[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 27, 2021 at 9:20 pm · in reply to: “flat” terrain workouts and getting into Z2 #59949

An orthopedic specialist or physical therapist is the best resource to give specific advice about a knee brace. For many individuals, a knee brace is probably very low on the list of interventions for prevention and treatment.
In many situations, “wear & tear” can be minimized with a balanced training program. The Chamonix Mountain Fit incorporates elements that try to improve movement patterns – hopefully resulting in more balanced movement and making wear & tear more generalized and less acute. The Cham Mth Fit could address functional imbalances in your body, but can’t account for all structural problems – e.g. if you have a large degree of existing wear and tear, or a current injury. So if you have specific questions and aren’t confident in your self-assessment, those are probably best addressed by a specialist who can assess you in-person.

This article is a great starting point for many athletes with orthopedic concerns:

Dealing With Injury as a Runner, Climber, or Skier

We also have an injury and rehab forum:

Injury & Rehab

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 27, 2021 at 8:04 am · in reply to: Zone 3 Exercise #59907

Hi Umer
That’s great to hear that things are improving with participation in this program.
If you have any concern about a flare-up of impingement symptoms, check with your PT. The inflammation could be coming from a combination of factors but doing too much with too little rest is a great way to provoke it.
If you’re cleared for other footborne activity besides running: steep uphill hiking is preferred for mountaineers. If that isn’t an option, try to substitute with one of these options – in this order: steeper treadmill, a stairmaster, a stairstepper, or an elliptical. Going steeply uphill is a great way to get into Zone 3 and you don’t need to carry weight (carrying weight can change which systems are affected most by the session). Even if you’re cleared for it, you might want to ease into a new session and make sure that you’re tolerating it before a full session or the AnT Test.
Best, Nate

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 23, 2021 at 11:23 pm · in reply to: Recovery and purposefully detraining #59698

Edgar, If you came into this program with a CTL of 65-70, I wouldn’t necessarily expect much increase yet. Depending on your weekly workout composition, 10-12 hours might not be sufficient to push CTL too much higher than 70CTL. Don’t worry, 65-70CTL at the start of a transition period could be a solid starting point.

Another point: we don’t always need to see an increase in CTL for it to be “good” training. Sometimes it’s good training simply adapting to a solid weekly volume.

The precise reduction in recovery week volume is very individualized, both in time and volume. The programmed recovery weeks show a reduction that would work well for a large group, but could be more individualized over time with good notes.

Regarding *feeling* beat up:
You raise a great point about your other stressors. If your sleep is impacted and compromised on a regular basis, that needs to be addressed if you want to keep ramping up your volume. If you can improve sleep quality, that would be a pretty convincing way to show that stress is being reduced.
It’s outside of the scope of the program to prescribe particular changes. One way to approach this could be to journal your daily activity to get a better overall picture. From there, you could start to identify areas to improve stress management. Some suggestions for the Covid WFH-era are identifying ways to compartmentalize work, or identifying ways to improve sleep hygiene.

If the 50k was well outside the time/vert of your typical long day, then feeling “beat up” could be due to “underrecovery”. This could be from the length of the race day, the pace, the terrain, or the eccentric loading on descents. Race days can take a toll and could require at least one deliberate recovery week or more. A recovery week post-race could have a notable reduction in volume. The body needs recovery and we have to let our CTL drop at various points in our training cycles.

If integrating strength/conditioning into your program is new, consider that 65-70CTL might not be the same as a previous 65-70CTL. This is one reason why it’s helpful to reduce training volume as you transition into a new program. 70CTL with familiar workouts feels different than 70CTL with a whole new set of weekly workouts.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 22, 2021 at 11:09 am · in reply to: Planning 2021 winter training climbs for Denali #59634

Great question Kazu. Each individual has to find the right answer to “too little or too many”. The answer depends on fitness, experience level, familiarity, and skills.

1. If developing your fitness will be your biggest point of leverage: focus more on the training plan
2. If developing your skills will be your biggest point of leverage: try to integrate specific training (not specific climbs) and maybe a Denali Prep Course
3. If developing your comfort in a snow/winter environment will be your biggest point of leverage: try to do a Denali Prep Course or set aside time for some winter backpacking to test some of your gear
4. If you feel like you are coming into this program with a good base and you can integrate a few climbs in the specific period (~4-8 weeks before the trip), then by all means try to schedule a few.

