Training For High Altitude Hiking

Many of the world's most magnificent hikes are at high altitudes. Adventures like Everest Base Camp, Kilimanjaro and the Inca Trail are on many hikers' bucket lists.

Unfortunately, most hikers out there don't have easy access to mountains or high altitudes to train in. Which can lead to a lot of stress, worry and anxiety leading into these adventures...
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So, in today's video, we explore a range of different training topics for preparing for high-altitude hiking.

How To Train For High Altitude Hiking 

Inside, we cover:

• The major challenges hikers face in a high-altitude environment
• The biggest mistake I see from hikers who are training for high-altitude
• How to best approach your cardio training when training for high altitude
• The effectiveness and use of simulated altitude training for high-elevation hikes
• Three effective approaches to breathing training for high-altitude hikers
• A few extra considerations for anyone going to an altitude

To learn more about the 'Do It Yourself' Course mentioned in the video, you can go here: https://www.summitstrength.com.au/do-it-yourself.html


To learn about online personal training for hikers and mountaineers, you can check out the Online SUmmit Program here: https://www.summitstrength.com.au/online.html


Video Transcript:

​[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's workshop, we are going into a bit of detail around how to train and physically prepare for high-attitude hiking, and also this can count for mountaineering as well.

[0:15] Now, essentially, when it comes down to it, and the reason why I'm talking about this is, you know, many of the world's most desired trails out there are at high-attitude, things like Everest Base Camp or Kilimanjaro or the Inca Trail, just to name a few. Some of these amazing bucket list adventures that so many of us have on our list are up at high attitude. But unfortunately, when it comes down to this, only a small percentage of hikers out there are lucky enough to actually have access to mountains and to high attitude to actually train on. Where I live in Australia, even our tallest mountain in the country is not classified as high attitude. And so many people around the world are in similar situations. Now, what this can lead to is just a lot of hikers who are eyeing off these adventures. Maybe you've booked one or maybe just dreaming about it and just getting really, really worried and stressed and even anxious about surviving and performing during these adventures and in this more extreme environment, which is absolutely fair enough because high attitude needs to be respected. But a lot of people are just a little bit confused about what they should be doing.

[1:21] And unfortunately, usually the first place people look is they'll go online, they'll say, how do I prepare for high attitude hiking? or they'll go into a community group or something and they'll ask. And unfortunately, a lot of the information out there around training and physical preparation is very, very confusing. A lot of it's misleading. And a lot of it out there is just written by people who, in all honesty, don't really know what they're talking about. There is good stuff out there, but sometimes it can be a little bit hard to discern between the two, especially for the average hiker. And you'll often sort of see things in community groups or whatever it may be, and people sort of saying, hey, you know, there's nothing you can do to prepare for attitude. I did no training and I went up to the top of Kilimanjaro. I was fine, which in some cases may be true, but it's not great advice. Or people sort of say, hey, just go out and hike and run and, you know, that will get you where you need to be. Or just practice drinking lots and lots and lots of water. That's the main thing you need to do so you can drink lots of water up there. Or just go out and do HIIT training, whatever it may be. And all of this stuff, like.

[2:20] It is stuff I see all the time posted up, and it is a little bit tricky. None of this is ideal. None of this is great advice, and sometimes it can be tough knowing where you should put your focus. So essentially, the plan of attack for today is just basically give a comprehensive workshop almost on what you can do here and some simple and practical training strategies you can use to give yourself the best chance possible in the mountains. Because I do talk about this topic quite a bit in regards to training for high attitude, but quite often my different ideas and strategies are kind of spread throughout the internet in different areas.

[2:57] So the intention of this workshop is kind of get everything into one place. Now what we're going to be covering today, number one, we're just going to cover the challenges of high attitude hiking because it's always good just to identify those off the bat so you know exactly what we're trying to prepare for. We're going to cover the biggest mistake I often see from hikers when preparing for a high-attitude adventure. We're going to cover cardio training for high-attitude hiking. We're going to talk a little bit about simulated attitude training. We're talking about breathing training for high-attitude, and then a few extra strategies on top of that. So hopefully you'll come out the other end of this feeling, having a good, good, good understanding of where to put your attention and time into.

[3:32] So to be clear, before we even get into all of this, to be clear, the absolute best way to prepare yourself and train yourself for a high-attitude adventure is to get exposure to natural attitude. There is no argument about that. That is 100% the truth. For people who are lucky enough to have access to this, say you live in the mountains or you live somewhere where it's just an hour away or whatever it may be, this should honestly be your main priority. If you can get time and spend time and actually hike at a high-attitude, happy days, go right ahead with that. But for the 99% of hikers who do not have easy access to this, the idea behind these ideas we're talking about here is going to fill the gap a little bit. It's not going to be as good as actually spending time up at high altitude, but if you don't have access to this, this will get you as close to what we need as possible. Now, on top of that, what I'm about to share is by no means meant to replace a traditional acclimatization schedule. I know a lot of people out there sort of like look at these fast acclimatization things where they're like, hey, where can I cut off days or even weeks, depending on your expedition, of actually spending time acclimatizing and this and that. What I'm talking about is not meant to replace this. This stuff can help you. This stuff can be beneficial, but still, please follow a proper acclimatization schedule. That, again, is going to be one of your main priorities.

[4:49] So with that being said, let's talk about challenges for high-attitude hiking. Number one, the first and foremost, attitude sickness. This is obviously the major concern for a lot of people because we hear all these stories about going up to high attitude, getting attitude sickness, which can rain from anything that's mild, making us feel a little bit not so good, to some more serious medical conditions, all the way up to some very, very serious medical conditions, and this and that. And attitude sickness is obviously the main concern for a lot of people, and there's a few different types of attitude sickness, but that's the main thing we need to be considered about. And essentially what tends to happen here is basically if your body cannot acclimatize in time and it doesn't adapt and doesn't get used to the attitude environment, then it can go the other way. Then we can kind of pick up attitude sickness in one way or another. So that's a big, big, big factor for a lot of people.

