[Josef]

Hello,

right now I’m in week 2 of the conversion to specificity of the 24 weeks mountaineering plan. In the plan there is a “Z3 weighted hike” and a “hike on hilly terrain” once a week. For the Z3 ME session I use about 20-25% of BW weight, for the “hike on hilly terrain” I use the suggested 15% of BW and stay strictly in Z1/low Z2.
During very steep sections of the Z1 hike and also on the downhill part I can clearly feel a muscular effect of the 15% backpack. As regularly mentioned on UA, it is very important to keep the Z1/Z2 base training during ME time to prevent over-training, I’m asking myself, if this Z1 hike with some muscular effect is to hard.
After the hike I was pretty tired, however, two days later I’m feeling fresh and ok for tomorrows ME Z3 session.
Is it ok if the Z1 session feels hard or should I reduce backpack weight to make it a little bit easier.

Thanks for your suggestions,
Josef

Topic

[MarkPostle]

MarkPostle on May 19, 2020 at 2:14 pm #41895

Its good youre thinking along these lines. Everyone weathers and recovers from the ME workouts a bit differently, some people are quite recovered in a couple of days and others even 1 X per week it to much. Let your recovery guide you in adjusting your training. The hike on hilly terrain can certainly have a bit of an ME affect especially with the eccentric loading on the down as you mention. I would try and make sure the 2 workouts are pretty polarized, do the ME heavy, steep and hard. If you need to cut the weight on the hike on hilly terrain down a bit and/or do it on slightly less steep hills to steer clear of over training and recover from the ME that’s absolutely the thing to do. Listen to your body and make sure your feeling pretty fresh heading into the ME each week.

[Josef]

Josef on May 20, 2020 at 1:39 am #41908

Hi Mark,

thanks for your answer and suggestion. This confirms very much my feeling how I should modulate the intensity.

Thanks a lot.
Josef