Those who have a very big resume with recent climbs of the same nature may not need to do any additional climbs in the lead up to a big climb. Those with only a handful of climbs with similar qualities should try to plan some additional skills and experiential training. It’s generally a good idea for most mountaineering athletes to have some intermediate climbs or skills training. Anyone intending to integrate a few climbs should do so after building a strong base. Ideally this is in the specific period, before a taper. Roughly 4-8 weeks before the trip would mesh well with training.

Each athlete needs to evaluate how strong their skills are. A big simulation climb doesn’t necessarily create time to fine-tune your crampon skills like a specific training day. Likewise, you might camp quite differently on a quick winter climb up Whitney versus a 5 day winter backpacking trip or ski traverse (more specific to Denali).

Early season Rainier can have a wide range of conditions, and occasionally high avalanche hazard / poor weather make it an unreliable pick if summiting is your goal. That could make it a poor pick to include in an organized schedule. On the other hand, most climbers benefit from the Denali Prep Courses on Rainier. Summits are not guaranteed, but the training and time on snow is helpful for most climbers.

If you are climbing with a guide service, they can often recommend an appropriate intermediate climb based on your resume. Doing a 14er could clearly be helpful, but keep in mind a late winter / early spring ascent is often more advanced than a summer climb. Snowpacks are *generally* becoming more stable at this time, and daylight is increasing.

Each athlete is coming with a different level of experience and training history, and they’ll need to choose their own balance between following the plan as close as possible, and integrating some specific winter skills and mountaineering training. Some athletes might be using most of their annual leave for a big trip, so it’s nice to know alternatives to a training climb.

Just like training, the steps towards your goal should *occasionally* be specific. It’s possible to do intermediate climbs and trips that check some – but not all – of the boxes for Denali training and still be effective.
*We often see many Denali climbers who have a challenge living on snow for three weeks. It’s psychologically challenging, so it’s nice to have a warm up trip to become more familiar with your Denali camping and sleeping kit. This can reduce anxiety on the trip.
*It’s important to be comfortable moving on snowshoes with a load on flat terrain, as well as moderate to steeper hills – mostly on packed snow. If this isn’t familiar, it’s easy to work harder at a much slower pace compared to your training hikes.
*It’s also important to be comfortable moving on your crampons. Keep in mind that crampons always have a potential tripping hazard – you don’t want to get hurt right before your Denali trip. Know your own skill level and train accordingly. If this isn’t familiar, it’s easy to overexert yourself when you are moving in crampons.
*Continue to do many of your workouts outdoors. Whenever it’s safe to do so, doing your workouts in inclement winter weather can be a great way to get used to exertion and moisture management in some of your Denali clothing. Always be mindful of avalanche terrain and the potential difficulty of travel in winter. A large number of winter search and rescue calls happen close to trailheads on popular summer routes. In western Colorado, for example, numerous summer trails cross through some of the biggest avalanche paths in the Rockies. Make sure to know your terrain.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 18, 2021 at 11:17 am · in reply to: other physical activity #59519

@Bill With a primary goal of improving aerobic fitness, swimming can be a great adjunct workout as long as you keep the intensity low. To support the mountaineering goal of improving your aerobic base, you’ll want to focus on distance at an easier intensity.
Swimming is a great way to add aerobic training volume without the extra pounding on your legs. Bill- your device will work in the pool. A chest strap is recommended- just check to make sure the chest strap is designed for it.
Many GPS HR watches can be used in a pool. Please check with the manufacturer to be sure. For athletes whose wrist monitor isn’t designed for swimming, certain chest strap models are designed to record and store a workout so you can sync it to your watch later.
If you want to track swim workouts, make sure that you’ve set up the correct pool size / length in your device. Of course, make sure that you are actually selecting a swim activity. Some devices automatically pause when you rest between sets. You may have to enable this feature depending on what watch you have. Again, check with the manufacturer.

It’s great to have another athlete in their 70’s training with Uphill Athlete! I’m sure that Art Muir has recalibrated how many people look at athletes in their 70’s.

It’s important to view yourself as an athlete:
IMO – Your *identity* is far more important than *goal-setting*. If you consider yourself a “mountaineer”, an “athlete”, and a “climber”, then it’s far more likely that you’ll take ownership of your training process and all the lifestyle choices to succeed on your goals. Goal-setting doesn’t directly connect an individual with the responsibility to train properly. But if you consider yourself an “athlete”, then you will hold yourself more accountable for your training and lifestyle choices. If you already believe that you are the person you want to be, then it’s a lot easier to make the right choices to support your training and achieve your goals.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 17, 2021 at 12:12 pm · in reply to: pushing AeT up from below – how big a difference is too much? #59431

Bill: Doing all Zone 2 might be too hard for some individuals, while doing all Zone 1 might not provide enough stimulus. Putting total sub-AeT training volume in that context, doing everything at the top of these two zones may be too hard for some individuals, affecting their capacity to recovery. If our recovery isn’t optimal, we aren’t optimizing our training.
You can train at the top of the zones it if it’s working over a longer period. If it feels too hard and you aren’t recovering, titrate your intensity (do more in the middle of the zones) so you can recover adequately.