[5:38] Now on the flip side of things, outside of the actual attitude sickness side of things, We also want to think about performance. So we're not even just considering, okay, attitude sickness, which is a main thing, but there's a lot of performance considerations, which can be challenging at high attitude. You're on attitude, pretty much everything you do will feel significantly harder.

[5:56] Walking, climbing, running, whatever you're doing, every single thing you do is going to feel significantly harder. On top of that, breathing can obviously be tough when you're in that environment where the air is literally thinner actually breathing and catching your breath and being comfortable with that can be tough. On top of that, fatigue is a major issue because as we sort of said, everything will not only feel harder, but everything you do will be using more energy, will literally be using more fuel. So all your energy demands will go up. On top of that, which goes hand in hand with this, our appetite and how hungry we actually are typically will go down. So we end up having this big mismatch in between our energy, because fuel is energy, our food is energy. And if we're not eating enough in this place when we're using so much energy, that can lead to a lot of fatigue.

[6:48] Then we've also got sleep disturbances, like sleeping comfortably up at high altitude doesn't happen for a lot of people. There's a lot of disturbances here that can add to fatigue as well. And on top of that, we've obviously got our typical hiking challenges as well, sleeping in a foreign environment. If you're just not like used to, if you're sleeping in tea houses or if you're locally and just sleeping on sleep systems, which aren't amazing for you or whatever it may be.

[7:10] There's like obviously long days of hiking. There's obviously just that accumulated fatigue. Fatigue is a major issue on these environments.

[7:18] Now, a few important points that we need to consider when we're sort of thinking about this is when we're on the attitude sickness topic, because that's the main thing that we want to consider, directly, the stuff we're going to be talking about today, when we're talking about training and physical preparation, directly, training probably isn't going to make a major difference to your risk of attitude sickness directly. So, what I mean by that is if you are more fit, that is not automatically going to mean you have less chance of attitude sickness. That's not how it works. That's not how it goes. Fitness is not a protective mechanism automatically against altitude sickness. The main direct risk factors for altitude sickness are going to be your speed of ascent, so how much time you actually have to acclimatize as you're going up, and also genetics. There's a big genetic factor where some people get very, very affected at high altitude, some people not so much. You can't really control that, but they're the two main direct risk factors.

[8:14] However, the training and kind of where we're coming from in the context of training is it can have an indirect effect here in the sense that when it comes down to attitude sickness, exhaustion and major fatigue, they are risk factors when it comes down to attitude sickness. So if you're getting to that stage where you're very, very tired and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so tired at the end of the day, and that's happening day after day, that can be a risk factor for attitude sickness. So essentially what we're looking with our training and physical preparation is making a major difference to that, making sure we can manage that fatigue as much as we can, minimize the risk of exhaustion, minimize the risk of fatigue, so you can have the best chance possible there in what we can actually control. Now, if we can reduce your fatigue, we'll reduce the risk of exhaustion, we'll allow you to have some more reserves at the end of the day to help recovery. So when you actually get to the end of the day, have that energy to recover, to adapt, to sort of get better and give you a little bit of a leeway there and also improve your enjoyment. Like a lot of times people kind of get hung up on, okay, I just want to get to the summit. I just want to complete and get end to end, but we also want to be in that stage where we can actually enjoy these experiences and training can make a major difference to that. So just keep that in mind as much as what we're about to talk about today can be very, very useful, can be very, very beneficial for hikers at high altitude. That's kind of where we're coming from here.

[9:30] Now, the biggest mistake we see from hikers preparing for high attitude, and I see this all the time, articles, podcasts, people recommending this and all of that, and the biggest mistake I see is we'll often see the advice that to get ready for high attitude, high intensity interval training is the best approach. So going out and do HIIT classes where you do really, really, really high intensity, have a rest, really, really, really high intensity, have a rest, and do that repeatedly. Now, on the surface level, this does make sense because at high attitude, we get out of breath. Fair enough. During HIIT classes or HIIT training, we get out of breath as well. So if we train and develop HIIT, that will make our breathing and make us feel more comfortable at high attitude. And on the surface level, yeah, that makes sense. But this is the tricky thing when we have people who don't really understand training at maybe a deeper level giving out training advice, because on the surface level, it makes sense. But in reality, it is a little bit backwards.

[10:24] So to explain this, we just need to talk about energy systems for a give a quick primer about this. So energy systems in our body, the way that we create energy for movement, for exercise, for hiking, for yada, yada, yada, we have different energy systems. Now there's two big divisions between the energy systems in our bodies and how we create energy. Number one, there's something that's called the aerobic energy system. Essentially what this does is it produces energy while using oxygen as a fuel source, produces energy while using oxygen as part of the process. Now, this particular energy system, it's slow. It basically, it takes a while. It's slow. It doesn't produce energy quickly. However, it's very, very, very efficient. It's very, very, very fuel efficient, meaning you can use it for long periods of time. So essentially, the aerobic energy system is designed to give you energy for long periods of time at slightly lower intensities when we don't need that energy really quickly.

[11:20] On the flip side of things, we have these other things that are called anaerobic energy systems. And there's a couple of different ones in here, but we'll just lump them all together for our respects here. Anaerobic energy systems essentially produce energy without using oxygen as a fuel source. Now, these particular energy systems, they're quick. They're designed to give us quick energy for when we need it, when we're doing something quick, when we're running, when we're jumping, when we're just trying to get energy very, very quickly. But they basically sacrifice efficiency for speed. So essentially these particular energy systems, they use a lot of fuel. They use way more fuel than the aerobic energy system for the amount of energy they create. And they also do have some associated waste products where basically as part of this quicker process, when we're creating energy, certain waste products are released, which can lead to fatigue and yada yada. It's not a scary thing. It's totally, totally normal. And it's just a natural thing that happens in the body, but it is good to be aware of. Now, when we're looking at typical hit. So if you go down a local gym and you jump into a class where you're doing 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off, or maybe you're doing 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, or 30 seconds on, or whatever it may be, these short, sharp interval training sessions, what they are designed to do is predominantly focus on those anaerobic energy systems because they're high intensity rest, high intensity rest for short, sharp periods. There will be a bit of aerobic component. It's not like completely black and white, but they're predominantly aimed at those anaerobic energy systems.

