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New Alpinism

Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450
Todd Cook wrote:For you people following the book and heart rate monitor advice, did you do the true maximum heart rate fitness test recommended or are you still using that old bullshit rule 220 - your age? If you did the test, what's the difference between the two numbers? Me: bullshit rule = 175 true test = 192 (+ maybe 9) Todd
I've totally been procrastinating on doing the real deal...looks super painful! Will post up once I take the plunge. If memory serves the 220-age formula underestimated mine as well...
Alexander Blum · · Livermore, CA · Joined Mar 2009 · Points: 143

I am on the bandwagon as well. It seems there is a lot of confusion here about the Zone 1 training. Some important things to remember include:

  • If you don't own an HR monitor, the nose breathing rule works very well. This is how I currently monitor my workload.
  • The idea behind Zone 1 training is to build a volume of work, not to hit a speed, or time, or distance. These things are just measurements you can use to track progress over all.
  • You will increase your Zone 1 speed in two fundamental ways, building volume in this zone and increasing your maximum strength.
  • Scott and Steve talk specifically about Zone 3 (probably your normal running pace) being fun, but too much of a hit to your energy pathways to train at any real volume.

They aren't making up the science and training standards, the stuff about Bolt is fact, not conjecture. So far this seems to be working very well for me - Zone 1 running has revolutionized running for me! I actually enjoy it and feel like I have some energy at the end of even a six mile run.
Alexander Blum · · Livermore, CA · Joined Mar 2009 · Points: 143
David Coley wrote:This is a book written by people who know their stuff and know how to climb, however on a personal note, it is interesting how in climbing the word "training" has come only to mean stuff about getting stronger or fitter. In most sports this isn't so. In tennis, training is partly about tendons and stuff, but just as much about hitting the ball in the right place. I think many climbers, especially those (like me) that are not good at sticking to a physical training programme, might get as much out of seeing "training" as a MUCH broader collection of activities.
You make a good point, they address this in the book. In tennis, I can assure you that at any truly competitive level a high level of fitness is as important as technique improvement, assuming a certain minimum level of technique has been achieved. Early in the book they state that if you have not reached the minimum level of technical proficiency relevant to your goals, that is where you should be spending your time. One can train skills, or one can train fitness, often these two things can be trained simultaneously (big day in the mountains, anyone?). There are many good books that can help with the skill building side, this one is aimed at the moderately technically advanced climber looking for a focused approach to taking his or her game to the next level.
cjdrover · · Watertown, MA · Joined Feb 2009 · Points: 355
alexanderblum wrote: It seems there is a lot of confusion here about the Zone 1 training.
I don't see confusion... the observation is that Zone 1 is slower than one might be used to running.
divnamite · · New York, NY · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 90

I'm still reading the book. In order to do Zone 1 training correctly, is there a minimum duration (time) in order to elicit positive response to training. Does anyone know that minimum duration is? Basically, can I do two one hour run per day instead of two hour run on weeks where schedule simply doesn't allow me to do a long zone 1 workout?

Also, 99% of max strength training books will tell you that training for max strength and endurance together is counter productive (different muscle fiber and dietary requirement). Also, the exercises in the book are very different from convenient proven max strength training exercises (deadlift, back/front squat, standing/bench press and snatch). Not sure how this would work in the end.

David Coley · · UK · Joined Oct 2013 · Points: 70

Good to hear they mention the other stuff, but it still seems to me the word "training" to climbers has become linked almost only to the word "fitness". The other skills be they tying knots of how to jam are not considered training issues, and aren't even normally found in books with "training" in the title.

This was pointed out to me one day by Jonny Dawes: The only reason some people can climb E5 (5.12) slabs is because they put their feet, hands and body in the right places and pull in the right order. Strength is not the issue. Either they know how to do this from day 1, or they need to train until they do. Just climbing and hoping it will happen is a very slow way to achieve this, except for the talented.

Yet most books go very, very heavy on the strength bit. This might make sense for those at 5.12 and above, but that's a small market to sell books into. Hence others must be buying them.

Dave Macleod in his book "9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes" asks why climbers don't spend more of their time training like one might in other sports. i.e. isolate a skill and perfect it.

