Ever since we began getting emails in response to Training for the New Alpinism, there is one question in particular that has come up more than any other. Mountain athletes want to know how to find a balance between conventional responsibilities such as work, family, or school and their desire to be in the mountains. Some people are constrained by location, some by energy, and others by time. Regardless of the individual situation, these inquiries tend to share one thing in common: they usually come from folks who want to cram a week’s worth of activity into one or two…
Author: Uphill Athlete
Uphill Athlete received this story from British climbers Malcolm Bass, Guy Buckingham, and Paul Figg after they made the first ascent of the remote Janhukot (6,805 meters). We thought we would write to you to say thank you for sharing so much inspiration, and so much distilled knowledge and experience, through Training for the New Alpinism and the Uphill Athlete website and forum. I am writing this from our base camp on the side of the Gangotri glacier in India where we sit enjoying the afterglow of having made the first ascent of Janhukot, a remote, technical 6,800-meter peak 19…
Caveat: What follows is not a substitute for professional advice. These ideas have been accumulated over dozens of years of dealing with our own injuries and those of our athletes. Over those years we’ve developed some very general suggestions on the subject that we’d like to share. Every athlete and every injury is different, so making blanket recommendations is risky. We put forth these suggestions knowing that they help in most cases, but maybe not yours. Remember that there is no substitute for in-person, hands-on evaluation by a sports rehab professional.If you are a runner, skier, or climber, and especially…
In 2017, I was standing on a metaphorical plateau that spanned nearly seven years. I had reached the peak of my technical rock climbing and ski mountaineering while still in my 20s, and I wasn’t perceptibly improving as a 36-year-old. Granted, I was still amassing memorable mountain adventures, more work as a ski and rock guide, and more inspiration than ever before to explore technical terrain in wild places. But alongside the good things were the inevitable effects of aging in tandem with years of physical work: achy knees and back, fatigue, slower recovery, and many unfulfilled dreams. Something needed…
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A common refrain we hear from amateur athletes is that they do not have time for high volumes of training. So they prefer high-intensity training sessions. When training is squeezed between family obligations, work, school, and life, time limitations can push it down the priority list. It is tempting to think you can shortchange workout duration and then make up for it by dialing up the intensity.Of course, adding intensity does improve your fitness quickly. However, without a well-trained aerobic base, high-intensity training simply will never allow you to maximize your fitness potential. To put it another way, the potential…
Overtraining syndrome is the most common reason endurance athletes fail to reach their potential, and the most preventable. It is not ordinary fatigue. It is a complex medical condition in which the body’s adaptation processes break down, and what was once a manageable training load becomes destructive stress. The earlier you recognize it, the less damage it does. The athletes quoted in this article — including Kilian Jornet, Krissy Moehl, Clare Gallagher, and Anton Krupicka — have all experienced it firsthand and share what they learned. Trail running training group join the community LEARN MORE How Does Overtraining Develop? Overtraining…
Uphill Athlete co-founder Scott Johnston presents the theory and practice driving endurance performance in the mountains. His 2-hour talk, filmed during a November 2017 workshop, is dense with coaching history, training techniques and tips, athlete stories, and information on the physiology of training. This presentation was generously hosted by Run Wenatchee, Inner Circle Gym Wenatchee, and the Wenatchee Public Library. This was recorded as a Facebook Live event. Volume, resolution, and production are not top quality—but the information is! The entirety of the recorded presentation is in two parts. PART 1 https://www.facebook.com/uphillathlete/videos/1207164636050638/ PART 2 https://www.facebook.com/uphillathlete/videos/1207243652709403/
I got my only view of Mount Baker on my drive to the race start in Concrete, Washington. I saw the alpenglow on the mountain. It was so clear. I wish the weather had stayed like that the whole race, but it didn’t work out that way.The Mount Baker Marathon would be my first ultra—my first organized race of any sort, really. I’ve been climbing and mountaineering for 31 years, and I trail run when I can’t climb, just to get outside, but I don’t consider myself a runner. Even so, to improve my overall fitness for an upcoming six-month summer climbing trip, during which I plan…
I love The Matrix. In my favorite scene, Neo straps himself to an archaic dentist’s chair. He’s learning martial arts by downloading them into his brain. Once they’re installed, he can use them in the digital world. To make the downloads, Neo’s colleague plugs a thick cable into the back of Neo’s skull. He taps a button on his screen, and Neo’s "training" begins.Wouldn’t that be amazing? Instead of dedicating a slow, tedious decade to one martial art, we could plug in, download it, and be awesome.But life isn’t like that, is it? To master something, a slow, tedious decade…