[12:47] Now, the tricky thing here is if we spend all our time training and developing these things and spend all our time focusing on that, we're going to become more and more reliant on the anaerobic energy systems, which isn't a terrible thing in day-to-day life. However, when we're hiking, we want to be as efficient as possible. We want to be able to go for hour after hour after hour with as much efficiency, as minimal fatigue as we want. So we want to be using those aerobic energy systems as much as we can and minimizing anaerobic stuff. There will be some component of that and at high altitude, we will be relying on that a little bit more, but we want to push it towards aerobic as much as we want. So our training should reflect this. Our training should look at saying, hey, aerobic energy, that's what we want to develop. That's what we want to rely on. That's what we want to train for the most part.

[13:35] So a better way of approaching your cardio as opposed to doing generic HIIT sessions is focus on developing your aerobic energy system. It may sound a bit backwards to say, hey, we actually want to do slightly lower intensity stuff to help us in these environments, but the whole concept of go hard, go home, it's very, very old school. This is going to give you much, much, much better results.

[13:56] Now, by training and improving your aerobic fitness, you will have a much better

[14:01] chance of performing in the mountains. You'll have a much better chance of having a good time, a much better chance of reducing that fatigue. And ultimately, it's just the best thing you can do.

[14:10] So how can we go about this? Well, there's a couple of different things that I typically recommend in regards to this. Number one, aerobic capacity. You've probably heard me talk about this before and other people talk about this before. Aerobic capacity is essentially the maximal capacity of our aerobic energy system has to produce energy. So essentially, the ability of this energy system just to go and go and go and go for hour after hour after hour after hour, That's basically it, our capacity for this. This is the single most important aspect of fitness for any hiker out there. Not even talking about high altitude, any hiker. And then we're up at high altitude, this gets even more important because we want to be fuel efficient. We want to be making sure we're not burning through energy and yada yada. Now, aerobic capacity is best developed through periods of lower intensity training, which you do for long durations. So not just doing 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, but doing 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, multiple hours, this type of stuff. So typical examples we sort of get in this is our hiking. Literally going out and hiking at a steady pace, at a pace that isn't too quick is great for this. Load a pack walking, put it on a pack, walking around the local neighborhood, walking on a treadmill, whatever it may be. Cycling, elliptical, row up, swimming, any of this sort of long duration cardio is.

[15:27] Which is relatively low intensity. Now, the key to this is if we're doing this type of stuff, we don't want to turn these sessions into a race. We don't want to have that whole go hard, go home mindset because if we're going out hiking and say we're just rushing through it and we are constantly at this higher intensity, it may go the other way. It may not be quite as effective and we don't really want that. So what we want to do when we're doing these sessions is keeping intensity low for the most part. So two simple ways you can measure this. Number one is nose breathing pace. This is a really, really, really simple thing. Basically, if you are hiking, if you are walking, if you are cycling, and you can breathe comfortably in and out through your nose, that probably says you are predominantly using your aerobic energy system. If you get to the pace where you're pushing in a bit quicker and you're like, I can't really stick with that. I have to actually huff and puff through my mouth. That's a sign that's saying, hey, that intensity is creeping up. So maybe you want to pull it back. Very, very simple, but very effective. Now, if you're the type of person who maybe has some limitations with your nose, maybe you've got small nostrils or a deviated septum or something like that, you can basically use conversational pace instead. So as you're walking along, as you're hiking along, stick to a pace where you can comfortably carry a conversation without having to huff and puff in between words.

[16:38] Or alternatively, you may often see online people talking about zone two training, which is pretty much the same thing. So if you use a heart rate monitor, if you like that, you can stick in your zone two. I won't talk too much about that and getting the nitty gritty, but that's basically it. So when we're looking at this aerobic capacity training, stick to keeping that lower intensity. Now, the key to this type of training over the long term is we can sort of say, hey, just go out and hike or hey, just go out and walk. But the key to this to get the most out of this is progressive overload. Like with any type of training, the body gets used to things relatively quickly. So to ensure that it's continually improving and getting better and getting stronger and getting fitter, we want to show slowly but surely add some extra challenge over time. Now, ideally in these situations, we want to add some extra time or duration. So we might hike for two hours one week, three hours the next week, four hours the next week, five hours the next week, and slowly bump things up. Or you may cycle for 45 minutes and then 50 minutes and 55 minutes and just add an extra five minutes on each week. That can work really well. Obviously, that does have some limitations because sometimes it can end up being like just taking forever. So you can also add extra weight if you like hiking or pack walking and load things up there, add some extra difficulty, or we can add a little bit extra intensity to a degree. So you may sort of say, you know what, I've been having really, really, really casual walks. So now I'm just going to bump the speed up a little bit. Again, we don't want to turn this into the type of thing where it's an absolute race where we're getting really, really huffed and puffed, but you can sort of look at that there.

[18:02] Or we can use more challenging sessions. You know, an example of progression might be like, okay, for four weeks, I'm going to do pack walking on the flat. And then for four weeks, I might do pack walking with a little bit of up and down. And then for four weeks after that, I might literally just go up and down the hill for the same amount of time and whatever it may be. And you can kind of sort of look at progression there.

[18:21] So I will sort of say, that's the main, main, main, main priority when it comes down to cardio training. However, I'm fully aware that there's probably some people already as part of this workshop and they're like, okay, that makes sense. But how do I plan that out? How do I sort of do this over the next 12 weeks or six months? How do I make sure I'm getting enough and doing the right things and building things out? How do I actually put this into a plan? I have no idea. And we're not going to be talking about that today like you know because we've got much more to get through on this presentation but if you are already at this point where like you know what i kind of do need a bit more direction here one thing i do have for you is basically a little while ago i released a brand new course which is about creating your own strength conditioning program for hiking and i call it my do-it-yourself training for hiking course so essentially what it does is takes all the ideas that i talk about and the ideas i actually use for my own coaching clients and teaches you how to actually apply it yourself.

