New Alpinism
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Getting back to the book - I have a question about the training cycle, and the transition period. |
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James Bellamy wrote: What's the best way that you all have found - to organize your training schedule for general mountain fitness?In my highly individual personal experience I run into two problems here. The first one is that general mountain fitness is a really vague thing, so that makes it hard to develop any sort of training plan based around it. Second, I cannot get motivated by the vague goal of "Getting fit", if there is not a goal, some kind of carrot dangling at the end of the stick, there is no way in hell I am sticking with the training day in, day out, even when it sucks. All that being said, the best way to keep "general mountain fitness would probably be to do 3-4 week cycles, building volume until you "over-reach" a bit for training effect, then pulling back and ramping up again. |
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James: I go for longer cycles than Alexander. Each is several months long. I try to stay in a sort of moderate all around fitness state year round, but I cycle through different aspects that I prioritize. I cycle priorities in the following things: strength, hill climbing/hiking ability, rock climbing ability, speed walking speed and endurance, lactate threshold running (like for 10K races, or 90 minute hill climb races), or longer distance running. In any one month, I do a little bit of everything, but I do a lot of (usually) two of those things. |
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A cool thing about this book is that they give you enough of an intellectual framework that you can tailor it to your own goals pretty well. |
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@Tom |
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@ James |
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James Bellamy wrote:@Tom That sounds like a great general guideline. I am working on Zone 1 and went back up to Tahquitz today - I was able to keep my HR at 130bpm for most of the hike up, and really wasn't going that much slower - but I did slow it down. I have calculated my MHR to be 188bpm - so that puts my range at about 103 to 141bpm for Zone 1. I am 31 years of age. Do you recommend staying at the lower end of that threshold, in the middle, at the top - or does it matter? Also - what type of recovery do you generally do - do you do a light jog, or some easy cardio/play with the kids type thing? I usually take a day off when I feel sore - but if I'm feeling good the next day - I will hit it hard again. I fear that maybe I should rest more but just don't know it - and have been tired for a while but just think that's the norm. James P.S. - I know the book covers some of these questions but I find it helpful to bounce the same questions off of educated members to get different ideas that work for different people.Im assuming that you meant to say ".. lower end of that range, rather than threshold. Zone 1 is huge. I use the lower half of it for recovery workouts, warmups, and cooldowns. Downhill hiking usually ends up there as well, even I'm pushing the pace. For me, easy running is in the upper half of zone 1. As far as "where in the zone you should be," it depends on your overall schedule. You get more benefit by going higher in the zone, but the benefit isn't proportional to the fatigue caused (and recovery time necessary). If you are short on time (like if you wish that you had more hours per week to put into this stuff), then working out higher in the zone (or even in zone 2) will give you more benefits. But, if you have plenty of time and your volume limit is presently due to fatigue shortening your workouts, and/or needing a lot of time to recover between workouts, it is better to go lower in the zone and put in more time. You burn more fat (absolute, not percentage wise), at increasing intensities up until the bottom of zone 3. At that point, the presence of lactate inhibits lipolysis and you start training completely different systems, producing different enzymes etc. |
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J.Colin.Olson wrote:@ James I want to say that I appreciate this thread, I have been following it for a couple of months and it has been informative and interesting to read. I don't want to Hijack this conversation, and I only mention James because I am curious about one aspect that we have all been using to some extent, and James mentioned it - Max Heart Rate (MHR). Reading this I am surprised that James' MHR is 188. I am assuming, since this is 220 - James' age, that he is using the standard formula. Have other people done the test recommended in the book? Doing it myself I found my actual measured MHR to be 9 beats higher than the formula. Did they find the same thing? That difference allows me to stay in Zone 1 until 150 instead of 143. That's a big difference to me.Yes. The age formula can be way off. Measuring you max isn't that easy either, and it gets harder to do the older you get (due to longer required warmup times, and some other reasons). In an untrained, or lightly trained person, their perceived exertion scale relates to their heart rate scale differently than in competitive athletes in their prime season. In other words a regular guy may feel like he is dying, but still just be at 90 to 95% of his "true" max. Certain types of training (especially VO2max intervals) shift your perceived exertion scale so that you can stay closer to your max hr, for sustained periods. That also makes it easier to measure your true max accurately. Your max hasn't actually shifted, but when you measure it, it will seem to have gone up. When I was 51, I measured my max at 184 bpm. I'm 54 now, haven't measured it lately, and use 182 for purposes of my calculations and data entry for my HRM watch. |
