[langer318]

I recently purchased the 24 week Expeditionary Mountaineering Training Plan to use for training for a WB attempt at Denali in Early May 2018.

I’ve read though the program I should be starting at the end of November to finish in time for the climb. I’m trying to decide what to do in the meantime for training. Would be make sense to start the program now and build though the base period and then circle back and start over from the beginning in November or would there be a better use of my time/efforts where I could just extend out the base period?

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on July 29, 2017 at 7:38 pm #5744

Langer;

You can/should absolutely start training for Denali tomorrow. You can never have too much base. If you have the time; then start now. 24 weeks is not some ideal time nor is it the MAXIMUM you should train. It is a reasonable compromise for most people and it gives them a decent amount of base for a climb like this. The way I would recommend extending that plan is to run through the first 3 months of the plan in August, September and October. This will give you a really good idea of the volume you can handle and how the training needs to proceed if you have never done a structured training program. This will take you through the 8 week Transition period and get you about 4 weeks into the Base period. This means that you can add 3 more months to your Base building. This approach will really only effect your strength progression. For strength I would keep the Max strength period at 8 weeks (starting in October and ending in late November) then shift to the Muscular Endurance phase of strength for 6-8 weeks (end of January). Then return to Max for 4-5 weeks (end of Feb) before putting in a final 6 weeks or so of ME. For aerobic volume progression; Just keep adding as you can manage the time and recovery.

I hope this helps,
Scott

[langer318]

langer318 on October 3, 2017 at 7:57 am #6262

Thanks Scott. I’m just circling back around to this since I have another question. I’m just about to finish the transition period this week and will be starting the base period on Monday. Looking at the general layout of the plan I’m wondering about switching the days around a bit. If I were to swap the Steep Uphill workout (third day of the week) with the run/hike workout (sixth day of the week) it would allow me to get into the mountains for the uphill portion vs using a treadmill or box step ups. I’m just now sure how important it is to keep the exact days of the week for things and if it would be detrimental to the training.