[19:19] Now, this course will basically give you clear instructions around how to plan your training hikes and ensure you have a successful build around whatever schedule you have. So, as I said before, training hiking is great. If you can hike every week or every two weeks or every three weeks, how do you plan this out over the next four months? How do you plan this out over the next five months? We will teach you how to do that. It'll give you a recipe list of great cardio workouts for hikers, which will give you outdoor home and gym workouts you can choose on, which can hone into both the aerobic capacity stuff we were talking about and other stuff I'm about to go into in a moment. It'll also give you a plug-and-play system to create effective strength training workouts. We're not really talking about that a huge amount today, but strength training is very, very, very beneficial for any hiker out there and definitely should be doing that. And also talks about time-efficient strategies on how to age your body's recovery and relaxation in between sessions, which some people kind of to collect. Now, basically, the idea behind this course, it was created just to be an affordable option for a hiker who maybe didn't want a full coaching experience that we use or maybe couldn't afford a full coaching experience, whatever it may be, and they just wanted some simple direction. It's literally only $47. It can be a great investment. So if you're in the stage already in this presentation, you're like, okay, I need help putting this together. This could be a really cool option for you.

[20:31] Basically, to find out more, you can go to summitstrength.com.au slash do dash it dash yourself. On that page has a bit more information, plus you can sign up if you're interested. I'll leave a link for that just down below the video.

[20:44] So we talked about aerobic capacity training. That's one thing. Number two, I want to talk about aerobic power training. Now aerobic power training, essentially what this is, is the maximal intensity our bodies can sustain while predominantly still using the aerobic energy system. So it's not the maximal intensity that our.

[21:05] Completely, but it's while still predominantly using the aerobic energy system, which is very, very relevant. Because obviously when we're at high altitude, there are certain periods where we're going to be working hard. There are certain periods when we're climbing up steep ascents. We are looking at a higher intensity, but we've got to do this higher intensity for two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, six minutes, whatever it may be. It can be a little bit tricky. So this aerobic power can be very, very, very useful to help us in these situations. Now, this aerobic power, it's not a case of just going out and do random interval training and saying, I'm going to do some high intensity stuff.

[21:37] There's lots of ways to approach this, but the way I like to talk about it is through a very particular approach to interval training. Now, essentially what you need to do here is basically find like a bike, an elliptical, a rower, maybe use a sled, a nice long set of stairs, a hill, or whatever it may be. And essentially what you're going to do is you're going to do periods of three minutes of quick. So for three minutes, you're going to push the pace a bit, get quite huffed and puffed, and really, really try to work hard for three minutes. Then you're going to rest for 90 seconds, so one and a half minutes. Super chill, just recover, take it easy, let the body get back to normal. And then you're going to repeat that like seven to 10 times. The idea behind that is we're just accumulating time, working hard for those extended periods. So those three minutes at a time, and it can be really, really, really effective. Now, this type of interval training, in my opinion, is just going to be orders of magnitude more effective and relevant than that short sharp stuff, that 20 seconds or that 30 seconds or that 40 second stuff we'll often do in the gym in the fitness industry. That type of stuff can be great for general fitness, but when we're in the hiking context and particularly the high attitude hiking, I'd much prefer to lean into this. So that's number two, aerobic capacity, aerobic power. So now you might be asking like, you know what, actually cool, you make sense, but in all honesty, I love HIIT training. I love the community group I have in a gym. I love the sessions I do. If you really, really do love this type of training, you know, it's fine. I'm not going to say you shouldn't do any of it.

[23:02] I'm not going to say it can be completely detrimental if you do a few sessions or whatever it may be. That is totally fine. If you do a small amount of this, it can still be useful. It can still be useful just to get the body working in those intensities, get exposed to that and feel that if it's done in a small amount.

[23:17] But the majority of your cardio should be aerobic targeted. So when we're looking at your wick, the majority of your minutes spent doing your cardio should be honed in towards aerobic capacity with a small component of that towards aerobic power. Um if you're doing high intensity stuff your entire week should be a very very small component of that so to give you an example of this if you're looking like a four-day week you might do like one hike where you might hike for four hours or five hours or something like that you might do one moderate walk where you might walk for like 60 minutes or something like that you might do one aerobic power session which might go for like 40 minutes and you might do one hit session which goes for 40 minutes so in this week you might end up doing okay four hours of hiking plus an hour walking with five hours of aerobic capacity work, then 40 minutes of aerobic power, 40 minutes of HIIT, that can work out pretty well. Just to give you an example there. Obviously, there's many, many different ways of approaching your training week, but just to give you an example.

[24:11] So that's cardio. Now let's talk about simulated attitude training. This is a really, really, really big subject for so many hikers who have a big attitude venture. Because one solution for many hikers who just can't access the mountains is to do this, what's called simulated attitude training. I know in Australia, in Sydney, this got really, really popular for a while. This is literally how I started training hikers and mountaineers in a professional sense. And it's a very, very popular thing. The idea behind this is if you can't actually get out to the mountains. We can go and expose our body to a simulated attitude environment in something like a chamber where you go in a chamber, they're pumping nitrogen to the room, it changes the percentage of oxygen, and you literally go in there. Or maybe sleeping in a tent, which does the same thing, or having a gas mask on where it pumps in nitrogen into the gas mask. And the idea behind this is if you can spend time, whether you train or just spend time in this, it can create adaptations in the body which will pre-acclimatise you. So, replace your acclimatisation or help you acclimatize before we hit the mountains and help us perform in the mountains.