Your assumptions are probably all correct, but the relative importance of each of those factors would be hard to figure out for an individual. I don’t necessarily encourage people to be right at the top of the zone. It’s far more important to train consistently and frequently, so that you have a generally high training volume. What might be most established in the literature is that a high chronic training volume below AeT has the biggest effect on aerobic adaptation. Starting workouts with lower glycogen levels is suggested to be the best way to promote mitochondrial biogenesis and other major factors in improving aerobic fitness. Doing this with too much dietary manipulation (e.g. keto/fasting) would likely preclude good recovery and higher training volumes, although this is probably very individualized. It seems more logical to set up conditions to get more training volume and have appropriate recovery. We have a lot of discussion in the general forum about this.

Edgar: Raising AeT can mean raising the AeT HR and/or AeT pace. AeT HR can go up, but we don’t want to see that trend occur at the same workload. We’re not concerned about AeT HR as a singular metric. As long as AeT Pace is higher, it’s implied there’s an improvement in fitness. That can occur with or without AeT HR increases. If an athlete has improved their training strategies to specifically target aerobic fitness, and trains consistently for several months, we’ll likely see that they no longer have cardiovascular drift at the previously measured intensity. This could be due to improvements in muscular strength, efficiency, fat adaptation, etc, but the resultant outcome is that cardiac stroke volume doesn’t decrease at the previous workload so HR doesn’t need to increase to compensate.
It’s not uncommon for us to see individuals who have little change in AeT HR, but with good training we’ll see that they are doing their aerobic threshold tests at a steeper grade and/or faster pace.

With targeted training, you’re likely to increase your AeT HR and/or AeT pace, but as a mountaineer, what’s really important is being faster at your AeT.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 17, 2021 at 11:12 am · in reply to: No idea what my AeT is #59430

Hi Bill,
I’m sorry that you’re having trouble.

To find your AeT HR:
1. As you mentioned: if all else fails, use the MAF method (180-age). That will be remarkably helpful for a lot of individuals, although there will be some outliers.
2. It looks like your equipment was set up correctly and sending good data on Saturday. If you can keep it working like that, you can do your AeT Test with an uphill hike. You’re lucky because: a) you don’t have much tree cover in your area, and b) a Garmin tends to have some of the best GPS accuracy. It’s important to select the right trail – to keep your effort consistent, you’ll want to find a continuous uphill trail. Don’t use a trail that completely flattens out in sections or has wildly changing grades throughout. Again, you’re lucky in that many trails in your area will meet that criteria. I think that there are a lot of options if you drive east over to Topanga or Palisades. Definitely good options if you head all the way to Wilson observatory or Verdugo Hills. If you get a continuous 60min uphill at what you think is your AeT pace, you can look at that segment in TrainingPeaks and check the Pa:HR. If it’s between 3-5%, you’ve found your AeT HR (it’s the HR in the first few minutes of the test).
3. If you CAN’T find AeT with heart rate monitoring, it’s still reasonable to train using perceived exertion. Athletes have done this forever with great results. Make sure that your easy sessions are EASY and your hard sessions are HARD. That’s what we are trying to do using heart rate monitoring. The HRM obviously has much more unbiased feedback and precision which gives us the ability to monitor for small changes over time. The other reason HRM is helpful is because most athletes can get in their own way with training – it’s easy to push harder on an easy outing when it feels easy, and without HRM, the athlete might be more inclined to push harder. Once the athlete is outside of the desired training range, they are no longer following the training plan.

AeT HR is very helpful because it’s the best option mountaineers have to measure the intensity of their workouts. We can’t measure our training load with the same precision that cyclists with power meters can. Your heart rate is the best metric for objectively looking at your training load. AeT HR and AeT Pace are the most practical ways for mountaineers to assess the efficacy of their training programs and other contributors to fitness.

