Training Plans vs Coaching For Mountaineers

​In this episode, we explore when a mountaineer might benefit more from having coaching and support, instead of just following a static training plan.

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking about the difference between a training plan and coaching for mountaineers and exploring a few different situations in which a mountaineer

[0:13] can potentially benefit from a little bit more support. Now, this particular episode was inspired by a thread I was reading in a climbing forum of all places. Now, I don't tend to like to spend time in forums online because they are just a dumpster fire of advice. But I was trying to look something up and I came across this thread and it inspired today's episode. And basically someone in this forum was asking if anyone had gotten direct coaching for their mountaineering, specifically around their training and physical preparation for their mountaineering. Now they'd gone online, they'd read the info, they'd read the training for New Alpinism, they'd looked at different training plans online, and they're just curious about coaching. And they were saying, look, other people have coaches. It makes sense if really high level athletes, has anyone done this before? And what do you think?

[1:05] I've gone through the responses and there are a few good ones. There was one that was just interesting. What they said in response to this person asking about coaching, they said, you could purchase a training plan. Paying a monthly fee for coaching is for people who really need hand-holding, either because they aren't willing to put in the effort to read and learn themselves, they are lazy and rich, or they're really pushing their limits and need someone to hold them back without going over. And this made me laugh because there is so much wrong with this statement. And that's why I don't go into online forums very much, because there's always people who love to toot their own horn and pelt people down or whatever it may be. But either way, I'm glad I did because it inspired this episode.

[1:57] And I want to talk through this in a little bit of detail, just so you're kind of aware of who may benefit from training plans, who may benefit from coaching, and just have a bit of perspective from someone who does this every single day of his life or every single work day, I should say.

[2:12] Yeah. So essentially the way that I define the two is a training plan is essentially something that's pre-made, something that you say, hey, I'm training for an adventure. You buy something that's already been written up. It's not personalized to you. It's not created specifically for you, but it's basically just 12 weeks, 16 weeks, 24 weeks, 12 months or whatever may be, and you follow the instructions.

[2:34] Sometimes these training plans will have like options where you can kind of decide on plans around your equipment. Sometimes they'll have options around like teaching you how to adjust things slightly, but they're pretty static. Now on the flip side, coaching and how I define coaching is essentially where you get a personalized plan created for you. So you have a conversation with someone, someone's like, or you have some type of communication and you say, look, I'm training for this. I have these needs. I have these preferences. I can do this. And they create something specifically for you. And then on top of that, coaching will have some element of ongoing support. It could be sort of high touch coaching where you're having regular weekly check-ins and multiple periods of communication through a week. And someone's kind of with you every single step of the way. It could be lower level coaching where you're just checking in maybe once a month or whatever may be, but you still have some type of ongoing support. Now, if you followed my stuff for a while, you probably know I'm not a fan of pre-made training plans. I think they're just all over the training for mountaineering world.

[3:40] And I just think they're not very good personally. But even though I have this bias against them, and even though I have this preference of staying away. And even in my own training, when I am training for other sports and other things that I never use a pre-made plan, I will not deny that they do work for some people.

[3:59] They're obviously popular for a reason because they're accessible in regards to price. They can give people the direction they need and they can kind of just take that thought process away and be like, hey, here's instructions, away you go. They can definitely work for a lot of people and they have worked for a lot of people, even against my personal preference. But they do have some major limitations for many people, which I'll go into in a bit. Now, self-coaching. So, figuring things out for yourself, I think can be really, really good. A lot of mountaineers do do this, and it's a typical approach for mountaineers. They'll go out and buy training for the new alpinism or whatever it may be and follow instructions to put together their plan. Maybe they listen to my podcast and follow these ideas and these insights to put together their own training, and it can work for a lot of people. But again, it can be a bit hit and miss for a lot of people for various different reasons.

[4:50] And essentially, this is where coaching comes in. Coaching comes into the situations, not if you're just lazy or rich, but if pre-natal plans don't quite work for you, or if self-coaching isn't quite right for you, and if you just need a little bit more guidance and a little bit more support than either of those options are going to give you. As I said, it isn't just for people who are lazy or rich or not willing to put in the effort or whatever it may be, but it's for people who realize that in their particular situation, having some extra support is going to be a good option for them. So what does that look like? Let's have some examples. Well, I'm going to sort of list this out. And I'm just going to talk you through a bunch of different situations where I have personally seen coaching being very, very, very useful.