Most books that do cover the other stuff, e.g. belay building, don't really see it as training. i.e. the they don't recommend you time yourself doing stuff and repeat until you can't strip any more time off safely. Whether that is swapping over at the belay, or jamming up a crack. One book that does do this is Chris Mac's aid book. This suggest jumaring with a stop watch and changing the lengths of the rig and practising until you can't get the time down.

On big routes, I really believe that most sub 5.12 climbers could gain lot from this approach.

Hope that didn't sound too much like a rant!

Dave Bn · · Boise, ID · Joined Jul 2011 · Points: 10

^^^

Good points, but this is a book about training for alpinism where "fitness" is 90% of the struggle and routes are typically climbed a grade or three under onsite ability (i.e. remedial skills are not the limitation).

This book is not going to turn an 10 climber into a 12 climber. That's not the point. It will make a 10 climber arrive at an alpine 8/9 objective fresh and energetic for the climb and descent ahead.

Alexander Blum · · Livermore, CA · Joined Mar 2009 · Points: 143

David Coley,

That is simply not what this book is about. Hans Florine has an excellent book on speed climbing, which covers most of what you are talking about. Twight's Extreme Alpinism covers some other subjects you brought up. Once you have the technical knowledge to build a safe belay, place gear, and aid, gains in speed are due in large part to a conscious effort to move faster combined with integrating little tips and tricks into your reportoire(the Florine book). Once you have these things down, it is all fitness - whether it's the power endurance to climb 5 pitches of .12 in a day, or the aerobic endurance to continue at 50% peak output for 30 hours.

EDIT: Sorry, wrong David

Dave Bn · · Boise, ID · Joined Jul 2011 · Points: 10
alexanderblum wrote:David, That is simply not what this book is about.
edited
jaredj · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jan 2013 · Points: 165
divnamite wrote:In order to do Zone 1 training correctly, is there a minimum duration (time) in order to elicit positive response to training. Does anyone know that minimum duration is? Basically, can I do two one hour run per day instead of two hour run on weeks where schedule simply doesn't allow me to do a long zone 1 workout?
Not a coach here, but I've always heard that stimulus response is subadditive in training time. In English, two 1 hour runs is inferior to a single 2 hour run. If you were cycling or swimming, I'd say go ahead and do the 2 workouts in a day. For running specifically, I'd be cautious about doing 2 workouts in a day unless you've got a lot of cumulative miles in your legs.

divnamite wrote:Also, 99% of max strength training books will tell you that training for max strength and endurance together is counter productive (different muscle fiber and dietary requirement). Also, the exercises in the book are very different from convenient proven max strength training exercises (deadlift, back/front squat, standing/bench press and snatch). Not sure how this would work in the end.
Good point. It seems like their recommended menu of exercises is chosen at least in part to avoid movements where poor form or execution could lead to injury. The snatch is a pretty technical movement and easy to do wrong if you don't have a lot of time invested in getting the movement itself down. I do believe they recommmend front squat, yes? Omission of back squat and deadlift were a little surprising, but again this could be a bias on their part to avoid movements where inexperienced athletes working without assistance of trainers could easily do damage or have really crap form (how many guys have you seen at the gym doing super shallow back squats, or hideous form for deads?).

As for the difficulty of getting benefits from doing both things simultaneously, I would say that this bias is probably in line with what an alpinist would want. To use fake #s, suppose that doing only max strength training and no endurance training gets you to 90% of your genetic potential of max strength in X months, but keeps you at 60% of your endurance potential. Similarly, doing only endurance training for X months gets you to 90% of your genetic potential for endurance but 60% for max strength. If you did a blend of the two, suppose you get to 75% or 80% of genetic potential for both simultaneously. I think most folks training for alpinism would view the last option as preferable, even if you don't get as far out on your 'frontier' of both. When you paraphrase strength training books as describing this blend as counterproductive, I don't think they actually mean counterproductive - more that you just won't get as far with max strength specificity if you blend.
Alexander Blum · · Livermore, CA · Joined Mar 2009 · Points: 143
Dave Bn wrote: I'm talking about long approaches to alpine objectives that require a high level of fitness and endurance. There are specific examples in the book of such objectives as Steve's climb of Nanga Parbat, Chad Kellog on Everest and excerpts from Twight. Not much mention of aid/speed climbing short approach rock routes a la Florine. Apples and oranges. This book aims to make you an athlete. Learn the technical skills elsewhere.
We are 100% on the same page, I didn't realize you were both David's!
Dave Bn · · Boise, ID · Joined Jul 2011 · Points: 10
alexanderblum wrote: We are 100% on the same page, I didn't realize you were both David's!
Ha! Jut realized that too.
TWrenO · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Sep 2013 · Points: 0