[25:14] Now, before I go any further, just to be really, really clear, this is done typically in a chamber, a tent, or with a gas mask. This is not an elevation mask. So you'll often see people talking about high altitude masks or whatever it may be, where you just put on a mask on and restricts your breathing. If it's not attached to something like a hose with a gas thing in, it doesn't count as altitude training. Elevation masks are a different thing. They do not simulate attitude. The same thing with breath hold training. There is a big, big trend at the moment where we often see people talking about simulation of high attitude training, which they talk about breath hold training, so holding a breath in a certain way, which will simulate attitude training. In the hiking context, it doesn't fall into this category. It's a whole different thing. I'm going to do a big video on this in the future, but it doesn't fall into this thing. So just to be clear, we're not talking about elevation masks. We're not talking about breath hold training. We're talking about going into a chamber, a tent, or having like a gas mask on.

[26:08] This whole thing is a tricky subject because in the world of simulated attitude

[26:12] training, it can be really, really misleading. It can be really, really, really confusing because in all honesty, a lot of people misrepresent evidence. There's not a huge, well, there is a lot of studies out there, but in comparison to a lot of other areas of sports science, there isn't a huge amount, but there's a lot of studies out there where people will talk about them. They'll say, hey, hey, X, Y, and Z, this is all proven, but they kind of misrepresent it. They don't really explain things right or whatever it may be, or maybe they just don't understand it. I know when I first started in the industry, the hiking industry, I should say, when I was working that simulated altitude gym, we were given a bunch of papers which proved the effectiveness of that type of stuff. And I was like, cool, this is super interesting, yada, yada, yada. And it took me a little while to actually look into the studies we were using, which prove things. And there was a lot of question marks around them, let's just sort of say the least. So a lot of people do misrepresent the evidence here. And on top of that, a lot of the evidence itself, it's very, very, very conflicting and very, very, very confusing. There's a lot of weird stuff that goes into it. There's a lot of things like gray areas and it can be very, very confusing.

[27:13] So I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty of it all. So I'm just going to give you kind of a rundown on simulated attitude training. A few statements. Number one, training with commercially available simulated attitude. So those chambers, those tents, those masks that you may get access to commercially. It is not the same thing as natural attitude. Those two, they're similar, but they cannot be considered the same thing. They are different. They have different mechanisms and they are different things. We need to be very clear about that from the outset because already I know a lot of people will say, hey, just training a chamber for a few days a week and it will pre-acclimatize you. It is not the same thing to be very, very clear.

[27:56] Number two, there is very little evidence to show that commercially available simulated attitude training, again, this stuff that you would get access to in a chamber, a tent or a mask, which is commercially available, there's very little evidence to show that it will help prevent attitude sickness. There are some studies that say, hey, this may help in certain ways and it can reduce attitude sickness at certain attitudes, like lower attitudes or whatever it may be, but there's very little evidence. And it's going to take a lot more to kind of get to the point where it's like, hey, you know what? This is definitely going to make a major difference.

[28:32] Very little evidence there. And number two is very little evidence to show that it'll help pre-acclimatize you in the sense of saying, hey, this can replace a traditional acclimatization schedule. Or if you do this for a few weeks, you don't have to worry about having your acclimatization days or whatever there is very, very, very little evidence to show. On the flip side of that, there is some evidence to show that this type of stuff can improve our endurance performance. As we sort of said before, improving our endurance, improving our aerobic fitness can be beneficial in certain ways. So that can be indirectly beneficial. And also on top of that, there are some things that can help improve. It should read markers of attitude preparation. So one of the big things here is like when it comes down to acclimatization, there's a bunch of different things that happen in the body, which changes acclimatization. It's not just one or two things, but a bunch of different things. When we're looking at this simulated attitude training, it has been shown to consistently improve a few of those things or a range of those things, but it's not the whole thing. So when they've actually tested this with attitude sickness, a lot of the time or most of the time, it hasn't really shown a major difference, even though it may be beneficial in some ways. So that may seem a little bit muddy, that may seem a little bit confusing, but it needs to be sort of set.

[29:46] If you're looking to prevent attitude sickness, this is not a guarantee. If you're looking to prevent a pre-acclimatize yourself, this is not a guarantee. If you're looking just to give yourself a little bit of a bump and a little bit of improvement to improve endurance performance and potentially give you a little bit of an advantage, this may be useful. So, going down that.

[30:06] But one, one, one very important thing with this type of stuff is if you are looking at simulated attitude training, length of exposure is the single most important factor. So what I mean by that is there have been reviews of studies that are shown. And you look at all the evidence out there. There's a lot of people who've done a bunch of different studies. Some studies have shown good results. Some studies haven't shown good results, whatever it may be. The general conclusion with attitude training, simulated attitude training, is if we want to get consistent results across a broad spectrum of people that will consistently give us benefits for the mountains. We need to be aiming for lots and lots of time. There's one recommendation in a review that I've read, which is over 250 hours exposure to this.

[30:53] You've got to be aware of this because if we need to get at least 250 hours for consistent results, that's a lot of time. We can generally accomplish this if you're sleeping in a tent. If you're sleeping eight hours in a tent for four or five or six weeks before you go on expedition, that may be beneficial for you. But if you're just going down to an altitude gym and you're just doing one or two sessions for a few weeks, you know what? It probably isn't really enough time to really give us the best chance. So just to be clear, length of exposure is the number one most important factor here. On top of that, with the tents, you know, they do have their own drawbacks like, you know, domestic disputes of having your partner, you know, listen to, you know, you sleeping away for four weeks or six weeks before you go away for a long period of time. Obviously, sleep gets disturbed, this and that. That's a whole different thing, but just to be clear on that.

[31:46] And on top of that, just be aware, if you're going down this route, it's the out of patience you get from simulated attitude training, very, very similar, real attitude in this respect, it will deteriorate pretty quickly. So what you're trying to do here is it's not like you just do a few random sessions here and there, but you kind of want to lump all the time you can before you actually go on your expedition, basically. When it comes down to all of this, you know, I personally recommend for most hikers out there, don't go down this route. Like if you're a hardcore mountaineer and if you're going to extremes of attitude and you're like, you know what, I'm throwing so much money at this already that I just want to be in the absolute cover every single base. Yeah, perhaps it might be worthwhile, but for most hikers out there, in all honesty, I don't recommend going down this route. If you do have the money and inclination, go right ahead, but the evidence isn't quite there for a strong recommendation. I personally say, do the right acclimatization, do the basics of training, that's going to be the best benefits.

