New Alpinism

@johnnyD: how are you measuring your body fat?

I started training via the book about seven weeks ago following a template I posted on page 3 on this thread. Here is an update:

Hiking an 1100' hill on a trail that's just over a mile with a weighted pack.
Seven weeks ago with 27 lbs in zone 1 took about 40 minutes and I had a tough time keeping my heart rate below 150. Now with 45 lbs my heart rate is steady at 135! And time is still about 40 minutes. On zone 3 days with 45lbs, ice boots, and heart rate in the upper 160s, my time is only 3 minutes slower! So a valuable lesson is to keep heart rate low as my elevation gain is only a little slower and I'm obviously significantly less fatigued. Their plan is working!

Tom- I'm using handheld bioelectrical impedance device. I never think of it as a precision instrument for measuring my bodyfat percentage qua bodyfat percentage. I check it about every month at the same time of day under similar exercise/hydration circumstances (usually before I start my workout) and then use the change measurement as a directional guide.

beytzim wrote:I started training via the book about seven weeks ago following a template I posted on page 1 on this thread. Here is an update: Hiking an 1100' hill on a trail that's just over a mile with a weighted pack. Seven weeks ago with 27 lbs in zone 1 took about 40 minutes and I had a tough time keeping my heart rate below 150. Now with 45 lbs my heart rate is steady at 135! And time is still about 40 minutes. On zone 3 days with 45lbs, ice boots, and heart rate in the upper 160s, my time is only 3 minutes slower! So a valuable lesson is to keep heart rate low as my elevation gain is only a little slower and I'm obviously significantly less fatigued. Their plan is working!

Strong work, man!

So are you in the next phase after Transition now? I forget what they call that, haven't "graduated" yet...

Alright guys. Finally was able to get started this week and I bumped my Rainier trip to August (hopefully). I still won't get a full cycle in but should be able to do some good work in the next three months.

Big question though... The book says to take into account climbing, etc... as training volume but I am not sure how to do this with summer approaching so rapidly. I'll be in CO 13er/14er/couloir bagging and during the summer it isn't uncommon for me to log 30-40 hours per week of hiking and scrambling as I pretty much stop working completely to just focus on getting at it.

I'll still be in the transition period by the time I get out there and I am going to totally blow up the program. Is the issue going to be lack of recovery time? Even if I build in 3 recovery days per week I could still easily hit 40 hours of long-easy hiking/scrambling/AI at altitude. I might be misunderstanding the program but my training volume is currently ~4 hours per week so one day in the mountains could easily be 3x my weekly training volume?

Any thoughts?

That's great that you will have the opportunity to dedicate so much time to being in the mountains over the summer. I think that sort of volume of activity, even if at low intensity, would be unsustainable week on week for most mortals. If you look at Scott's program for K2, he didn't have quite that much volume and he had the background of being a world class skier who probably had years of high volume aerobic training under his belt.

It's easy to write down a big program, but can be hard to execute. For big volume, my personal experience has been difficulty maintaining motivation from the start all the way to the peak / goal event as well as difficulty recovering were the stumbling blocks that arose.

I'm not trying to write a program for you, but it would be a pity to be overambitious in terms of training with all of that time on your hands purely for Mt R. What about doing a more modest (but still big by weekend warrior standards) physical training like this book, but then spend the rest of your time honing your climbing skills by cragging? You could get really good at rock climbing with that time, and it wouldn't really inhibit your ability to adapt to your training for Rainier. Hell you could augment your season goals to include a big rock route in late August or September somewhere.

jaredj wrote:That's great that you will have the opportunity to dedicate so much time to being in the mountains over the summer. I think that sort of volume of activity, even if at low intensity, would be unsustainable week on week for most mortals. If you look at Scott's program for K2, he didn't have quite that much volume and he had the background of being a world class skier who probably had years of high volume aerobic training under his belt. It's easy to write down a big program, but can be hard to execute. For big volume, my personal experience has been difficulty maintaining motivation from the start all the way to the peak / goal event as well as difficulty recovering were the stumbling blocks that arose. I'm not trying to write a program for you, but it would be a pity to be overambitious in terms of training with all of that time on your hands purely for Mt R. What about doing a more modest (but still big by weekend warrior standards) physical training like this book, but then spend the rest of your time honing your climbing skills by cragging? You could get really good at rock climbing with that time, and it wouldn't really inhibit your ability to adapt to your training for Rainier. Hell you could augment your season goals to include a big rock route in late August or September somewhere.

