In this episode, we discuss how to train for mountaineering and hiking. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of quality information on this out there, and this podcast episode should point you in the right direction with getting answers to your questions.
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Transcript
Gary McGowan
Hello and welcome to the Triage Method Podcast with me, Gary McGowan and my co-host, as always, Mr. Patrick Farrell. Paddy, how are you this week?
Paddy Farrell
I’m positively splendid, Gary. Gary, you’re not in your regular settings here. You’re not even in the same time zone, the same continent where.
Gary McGowan
I’m in San Diego, sitting outside a Starbucks at the moment. So a good thing about Starbucks is that they’re always generally pretty reliable. So that’s the kind of action for this morning where I’m staying in the one 500. So that’s where we record the podcast from this one. So those are what you get to see a lovely Starbucks here in the background.
You’ve probably seen people walking by. You might hear a train. All right.
Paddy Farrell
I hope you’re enjoying your holidays. I hope everyone is hoping that you’re enjoying your holidays as well, or your travel, I should say. It’s not necessarily holidays. You are on a mission. And but today, what are we talking about?
Gary McGowan
Today? We’re talking about something that we both enjoy, which is using mountain mountain mountaineering. And I think that’s what we’re going to talk about. We’ve been doing this how to train series now for a few weeks, and we’ve covered we’ve covered a lot of the core areas of fitness that people might think about, like trying to build strength, trying to build more muscle, get bigger, etc..
But we have a lot of clients that have more diverse goals that they want to be able to use their bodies, use their fitness in different ways, such as being able to hike skiing, able to trek long distances, etc.. So that’s what we want to cover in this podcast. We want to give you the key principles that for someone who wants to do more mountaineering, do more hiking, you know, be able to climb higher peaks, walk further, etc. but you can use these principles to actually enhance that without just saying practice walking the mountain because there is a bit more to it.
You know, we can use specific conditioning protocols to enhance that. And not only that performance in terms of being able to walk further, faster, get less fatigue, but also potentially reduce risk of injury associated with that as well, which is very important.
Paddy Farrell
Yeah. And like we’re telling this podcast something like mountaineering and hiking, like how to train for mountaineering hiking, but both of those things are incredibly different while also being very similar. And then also there is gradations within that like you could be mountaineering with like you’re technically mountaineering, but the skill required is actually quite low, whereas you could also be hiking where to school or skill required is quite high, you know, And so there’s incredible diversity within that.
So obviously we’re not going to cover all the permutations and all of the possible eventualities with everything. But, you know, that’s kind of the goal of the podcast today to dive a little bit deeper with this stuff.
Gary McGowan
Absolutely. So there are kind of three general areas that you need to cover when you’re thinking about training for the mountains and which is injury prevention, high levels of fitness, and then being strong enough for the challenges of being in the mountains. And that to me, a couple of different things. For example, you know, you have a heavy backpack with you stuff and you’re prepared for that.
So the joints are prepared for are you doing periods where there’s a very steep gradients, there’s rough terrain, You need to be maybe doing a little bit of climbing with your hands, but then again, totally depends on the challenges your working towards being stronger. It’s generally going to be a good thing. So you want to be fit, you want to be strong and you want to be prepared to prevent injuries.
And that’s particularly important if you’re doing this regularly. You know, if you’re not every week or you’re doing a multi-day trek, you don’t want to get injured on the first day. So there are the corridors that we’re aiming at.
Paddy Farrell
And as I said, like this can look very different depending on the specifics. You know, I’ve had clients, again, they just want to be able to occasionally go for a hike on the weekend like it’s a two hour hike. You know, that’s obviously a much different endeavor than clients I’ve had where they’re like, you know, I’m going to be spending the next three months hiking across the Himalayas, doing various hikes, doing various mountaineering tasks, you know, whatever.
So there’s there is an incredible diversity, and we’re simply not going to cover all of that. But what we can cover is those kind of general attributes, if you will, that we can cover with the strength and conditioning, the training, etc., which is, as you said, injury prevention. That’s the name of the game for most sports. Right. And then also with mountaineering and hiking, both of them require a high level of fitness and it’s relatively specific fitness, while also being, you know, general fitness at the same time.
