[nleatham]

Hello,

I’ve been training for about six months now with no specific goal outside of being fit for mountaineering. What this looks like is essentially repeating the 8-week base building sequence from the 24-week mountaineering training plan on repeat. I have a few caveats: I do 3 full body strength workouts a week instead of two because I lack a strong foundation in strength (I can only squat half my bodyweight) and I keep everything in Z1-Z2.
Anyways, I want to add in ME workouts to my training plan but I didn’t know how to go about doing this apart from gradually. My specific questions are:
1. If I added ME for 8-12 weeks, would I lose that strength over time? Would I need to repeat it at some point?
2. Could, after an 8-12 week ME building phase, just keep an ME workout in my weekly training sessions? For example, on every long Sunday hike (except for recovery weeks) could I wear a heavy pack?

Any help is appreciated. Thank you all!

Topic

[Shashi]

Shashi on December 10, 2021 at 3:10 pm #60595

If you don’t have specific goals and have room to build your aerobic base capacity (i.e. have ADS), then it might make sense to continue with your Base period training. You can do the last eight weeks of ME before the start of your mountaineering season.

Check out this article on Muscular Endurance, especially the ME Caveat section –

Vertical Beast Mode: What Is Muscular Endurance? Why Is It Important and How Do You Train It?

[Dada]

Dada on December 13, 2021 at 11:58 am #60724

Scott Semple once suggested to cut the volume of week 12 (or whatever level you want to maintain) by 50% to keep the form.