[enri.987]

Hello Steve and Scott,
I’m Enrique, a young alpinist from Spain living in Switzerland. I’ve been reading your book recently. In it, you state the importance of having a good aerobic base. I’ve been doing aerobic workouts since I was a kid, but always around zones 2-3: your book convinced me to train more in the zone 1 lately. I also stopped doing the hill sprints and intervals to train in this zone. Yet, when I go to big mountains nowadays (e.g., matterhorn a few days ago), I feel “heavier” than before.

I can’t explain this, do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Topic

[TerryLui]

TerryLui on September 15, 2021 at 2:53 pm #57054

Hey Enrique,
My guess would be that you have become highly trained in Z2-3 and have a very small Z1. Meaning you may have Aerobic Deficiency Syndrome (ADS).
As you train more in expanding your Z1, your Z2-3 efficiency will decrease as you’re not spending time training those zones. However, once you build up your Z1 HR to be within 10% of your Z2 HR, your Z1 will be big enough/efficient/fast enough for you to move “lightly” while staying in an Aerobic zone.

If you haven’t yet, perform the AeT test to see where your zones are – https://uphillathlete.com/aerobic-anaerobic-threshold-self-assessment/

Hope that helps!