Right. And then like I noted, you need to be strong enough for the challenges of being in the mountains. And again, that’s going to look different depending on the specifics. But there still are some generalities, some commonalities, You know, with hiking, maybe you need to have a little bit more bias towards the lower body, the lower back, whereas with mountaineering, you still need that same amount at work, but you potentially have a lot more upper body strength that’s needed as well, especially if you’re doing a lot of the more complex, you know, mountaineering tasks, you know, climbing, I’m saving whatever, you know.
And so where do we start with this stuff?
Gary McGowan
Gary Yeah, So I think starting by focusing on your general strength is probably a good one because it’s it’s actually quite simple, but it’s something that’s still important to take care of. And the general guidelines here for resistance training, for trying to get stronger would be to probably get somewhere between 2 to 4 sessions per week. I think 2 to 3 is probably going to take care of the actual needs for most people.
And what we would do then is we’d focus on strengthening the whole body. It’s very easy to look at, you know, hiking amongst the nearing as just a lower body task where you’re walking up the mountains. But as we said previously, you know, there are other needs that come into it, such as the equipment that you’re carrying, you know, maybe even moving obstacles out of the way.
Obviously, if you’re using your hands to climb, that’s even more important. So we would focus generally on trying to train the whole body. And the lower body is going to be a bit more important and particularly around the core and trunk, that’s another area that will be more important. So for example, if you’re carrying a heavy bag, depending on the backpack that you’re using, that will be pulling you back into spine extension all day long, along with the fact that, you know, when you’re you’re needing for your knee forward or you’re leaving the side, depending on what you’re doing, your core muscles and your lower back muscle is going to be working incredibly hard all that time. So you want those to be strong. So the lower body strength component is a bit more obvious in that if you’re climbing up the mountain, of course your legs have been working pretty much all the time. And it’s not just, you know, your standard lower body training where, okay, I’m going to train my quads in a tremendous industry in my hamstrings.
You also really want to focus more here on, for example, ankle strength, hip flexor strength as well, because they are coming into it every single day. And there’s also the issue of when you’re on or even train, your muscles are getting challenged in ways that you’re probably not going to experience at the gym. So we want to make sure we’re training lots of different range of motion training, different joint positions, including the hips and the ankles.
And that’s going to allow you to be far more prepared when you are an obvious amount.
Paddy Farrell
Yeah. And again, this is it’s very easy for us to just go, Yeah, look, you just need to do 2 to 4 training sessions like resistance training patterns. So you’ll get up, you know, like obviously if you have more time, you can do more. But most people, they probably don’t, right? They probably don’t, especially when we talk about some of the more fitness related things that we also have to work on and factor in.
You know, if we don’t have the time to do absolutely everything that you would like now, you would hope that if you’re you’re trying to do something extraordinary like climb a high peak or do whatever, spend the week two weeks in the mountain self-supported, whatever, right. You are going to require a little bit more. You’re going to ideally do a little bit more to make sure you are well equipped and well prepared to handle yourself.
But you don’t want to be ill equipped and in the mountains, that’s that’s a bad, bad recipe. Right. And I don’t mean just equipment that you’re carrying. I mean, like your physical capacity. Right. And look, if you can get 2 to 3 resistance training sessions per week, happy days, the focus is probably going to be a little bit more on the lower body.
And like I said, there are some specifics with that which we’ll talk about now in a second. But for hiking, it’s generally going to be a lot of lower body strengthening and some of the strengthening, unfortunately, you kind of can’t really replicate in the gym. You can’t really prepare yourself for other than just being more generally resilient. Like if you’re I don’t know, whatever your your ankles, your calves, your lower body is going to be challenged in certain ways.
But yeah, you can somewhat generalized the strengthening there. Like for example, like calves are one that people will regularly say, you know, get beat up when they’re there hiking, especially if you’re on like a steep incline, you know, your calves can basically be in this stretched position a lot. You know, you’re walking up a steep hill, your calf is basically fully stretched and you’re just doing lots and lots and lots of wraps.
Right. And while you can’t specifically prepare for that, like, yeah, maybe you can say, oh, well, I’ll just do like some incline treadmill walking like back when you get something like 15 degrees or something like, you know I’ve been on hikes where it’s, it’s, it feels like you’re going 90 degrees, you know so that’s not necessarily going to prepare you fully for what you’re going to experience here.
