Training For 8000m Mountains (Part Two)

​In part two of this discussion, I dive into some more detail of Allie Peppers's current training journey as she prepares to climb 8000m+ mountains without additional oxygen.

Inside, I share some insights into the training and workouts she has been using over the last months to prepare for her next expedition. 

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] Right. Hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode,

[0:04] we are doing part two of our mini series about training for big 8,000 meter plus mountains. Now the previous episode, we interviewed Summit Strength client, Allie Pepper, and she gave some insights into her training, her preparations, and her adventures when she's tackling these big mountains. Now today, we're going to be getting into a little bit more of the detail and nitty gritty side of things in her training. And I'm going to be talking through in a little bit more specific terms around the different types of training and workouts that we've been working through, how her training has progressed over time, just to give you a little bit more insight into that. Now, if you haven't listened to episode number one of this mini-series, go back and listen to it just to get the context around what I'm talking about today and how this all comes into place. But with that being said, essentially what the intention for today is, is I'm going to start by just talking through a little bit of detail around how we went about Ali's initial programming as we first got back into training as we were leading to the next season of climbing. And I'm going to talk in through how we structured things, how we put things together, what we sort of work through. And then I'm also going to give you a little bit of insight in regards to how things have progressed over time.

[1:16] Now, fair warning, what I'm about to tell you and what I'm about to share with you, none of it is going to be particularly groundbreaking in the sense of none of this is secret training. There's no special way we go about preparing Ali. And essentially, the way that we get her ready for her adventures is essentially just following the same ideas, the same strategies, the same principles that I talk about on this podcast through each of the episodes. So hopefully, if you've listened to a few episodes before, a lot of this will sound familiar, and you'll kind of see how it all comes together.

[1:48] So, essentially, where we're going to start with here is just talk a little bit about how we go about personalizing training to Ali. Because, obviously, every mountaineer is an individual. Every person who's coming into a training program has different particular needs, situations, preferences, and all of this. So, whenever we look at preparing a training program for someone and getting something in place just to get people rolling, we want to make sure we get it all personalized to them. so it's going to fit them where they need to be.

[2:19] So essentially, Ali went through exactly what we do with everyone else. And essentially, we have two things that we get everyone to go through before we even put together their program or whatever it may be. Now, the first thing she goes through and went through is our intake questionnaire. And essentially, the intake questionnaire is just a simple questionnaire with 17 different questions, just covering topics like goals and time of ability to train and equipment access and injury history and a bunch of other stuff as well. Realistically, myself and Ali, we've worked together for many, many years now. We've got a pretty good understanding of where we're at and what we need and how we go about things. But even so, at the start of each training process, actually to get her to go through this again, just to get an update at everything, make sure everything's in line and we're all sorted there.

[3:04] Now, as Ali was going through the initial intake questionnaire, there are a few things that we kind of identified, that were pretty obvious and pretty important to keep top of mind as we're going through the programming. So, Ali, as you probably heard in the previous episode, she's preparing for big mountains. She's preparing to summit 8,000 metre plus mountains without oxygen. And essentially, what she is expecting to have to deal with is when she's getting up to summit day, she's expecting to deal with potentially up to 30 hours or more above 7,500 metres, which is pretty strenuous. So this is the limit, the peak, and absolutely going to be a massive struggle.

[3:45] Now, her travel plans and her trip plans were a little bit rough and a little bit in regards to flexible for dates, but she had around about 18 weeks to prepare. She was at the stage where she was like, look, when she first started training, she was like, I could probably maybe train four days a week, but potentially one longer session a week, and then three sessions at 60 minutes or less. Now, this may not seem like a huge amount compared to some mountaineers who are thinking about this, but one thing that was really, really important is we knew these 18 weeks while Allie was in Australia, while she was getting prepared and everything like that, training wasn't her full-time job. She had a million and one things going on and a million and one commitments, so we needed to find a training load that was going to fit around her and her life. Now, we also knew that she was going to be training mostly in gyms. Sometimes it could be a little bit hit and miss with equipment as she was traveling around because she was not staying in one place. And she was also coming off the back of she had a bit of arch pain after last season. She also had a history of left knee pain and a couple of other bits and pieces going on.