Just to add a personal anecdote about zone 1 training:

In college I was cycling competitively, and hired a friend to coach me for the season. The first thing he had me do was 3 months of high volume in zone 1. It turned out that the pace was so slow that I couldn't get anyone to even join me on rides, and I was bored stupid most of the time. However, after the three months, I was significantly faster (2-3 cogs higher on a given climb) at the same HR. Only after the initial 3 months of easy riding did we start adding in more high intensity efforts.

Years later, the most important benefit I found from the all the zone 1 training is how long that fitness has stayed with me. It's been 4-5 years since I was training seriously for cycling, or even seriously at all. But aerobically my base endurance level has remained much higher than it ever was before I did those months of long slow efforts. In contrast, when I have done stretches of near and above threshold training before and after that time period, the results come quickly, but also fade away quickly when I'm no longer doing those sort of workouts.

I believe I read a similar essay on mark twight's personal site at some point as well. I believe he said something along the lines of: When he initially got into the cross-fit type workouts, he was fully sold and saw massive gains, but after several seasons, he plateaued and could no longer improve. It was only after he went back to a more periodized training schedule while large chunks of low intensity effort did he start to see gains again.

The main downside to all the low intensity training is just the time commitment. I was consistently putting in a solid 15+ hours a week on the bike when I was doing the zone 1 training, which was a struggle to balance with other commitments. However, if you have the time, doing a large portion of your training (and a large volume overall) at a very low effort worked best for me. Strength and intensity work is just icing on the cake.

Just my personal experience.

David Coley · · UK · Joined Oct 2013 · Points: 70
alexanderblum wrote:David Coley, That is simply not what this book is about. Hans Florine has an excellent book on speed climbing, which covers most of what you are talking about. Twight's Extreme Alpinism covers some other subjects you brought up. Once you have the technical knowledge to build a safe belay, place gear, and aid, gains in speed are due in large part to a conscious effort to move faster combined with integrating little tips and tricks into your reportoire(the Florine book). Once you have these things down, it is all fitness - whether it's the power endurance to climb 5 pitches of .12 in a day, or the aerobic endurance to continue at 50% peak output for 30 hours. EDIT: Sorry, wrong David
Hi, I wasn't talking about this book in particular, which I'm sure is great, but having a general rant about climbing books with "training" in the title (or implied in the text) having a narrow focus, and the way we as a bunch of people think about the word training.

I'm not sure I meant speed climbing, but I'm sure we have all spent hours sitting there thinking, "what the beep is he up to".
FosterK · · Edmonton, AB · Joined Nov 2012 · Points: 67
jaredj wrote: It seems like their recommended menu of exercises is chosen at least in part to avoid movements where poor form or execution could lead to injury. The snatch is a pretty technical movement and easy to do wrong if you don't have a lot of time invested in getting the movement itself down. I do believe they recommmend front squat, yes? Omission of back squat and deadlift were a little surprising, but again this could be a bias on their part to avoid movements where inexperienced athletes working without assistance of trainers could easily do damage or have really crap form (how many guys have you seen at the gym doing super shallow back squats, or hideous form for deads?).