And while, yes, you can do some strengthening exercises like catchphrases, for example, would be a good listener and you can spend some more time in that bottom position, really, you know, challenging that stretch position, you’re probably not going to end up doing 405 hundred a thousand reps of that in the gym, which you are going to do when you’re out in the mountains.
So you’re not, like we said, with all of these things, like you’re looking to build specific adaptations, right? But unfortunately, unless you have unlimited time, I you’re not going to be hyper or you’re not going to be able to be hyper specific with this stuff if you’re just training, you know, it’s just it is the way it is right now.
On top again, the upper body is still important. Like we can talk about the core now in a second, but just upper body strength is still important. This is a little more important if you’re doing mountaineering things and especially like pulling muscles and just shoulder muscles or back muscles, you know, just general strength all over and but it still does apply for like hiking, like if you’re using and like hiking poles like that, you’re taking some of that pressure.
The force off their lower body to the physical demands of your lower body and putting them on your upper body. Right. And again, if you’re not prepared for that now. Yeah. Okay. You took some of that challenge off your lower body, but now you’ve put it onto your upper body and your body is destroyed after one day in the mountains using hiking poles that you thought were going to make it a little bit easier for you, you know, so you do have to be well prepared all over.
You know, the more robust, the more resilient you can be, the better. And, you know, again, within time constraints, etc.. Right now, before we get into any specifics around that, Gary, because I think there is it’s like, first of all, it’s just general, it’s just following a three day, four week resistance training program, full body. I would be pretty good if not do something like a a lower, upper, lower perhaps, you know, or upper, lower, upper, lower if you’ve four days to train, whatever.
Right. The specifics like they’re actually less important. Right. Except for what we’ll talk about in in the second that there was like specific areas that we want to refocus on. But the way you set it up kind of less important right now because we also have to layer on the cardio in a second, which will really influence how we set things upright.
But as a general base like this is something that I know a lot of hikers, mountaineers, whenever they stress over, they’re like, Oh, well, you know, I don’t want to get bigger, I don’t want to build any more. So because that means I’m just going to have to carry more muscle in the mountains. I’m going to be heavier.
You know, it’s it’s just going to make things more challenging. Right? Conversely, they’ll also be like, oh, well, you know, I just want to get stronger. So I should only be doing like low rank work because that’s that strength. Right? And I don’t think that’s necessarily the case either of those things being afraid of like some muscle building or really focusing on low reps because you want to just get stronger.
You know, you’re like, Oh, I’m going to do three reps, right? So how should we be thinking of that? Like training parameters?
Gary McGowan
Yeah. So like firstly I think that, that the key thing anyone to understand and I say this to all athletes is that it’s very, very rare that you’re going to get too big by accident. So I think if you’re doing a few cuts to 2 to 3 sessions per week, you’re probably not going to get too big. You might put on a couple of muscle.
But generally what we’re trying to do is like, if we were working with this client, we wanted to build a little bit of muscle, but we’d be simultaneously trying to ensure that they’re lean. So you might have a few kilos of body fat that we could swap theoretically for that muscle. So we get a bit of muscle, a little bit of fat.
Now we’ve got the same body weight that we’re working with, but you have greater strength, so you have more muscle rubs than fat and you’ve got more strength for your body mass. So now it almost feels like you’re later anyway at the same body weight because you are stronger. So that’s a key thing to understand about body composition and its relationship to strength.
And your body can move the body. Now, when it comes to the specifics of training, a dance should be like a diverse range of ranges. Here we start with our kind of 6 to 12 is our base, as we would for most clients, most at its height, but with some additional muscle endurance work. So this is a case where I would definitely include like sets in that kind of 15 to 30 rep range or if we were doing isometrics, just longer isometrics, maybe 30 to 60 seconds, this would give us an opportunity to focus on muscle endurance, which is going to be really important moments.
Now, as you noted previously, of course, you’ve been up thousands of reps of something when you’re climbing in the mountains. We’re not trying to replicate that in the gym. We’re trying to use more resistance. We’re also doing more reps so that we develop muscle strength and endurance that we have a surplus when it comes to doing those relatively lower force reps of stepping in the mountains, for example.
