Kilian Jornet explains in this video interview why he is no longer doing any interval training. He tells Steve House what he does instead, which leads to a discussion of how he manages to race a range of distances and terrain types.
Author: Uphill Athlete
In this video interview with Steve House, Kilian Jornet shares some essential training advice. He touches on athletes who start training later in life, especially those who take on a high training volume while also working and having a family. This means that they have a lot going on besides only training. Kilian points out that whenever you train, it adds stress to your system. Because of this, it is important to remember that time spent at work and/or with family is not necessarily rest for your body. A key takeaway: Training is a long-term progression. As best you can,…
In this video interview with Steve House, Kilian Jornet describes his journey to being able to train by feel. After educating himself about training theory for several years, Kilian began to self-coach at the age of 17. Eventually, thanks to his extensive training and theoretical background, he began to proceed by feel.
When Kilian Jornet started training for skimo racing when he was 13 years old, he worked with two coaches. One coach provided training plans each month, and the other conducted technical training (e.g., how to stride and glide, avalanche courses, and general mountain skills). Between the ages of 13 and 17, Kilian was immersed in this kind of structured training. As a teenager, Kilian didn’t just train; he describes himself as being obsessed with training. He would frequently run 25 kilometers to and then back from school, or he would cycle 60 kilometers to find snow and then do his…
Kilian Jornet talks to Steve House about his childhood. His father, a mountain guide, introduced him to the mountains at a very early age. By the age of 3, he was doing ski ascents and descents of nearby mountains, and by the time he was 5 years old he was climbing 3,000-meter (12,000-foot) peaks with an ice axe and crampons.
I’ve been doing sport for as long as I can remember, mainly mountain sports like rock, ice, and alpine climbing. For the past 20 years, I’ve been going mountaineering all over the world—from the Alps, where I grew up, to the 8,000-meter peaks of the Himalaya where my focus as a professional athlete is right now. I’m also a Union Internationale des Associations d’Alpinisme (UIAA) mountain guide, and when I am not on an expedition, I regularly work with clients climbing in the Alps and beyond. I was especially frustrated by my lack of ability to gain more endurance and…
Bill Allen’s guiding career stretches across 20 years, and he’s climbed the Seven Summits twice over. Uphill Athlete coaching for both him and his clientele led to back-to-back successes on Everest and Denali in 2016. Most climbers are quick to highlight their own personal goals and achievements. But in chatting with mountain guide Bill Allen, co-owner of MountainTrip, about his recent forays into the mountains, I immediately noticed his remarkable care for others’ goals: in this case, helping his clients reach tall and difficult summits. On how he got involved with Uphill Athlete, he says, “I was searching for a…
Abe T. is a 43-year-old doctor who spent a decade and a half working 80-to-100-hour weeks, only taking five days off some years. He’s now lost over 50 pounds and returned to a life of climbing.In his early 20s, Abe T. had much in common with motivated young alpinists: he’d climbed the Grand Teton, Mount Stuart, Pingora, Mount Rainier, and others. His imagination was caught up in stories of fast and light Himalayan expeditions by the likes of Doug Scott and Alex MacIntyre. He wanted to climb in the greater ranges one day.Then Abe started medical school. He thought life…
The MAF method, short for Maximum Aerobic Function, is a third option for determining Aerobic Threshold (AeT). It’s quick, easy, and we promise that you won’t break a sweat! This is a method that we recommend for those who have never engaged in organized aerobic training. It uses a simple formula that Dr. Phil Maffetone developed over 30 years ago. The MAF method gives a conservative estimation of an individual’s AeT. With this method, your aerobic base training will be most effective if you use the resulting number as the top heart rate for Zone 2. The calculation is simple:…
You know what endurance is, right? It is the ability to maintain a high rate of work output for long durations, or some variation on that definition. But what enables endurance? Stated another way: What is it that powers the muscle contractions that propel you for hours of a climb or race? The answer can be stated in three letters: ATP.The molecule ATP provides the energy for movement and is the product of metabolic processes in the muscles. Training for endurance is simply an organized method to enhance your metabolism, or, in other words, to increase your muscles’ rate of…