We have the program set up so that you can run or hike. There is no need to run with this program. We give the option to run because it is an easier way to exercise at a target intensity for athletes that are in vertically-challenged locations. Stair machines and treadmills are given as other options for those who have zero access to hills. If you have trails, those will be great, especially since you get to descend. The stair machines and most treadmills have no opportunity to practice descent.
There are a lot of great hiking opportunities in the Santa Monica Mountains, especially for the workouts through this initial 12 week program. It sounds like Don has had his boots on the ground in your area. There are some simple websites that give good trail descriptions, like Hiking Project and AllTrails.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 16, 2021 at 10:59 pm · in reply to: Plans have been applied! #59409

Bill,
I looked at the TrainingPeaks help pages. TrainingPeaks syncs their calendar with your outlook – and they said it will show 14 days of future workouts. Your question is really related to Microsoft and TrainingPeaks.
I think that timing is probably related to the typical two week lead time in programming coaching programming used by the thousands of athletes and coaches on TrainingPeaks. Any more and it would probably be awkward and full of revisions.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 16, 2021 at 10:49 pm · in reply to: Denali 2022 #59408

@Edgar Glad that you are sorting out the heel issue!

You raise a great question about the rest step. We could go down a rabbit hole with the discussion…

On Denali, you’ll need to be strong with a rest step and with a more normal gait. Using a good rest step can sometimes make sled pulling feel more difficult. But the upper mountain demands a good rest step. So you should train for both situations:

Training:
Early in the program, the training is general and the terrain doesn’t really require a rest step on most days. If you are finding terrain steep enough, and you need to pace yourself enough to stay in your target zone, then you can employ a rest step or partial rest step.
Later in the program, as training is more specific, it could be beneficial to do rest-stepping when you are in the terrain that demands it, and wearing footwear that is more specific (full shank mountain boot). Heavy weighted carries will slow athletes down, and those session might bring some of the MTG athletes down to a rest step pace if they are on steep enough terrain. This will be different for everyone.

On the mountain:
Knowing how to move a heavy sled using a “modified” or “minimal” rest step is important on Denali.
A normal rest step will usually let your sled come to a complete stop, and it can sometimes take a fair amount of effort to break that friction and get it moving again. Having a slow gliding gait or a modified rest step will keep the sled from stopping completely and will sometimes feel more efficient than a proper rest step. Again, this will probably affect each athlete differently, and conditions and sled setups will be different too. Those with a strong preference to rest-stepping sometimes prefer to allocate more weight to their shoulders because a “sticking” sled can be frustrating and difficult. This is not an option for most climbers.
Above 11k you’ll usually feel it’s less of an issue, because of the tactic that Eicke highlighted. Some teams reduce the number of sleds per rope team above 11k, so it’s possible that you might already be without a sled at that point.
Above 14,200′ the rest step will be very important. It would serve you to train with it whenever steep terrain, heavier training loads, and/or longer sessions call for it. If some sessions don’t call for rest-steps, then don’t force the rest-steps – these sessions will end up more relevant for the sled-pulling situations.
Without the challenge of altitude and really heavy loads, most athletes will need pretty steep terrain for a rest step to come into play in training.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 16, 2021 at 9:43 pm · in reply to: TSS/RTSS #59406

In this MTG program, everyone should be switching the rTSS to hrTSS. Thanks for chiming in Edgar and Umer! It sounds like you both have a good grasp on this.

Using hrTSS, having a good estimate of AeT and AnT, and understanding fudge factors all give us a good estimate of the load for a given workout. hrTSS is the best metric for us to accomplish it. This is a great way to compare workout to workout (e.g. uphill hiking to uphill hiking, or rolling trail runs to rolling trail runs) for a given athlete, giving the athlete a great way to compare chronic training load at different parts of a program. One caveat: Try to minimize breaks during long days so you don’t artificially increase your hrTSS, or stop recording if you take a long summit break. Recording lots of long, casual breaks could add enough hrTSS to negate adding the fudge factors.

rTSS *can* be a great measurement for road and track runners, but it doesn’t work for mountaineers. Umer alluded to it – it’s supposed to be based off running pace. It would be too convoluted to try to get AeT and AnT Hiking paces entered. If you are doing your AeT and AnT Tests running on a track, you can actually find your AeT and AnT running paces and get those zones into Training Peaks. But that only works for running workouts on road runner terrain. rTSS should work with low-angle hills, like “heartbreak hill” in the Boston Marathon (4.5%). But beyond that, it seems like rTSS starts to break down quickly, especially on trails.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 16, 2021 at 8:59 pm · in reply to: Cham Fit & Mobility Workouts – Sync with Garmin #59405