So I would definitely consider some higher rep work here, especially for the lower body. For example, something like walking lunges, you know, it could be higher up walking lunges because that’s how you’re outputting your force and it could be a higher price for single leg press, etc.. But generally what we’re doing is trying to get those local muscular endurance adaptations within the lower body, more particular, and then that complemented with a solid level of aerobic fitness, is going to take you to the point where you have better endurance, but you also have better strength that goes with that endurance to ensure that your muscles are well able to tolerate those relatively moderate to high forces that you’ll sometimes deal with. But over repeated, repeated, repeat rest.
Paddy Farrell
100%. Right. So basically 2 to 3 gym sessions per week working all the major muscle groups now. And we’re probably spending the majority of our time in that kind of 6 to 12 rep ranges. And then we’re also adding in sessions they are in and we’re also doing some of those kind of higher rep sets as well. Now that can be exercise specific.
We’re not like this exercise, I’m just doing higher reps. It could also be something like I’m doing three sets of eight reps and then once that I’m doing a 20 reps or whatever, like there’s multiple ways that we can do it. Again, that depends on the specifics, depends on if we’re talking about hiking versus mountaineering versus whatever issues you have, etc..
Right? But that’s a general base, right? 2 to 3 James Sessions per week, generally strengthening the entire body, aiming to get stronger in the 6 to 12 rep range, Also layering in some of the higher ranges, 15 to 30 reps still looking to get stronger on those as well. And I think that’s a good general base right now.
That’s obviously very broad strokes. Nice putting some specifics on it. I think there are some exercises that do provide a little bit or I shouldn’t say necessarily exercises some areas that if we focus on them, they do tend to provide a little bit of an outsized return. I, like you noted bear lunges, stuff like split squats, Bulgarian split squats, you know, just kind of single leg squat lunge type position.
That is something that for most people you’re going to get an outsized return on investment for getting really strong in that fight, both in terms of your overall leg development, but then also it’s very applicable to the types of things that you’re going to be experiencing in the mountains. Now, obviously, you’re not lunging open mountains. I don’t think anyone, anyone is doing that, but you are doing a lot of single leg basically step ups across the hike up the mountain right here, even if it’s across relatively flat terrain and you’re hiking across one where we’ve been couching this in terms of just mountain hiking.
But, you know, you could be hiking just in the wilderness, you could be hiking in the forest, whatever. Right. You’re still going to be doing effectively lunges because you’re walking hike. And a walk is basically a challenge, right? So it also builds a lot of the smaller muscle groups that if we didn’t do something like a lunge, we potentially would also have to focus on sight.
So doing something like a lunge just is a shotgun approach. I guess all those little muscles around the hips, all those little stabilizing muscles around the ankle, the knees that again, we would probably have to do some specific work on if we didn’t do something like a lunge or a Bulgarian split squat. Right. So that’s one area that’s I think is some exercise returns, getting really, really strong in single leg work.
And I don’t have it on the list here that we were running squats. But I also think hamstring work, knee flexion work is another one that very often gets neglected and when you think about it like it is one of those things that you are actually doing quite a lot of when you hike up the mountains, right? It’s basically the other half of the lunge because you’re basically, you know, step the foot forward.
You’re kind of like pulling yourself back or pulling yourself up. Like if you imagine your heel dragging on the ground right? So that’s basically knee flexion, which is your hamstrings doing the work there. Right. And while you do get some of those benefits from just generally doing lunges, it’s probably not the same one, not to the same extent as doing something like a seated hamstring girl or a lying hamstring curl, you know.
So I do think, again, that offers some outsized rewards, getting that knee flexion strengthening in the program somewhere. I think also upper body pulling musculature, you know, whether it’s a vertical type pull down or a horizontal type pull, both of those just having good pulling musculature again gives you an exercise return, especially in the context of mountaineering, because you know you’re going to be scrambling, you’re going to be climbing, you’re going to be doing whatever you want to have good pulling musculature.