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This max HR stuff is tricky business. I think it's helpful to not think about it as a simple estimation problem where you apply formula X or do test Y, and out pops a number. That can happen under the right circumstances, I suppose. |
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@jaredj: Yeah; power meters would help a lot! Many bikers who have them base everything on their power output at lactate turnpoint. That usually makes more sense than using fractions of max heart rate. |
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Hi all, |
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rleal wrote:Hi all, Just found this forum while searching for info on the training methods in the book. I would like to know how I should deal with cardiac drift while trying to stay in Zone 1. - Keep the same pace / effort used before drift starts even if this takes me out of Zone 1 - Start with a slower pace / effort to account for drift later on - Reduce pace / effort as necessary to stay in Zone 1 Opinions?I don't actually know the answer to this question, but here is my "logical" answer, with the caveat that there are a ton of "logical" solutions in physiology and training that are wrong... a) To me, the goal of zone 1 training is to supply your muscles with enough blood that they can remain fully aerobic. b)My understanding is that if your heart is beating above a certain rate, it is because the oxygen demand of the tissues is exceeding the oxygen supply available from the heart and lungs. c)So in order to get the desired zone 1 training effect, you have to slow your heart down. If you can run early when it's cooler that might help a lot, I've been noticing that the temperature has a huge effect on my pulse. Lastly, the New Alpinism book does advise using the entire range of Zone 1 (60-75% of max HR or whatever it is), and I basically never do this because it doesn't "feel" like real exercise, and also I can't do anything resembling running at less than about 67%. However, I'll bet it's a mistake that I'm doing this. Hiking (if you have that available) seems like it's a lot more "tunable" to lower HR percentages, and you might try that...you'd still be drifting, but instead it'd be from 56% to 68% so you wouldn't mind as much. Biking probably would work the same, but House and Johnston seem less psyched about bikes. |
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I've had the same problem with heart rate spiking on hot days. You really have to slow your pace to almost a hike a lot of the times if you want to stay in zone 1. Even shirtless here in southern california, I find it hard (in the summer months) to avoid the drift in hot weather. |
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rleal wrote:Hi all, Just found this forum while searching for info on the training methods in the book. I would like to know how I should deal with cardiac drift while trying to stay in Zone 1. - Keep the same pace / effort used before drift starts even if this takes me out of Zone 1 - Start with a slower pace / effort to account for drift later on - Reduce pace / effort as necessary to stay in Zone 1 Opinions?Zones are based on intensity, and heart rate is just being used as a surrogate because the actual intensity is often hard to measure (especially during outdoor recreation activities). House and Johnston use The Muscle Power Model, described on pg. 120. That puts even more importance on the peripheral muscles rather than the heart and lungs. So, Im suggesting that (for defining intensity zones) they would say that what is most important is what is going on in the muscles. Things like how much work they are doing, how much oxygen they are using, how many calories they are burning, and the ratio of fat/glycogen they are using etc. Based on that, you shouldnt lessen the intensity, just because your heart rate has drifted upwards. Using heart rates to approximate intensities is somewhat error prone, but sometimes it is all we have. But, just remember that heart rates arent the actual goal of the workout. Otherwise, we could just drink a bunch of coffee and ride roller coasters to get in shape! |
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Thanks for your replies. |
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Rui, |
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I completed about 3 months of the "base period" training earlier this year for a mountaineering trip in Colorado. With a heart rate monitor, its very easy to track noticeable progress ie watching your average pace times for zone 1-3 runs or other aerobic activity drop markedly over time. I started out being only keep a 8:15 minute pace on Z2 runs, and three months later I could maintain a Z2 run (around 155 bpm) at 7:15 a minute for 90+ minutes and felt great. |
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Is anyone planning on attending the Alpine Climbing Training Seminar in Ouray on 17-19 January? Looks to be a good course with lots of information from the course plus a day of climbing int he park. |
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How's everyone's training going? |
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I track hours as per Steve's guideline: time moving for aerobic work, strength from warm up to finish, and climbing tracks time on the wall (I.e. Upward movement). Elevation gain is the second priority. Distance, if applicable, is the last and least important. |