If the goal is purely aerobic capacity building then you’re likely going to be better off with longer duration and lighter pack weight. As mentioned above much of it comes down to specificity for your goal. If your goal never exceeds a 5% pack weight then for sure that will be the better choice most of the time (ME workouts not withstanding) If you goal has an approach day(s) that involves significant pack weight then you’ll want to try and replicate that in the training some of the days. The reality is that a lot of mountain goals require both a big aerobic capacity (summit days) and a heavy pack carrying ability (approach to camp) so you’ll want to be training both.
MarkPostle
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ModeratorMarkPostle on June 9, 2022 at 6:45 pm · in reply to: Hiking – 20% BW and short vs. 5% BW and long #68153Moderator
James, Yes you can certainly use a power hiking gait instead of a running gait. As your aerobic capacity increases you may find you need to use a running pace to get your HR up into Z2 or use a walk/run progression. The walking gait in most circumstances isn’t as abusive on the body and can indeed allow a faster recovery for similar training time.
ModeratorMarty, depending on your training history we don’t tend to see big changes in AnT. The 10% delta between AeT and AnT is a great target to train towards. In my experience not everyone can quite get there but you want to maximize your aerobic capacity as best you’re able.
ModeratorJeremy, Hopefully a few other folks will chime in but I’ll expand a bit on what I’ve seen work. The first thing I look at is the goal of the athlete and if strength (and what kind) will really help move the needle in their ability or not. A naturally not very strong person going to Denali will benefit way more than a total gym beast climbing Killimanjaro for instance. Personally I think a nice middle ground for folks that really like gym work is 1 session/week of things like deadlift, a pressing movement a pulling movement and some additional single leg strength work, then Chamfit as the second session in the week. As the goal approaches you may well want to pull one of them out and do an ME session instead. This is more sport specific usually and allow adequate recovery. Post goal climb you can go back to general strength for a while.
ModeratorHa! Youre not the first to find that to be the case. If you have Cham 2 totally under control then I would encourage you to keep plugging away at level 3 even if you need to take a few breaks and can’t do 100% of the movement. It will get better with time. The only other thing I would add is that if you’re doing ME also on Tuesday then make sure you’re recovering. If you’re getting a bit overwhelmed focus on the ME as the higher priority and just do Level 2 Chamfit later in the week.
ModeratorMarkPostle on June 3, 2022 at 4:33 pm · in reply to: Is it ok to slowly run some of my weighted hikes? #67968Todd, The short answer is yes as long as you’re recovering from the lightly weighted jog. Generally speaking if folks are using a running gait I just go ahead and have them do it completely unweighted and adjust pace accordingly to hit the desired HR zones of the workout. Then do the second workout as prescribed. (The exception are ultra runners training for multi day/self supported fastpacking type events where they need to train with some weight then I have then run with a light pack in training fairly regularly) It is also a bit goal dependent. If you goal is very pack intensive then the more time with the pack the better in the latter phases of training. If its less pack dependent then an unweighted day with a running gait is totally fine. Regardless if you do the light pack jogging the durations stay the same and be gentle on the downs.
ModeratorJames, The data looks pretty good here and you’re interpreting it correctly as far as drift and AET. If you have it accessible it would be interesting to get a second data point for this from a steady state treadmill test set on a steep incline and using a power hiking gait. Regardless indeed you have a decent size gap between your aerobic and anaerobic threshold and would benefit from doing majority of your aerobic volume at a lower intensity than your previous training for the half marathon. I would try training in that 115-120 range for a while and see how it feels. (Yes it will likely be quite slow! That ok). Put in a good 6-8 weeks and see if you can close than gap down some and get more efficient at the sub Aet work. You can see from this test at the beginning you were working around 120HR and doing 15 min/mile then later you were working at 130HR and had slowed to 17+ min/mile. If you extrapolate this out over a big 8-12 hour climbing day you would likely drift to a point where you might not be moving effectively enough to summit etc.
Unless you have a big goal in the short term I would put most all of my effort into logging a solid low intensity base and let see if we can’t close that gap a bit and get you moving more effectively over a longer time frame.ModeratorRyan, Thanks so much for the kind words and am really stoked the program is working so well for you. As someone who in hindsight chronically overtrained from an intensity standpoint I can attest it takes a bit of faith and time but it really does yield results! Can’t wait to see where the path leads you!
ModeratorMarkPostle on June 1, 2022 at 5:43 pm · in reply to: May 2022 Introductions / Goals / Geographies #67912Timothy, Some folks will also do a traverse of the 3 Tetons (grand/middle/south) which is also commonly called the Teton traverse and is a fun outing with a bit less commitment factor than the whole grand traverse or the Cathedral (teewinot/Owen/Grand).
ModeratorDo you have access to a treadmill, incline trainer, or Stairmill?
ModeratorSounds like an awesome adventure. I have been just east of there a couple of times climbing in the Taghia gorge. Amazing zone. I would not do anything different with the training other than taking a light week the week before your climb date to make sure youre rested. Nothing you’re going to do from a training perspective is going to move the needle much in the next week so the best thing that you can do is to show up rested and healthy. Make sure not to go out too fast the first few hours and then not be able to maintain. Maintain a reasonable pace and make sure to keep eating and drinking all day to the best of your ability and you should be fine. Can’t wait to hear about the travels when you get back!
ModeratorHill looks decent and weight should be OK. I would chop the pace for sure such that you can build up to a total of 90 min and each round trip segment is roughly equal in time/pace. Once you get to where that is achievable then look at your total “up” time. Ideally progress the workout duration so that the total up time is about 60 min. (I.e. 8 laps of 7+ min up) Once that feels OK then consider progressing the weight possibly. The perceived effort will be hard the first few laps but by no means 100% so that you can maintain for the duration of the workout. The last lap should feel darn hard. Don’t worry to much about HR for now.
ModeratorGot it. If you’re doing laps on stairs then you’ll always be able to maintain a higher effort level over the course of the workout as there’s rest periods in between and thus you’re able to maintain higher HR during the efforts. I would add 5 pounds and just go hard, disregard HR pretty much entirely. You’ll be getting the desired effect.
ModeratorDefinitely don’t slow down. This should be a hard effort. We are not concerned about HR from a training perspective (this isn’t an aerobic capacity workout but more of a specific strength workout) You could try add another 5-10 pounds but in general if your able to carry 60 pounds and hold your HR right at AnT for an hour one of a couple things is slightly amiss. A) Your AnT estimate is low or more likely B) You’re not using steep enough terrain. Using a heavy pack to produce an ME effect only really works when there’s a gravity component to resist. I can get my HR close to AnT with a 60 pound pack on a 10-15% trail or treadmill for an hour but definitely cannot on a 40% gradient at a steady state effort.
ModeratorJean-Marc, We are going to touch on that in the upcoming Zoom. I don’t use hrTSS for the ME pack carries usually. It depends a bit if its outdoors vs inside and if you carry the weight down as well but I manually use an estimated score from 100 to 200 depending how the athletes feels the next day and how they recover. My standard is 150.