The metrics that TrainingPeaks produces using data from your GPS and heart rate monitor have potent implications for monitoring, controlling, and adjusting your training. Anyone can write a training plan. The challenge is successfully applying it to the athlete so that it produces the best results, and one of the biggest problems for coaches and athletes is assessing training load—on both a short-term and long-term basis—and the effect that load has on the athlete. TrainingPeaks was initially set up to serve triathletes and cyclists. Exercise physiologist Andrew Coggan developed the Training Stress Score system as a simplified version of an…
Author: Uphill Athlete
Sometime in the late ’90s I was approaching a grade 6 Canadian ice climb, Virtual Reality, with my climbing partner Joe Josephson. As we walked and talked, the subject of Nanga Parbat’s Rupal Face came up. I was the only one of us who had been to the Himalaya and I had seen the mythical “biggest wall in the world.” At the time the king line, the central pillar, was unclimbed and the famed 1970 route established by Reinhold and Gunther Messner and the Karl Herligkoffer–led expedition had not been repeated. Joe and I laughed about how awesome, and yet…
Scott Johnston discusses the purpose and process of doing muscular endurance (ME) workouts using a steep hill and a backpack weighted with water. This ME water carries video is complementary to the article "What is Muscular Endurance?" Scott offers great tips and technique for beginner to advanced athletes, honed by years of experience.
Why can some alpinists ascend 1,000 meters in an hour with a 15-kilogram pack when others struggle with 1,000 feet? The answer is muscular endurance (ME)—the capacity to maintain a high percentage of muscle contractile force for many repetitions of the propelling movement. Famed Russian coach and researcher Yuri Verkhoshansky was one of the first to explore this quality and demonstrate its impact on endurance performance. His research showed that ME is the main determinant of an athlete’s maximum sustainable speed in efforts lasting more than a few minutes. ME training is of critical importance for any athlete involved in…
Scott Johnston demonstrates a series of basic core exercises. This beginner progression is an excellent form of pre-conditioning for Scott’s Killer Core routine.
Scott Johnston demonstrates proper technique for box step-ups and the heel touch.
Scott Johnston demonstrates shoulder and rotator cuff exercises—for those dealing with an injury and those seeking prevention from such injuries. Perform 20–30 repetitions of each position twice daily.
Scott Johnston demonstrates shoulder mobility and warm-up exercises, which are especially important for climbers.
Scott Johnston demonstrates closed-chain glute med activation and strengthening exercises using resistance bands.
In this Uphill Athlete video tutorial, coach Scott Johnston demonstrates box step-off exercises, which activate and strengthen the gluteus medius and vastus medialis oblique (VMO).