It also lays a good foundation for stuff like carrying a backpack and, you know, our rucksack, whatever I am. Grip strength. This is a little bit more in terms of mountaineering as well, especially if you’ve got stuff like I know you’re in a snowy or more Arctic type environment, you’re using an ice pack, you’re doing whatever. Like there’s a lot of grip demands on that.
And while that is generally still seen in mountaineering in various forms, especially if you’re doing certain activities.
And. Just generally getting your grip stronger, it’s pretty good a good idea right now that could be ticked that that box could be picked just by virtue of your upper body pulling, you know, that we might not need to focus specifically on it. But I do generally find that for certain individuals, doing some direct grip strengthening does actually make quite a difference.
Right. And the next one there and you mentioned earlier on is it flexor strengthening? It’s one of those ones that just regularly gets just forgotten about because it’s not sexy. What are you going to be doing, like a cable hip flexor exercise is like you’re just going to like what? This this just feels like I’m not doing a huge amount, but if you actually get your hip flexor is quite strong, it actually does payoff so much in terms of like that’s that muscle there in those hip flexors, there are what are lifting your leg up so that you can take that next step, so that you can stack up onto that.
Right, so that you can continue aching. So getting them really strong, pretty good idea. Now they do get some general strengthening if you’re doing stuff like lunges, Bulgarian split squats, squats, leg extensions, whatever. But in general, I think a lot of people would actually benefit from very specific hip flexor strengthening. And now before I go on to the core, because that is one thing I do want to just talk about because it ties in a few different things and you don’t need to know what’s on any last.
Gary McGowan
I think just the thing I would reiterate really is the hip flexor component, because I think this is the one area where if people have been doing their resistance training all the time, it’s actually quite rare to properly challenger hip flexors, you know, like will often say things like, oh, for example, oh, you don’t need to train your core because it’s trained well with deadlifts, squats, etc. or you don’t need to focus too much on, you know, specific adductor exercises because that’s trained when you do lunges or squats, etc.. But hip flexors is actually really rare to train them in any position. Really. Like as in maybe if you’re doing some AB training, you’ll end up doing effective training as a result. But this is all just.
Paddy Farrell
Going to work and say that basically most of the hip flexor training people get is by virtue of bad AB training.
Gary McGowan
Exactly. And because AB training is kind of a bit less popular than it used to be because people are like, Oh, I just need to lose body fat if I want to see my abs and I’m not going to waste, I’m training them as the attitude of a lot of people is like everyone needs to say, Oh, I just want to work my core.
And then you see, Oh, why do you want to work your core and say, Oh, core strength is important is the why and I want to see my abs and that’s the reason. And then whenever I learned, it’s just like people start during their abs because they’re not even getting back to work. So you can be quite strong and just never like challenge your hip flexors properly.
This is something I speak to, but feel sports are to feel sport that athletes about all the time we work and it’s like your strength. It’s very common that we work on this. And in this case I would definitely say so, yeah. Do you want to touch on the core?
Paddy Farrell
Yeah. So with the core, this is actually a bit of a weird one because like you’re saying, a lot of people in health and fitness were all a bit kind of moved away from core training, right? However, if you look at any information that’s given out for people engaging in mountaineering and hiking or whatever, maybe 70 to 90% of the program is dedicated to some form of core training.
I like that’s that’s where they spend an outsized amount of time. And that’s not to say that that’s not valid, right? It’s not to say that that’s completely wrong approach. However, if you have limited time to train, that’s probably not the best way to allocate your training budget. Right? Like your group’s going to be challenged, you know, quite effectively.
Like I said, your squats, your deadlifts, you know, lunges, you know, any of these kind of more compound exercises, right. Which if we’re spending a lot of time training the lower body because it’s specific to our sport here, you’re probably going to get a decent whack of core training from that right now. The thing about it as well is you do actually have some very specific core demands and stability demands, I suppose, in the mountains right.
Again, like I said earlier on, like you’re going to be exposed to all these random positions. You know, maybe you do have a big, you know, bag on your back and everything and you would think, oh, well, this is going to be more and more challenging to my core. And again, to an extent it definitely is. However, a lot of those issues are just poor type bag packing.
All right. Like you just don’t you haven’t you haven’t packed your bag effectively. So you have, like I don’t know, all the way up the top of the bag. So it’s like every move you make your swing in side to side, that’s going to be more challenging. But you could fix that by packing your bag more effectively, right?
