For what it’s worth, the recent UA podcast on the Cham Mountain Fit program teed it up as a “transition strength” routine. Based on my understanding of the book and from that discussion, it’s basically something to do in the early stages of structured training. I believe that in TFNA they state that if you’re regularly in the gym doing a diverse array of strength work, you can keep the transition period to a few weeks before moving on to a max strength phase.

For me, I’d been out of the gym for about two years so did a longer (8+ weeks) transition strength phase, using the routines in TFNA. It looks like the 5 week alpine rock program includes a general strength day each week, for which you could substitute a CMF workout.

Hi Vincent,

Please take my thoughts with a grain of salt. I have never been an elite athlete in any discipline but I have been fortunate to be very durable. I started my first uphill athlete training plan in January of 2018 and have been consistent since then. I haven’t been using the Chamonix Mountain Fit as long because it just hasn’t been around that long. It sounds to me like you are pretty solid as far as your gym fitness goes but have some real knee issues. The first thing to decide is what your goals are. You mentioned multi pitch climbs of moderate grade. Are you wanting to increase your climbing grade or just get more comfortable on multi-pitches? Is the climbing actually hurting your knee or is it the approach and just being on your feet that long? The CMF program is great for addressing imbalances as it is almost exclusively unilateral work. But its not going to happen by magic, you will have to pause the video and do extra sets on the weak side. Overall, I find the CMF workouts to be heavy on balance and core work but if you are looking for hypertrophy this isn’t the right plan or even the right website.

If you are wanting to get more durable for your long approaches I would just start the expeditionary plan. All of the plans are pretty similar but with the longest plan you are just going to be able build a more solid base. If you aren’t in a rush for a certain goal this is going to be the best plan. I would also suggest being patient with your knee. In the plan there are a lot of workouts that call for a walk or run. Your knee is the limiter here so do them all as walks as you build up your ability to do those long back to back days in the mountains.

Good luck!

Hi Vincent,

I think combining both would really be the ideal. In the expedition plan you start out with two strength workouts a week and as the aerobic volume increases the strength training goes down to once per week for maintenance. But as an older athlete (I am 47) I have always stuck with the two strength workouts a week because I felt so much better with that routine and recovered better as long as I didn’t go crazy with the weights.

When the CMF plan first came out I ran the idea by the coaches here about doing the CMF workout once per week and the general strength from the expedition plan once per week to try and thread the needle. They thought that would work well for me and I imagine it would be worth a shot for you. If you are used to going to the gym and moving plates around the CMF plan will feel pretty strange. You spend so much time on balance to begin with you may worry about losing strength. I did anyway. I feel like getting both types of workouts in once a week allows me to progress along both tracks just a little slower than if I would focus on one.

Does that make sense?

Vincent – Chamonix Mountain Fit has different levels (Level 1-3) that you can use in combination with the 24-week mountaineering plan. You can progress through different levels of Chamonix Mountain Fit. Check out this article for a sample progression –

Free Pre-Season Training Plan for Skiers

Chamonix Mountain Fit also offers Lite versions (about 30 minutes) that you can use in-season for maintenance.

Hope this is helpful.