Good thoughts, I might try and swap in a little cragging time. It's tough because the 30+ hours isn't intended to be training for Rainier, it's just what I like to do while I'm out there and I'm worried it will blow up the program. I enjoy peakbagging so it seems silly to purposefully avoid scrambling when I am in CO and have the time. I bagged 15 14ers last summer plus misc. 13ers/other activity and seem to be able to handle the volume, it's more my feet that need a day off and get beat up on the back to back efforts.

How important is it to keep the volume low if you aren't pushing yourself to stick to any big plan, you still take a couple of recovery days, and your body feels good? I'm going to be 3 weeks in and already deviating from the plan. Even cutting it down I can't imagine fewer than 25 hours/week couloir hunting and trudging up hills. No self-discipline over here.

MarktheCPA wrote: Good thoughts, I might try and swap in a little cragging time. It's tough because the 30+ hours isn't intended to be training for Rainier, it's just what I like to do while I'm out there and I'm worried it will blow up the program. I enjoy peakbagging so it seems silly to purposefully avoid scrambling when I am in CO and have the time. I bagged 15 14ers last summer plus misc. 13ers/other activity and seem to be able to handle the volume, it's more my feet that need a day off and get beat up on the back to back efforts. How important is it to keep the volume low if you aren't pushing yourself to stick to any big plan, you still take a couple of recovery days, and your body feels good? I'm going to be 3 weeks in and already deviating from the plan. Even cutting it down I can't imagine fewer than 25 hours/week couloir hunting and trudging up hills. No self-discipline over here.

The book isn't the word of god. I believe there are many ways to arrive at a high level of fitness. Some athletes will do well with a high degree of structure due to their personalities. Others are more intuitive, with no patience for training logs, intervals, etc. With a lot of time on your hands, there isn't anything intrinsically wrong with discarding the structure and just saying you're gonna go by feel , get in a lot of mileage, and have fun doing it. It will be hard to square a lot of that activity with a high degree of structure that is typically recommended by this text or coaches in general. If you know how to listen to your body and have the sense to moderate your activity so as not to burn out, you'll probably be fine. Just be aware that such an approach may not deliver to you the sort of "peaky" fitness that a structured periodized approach would. Instead it'll be a massive build of base, and a lot of fun.

MarktheCPA wrote: Good thoughts, I might try and swap in a little cragging time. It's tough because the 30+ hours isn't intended to be training for Rainier, it's just what I like to do while I'm out there and I'm worried it will blow up the program. I enjoy peakbagging so it seems silly to purposefully avoid scrambling when I am in CO and have the time. I bagged 15 14ers last summer plus misc. 13ers/other activity and seem to be able to handle the volume, it's more my feet that need a day off and get beat up on the back to back efforts. How important is it to keep the volume low if you aren't pushing yourself to stick to any big plan, you still take a couple of recovery days, and your body feels good? I'm going to be 3 weeks in and already deviating from the plan. Even cutting it down I can't imagine fewer than 25 hours/week couloir hunting and trudging up hills. No self-discipline over here.

I would think long days hiking, climbing, scrambling, etc. in the mountains would be the best possible training for rainier, no?

Something to be said for specificity of training. The best training for climbing is climbing, etc.

I think most people just don't have the time or access to be able to spend 40 hours a week in the mountains, hence the need for structured training plans.

Ryan Watts wrote: I would think long days hiking, climbing, scrambling, etc. in the mountains would be the best possible training for rainier, no? Something to be said for specificity of training. The best training for climbing is climbing, etc.

This exactly the attitude to avoid training, and I dare say misses the point: Steve House can certainly achieve a high volume of climbing specific work if he chose too. As it's been illustrated, that approach isn't conducive to achieving high performance as demonstrated across a variety of other sports.

Secondly, I think the concern with marktheCPA's plan is that his volume is huge and needs to be seriously more contemplative to the required rest. While I can't speak to his personal circumstances, if the volume is far and above your plan you're not doing yourself any favours if you have a particular timeline and objective in mind. To paraphrase jaredj above: you'll build a base, but you're not going to hit 'peak' fitness.

Enjoy your vacation and do the climbs you want to do. That's what the training is for. Unless you are going to do something unusual on Rainer, it will be just another day or two in the mountains for you after your vacation.