Same way most people just don’t set their bag up correctly on their back, right? So they have a poorly fitted rucksack, you know, and as a result, like it’s hanging off their body, it’s pushing them forward, it’s pulling them back. It’s not well-suited to their situation, their their body. Right. So as a result of having a poorly fitted backpack, you now have a much larger core demand because you just didn’t set things up correctly.
So you would probably be better off spending 30 minutes. You know, actually learning how to set your backpack off, making sure you get one with a hip out and knowing how to use that stuff like that, knowing how to keep the bag tight to your back, you know, knowing how to change it, you know, maybe like I do this very often when I’m in the mountains, like I’m quite tall.
So my, like my femurs are quite long and fucking bane of my life. But so when I’m going uphill, like I actually like my backpack to be a little bit further away from my body. So the backpack is still kind of overpriced right? But if I was to have that same position where I’m on more flatter ground, like I’m just constantly going to be feeling like I’m falling backwards, you know?
So knowing how to change your backpack set up when you’re in the mountains to adjust to the terrain in front of you is really valuable as well, Right? And so basically what I’m saying is core strengthening is for sure beneficial, right? And it’s definitely has a role to play in your overall program design, especially around injury prevention and just, you know, being very robust for being in the mountains.
But a lot of the stuff that people talk about with the core challenges in the mountains in it, a lot of it is just poor set up for, you know, a backpack set up.
Gary McGowan
Yeah. And I mean, this is similar to weight training, you know, where if a client is telling me I have my, my lower back is in bits from that this can we strengthen my lower back. I’m going to say okay let’s look at your deadlift technique first. Let’s make sure it’s efficient. Let’s let’s look at your hand position.
That’s your back position. That’s your position. What’s the bypass like? How close is it? Your body? This is an issue of the exact same when it comes to a backpack that’s just instead of maximal resistance, we’re looking at loads and loads and loads of reps, but subtle differences from beginning to adult. So that actually starts when you buy your backpack.
So like if you’re going to buy your backpack for an extended trek week, I had this recently because I was buying my my bag for America, South America. So what you can do is try out a few different backpacks. There’ll be someone working in the shop or someone with you. I get them to apply force directly down like like the way it will when it’s in the backpack.
And ask yourself, Right. How does this feel? I might be able to pull backwards loads. How do I just start to adjust that, bring it closer to my center of mass and see how that changes things for me? And again, there will be individual factors. What what feels good for your body is going to be different to someone that’s, you know, five foot four, you know, and that’s going to change your body composition again.
So just keep that in mind because it is really similar to just being in the gym and using good technique. Okay, We don’t want to try to train our way out of just technical problems that could just be easily adjusted. So that’s a really important point.
Paddy Farrell
Yeah. Now having said that, there is potentially still some benefit to training your core, being able to effectively anti flex and rotate like being able to resist those positions because you’re going to step on a rock that you thought was stable and it’s not and you’re going to be shifted to the side and you’re going to have to basically challenged us backpack that’s pulling you to one side now that you’re going to follow down the edge of the mountain if you continue on with it.
So but yet you do want to be strong in the core. But like we’re saying, you don’t want to make up for or preparation effectively by training your core for 70% of your training time when you could have been training stuff that’s far more important, such as fitness training or getting stronger in general. You know, and you’ll see this all the time, people are like, Oh, you spend a lot of time in my core training.
And yeah, their core might be very strong, but you look at their, you know, squat, their deadlift, their whatever, any of these other strength mats metric and you’re like you actually have a very poor strength overall. Like, yeah, your core might be strong, but your legs are not strong. You’re not actually strong for being in the mountains. So yeah, you put on this 20 kilo backpack or whatever and you’re destroyed because it’s, you know, way too heavy for you.
Wait, wait, wait. You beyond your physical capacity because you’re not strong overall, and yet your core might be strong, but your overall organism is not, you know, which brings on to the next one, Gary, which is injury prevention. What’s the story here?
