Welcome Back To The Training For Mountaineering Podcast

Welcome back to the show! It has been a LONG time in between episodes... but at the start of 2025 we are getting this podcast back in action!

Inside this episode we explore what happened to the podcast, what I have been doing these last years and what my intentions are with the podcast moving forwrads. 

​Episode Transcript:

[0:01] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen, and a big welcome back to the Training the Mountaineering podcast.

[0:08] Now, it has been a long, long, long time in between episodes, and in all honesty, it's been about four years since I released the last episode on this podcast. But with the turn of the year and the beginning of 2025, I thought this would be the perfect time to get back in action with this podcast. It's been something I've been considering for a long, long time, and now we're finally making it happen. So the intention of today's podcast is just talk you through where we've been, what happened to the podcast, and what my intentions of this moving forward. Now, I started this podcast many, many years ago with a really, really simple intention of supplying quality training information for mountaineers, ultimately to just fill a gap in the market because I knew there were so many mountaineers out there who were really struggling with their training, who really just didn't know what they needed to be doing and really didn't know how they should be applying their training to get fit, to get strong, to get resilient for their adventures. And if you went online and went looking for information, realistically there was only one source of information out there around training for mountaineering, which was great for a certain percentage of the population and a certain type of mountaineer who enjoyed that type of training. But I knew as a coach, there are so many people out there that it didn't really suit.

[1:27] And I knew there were so many mountaineers who needed a slightly different approach to their training. And I started the podcast with the intentions of just being a really quality source of information to expand on a bunch of different topics and help a lot of mountaineers out there with their training.

[1:46] And then about four years ago, or maybe a bit longer than that now,

[1:50] as we all know, the world changed. COVID happened. And as with all the adventure industry, Summit Strength itself was hit pretty hard because people out there weren't going out on adventures. We were stuck at home. And then for a while, we were stuck in our countries. We couldn't go out and do things. And Summit Strength itself as a business was hit pretty hard. And realistically, at that time, I made the call that, look, I've got so much on my plate. I need to get this business thriving. I need to keep this going. And realistically, at that time in the world, mountaineering was kind of dead purely for the fact that, again, so many people were stuck at home. And then beyond that, so many people were stuck in their countries, and it was just not a massive thing. So I decided in those moments that I was like, you know what? I'm going to hone in a little bit more on the hiking side of things, purely for the fact that it's just so much more accessible to people at the moment. And I only have so much attention that I was just going to hone in on the hikers and really, really, really, really help that population out there.

[2:58] And ultimately, that worked well. While COVID was happening, while all the restrictions were happening, that worked well. And what tend to happen is once we actually got out the other end of all the lockdowns and everything like that, and the world began to open up, I just got super, super, super busy. And realistically, I just had limited time. So I was like, you know, I just don't have enough capacity to get back on this podcast. However, over the years, Summit Strength has really grown dramatically. It has developed so much since the original days of this podcast, and we have developed our programs and our systems. We've been getting better and better and better. We've grown out our team. It's just not me anymore.

[3:37] And, you know, through all of this growth, again, most of the content has been directed at the hiking community. But in amongst all that, even though the podcast we're putting out, the videos we're putting out, the articles we're putting out was talking about hiking, in the background, we've been working with many, many mountaineers as well. And over the last years, we've helped loads of mountaineers accomplish some really, really amazing things. From people who are stepping up into their first mountain expeditions and really making that transition from hiking to mountaineering, to people who are taking a significant step up to their first major mountain expeditions and major mountain climbs, all the way up to helping a long-time client in their goal to climb the 14 peaks over 8,000 metres unassisted with oxygen. We've been working with some really, really cool people doing some amazing things. And it has been fantastic to see so many people training, prepare, and conquering such a diverse range of absolutely unreal inventions.

[4:33] And over the years of this all going on, you know, I have been considering getting

[4:37] this podcast back in action. And I've drafted up episodes, recorded episodes, but always something got in the way.

[4:43] But recently, the desire to kick things off has been building. I've been having people reach out. I've been having people sharing the old podcasts and the videos and the webinars on YouTube. And I've had people reaching out and just asking, where is this? When is it coming back? And I've had a few mountaineers that I chat with who are talking about training, who are just absolutely lost, and they still just don't know what to do. And I really felt a desire to get back into things. So now with the beginning of 2025, I'm at this stage where I'm like, you know what? now is the time to get back into things. I'm going to make this happen, going to get in a consistent routine and start

[5:17] releasing some awesome content for mountaineers who are interested in their training. Now, the intention of this podcast and what I am planning to do with this is moving forward, I'm going to plan to bring this podcast up to an even 100 episodes covering topics like strength training, cardio, nutrition, mindset, pain and injury prevention, and a few other bits and pieces. So ultimately this podcast can end up just being a great resource for any mountaineer who's looking to upgrade their training. So with that being said, I'm going to wrap up this initial episode and I just want to say a big, big welcome back to the podcast. I'm really looking forward to getting back into things. I'm really looking forward to sharing some amazing content with you moving forward. And I'm really looking forward to this podcast being a part of your preparation and your training. So welcome back and let's look forward to some awesome things ahead.

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