Over the last decade the sport of ski mountaineering racing, or skimo, has seen a dramatic increase in participants, most notably in North America where it captures legions of trail and mountain runners seeking winter challenges in the mountains. Thanks to rapidly improving equipment, moving fast on skimo race gear has started to look more and more like the cross-country ski racing of yesteryear. It’s no surprise that skimo racers can reap huge efficiency gains by adapting a number of Nordic ski training methods. One of the most valuable of those methods is training on roller skis. By closely mimicking…
Author: Uphill Athlete
Professional alpinist David Goettler, coached by Scott Johnston, uses a special muscular endurance workout in preparation for an alpine-style ascent of Shishapangma in 2017. The day’s session involves sets of weighted climbs of a long staircase. Specific training like this should be layered on top of hundreds of hours of aerobic base building. It is not recommended for those who are suffering from a lower-limb injury.
The simple but time-consuming Rusko orthostatic test was developed by the famed Finnish exercise scientist Heikki Rusko as a way to monitor for overtraining among high-level cross-country skiers at training camps. It requires only a basic heart rate monitor with real-time display. Here is how it works: A well-rested, fit athlete will display a low resting heart rate, a rapid heart rate response in the first 15 seconds of standing, and a rapid fall in heart rate during the next minute. Whether the heart rate rises or drops during the final 30 seconds is also a good indicator that there…
How about this for a week’s worth of mountain fun? Sounds unlikely if not downright impossible, right? Believe it or not, Kilian Jornet did all of this in one week in 2015. Yes, his legend is well deserved. Astonishing as this and many of his other feats may be, there are sound and comprehensible reasons as to why Kilian has kept all of us amazed by his exploits over the years. On top of any genetic gifts he may have, what Kilian has developed over the past 20-plus years of consistent and heavy training is a very high aerobic capacity…
Okay, you’ve taken your Metabolic Efficiency Test (MET) or Gas Exchange Test (GET) and gotten your grade. But what does it mean? And where do we go from here? One advantage to paying professionals to test your blood lactate or metabolic efficiency is that they should explain what the results mean in terms of your training. But for the DIYers out there, or for anyone who felt a little fuzzy on their lab technicians’ explanation of the results, here is a basic look at what your results in these tests might mean. Hopefully by covering some of the basics, along…
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…
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.