Alpine Rock Training.

Imagine, if you will:

• You're in great health and aren't nursing any injuries.
• You have the willpower to stick to any plan of diet/exercise.
• Your work schedule is flexible enough to allow whatever time you need.
• You're going to tick some serious alpine routes next summer.

What would the components of your winter/spring training look like?

humm

i would hike and climb alot at altitude. I would eat all organic and 5 times a day with the perfect mix of greens, protien and carbs. This is of course under ideal conditions with unlimited money and time.

D

sleep low, train high is time honored plan...a friend lives in Fairplay (10,000'+) as is Leadville, but there are many 8,000' towns would probably be high enough for "base camp"
read about high altitude medicine as well, then go buy some real good sun screen and use it even on cloudy days and get on up!

"Extreme Alpinism" by Mark Twight has great training info for alpine climbing.

Mike,

It would depend on what my objectives and goals were. If I was going to do something in the Canadian Rockies, say North Face of Mt. Alberta (5.10, WI4, aid? M6?) I would get in some mileage this winter going out and doing not only some long alpine days but I would also make a commitement to going out in all kinds of conditions to gget my "mind right". Then, on top of that I'd be training hard with a heart monitor and be running from Chautauqua parking lot to the top of the first and then the third flatiron.

Work on strength, endurance and mental motivation.
Check out Vince Anderson's website; skywardmountaineering.com. I think Vince knows one or two things about getting ready for alpine routes.

You didn't mention how old you are. I think age plays an important part in how you train. All of the above is followed by a strict diet of beer and greasy french fries with gravy and cheese on top. The BEST of Canadian cuisine!!

Jack

Spring and fall alpine training? Climbing in the Black Canyon.

phil sasso wrote:sleep low, train high is time honored plan...a friend lives in Fairplay (10,000'+) as is Leadville, but there are many 8,000' towns would probably be high enough for "base camp" read about high altitude medicine as well, then go buy some real good sun screen and use it even on cloudy days and get on up!

Phil, actually the opposite is true. World-class endurance athletes sleep high (to increase red blood cell count) and then train low (more oxygen, thus greater possible work load)

I would also chime in on the cardio efforts. My partner and I just did Hiamovi Tower up near RMNP. The climbing was 8 pitches that are mostly in the low to mid 5's with one that was probably a 5.9. But the climbing wasn't the problem. I would even say that it was easy physically. My problem was the 6 miles in/out with a 60lb pack. Fortunately I was carrying the food so it was 5lbs lighter on the way out ;)

I'm not out of shape, but still my heart was pounding after a short while on the uphills. I guess that means that I'm not in as good a shape as possible. So, for me, the climbing was secondary to the approach. My partner, who hikes at altitude at least once a week, barely even slowed down on the uphills. He even had energy at the end of the first day to walk another couple miles exploring our route for the next day.

So all that to say, here's how I'll be training based upon that experience:

• Devote much of the winter to cardio training, whether at altitude or not.
• In the spring I will be making sure that I do as many multi-pitch local routes as I can. This will help improve my rope handling and anchor and gear management.
• Take a class in wilderness first aid. We had a serious accident (blown knee) on the last pitch that could have really made for a bad weekend.
• I don't know your experience level, but I would do a few test excursions so that you can figure out how to pack, which gear to take and get a feel for the non-climbing aspects of alpine adventure.

As for diet, I recommend pizza.

What routes are you thinking?

Erik

This is a problem I'm still attempting to tackle and personalize. I'm a rather ardent Twight-ist, and fully recommend both of his books. Thing is with his training schedule you need to have the ability to say "in 6 months i'm going to climb this" and have a specific time frame picked out to schedule your peak. If you're like me, and tend to only be able to put together a big climb on maybe a month's notice, you have to work all the different training phases into a far shorter cycle, and sometimes sacrifice a full taper and peak in order to be able to hop back into your full training schedule faster to stay sharp for the next random trip. If you do choose to follow the full 6 month cycle focus on timing your 2 peaks a year over the time frames your routes will be in condition. But, the training methods for each attribute in Extreme Alpinism are pretty spot on.

You should also check out mtnathlete.com for other ideas and check out their daily workouts to try to get a feel for what constitutes a strength workout, a Power Endurance workout, etc. Also you can get a lot of ideas on exercises that you may not have heard of, so you can keep changing things up and keep you from getting into a rut.

quick comment before moving on as i look over the other posts, the training addage is train high, sleep low, your body will develop the cardiovascular system for working at the elevation while training there, but by sleeping low your body will use the higher oxygen levels to maximize muscle recovery. It was how we did it when I ran D1 cross country and track, and it's how they olympians at the Olympic Training Center in Boulder do it.

Also, if you're gonna be training and climbing kind of on the fly, try to keep things sport specific, the closer your training movements mimick climbing the higher percentage of those strength gains will actually translate over to the climbing. for example: twice a week in my training for rock and ice alpine we climb at the gym in our mountaineering boots with a 30-50# pack on. Since this will not only train your body to handle the overburden on your muscles from the weight, wearing the boots is what we'd be doing in the mountains so we develop the schemas for footwork in them, and opting for the weight to be in a backpack helps when actually climbing with a pack. On our heavy days we focus on technically hard routes (higher rating) with the heavier pack and to try and be "done" after only one or two laps. On the lighter days our goal is to go for endurance intervals, so lower rater, and thus bigger holds, but closer to 8-10 laps. We also spend time in the weightroom working Kettlebell Bear Crawls with ankle weights to work the muscles and technique of climbing steep snow. Along with several other workouts to train muscles for specific movements. I also spend time in the weight room 3 days a week training pure strength/power and power endurance, as well as pure cardio. 5 days a week of just training is my limit, with one rest day and one easy to moderate cragging day in there.

So there's my rant on all this, in my opinion not enough "dedicated climbers" train, but that's a whole different rant. Any more questions about my theories send me a message here.