[4:44] Now, once we got all that information, then we also got to go through our assessment process. So any mountaineer training with us, we get them to go through a simple series of assessments, which just gives us a snapshot into strength and endurance and mobility, just to get a good idea around where they're at and essentially where we want to put our focus into the training. We can also use this to track our progress moving forward, and we get everyone to go through this. So there's a few really, really simple assessments that we get them to do at home. And I won't talk through them all now, but essentially what we identified in Ali's assessment results was there were a few key priorities. A lot of the measures looked really, really good, even coming off the back of a super long season, even coming off the back of a bit of downtime after her last expedition, she was still sitting pretty good. But there were a few areas that we identified. Number one, we were like single leg hamstring and glute strength and endurance. That was something that was kind of okay, but it probably did want a little bit of work. The same thing with calf strength and endurance. Again, that didn't score badly, but we were like, you know what, that's actually something we want to bump up a little bit more. And also abdominal endurance. We were like, look, you know, that's another area that probably wants a bit of extra attention. Everything else scored pretty well. She was sitting in a really good foundation, even after a break of things. But those three areas were highlighted.

[5:58] Now, realistically, you know, some people, when they go through an assessment process, and I'm sure if you've gone to a gym before, and you've worked with a trainer and they're taking you through assessments.

[6:07] You know, a lot of people kind of fall into the trap of doing the old pass-fail and sort of say, hey, if you don't hit a particular number, if you don't do something perfectly, you know it's the end of the world. And they sort of like say, hey, you know, this is going to happen and this is going to happen and yada, yada, yada. And the fitness industry has a really, really, really bad habit of that, in all honesty. But the way that we use assessments, it's never a case of saying, hey, pass-fail or whatever it may be. It's never a case of saying, hey, this is, you know, if something doesn't score as much as we want, this is really, really concerning. But essentially, just use them to get a snapshot on how things are, identify priorities and track progress moving forward and realistically for mountaineers as much as these types of assessments are useful the most important aspect of progress to track it's not your strength it's not your endurance but actually your performance out on your trip on the trail yes we do track the strength moving forward but progress on the trail is pretty important so with that being said you know we got that information to start with and we were like look from all of this we're aware that okay ali's probably got about 18 weeks to train we're aware she's got about four sessions she could squeeze in initially.

[7:08] Three shorter, one potentially longer. We were aware that leading into our expedition, there are a few very, very, very important things we needed to hit. Number one, strength. We are aware that Allie, personally, she knows muscle strength is so, so, so, so important for her. We also know because she does big, long seasons, she's not just over there for a week or two or three when she's traveling. She's over there for a long period.

[7:32] And we're aware that we want to build up as much strength as we can before she goes. So when she's got these weeks and weeks and weeks of not really doing a huge amount of strength training, even though she drops strength, hopefully she'll still be in a good position by the time she gets to summit day. We also know, obviously, we need to build aerobic capacity, massive priority for mountaineers. And we also need to manage her foot discomfort and make sure that didn't ramp up. We were going to have to do a lot of training. We could baby the foot too much, but we needed to manage that. And then around Ali's particular situation, you know, we're like, look, she's got a very busy life. She's going to be traveling, potentially not having a huge amount of equipment. And we also, you know, need to be aware of, we don't want to overdo the long steady state cardio, which is an interesting thing for mountaineers in the sense of a lot of mountaineers when they're training for these big things, they're like, look, I'm going to go out and I'm going to do three long hikes in a week. I'm going to do three long runs in a week or whatever it may be. And in theory, fitting in lots and lots and lots of long steady state cardio is good. But in this particular situation, we're aware that, okay, Ali has a history. She used to be a guide. She used to spend hours and hours and hours and hours out on the trail. And for me to ask her to go and do that over and over and over may not be the best thing. We're aware that it isn't super fun for her all the time.

