Workouts/Conditioning

Hey everyone,

I've been thinking about some mountaineering goals I'd like to accomplish in the future. My past vacation week hiking in Joshua Tree and Palm Springs California gave me some insights into my current physical strength and condition, and I feel like a pretty weak person right now. I'm short and only have an ~8 minute mile time. I hiked out to the backcountry once this summer with a 35 pound backpack over 2 miles over a mild trail, and that was already pretty excruciating. I've been going to the gym consistently for the past 6 months until these recent months when I have been bombarded with a lot of work making me either skip workout days or workout briefly. As a person with bad time management skills, I know that I should at least be able to pull 1-2 hours of my day to workout, but just haven't in the past few months. So now I am trying to research some more effective methods of working out to build muscle and endurance, but without consulting a physician, I don't really know where is a reasonable place to start as I feel like what I have been doing at the gym is not effective and tough enough. For your information, I am not looking to hike anything difficult anytime soon as I am in my senior year of high school and will have to suck up 4 years of college too. I have some long term goals to climb the 7 summits and do anything I need to prepare in advance for that, but I know that I'm far from any of the basic physical abilities I need to have to climb some of the more common places like the Washington Cascades and Alps. I just want to know where you general mountaineers started, and how I can slowly build up muscle and endurance by weaving exercise into a regular routine.

Thanks for reading!

Scott Johnson and Steve House have you covered. Everything you need to know about mountain fitness is here - uphillathlete.com/

You don't need to workout every day, but doing some kind of cardio, three days a week would be a good start. You could easily burnout by doing it everyday.

I agree with Frank, 2 hours a day of cardio isn't what I'd be doing. 3 days a week isn't bad.

But you're young.  Just go out and do as much as possible.  Carry a heavier pack than you need to carry.  Hike longer things than you hiked.  IME, I skip fewer workouts when the workouts are "going outside to climb rock" or "going skiing" or even "walk around in the local greenbelt."

Another recommendation for Uphill Athlete as well as their book Training For the New Alpinisim.

Find and use the little time throughout the day. 25 squats on each break and at lunch. 75-100 squats there. Ten push ups between beers. 10 jumping jacks every time you go to the bathroom. It all adds up. You dont have to budget hours every day. Some pregnant women do kegels at every stop sign or red light. Adopt a few things like that and you will see some results.

Thanks everyone, this is a lot of advice for me to use! 

Also check out Dr. Maffetones "Big book of endurance training". Easy to read and understand. Even for a knucklehead like me. and its something you can always come back to year after year and get more out of it. guaranteed to get you up and running

I know right where you are. Granted I’m 50 and carrying a 50 pound pack over 4-5 miles while playing guide for a few days recently made very clear my lack of cardio etc.
At your age you are in a prime position to gain strength and stamina quickly and maintain those gains far more easily than someone my age. The key is simple. Stay active. Make time. Nothing beats hard work and there are no shortcuts.
That being said, some workouts are more effective than others for your stated goals. If you are close to the mountains, then you cannot beat getting into the hills and moving with added weight. Second best in my opinion, especially if you don’t have access to mountainous terrain, Is stair climbing.  And by that I mean stadium running. Or stairwells. I live in south Louisiana and this is my only option. It does the job.
But I still feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack each time I get out with a 50lb pack with serious elevation gain. Hence,  learn to embrace type 2 fun. It’s always gonna hurt. The view is worth the effort. 

Just stay as active as possible. Bike whenever possible (and I'm not talking about a leisurely cruiser ride), take the stairs always no matter what (remember that you may very well  be sleep deprived and malnourished when your scaling those epic summits), pull-ups and box jumps whenever you find the chance.

+1 for "Training for the new Alpinism", check out Scott's killer core routine plus a couple of the climbing specific exercises.

Start gentle fingers/wrist exercises now and increase them slowly for months, so you don't injure yourself if you decide to add rock climbing to the mountaineering goals at some point.

Also, college doesn't have to equal no climbing and poor fitness: I biked to world-class bouldering between class and work throughout the last half of my undergrad at CU Boulder.  If the outdoors are that important to you, go to a climber-friendly college and have fun with it!