[32:40] Next up, we talked about simulated attitude training. Let's talk about breathing training for high attitude, because a lot of people will naturally consider their breathing when preparing for a high attitude adventure, because obviously being up on the mountain, air gets thinner, breathing gets tougher. That is one of the main struggles for a lot of people. Now, when it comes down to this, there are a thousand different breathing techniques out there and a thousand different methods of training for breathing.

[33:03] Some of it's good, some of it's debatable. A lot of people will sort of say, hey, this is really good for high attitude, but then there's like a big question mark, and is this actually effective or not? It's a funny old world. And breathing training can just, yeah, it's just a rabbit hole.

[33:18] It could just be really, really, really confusing. And again, we see a lot of people just misrepresenting things instead of saying, hey, this breathing technique has been proven to help you on the mountain. And then the proof is like, where is the proof? It's crazy. So the way I approach this and the way I typically recommend this is kind of keep things relatively simple on the breathing training. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk you through two very, very simple, accessible methods of training for your breathing. And then one slightly more advanced method that you can look into just to kind of keep things very, very basic on this one. The first accessible method is diaphragmatic breathing, also known as abdominal breathing or belly breathing. And this is something you have probably heard before, but this is really, really, really relevant. When it comes down to our breathing, our diaphragm is our main breathing muscle. For our most efficient breathing, so the most efficient mechanics of our breathing, we want to be using the diaphragm quite a bit. We want to be bringing air down in deep. We want to be feeling it in the belly. We want to be using the diaphragm and that it's going to be one of our most efficient methods of breathing. For many of us, what can happen, and this especially happens when we get out of breath, is sometimes we don't actually use the diaphragm as much as we could. And what we end up falling into is what we call like chest or shoulder breathing. So instead of breathing the air deep into the belly and feeling the belly expand, what we end up doing is just doing these little.

[34:36] Breathing in the chest and in and out, in and out. And there are muscles in the chest and the neck which are responsible for some breathing, but we don't want to be relying on them too much.

[34:45] They're smaller muscles. They're not quite as efficient. Breathing up in here isn't quite as efficient. That's not what we really want. So the idea goes, and the general chain of logic here, is if we can train and practice this diaphragmatic breathing and teach our body to do this at rest, during easy exercise, during more difficult exercise, and just turn that into kind of a natural process, this can be much more efficient, and this can be a little bit more accessible for you on the mountain.

[35:11] Now, the specific benefits of this diaphragmatic breathing are it can naturally slow our breathing rate down, which can be beneficial because, again, really, really up and here, like really, really quick hyperventilation isn't super efficient. Slower breathing can actually improve our oxygenation. Gosh, I can't say that word. It can improve us. It can be a little bit better. Let's just sort of say that. It can allow better gas exchange. So actually give the ability of gas exchange to be more efficient in the body. I'm trying to make this really, really simple. And then also improve blood oxygen saturation, potentially. So if we are breathing deeper, breathing slower, having more gas exchange, this can potentially improve our blood oxygen saturation up on the mountain, which is pretty good. It can also help us calm down. A lot of us, when we're up on the mountain, we're breathing quickly, we're breathing in our chest, We can start getting stressed out and that can kind of add to things. This diaphragmatic breathing can calm things down, bring it a little bit slower,

[36:07] again, can be beneficial. And there's a few other bits and pieces that goes into that, but that's kind of the main thing. Calms us down, a little bit more efficient, basically.

[36:15] So how do you go about this? Well, it's very, very, very simple. First place to start is basically just do this sitting or lying down. You can literally do this while we're doing this today. Sit in a chair, put your hands across your belly. You can probably put your fingertips just attaching, connecting just across your belly button. What you want to do is just think about breathing in through the nose. As you breathe in, you want to feel the belly expand and those fingers come apart and not have a huge amount of movement through the chest. So big breath in, feel that belly come out and then exhale feel that belly come in and literally that that is just practicing in and out in and out feeling that belly come in and out very very simple that's the first point to do it and for some people that can be a little bit tricky it takes a little bit of intention a little bit of practice and we work through that once you're feeling like hey that's pretty doable then you can start practicing that when you're standing up literally just standing up makes it a little bit tougher standing in one point just makes it a little bit more difficult. Practice that. Once that feels pretty good, then you can start practicing when you're walking. So just do a 20-minute walk around the local area and practice this. Put your attention into focusing on this. Big breaths in, big breaths out, feeling that belly come in and out, in and out, all the way through. Once you're kind of feeling happy with that, then you can practice it with a pack on your back. You'll notice immediately the pack does make things a little bit more difficult. It weighs things down, it restricts things a little bit, and it takes a bit of practice. So you can practice this.

[37:37] And you can also do this on your hikes as well. So basically just practicing when you're actually out on the trail, getting that habit of doing this, sticking with this and working with it. That's kind of the basics. So that's number one, that diaphragmatic breathing. It's very, very basic. You probably heard about it before, but it's the foundational breathing strategy you want to nail. It's the foundational breathing strategy will probably give you the best benefits. And it's just very, very accessible and easy to do. So that's number one. Once you've kind of got your head around that, then we can kind of go into what I really call drill, which I like, which you can kind of combine with a training session. Because when it comes down to these environments, two things many hikers struggle with. Number one, pacing on steep uphills. There are a lot of hikers out there who only have two speeds. They have climbing a hill and they have stopping. They can either climb a hill and get really, really like just go quick and push it and they get really tired or they completely stop. And a lot of hikers out there, when they end up hiking up hills, even at sea level, they'll just pushing at a pace where they get really, really out of breath. As we sort of said before, if you're pushing to this type of pace where you're getting out of breath and you're trying to sustain that for a while, that is not super efficient for fuel. That'll be pushing those anaerobic energy systems and you can sustain that for a while, but it will tie you out relatively quickly. So learning to pace and learning to actually pull back your speed on these climbs so we can stay a little bit more aerobic and just be a little bit more efficient, that's a skill. And if you can develop this and practice this, it can be really beneficial.