[5:38] First of all, for the mountaineer who is time limited, many mountaineers out there have competing things on their time. We've got a busy work life. We have young families. We have a social life or whatever may be. And mountaineering as a whole tends to be pretty demanding on the training side of things for time. Pre-made plans don't tend to cater for people who have limited time. Pre-made plans tend to say, look, you've got to do a huge amount of hours in the week or a significant amount of hours. That works for some people. But if you're really, really tight for time and you look at something that's asking you to do a two-hour loaded pack walk in the middle of the week, well, it may not be right for you. On top of that, on the self-coaching side of things, a lot of people are like, okay, I can learn to do this myself, but learning takes time. And getting any competence in putting together your own training plans take time. And I've been in this industry for over 15 years and I'm still learning every single week.

[6:34] Getting mastery of something takes time. And a lot of people just don't have the time or don't want to put the time in to dedicate to this, which is fair enough. And that's where coaching can come in. Someone can just tell you, this is what you need to do and create something that's going to fit around your time availability. So that's number one. Number two, people who benefit from coaching are people who may have some type of limitations in the sense that pre-made plans, they don't cater for you. They're just created in the most average scenario possible, which works for the average mountaineer, but if you have a unique limitation, it can often fall short. Typical example of this is injury. If you have a history of foot pain, ankle pain, knee pain, a history of anything like that.

[7:19] Sometimes looking at a pre-made plan, you're like, oh my gosh, there's no way I can do that. Or maybe you have limitations around weather. Maybe you live somewhere in the world which is just miserable outside at certain times of the year and you're like, I do not want to do sessions there. Or maybe you have limitations with family. Maybe you've got a young newborn and you're like, my gosh, I do not have a huge amount of energy to divest here. I do not have a huge amount of time. I need to work around that. Or maybe you've got childcare arrangements where you need to be looking after your kids or be primary carer for someone in your family at certain times. We need to work around that. Or medical history or certain things just make you anxious, whatever. A lot of us have these unique limitations. And this is typically where coaching comes in, where you can sit down and chat with someone and they can work something around what you're doing.

[8:07] Another time coaching comes in is when you have a bit of a changing situation. So what I mean by this is if you just live a very, very steady life, you go to work, you stay in the same place, you're aware of what time commitments are available, training plans can kind of work for you. But a lot of people have very, very up and down and changing circumstances. Maybe you go on a lot of holidays, you go away for a few days here and there, or you go away in the season or whatever may be. And you're like, look, I need to adjust around that. Maybe you travel for work, you go to lots of conferences, or you go to out of state or whatever it may be, and you're constantly in hotel rooms or whatever it is. Maybe you have seasonal changes. There's snow, there's heat, there's rain, there's whatever it may be.

[8:49] Maybe you do a week on, a week off with your kids or fly in, fly out, or you do shift work or whatever may be. Maybe your life is not quite as even as a lot of other people. And a changing situation, having that coaching, having that extra support can really go a long way.

[9:06] Another situation are overachievers. I think we talked about this the other day on the podcast. And a lot of people, mountaineers particularly, they're very, very driven individuals. They want to be doing everything they can. And some mountaineers really have a bad habit of just doing too much, running themselves into the ground, picking up aches and pains or whatever it may be. And if you have a static plan, you'd look at it and you're like, cool, I can do this, but I'm going to do more. I'm going to do more. I'm going to do more. And you get yourself into trouble. With a coach in your side, as an overachiever, you can have someone there who can give you clear and concise directions. If you want to do more, they can recommend, hey, do this or please do not do more. They can give you that direction and actually pull you back.

[9:50] Another situation is those who are easily distracted in the sense that a lot of us will be really, really good at sticking with something for a week or two. But then we're like, ah, I listened to that podcast. I saw that video or I saw this workout and I want to try that. And we'll start a training plan. We'll do it for a couple of weeks and then we'll go into another training plan, then another training plan, then another training plan or change and chop and get that shiny object syndrome where we're constantly jumping between things. And when it comes down to training, we need an element of consistency. We need long-term progress to really see the best results. And if you're the type of person who does get that shiny object syndrome and just bounce around between things, just having one source of truth, one person, whether you can say, they can say, hey, this is what I want you to do and I want you to stick with it. And on the weeks you feel like, oh, maybe I should try this. They can say, no, I don't want you to try that. I want you to stick with this. That can go a long, long, long way.