FosterK wrote: This exactly the attitude to avoid training, and I dare say misses the point: Steve House can certainly achieve a high volume of climbing specific work if he chose too. As it's been illustrated, that approach isn't conducive to achieving high performance as demonstrated across a variety of other sports. Secondly, I think the concern with marktheCPA's plan is that his volume is huge and needs to be seriously more contemplative to the required rest. While I can't speak to his personal circumstances, if the volume is far and above your plan you're not doing yourself any favours if you have a particular timeline and objective in mind. To paraphrase jaredj above: you'll build a base, but you're not going to hit 'peak' fitness.

Is rainier really a situation where "peaking" to eek out that extra little bit at the upper end of your physical limit is going to be more helpful than the general "mountain sense", level of comfort, and other intangibles developed by spending lots of training days in the mountains?

Ryan Watts wrote: Is rainier really a situation where "peaking" to eek out that extra little bit at the upper end of your physical limit is going to be more helpful than the general "mountain sense", level of comfort, and other intangibles developed by spending lots of training days in the mountains?

Having never experienced the mountain, I can't comment; however, the number of threads on forums such as this seems to indicate many people think it can be a key factor.

Absolutely, there are other aspects to climbing that essential to success. It's illustrated fairly well in the book how to plan a training program that is "climbing only" if you need to focus more time with exposure, rope skills, risk management, route finding, etc which works well if you live in a mountain town. Of course, you can develop many of these skills without ever being fit enough for multi-day snow and glacier travel. The old adage "fail to plan, plan to fail" applies here I think.

With all the talk of everyone's Zone 1 workouts going, and it's awesome to hear most seem to be doing well. How are everyone's strength sessions going? I'm following the book pretty much to a T, and up to 3 circuits of the General Strength Program for week 6 of my Transition Period. I still wear a HR monitor and definitely see the biggest spike in BPM during the weighted step ups. So far the biggest challenge for me is finding just the right weights to use to not go to failure but not have it feel really easy. What about you guys and gals?

Sean S. wrote:So far the biggest challenge for me is finding just the right weights to use to not go to failure but not have it feel really easy. What about you guys and gals?

I don't think it's necessary to split hairs on trying to avoid going till failure. As long as you're sticking to a max of 3 sets of 5 reps, you should be okay.

Elsewhere you can see where people get it wrong with advice like "do your max reps of pullups and then do progressive sets stepping down a rep each time." Which almost follows the body building principle: "Do a bunch of reps till failure, rest, drop 5 pounds; and repeat the cycle until you can't lift 5 pounds."

Tom Nyce wrote:I noticed that several of the people in this thread are from CO. Any of you guys want to do some easy snow climbs in the san juan (SW CO) as part of your training? Maybe a test of your present endurance (without spending a ton of money, or getting killed)? I'm not far away in N. AZ and want to do something long, but easy, like East face of Mt. Wilson, while there is still snow on that route.

I totally would but I now live in Wyoming!

Starting be transition period this coming week. Have read everyone's comments and have similar concerns about fitting in any meaningful workouts if my starting volume is only 3 hrs:week. That said, for those of you who have followed the program to a t, what were your starting weekly volumes( time-wise), and have you seen gains even given the seemingly little amount of training time?

Cheers

Mike

So I've been doing this plan and am about mid way through the transition period.

I've got a few questions hopefully someone can share their experiences with..

My HR at nose breathing pace is about 165-175 (depending for HR drift, which happens as it's really hot here), and I can't say I've got an enduro background. I feel like I can keep this pace going for hours. Any one else having issues with keeping the HR down? My max is around 195-200.

I ride to work most days, I'm not sure how to account for that in the training volume. As well as climbing days, do you all just count the time you're on the rock, or total time out cragging?

Mike I started at 4hrs per week an am noticing gains every even with this minimal training time (hopefully I'm doing it right).

Beean,

Based on what I read, I would not count the entire time you're out cragging, but rather the time you're actually climbing. Seems to me your bike riding would absolutely be considered as recovery if nothing else, but volume none the less.

Cheers,
Mike

Beean: I agree with others that you should count your rides towards total volume. And, that time actually climbing at the crag, rather than total time, should be counted (also the hike in and out, if there is a significant approach).

Like several others in this thread (great thread BTW!) I've already been training (for years) and am trying to figure out where I fall into the schedule of the House and Johnston book. I think I'm in the "base training" rather than "transition" phase. I've been doing periodized training for at least 4 years. Mostly for ultradistance running and hiking, rather than for technical alpinism.
My goals for this month are 30,000 foot of elevation gain, and 80 miles hiked or run, and 8 strength training workouts, and 4 days trad (crack) climbing. That mileage is my lowest in years, but the hills, heavier footwear, and wearing a pack really cut back on the miles, lol.