[39:06] On top of that, another thing that a lot of hikers struggle with is controlling breathing when it actually gets too fast without having to stop. So what I mean by that is a lot of hikers, when they're climbing up a hill, they'll get to this point where the breathing gets a little bit quick and they've got two options. They either push through and just deal with it and the breathing gets quicker and quicker and quicker and you're like, oh my gosh, when's this end going to end? When's this going to end? And keep on dealing with that. Or they have to have a complete rest and they have to stop and gather their breasts and practice things. And a lot of people struggle with that skill of actually being able to pull your pace back and pull your breathing back while you're still moving which is really really relevant for hiking because you may not want to stop 20 times going up a hill but you may get into points where it gets a little bit quick so this breathing control drill is a simple way of going about this essentially what you want to do here is you want to find some type of incline so you can do this on a hill or a set of stairs if you have access to them and you do it on a stair master in a gym you could do this on an incline treadmill in a gym. If you don't have access to any of those, you could do it on like a box step. So an aerobic step or a bench or something like that. So something in the way we're just going to be going up or down.

[40:10] What we want to do, very, very simple, climb for four minutes, focusing on that diaphragmatic breathing. And also on top of this, probably worthwhile sticking with that nose breathing as well. So keeping your mouth closed, breathing in and out through the nose. And as you're breathing in, feeling that belly come in and out, in and out, and not a huge amount through the chest and shoulders. So you're getting that rhythm of slow and steady breathing. The first time you do this, you might be like, this is actually really difficult to do. And if this is really difficult to do climbing, then just focus on this. Just practice this for week after week until you can do this. You may have to pull your pace way, way back, but get that right. Now, once you can comfortably climb for four minutes of this, then we want to throw in one minute of quicker pace, where basically you ramp up the pace a little bit and you actually push the breathing to that point where you're getting huffed and puffed. And you're like, oh my gosh, you know, breathing is getting quick and this and that. and you sustain that for one minute. Then once that minute's up, then basically you pull your pace back down. You don't stop, but you pull your pace back down and we climb for another four minutes, but this time really, really focusing on bringing the breathing back down to that diaphragmatic breathing and that nose breathing as quickly as possible and sustaining that. That may take you a minute or two minutes to actually get your breathing back down there depending on how it feels for you. That's a really, really beneficial skill to use. So not only can this be a really, really good workout because it can work our aerobic energy system. It can give us a little bit of exposure to that quicker stuff. And it can just obviously give us exposure to elevation, like going up.

[41:34] It's really, really useful for this breathing skill as well. So give it a go. Strongly recommend. And then obviously you repeat that as many times as you want.

[41:42] Now, the final thing I'll sort of say on breathing, I want to talk you through some advanced breathing training. Now, this, to be clear, this is not necessary for the majority of people out there. This is not necessary for every single hiker. This is not something I say you have to, every single person has to do. Because realistically, the majority of my hikers who go out for high-altitude hikers, we do the basics. We do the aerobic power stuff. We do the aerobic capacity stuff. We do those simple breathing things. That kind of gets them where they need to be. But if you're at the point where you're getting really, really nervous, or maybe you're like, you know what, I'm aware that my breathing, I already struggle with my breathing and sea level and I'm super worried about that. This can be a kind of next step. It's called respiratory muscle training. Now, essentially, this particular method of training has some cool potential benefits for high-attitude hiking. Now, essentially, what respiratory muscle training is, is essentially strength training for your breathing muscles. So, strength training, we want to increase the strength of our arms, we add load or stimulus or weight to our arms, we do movements, we increase the strength. This is the same thing with our breathing muscles. And specifically what we're looking at is loading up and strengthening our inspiratory breathing muscles, the muscles responsible for breathing in. Now, essentially, there are some really cool, interesting research that shows that this could potentially see some really, really good benefits. I'm not saying this is 100% proven. I'm not saying this is like, absolutely, yes, this will do this, but there's some cool potential benefits here.

[43:03] It potentially can delay fatigue of breathing muscles when we're up at high altitude. So when we're up in a high-attitude environment, our breathing muscles can actually fatigue, which can lead to some stuff. And essentially, this RMT or respiratory muscle training can delay that fatigue. It can reduce our perceptions of breathlessness. So as we said before, a lot of people at high-attitude just struggle with their breathing. They just get really breathless. It stresses them out. They feel uncomfortable. This can actually reduce the feeling of that and make you feel a bit more comfortable with it. And can also improve oxygen saturation levels and a few cool other things as well. So there's some really, really cool potential benefits for this type of stuff. Again, it's not 100% like, yeah, this is black and white, 100% proven, but some cool potential benefits. Now, the drawback to this type of training and why I don't recommend it to every single hiker out there is it's not simple. It's not easily accessible for a lot of people. It's not like I can just tell you right now, you can go out and do it. The breathing muscles, when it comes down to it, they're strong. The breathing muscles are not weak things. They're not super, super under-trained. They are strong. and if we want to effectively improve the strength of them, and there's a lot of research behind this, if we want to effectively improve the strength of our breathing muscles, we actually need to apply a significant amount of load to them. So in the context of strength training, we sort of thought, okay.

[44:18] When I'm trying to improve the strength of my arms, if I just pick up a glass of water and try to do that a million times, it's probably not really going to improve our strength. What we need to do is we need to get a dumbbell or we need to get some other type of resistance where we can load things up a little bit heavier and actually challenge the muscles there. Same thing with breathing training.