Agreed, but they're not prescribing the exercises they're offering suggestions. I think the book makes that clear. That said, as you get into the climbing specific period, I thinkt he exercises offered in the book become more interesting and should take up agreat portion of your strength training.

jared wrote:As for the difficulty of getting benefits from doing both things simultaneously, I would say that this bias is probably in line with what an alpinist would want. To use fake #s, suppose that doing only max strength training and no endurance training gets you to 90% of your genetic potential of max strength in X months, but keeps you at 60% of your endurance potential. Similarly, doing only endurance training for X months gets you to 90% of your genetic potential for endurance but 60% for max strength. If you did a blend of the two, suppose you get to 75% or 80% of genetic potential for both simultaneously. I think most folks training for alpinism would view the last option as preferable, even if you don't get as far out on your 'frontier' of both. When you paraphrase strength training books as describing this blend as counterproductive, I don't think they actually mean counterproductive - more that you just won't get as far with max strength specificity if you blend.
I would agree. The authors specifically state the point of Max Strength is to increase the neurological strength gains to support Muscle Endurance and Volume training. As well, and for me this is key, it's about retaining those strength gains through out the endurance training.
Alexander Blum · · Livermore, CA · Joined Mar 2009 · Points: 143
David Coley wrote: Hi, I wasn't talking about this book in particular, which I'm sure is great, but having a general rant about climbing books with "training" in the title (or implied in the text) having a narrow focus, and the way we as a bunch of people think about the word training. I'm not sure I meant speed climbing, but I'm sure we have all spent hours sitting there thinking, "what the beep is he up to".
I guess I don't understand your complaint. There are plenty of books around that address all of the various concerns you have raised. A good book on something as nuanced as training will have some kind of limit placed on its scope - you can discuss everything under the sun in a watered down manner, or you can delve more deeply into a particular subset. Beyond this, some things are simply learned best through experience, built upon solid foundational knowledge. There are training books that focus on movement, training books that focus on technical climbing, ones that focus solely on ropework and the technical aspects of traditional climbing, etc, etc, etc. Your rant seems to be misguided, and a bit off topic.
Optimistic · · New Paltz · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 450
FosterK wrote: The authors specifically state the point of Max Strength is to increase the neurological strength gains to support Muscle Endurance and Volume training.
And further, to avoid hypertrophy at all times... They say repeatedly through the book that one of their goals (that they say they've been hitting with the people they coach) is that their approach will not make you gain weight by gaining muscle mass.
divnamite · · New York, NY · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 90
Optimistic wrote: And further, to avoid hypertrophy at all times... They say repeatedly through the book that one of their goals (that they say they've been hitting with the people they coach) is that their approach will not make you gain weight by gaining muscle mass.
The choice of exercises by itself doesn't create hypertrophy!!! It's the reps, sets and rest that create hypertrophy. In general, 1-5 is for strength (the book suggests 4), 8-12 is for hypertrophy and >15 for endurance. General guideline for max strength training is 3 to 5 sets of 4 - 5 reps. Regardless of whether you do squat or lunges. For strength, front/back squat, bench/standing press and deadlift are probably the best full body exercises. As for injury concern, the suggestion that weight lifting cause more injuries than running is simply not true. As for weight gain, the amount of zone 1 in this book simply won't let you gain weight unless you increase your calorie consumption by 20-35%.

That being said, it's an excellent book on endurance training. It'll be the central theme for my own training for the next few months. I just can't figure out how to do those long zone 1 exercise consistently unless I go with 2-a-day (running, then rowing machine?).
FosterK · · Edmonton, AB · Joined Nov 2012 · Points: 67
divnamite wrote:That being said, it's an excellent book on endurance training. It'll be the central theme for my own training for the next few months. I just can't figure out how to do those long zone 1 exercise consistently unless I go with 2-a-day (running, then rowing machine?).
Are you starting at a fairly high volume then? The Long Zone 1 (25% weekly volume) is supposed to be a single workout. I don't think splitting it up would achieve the same training effect.
divnamite · · New York, NY · Joined Aug 2007 · Points: 90
FosterK wrote: Are you starting at a fairly high volume then? The Long Zone 1 (25% weekly volume) is supposed to be a single workout. I don't think splitting it up would achieve the same training effect.
While I don't have precise number from previous year, I generally average 5 hours of working out a week (more if including weekend cragging). So it really depends on how I count. If I'm maintaining the 5 hours a week target, the long zone 1 is 75 minutes which is no big deal at the beginning. But if I was to follow this program, the volume will go up. That's when the long zone 1 workouts becomes an issue in terms of time (in week 9 - 16, 1 workout of 30% and 1 workout of 20%).
Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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