[10:48] Another one is people who have bad habits when it comes down to their training. And what I mean by this is there's a lot of people out there who they're aware that, okay, when it comes down to a training plan, there's many things I want to improve on. I want to do long, steady state cardio. I want to do some slightly moderate and higher intensity cardio. I want to do some strength work, some endurance work, some recovery or whatever may be. And most people out there will tend to have preferences, some things they enjoy, some things they don't enjoy quite as much. And a lot of people what we often find if left to our own devices whether they're going off a training plan or self-coaching they'll look at the whole week and they're like yeah yeah okay i'm going to do all these things but then they'll get busy or they'll get tired or they'll get demotivated and they'll keep on going back to the things they enjoy and keep on ignoring the things they don't.

[11:37] And when they ignore the things they don't particularly enjoy week after week after week it ends up just becoming more and more and more of a weakness and a blind spot for them. For me, I know I have a couple of really bad habits in this situation for myself and my own training. I know when it comes to strength training, there are certain exercises that just I get so bored of. And if I don't have a bit of accountability, I just skip it. And other sports I do, I know in certain elements of sports, there's certain things I enjoy, certain things are good, and there's some stuff I hate. And if left on my own devices, the things that I hate, I will skip every single week and it'll get worse and worse and worse and worse. So having a coach, having someone in my corner keeps me on track. So if you've always fall back in these bad habits, it can go a long way. Another option is people who get analysis from paralysis in the sense of sometimes people get a training plan and they just consume all this information. They're super excited. They read books. They see videos. They listen to podcasts. They have all this information.

[12:43] But then they just don't do anything. They've got the plan in front of them. They've got all these ideas. They've got all these insights, but they just never get started. They never stick with things. We've got this analysis from paralysis because you keep on thinking something's going to be better, or maybe I should do this instead. Or maybe you have 10 different training plans. I've spoken to people who've literally gone through and bought five or six different plans from different places, and they've never actually done them. A lot of people get this analysis from paralysis. And again, just having one source of truth, one person you can put your trust in, who can say, this is the plan, this is what we're doing, and keep you accountable to that, can be so, so, so powerful.

[13:23] There's probably a bunch of other situations, which I'm kind of not really thinking about right now, but I hope you get the idea.

[13:30] Realistically, training plans, they can work for a lot of people. They've been effective for a lot of people. They're definitely a cost effective option for a lot of people. But there are many, many, many situations where that's just not quite enough. And because mountaineering, it is something that's pretty significant for us. If you're going out in the mountains, if you're doing the big expedition, it's something that means a lot to you.

[13:56] And you want to be giving yourself every chance possible of doing that in a safe, enjoyable, and successful way. And even if you're not doing a particularly big the expedition, but you're just regularly getting out there and that's your passion and that's your hobby, again, we want to be in the best chance possible of enjoying that. So if you do realize that, look, I need to get in better condition, need to get better fitness, but you know what? A static plan may be a bit limited to me. Don't feel bad. Don't let people online call you lazy or rich or whatever it may be. Just do whatever's right for you.

[14:29] So with that being said, I'm going to wrap things up here. I've had my little rant. I've had my little laugh. I'm going to wrap things up. Now, last thing I will say, as I always say at the end of these episodes, if you've listened to this and you're like, you know what, Rowan, this makes sense. I've tried training plans before. I've tried figuring things out before. And you know what? I'm in a unique situation, or I don't have a huge amount of time, or I'm a bit of an overachiever, or I get distracted. I get that shiny object syndrome, or I have bad habits or anything like that. And you feel like a bit of coaching, a bit of support, a bit of accountability and something personalized to you may be right. I would love to chat with you. If you want to find out more about our online personal training for mountaineers, go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer. Now on that page, there's a big video that talks to a bit about our programs. And if it sounds like something you want to explore a little bit further, there's a link on that page where you can book a free call with our team. We can have a bit of a chat, learn about you, your situation, your needs, and your mountaineering and see if and how one of our options may be right for you. So if you want to check that out, go to summitstrength.com.au slash mountaineer, and we can take it from there. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap things up here. Thank you so much for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it, and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

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