets a lot of people when they're doing their strength training they'll do five sets of an exercise four sets of an exercise three sets of an exercise whatever may be that's all well and good if you're feeling good if you got the time you got the energy but you can still get a really really effective strength stimulus if you just do two sets, or if you just do one set. As long as you work through the exercise, give yourself a bit of a challenge, that can be really, really, really effective. And if you walked into a session and you're not feeling amazing, if you literally did three exercises, did two sets of each of those exercises, the first set's a bit of a warmer, the second set's relatively heavy, and then move on, that can still be pretty good. I wouldn't say you want to do that all the time, but if you're low on energy, that's typically a better way of going about things than try to push through three or four or five sets.

[6:37] And then final tip is if you're doing strength training and you're in between weights, meaning the current weight you're using is a bit too easy for you. The next weight up on dumbbells or adding plates, whatever it may be, is a little bit too much for you. And you're in between weights. Adjust your tempo on your lift, meaning adjust the speed of your repetitions. A really simple way to make a certain weight more difficult is to slow things down. On the lowering portion of whatever exercise you're doing, add an extra second, each repetition, or add a pause at the hardest point. This is a really, really simple way of manipulating the difficulty, changing momentum, without having to change weights. So if you've been doing 10 kilo dumbbells for a while on an exercise, but you're like, you know what, the 15 kilo dumbbells I have lying around is just too much, do the 10, but start slowing things down a bit. And then eventually you can jump up to that 15. Very, very simple, but very, very practical.

[7:41] So there we go, guys. Six very quick strength tips for mountaineers. Hopefully something in there you can apply. I know a few people run into these issues, especially the grip stuff and the balance stuff and the range of motion stuff. Very, very, very common. So hopefully some mountaineers listening to this can take this, putting this to action very quickly and see some good results. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap things up here. Last thing I will say, if you're a mountaineer who is interested in strength training, but want to make sure you are getting the best results from this type of training to best help your mountaineering and your injury prevention, I would love to chat with you. If you want to learn a little bit more about what we do, go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer. On that page, you can learn about our online personal training for mountaineers and see, you know, if it may be something you want to explore a little bit more. If you want to check it out, you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer. We can take it from there. So with that being said, thank you for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it and we'll talk to you very soon. Bye.

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