[44:37] Um, to do this realistically, to actually load up the breathing muscles, we need to get a specific respiratory training device. Um, you know, something like this, like is one I have on my table here, where basically you have it, it has these little dials of resistance. You put it in your mouth, you breathe in and you'll notice it's really, it can be really, really difficult. That's how you load up your breathing muscles and this and that. You'll often see people online talking about this and they'll say, Hey, there's some cool evidence for respiratory muscle training for attitude, like do this. But then they'll sort of say, okay, we can do things like one nostril breathing where we close one nostril and breathe in. Or we'll do that diaphragmatic breathing I was mentioned before, where you're lying down, focusing on that diaphragmatic breathing, but put a weight across your stomach and move the weight up and down. Realistically, that type of stuff, it may feel difficult, but it's not going to be enough of the stimulus to actually improve this muscle strength. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of this today too much. I am going to release a much longer video diving into all of this but that type of stuff it's not really going to be super effective um the tricky thing with these devices the reason i say they are they are not accessible is they do cost a little bit of money depending on what brand you get and what device you get it will cost you anywhere from like 100 bucks to like 400 500 bucks or something to get the really expensive stuff so they do cost a little bit of money and i would sort of say if you're investing money in high attitude hiking there's probably other things you want to spend your money on first this can be beneficial but it does cost money.

[46:02] If you want to look it up, you know, the couple of big brands, Aerofit is what I use and I quite like them, A-I-R-O Fit. Another big brand is PowerBreathe and a lot of the research is done on PowerBreathe devices. So interesting things to look into. On this whole thing, I am currently actually putting together a free course on this topic, which we'll dive into it. So I think it's really, really interesting, but it does need a bit more explanation, a little bit more detail. So it's not released now as of time of recording this, but once it is released, I'll put it in the video description and I'll share on my socials as well.

[46:32] Now, finally, before we wrap up, a few extra considerations, other things you need to keep in mind. Nutrition. As we sort of said, fatigue management, major, major thing. Nutrition will play a major role in your energy and recovery. A few things that are tricky with nutrition at high attitude, when we go to high attitude, typically our appetite goes down. Even though our body needs more energy than usual, our appetite goes down, which ends up being a bit of a mismatch. On top of that, quite often we can have a taste switch. So if we prefer sweet, sometimes we you actually want savory up on the mountain or vice versa. And this can sometimes trip people up. And on top of that, inaccessible foods. Usually in the mountains, you're not going to have easy access to a bunch of different foods or whatever it may be. So this is definitely something, I'm not going to go into it, but definitely something you want to put attention into, want to put time into, want to put the thought into and make sure you're getting the fuel you need.

[47:20] On top of that strength, it's not directly linked to altitude and the cardio is going to be a main thing, but it is going to play a big role in fatigue reduction plus injury and pain prevention. In all honesty, any hiker going to high attitude, any hiker at all should be doing some type of strength training. So make sure you're not neglecting that as well. And on top of that, please see your doctor, chat with them about medications because there are medications out there which can significantly help you at high attitude. So chat with them about that and get your iron levels tested as well. Low levels of iron in your body can affect us at high altitude. So get your iron levels tested, see if they're there and if you need to do anything to bring them up. So with all that being said, let's do a quick little summary. Number one, if you're going to high altitude, nail your cardio. Aerobic capacity is going to be a main priority. A bit of aerobic power can be a nice addition and small amounts of that super high intensity stuff can be okay as well. Simulated attitude training probably doesn't have a huge amount of evidence to support it for pre-acclimatization or reducing the risk of attitude sickness. Can have some potential benefits and this and that, but probably not going to reduce your risk of attitude sickness. If you are doing it, aim for exposure time above all else. Breathing, practice and master diaphragmatic breathing in multiple different situations, not just sitting at home, but actually walking and hiking and climbing and wearing a pack. Practice that breathing control drill. And if you really, really do need extra help, maybe consider that respiratory muscle training. And then make sure you put attention into nutrition, make sure your strength training, see your doctor early.

[48:48] So there we go. Hopefully, with all that being said, this will give you a pretty solid overview in regards to how to go about your training for a high-attitude adventure. Hopefully, this kind of just gives you some clarity in regards to different areas to focus on, sort of where to hone in your time, and hopefully this can help. However, I fully understand sometimes looking at all this and you're like, you know what? Yeah, cool. That makes sense. But again, how do I plan things out? How do I actually create workouts? How do I stick with things? How do I fit around of my life? How do I manage this certain pain, ache or pain, which is a bit of a limitation on all of that? If you do need help with any of this, I would love to chat with you. What I do all day, every day through Summit Strength is we do personalized training programs for hikers to help them get fit, strong and resilient for their adventures. Essentially, what our packages will include is we will create a custom and personalized workout program to get you ready for anything the mountains may throw at you. So give you a selection of strength training, cardio training, hiking training, recovery, mobility, all fit in a way that's going to fit around you, your life, your situation, and get you in the best possible position right before your trip.

[49:50] On top of that, we also do put a big emphasis into educating you on all the peripheral factors, which can make or break an adventure. So we dive into the nutrition side of things. We dive into nutrition, recovery, self-care, mental strength. We have a bit more information around high attitude and a bunch of other things, and also give you the coaching, support, and accountability to keep on track through all the roadblocks and ups and downs that life will throw at you. Now, if you want to find out a little bit more about how all this and how we go about things, all you need to do is go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. Now on that page, there's a video which kind of talks through the program a little bit, how we go about things, gives you a bit of an overview. And if there is something you did want to learn a little bit more about on that page, you can book a call with our team. We can sit down, have a thorough chat, learn about you, your situation,

[50:31] your goals, and what you're coming up. And if it does sound like something we can help you out with, we can talk you through one of our training packages, which may suit you and see if it may be right for you. So if you did want to learn a little bit more, go to summitstrength.com.au slash online. I'll leave a link for that just below the video. But with all that being said, I really, really do hope you've enjoyed today's video. Hope you got a bit out of it. And I really do hope it makes a difference for a few people out there. So thank you for watching and have a lovely day.