[8:51] So we're also aware that Ali personally prefers to run instead of hike. So we want to make sure that, okay, we're getting what long cardio we can fit in. We're making sure we're getting in the necessary buildup for aerobic capacity, but we want to make sure we're sort of riding our threshold that it never turns into something that's just not enjoyable, never turns into something that's going to be negative or whatever it may be.

[9:11] So we've got all that information. So where do we come from? Well, as I always sort of say, when it comes down to training for mountaineering, there are sort of four pillars of training that we need to fit in and that I always, always, always say we want to fit in. Those four pillars include strength training.

[9:27] Mountaineering specific conditioning, longer cardio and recovery and mobility work. And this is literally what we use to build out Ali's program. So what we started off initially, we were looking at two strength sessions. We knew strength was important for her. So two strength sessions in the gym, essentially working a bit of a warmup, then moving into a bit of strength work, some more difficult, heavier strength work, and then some endurance work at the end. That's how I like to build out my strength sessions where we end up just breaking it down, half strength, calf and endurance and just keeping that thread through the whole way we had two sessions a week each session complement each other so as we got through the whole week we make sure we hit the entire body we covered all our bases and that's all good now on top of that we knew ali was going to be moving around a lot and sometimes she'd have gym access sometimes she wouldn't so we also had a little backup body weight session that you could just lean on when she needed now for a longer cardio we were like look we're just going to do a long run essentially start off with that slowly build up time. And then for hiking specific, mountaineering specific conditioning, we looked at some cycling intervals. We were like, look, we need to manage the foot. We don't want to be doing too much running. We don't want to like slam that too much, but we do want to introduce some intervals. So we're going to do this off feet, get on the bike, push the bike a little bit. So we don't have to worry about the foot and go with it. And on top of that, just a little bit of recovery mobility work, which is just a simple stretching and self-massage session as we go through.

[10:49] Now again looking at this and i'll say this probably for the third time some people listening to this like oh my gosh this is crazy like where and why is she not doing more cardio like she's training for these massive mountains why is she not doing multiple multiple of these long sessions which is typical but in all honesty this is a personal situation we need to be aware of our schedule and i personally much prefer to fit in four quality sessions per week and have her happy and positive and in a good spot, then instead of just throwing her in the deep end, just try to overload her and just end up being a negative situation. On top of that, again, in this personal situation, Ali, compared to many other mountaineers out there, she does have a bit of a leeway here, because she's got a long, long, long history of endurance activities of years and years and years and years, which does give a bit of leeway. She's also had a big recent history of being out in the mountains and long expeditions. She has recently spent months out in the mountains. On top of that, when she's actually going back over to the mountains, she's not going to be doing a fast acclimatization schedule. She's got a very long season. She's got plenty of time to build up on the mountain, get out there, and expose the body there.

[11:57] We do have a bit of leeway in regards to alleys over time. Then as we get closer to the trip, the intention was we're going to start off small, fit where she is, and slowly but surely, build up, build up, build up, build up.

[12:09] And I think when we came to a running, I think initially we were like, you know what, you're actually just going to start with a 45-minute run. And I think that's literally all we were doing. And that's the initial session. And over time, we're going to build up. So essentially, that's what we sort of started off. And we were like, look, two strength sessions, one cycling intervals, one hiking intervals. Now, over time, over the 18 weeks, very, very, very simple in regards to how we progress things. And it isn't rocket science, but it's very, very, very simple. Now, on the strength side of things, as I sort of said before, typically what we look at is having half the workout strength, so sort of slightly heavier stuff, and half the workout with endurance stuff. Now, typically the way I like to work this is pretty much through the entire process, I just keep a thread of both of those. I don't do the whole max strength and then endurance and sort of change those phases. It works, yeah, but I feel like I prefer this other approach. And we also knew with Ali, because she's got such a long season, she's not going to be climbing right away after she flies out. We actually want to keep a thread of her strength all the way up till she flies out. So she's still maintaining, still building that strength. So for the months when she's actually over there, there won't be quite as much drop off. So essentially all we really looked at in regards to progressing over the 18 weeks. And I think we're at the time of recording, maybe in about 16 weeks or something like that.