Hi Bernhard,
I just checked the videos in Safari and Chrome, and all the videos worked in both browsers. Are you using a different browser? Is your browser current with updates? Vimeo links may not work if your browser needs a security update…

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 13, 2021 at 4:40 pm · in reply to: Denali 2022 #59272

Anna,
1. In the Female Uphill Athlete Forum, Scott wrote out a thoughtful reply on the “disadvantage” smaller climbers have on Denali. It doesn’t mean Denali is impossible, it just means that the training and planning have to be even more meticulous. To summarize: much of the gear that is used on the mountain is not “scaled-down” to smaller bodies, so the smaller climbers usually have to carry a disproportionate load. You can offset it by being very careful about all of your personal gear, making the best choices for lighter gear and a spartan packing style, and train like you mean it, with a very disciplined approach to a good strength training progression specific to Denali.
Knowing who is on your trip could reduce the wild card of being on a team that’s forming strategies off of different body types.
2. Sled are used by all teams up there, but you have to be prepared for the occasional tough days without sleds. Different teams will use different strategies, so you should be prepared for some heavy pack days, sometimes quite early in the trip with double carries in conditions that are tough for sleds.

A good way to feel it out would be to do an Alaska Range skills trip like Mary Beth referenced. The tactics are similar, but the loads are not as heavy as Denali.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 13, 2021 at 4:25 pm · in reply to: Denali 2022 #59271

Edgar,
It’s great that you are already trying this out and figuring out your boot. You are miles ahead of some other climbers! Dave will be psyched.
A good fit for a high altitude / cold weather boot for Denali can feel like it has too much movement in the heel. There’s not much in those boots that you want “snug” if you want to have adequate warmth. If it’s just minor heel movement with step ups and step downs, you first have to evaluate your body and your technique. After that you can look for issues with the boot. Since I don’t know your full mountaineering/athletic history, I’ll explain some background points:
1. If your rear foot heel is slipping: Your boot has a full shank, so it’s important that your technique is modified – you need to step up using the whole foot, similar to squat or deadlift. This is not a natural movement pattern – our rear foot wants to flex and push off the toes to assist the new stance foot. Even guides and pro athletes spend 98% of their lives in footwear with flexible soles, and need to modify technique when they put on full shank boots.
2. If your stance foot (raised foot) heel is slipping: A majority of recreational athletes have restrictions in ankle mobility. This can often lead to excessive heel “lift” (not to mention it can be a huge contributor to over-pronation – these often go hand in hand). Even with good technique, restrictions in ankle dorsiflexion can make it feel like there is a problem with the boot. This applies to a lot of alpine skiers out there as well.

Try loosening your boots and doing a few minutes of step-ups with them extra loose. This can help show whether you are stepping off a flat foot or rocking onto your toes.

Keep in mind, snugging up the heel too much can lead to too much friction which can lead to blisters. Some climbers prefer the more slippery feeling liners, because they feel it’s less likely to cause blisters. You might even check how the sock interacts with the liner.

It’s important to look at the whole picture to figure out what is causing the heel “slipping”. If you think it’s the boot, make sure that you are seeing a specialist that really understands the nuances with fit for a boot like this. Boot fitting is really hard to do without seeing someones foot and the way that they walk. I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in a typical big-box retail salesperson.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 12, 2021 at 11:35 am · in reply to: transitioning into this training plan #59237

Bill,
Yes, thats correct. It’s common to cut back on volume in a transition period. If the aerobic volume with your Training Group Plan is just a small reduction, that should probably be perfect. Keep in mind you’ll be doing Cham Mtn Fit on top of that volume. If you look ahead to mid-Jan, you’ll see that we’re progressing to nearly 7 hrs/week of aerobic load, along with 2 hours of strength/conditioning.
This natural reduction in training hours in a transition period, followed by a gradual ramping up with volume, is a standard practice with a challenging training plan.
I hope that makes sense and it fits with your previous training.

[Nate Emerson]

Nate Emerson on November 12, 2021 at 11:15 am · in reply to: Cham Fit & Mobility Workouts – Sync with Garmin #59234

Bill, are you asking how to download the video itself?
This requires a smartphone/tablet connected to the internet. You’ll need the Vimeo mobile app, which has an offline playlist. You have to click on the vimeo link from your workout in TrainingPeaks. Once Vimeo loads, enter the password for the workout. Once you can view the video, you can go to the “three dots menu” (in the app, not in the video) and select “add to offline playlist”.
I don’t think that you can download from the Vimeo web player to a laptop.