[13:28] Yeah, the progression, very, very simple. The strength portion of things started off relatively moderate as we're just getting back into training, getting back into things. And I think it was starting around about, you know, eight to 10 to 12 reps, depending on the exercise. And it's just easy to back into the exercises, making sure that we're covering the full body, upper body, lower body, front of the body, back of the body, lower limbs, covering everything. And essentially what we've done with the strength staff is essentially phase by phase by phase, we've just made a little bit more challenging. Every three weeks, we've just given her a slightly more difficult exercise variation, and we've adjusted the reps a little bit. So we've gone a little bit heavier, a little bit heavier, a little bit heavier, a little bit heavier, a little bit more difficult, a little bit more difficult, a little bit more difficult over time. Very, very simple. Similar thing for the endurance side of things. Over time, we've just made that a little bit more difficult, added in extra more difficult exercise variations, made a bit more challenging, a bit more challenging, a bit more challenging. And then varying between, you know, maybe 15-ish reps or something, which is pretty like low end for endurance up to something might be 20, 25 reps or whatever it may be and sort of flowing between the two. Literally over the period of 16 or 18 weeks, that's kind of what we've been doing. And that's very, very simple. We just progressed it over time. Not rocket science, but it's worked out pretty well.

[14:44] Now, on the cardio side of things, you know, we sort of started with a longer running. Like initially, we were just starting off with a 45-minute run. And that's it because she was coming off the back of, you know, a bit of a break, coming off the back of, you know, some foot issues. We wanted to be conservative with that. So essentially, we just started off with a 45-minute trail run. And then essentially, over this period of 18 weeks, we've just bumped it up a little bit, bumped it up a little bit, bumped it up a little bit, and slowly, slowly, slowly, but surely built up. And I think she said in yesterday's episode, she's up to about a seven-hour trail run now, which isn't entirely 100% running, like there is some hiking up and up hills or whatever it may be, but seven hours of movement. So that's a pretty big progression over a period of 18 weeks, but that's literally how it's gone. Now, as with all training, it's never been a linear process. There have been periods where she's been going, going, going really, really, really good. And then we're like, oh, you know what? Actually, I'm a little bit low energy. Well, you know what? I need a little bit of a break. And in those weeks, she's just pulled things back a little bit. And then once the energy's come back, ramp things up. Again, it's been pretty flexible, but it's been very, very effective.

[15:49] And she's up to seven hours now, feeling pretty good. So the running side of things, very, very simple.

[15:55] And then on the shorter cardio, essentially what we've been looking at is pretty straightforward as well. Essentially what we started off with was just some simple, I think it was like three minute intervals on the bike. So higher intensity stuff, but sort of longer duration where she's three minutes pretty quick rest for about 90 seconds repeat that a few times week by week by week we just added a little bit more so added some more sets and added some more sets we did that for a couple of phases then we introduced short periods of sort of slightly higher intensity stuff where we did short sharp bursts of very high sprint training where she was just getting exposure that very very high heart rates and very high intensities did that for a few weeks and then we changed the focus again i think we changed into a slightly heavier endurance session where basically we were looking at.

[16:40] Just grinding out some heavy resistance on the bike. So loading up the quads with quite a bit of resistance, but again, protecting the foot. And we just kind of flow between different things, depending on kind of what we felt like we needed in the moment, whether it's that longer interval stuff, whether it's the short, sharp stuff or the heavy endurance stuff. And essentially we've just gone between those sessions as a way to compliment things, make sure we're working on all these different qualities of fitness and slowly build things up. Very, very simple. Again, it's not rocket science, but it's been very, very effective.

[17:10] And then on top of that, you know, obviously we started off with the four sessions, two strength, one run, and then the intervals and the slightly higher intensity, more difficult intervals. And that was what we originally started with. Now, the whole plan was we were never aware that like, hey, that's never going to be enough as we get too closer to the trip. So week 10 of the process, we ended up adding in an extra session where we were loading in some heavy loader pack hill climbing, which is the stock standard for mountaineers. A lot of people listening to this will be familiar with it, but essentially just looking at a nice, long, sustained climb, loading up the pack very, very, very heavy so we can get a really good leg burn and really, really, really work on that endurance stuff and then slowly sustaining it up and then essentially getting to the top, dumping out the weight, going back down the bottom and repeating. And essentially we introduced that around about week 10 with the intention of saying, okay, if we had an 18-week process, which had a bit of a flexible end date, we'd end up getting six, seven, eight weeks of this building up and getting pretty heavy. And then potentially, if we ended up being a little bit longer, we could get a couple of extra weeks in there as well, which works out pretty well. And essentially, I think she said in yesterday's episode that she's up to about 20 kilos in the pack weight, doing that pretty comfortably as she's climbing up and getting some good time there.

[18:28] And essentially, and on top of that, we've also had that little recovery mobility session, which we just kept through the entire time. Just some simple stretching, simple self-massage to keep the body feeling good.

[18:39] Now, in all honesty, that's pretty much what we've done with Ali's program. It hasn't been any different than what I do with most of my mountaineers, but it's just been in a way that's been personalized around her, her situation, her needs, and her preferences, and basically just looking at the time that we had available, what we could work on, what the priorities for her were, and slowly but surely build things up. And you can see the difference between in the initial of weeks where she was only really doing four hours of exercise at the most up to now where she's doing, I don't know, 12, 13, 14 hours in a week or something like that.

[19:17] Obviously been quite a progression, but bit by bit by bit, we built things up and got her in a really, really good spot for now. So right now we're kind of at the tail end of things. And realistically for us, we're just going to keep on bumping things up until she flies out. Depending on her energy, like there may be periods where we may need to sort of taper off before the flight. If she's got a million things going on or whatever it may be. But if not, then we're just going to keep on moving things forward. Because again, Ali's got a lot of time when she flies over there before she actually starts climbing. So going through the traditional taper period of a week or two of pulling things back may just be a little bit preemptive. But we'll just sort of see how our body's feeling up, see how our mind's feeling up and just play it by ear from there. And with that being said, that is the secret sauce for Ali's preparation.

[20:02] Hope it was interesting for you. But as I sort of said, you know, it's not rocket science. It's not secret stuff. It's not any different than what I talk about in this podcast every single day. But it really just comes down to the personal situation. And if you can find the right training, the right workouts, the right exercises that fit within those sort of four pillars, the strength training, the mountaineering specific conditioning, the longer cardio, and the recovery mobility, but take those ideas and filter it down into your specific situation, you know, that's where really the magic happens.

[20:32] Now, Ali at this stage has not gone off on a trip. Hopefully, we'll be seeing some really, really cool things from her for this year and years ahead as she continues with her project and continues with these big climbs. And it's going to be very, very interesting to see how it all plays out. So with that being said, I hope this was interesting. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got a little bit of insight into kind of how this all gets applied practically into someone's preparations. and, you know, hopefully you can watch Ali's adventures and see how it all plays out in real life.

[21:03] So with that being said, last thing I do want to say is, you know, if you've been listening to this and you're like, you know what, Rowan, this does make sense. You know, I can see how these ideas sort of come together into a program. And in all honesty, I've got some big climbing coming up. I would love to learn how this may apply to me and my situation and how I can actually put this into my life. If you're in that situation and you want to learn a little bit more, I would love to chat with you. Essentially, if you did want to learn a bit more about our online personal training and how we do help mountaineers, all you need to do is just go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer. Now, on that page, there's a video that talks a little bit more about our program. And if you want to learn a little bit more, there's a link on that page where you can book a call with our team. From there, we can sit down, learn about you, your situation, your climbing, your aspirations, your needs, and really, really just get a good understanding of exactly where you're at. And if it does sound like something that field falls within our wheelhouse that we are confident we may be able to help you out with. From there, we can talk you through one of our packages which may potentially fit in to your life. So with that being said, if you did want to check it out, 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 bit out of it and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

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