Gary McGowan
Yeah, so we’ve we’ve kind of touched on the core component here already. We’ve touched on lower back and ankles a little bit. Like it’s just important to note that there are those unpredictable challenges. We can’t we simply can’t prepare for everything. And I think people try it sometimes and I think it’s just a waste of time. Like, for example, like, I don’t know, doing your squats on a really unsteady surface in the gym that’s just really low yields, You know, you’re better off just doing the exercises to get their primary benefit, which is strengthening and muscle endurance and potentially muscle building.
Don’t try to recreate the mountains too much in the gym like it’s fine to say I’m going to do lunges because I’m going to need that single shot. Perfect. You are perfect. No problem. It’s only going standing on an unstable surface, squatting in a pool C ball and this type of thing does really not need the benefit is just it’s it’s obsolete. It’s not it’s not going to be of relevance.
Paddy Farrell
But just on that, just on that, look, if you had unlimited time, cool. That might be something. Yeah. Like after you’ve ticked all the boxes, like you’ve done your squats, you’re actually, like, challenging that. So squats, you’ve done whatever, you’re going to really productive lower body training. You’ve ticked all those boxes and now you’re going, Yeah, I have 20 extra hours that I can set aside to preparing my body for being in the mountains, but I don’t actually have access to the mountains.
Cool. Yeah. Then maybe we start layering in these other, you know, flashier things or these more specific things, but it’s against the backdrop of you’ve got the big rocks already in the in the in the jar. You’re not putting the small rocks in and filling that up, using your time to put these little tiny rocks, this grain of sand in. And it’s like you’ve done nothing.
Gary McGowan
You don’t experience. Yeah, like I just don’t want to see someone on the go to ball and say, Oh, how are you going to do or haven’t done in Ikaria since last week? So we need to take care of that. That’s way more priority. Okay, Now know what that said. Maybe some of that stability work, our instability prep make it more important for some people.
For example, let’s say every time you go to mountains, sprain your ankle, okay, maybe that’s more priority. No, we might want to work on that. It might be something we can absolutely improve, but it’s just a little bit higher yields to that individual. Okay. So the the lower back to other thing about the lower back is that you’re probably going to be training with a lot of your lower body movements.
So if you’re doing squats or doing deadlifts, you’re probably going to be actually preparing the lower back pretty well. Even doing things like lunges, you’re kind of preparing the lower back in a relatively specific manner, which is the main mode of the lower back is are when you’re in the mountains, is you leaning forward with that backpack on your back, which is kind of what you end up doing in these lunge type movements.
So you’re like probably going to be taken care of if it’s something that you struggle with more. Maybe you always find that your back is really sore. Any time you’re in the mountains, maybe you want to do a little bit more specific, strengthening, you know, an isolated back extension and hyperextension type exercise or something along those lines. That might be something that’s a bit higher yield for you if you’ve identified as core issue.
Now, the the ankles, as we said, can be exposed to those weird positions. As you said, it’s probably your loyalties focus a lot on the stability work itself. But there is definitely a case to be made for specific calf strengthening, which is obviously a poor ankle muscle. So doing higher volume calf training than probably your average strength hypertrophy program would be wise.
I would focus on a broad range of ranges here where you’re maybe doing some heavy work, where you focus on loading heavily. The Achilles in that stretch position in particular, and then some of that muscle endurance work as well. I think that would be a a nice mix to have in there for training the calves. Okay. The thing is that when you train your calves like you’re your Achilles and your gas drops in your soleus, that you don’t just pull up and down.
They’re also going to support you if your ankle goes left or right. So it is something it’s a it’s a bit more than just an isolated counter flexion work. So that would be of use. You could make the case potentially to train inversion and inversion. Maybe you’ve had a history of ankle issues that prioritize that a bit more.
If not, I probably wouldn’t worry too much. I just make sure right now you got good footwork. You know, it kind of comes back to the backpack issue. You know, I your are your ankles really sore because you’re doing really challenging mountains in barefoot shoes or have you got like solid boots? Okay. And we were actually hiking just last week in Killarney.
It wasn’t a big hike or anything, but Brian was wearing his vivo barefoot shoes and, you know, his ankles were quite sore and feet quite sore after that. And that’s not surprising because it’s very different to wearing a proper hiking shoe. So that’s just something to keep in mind.
Paddy Farrell
Just on that as well. Like this is one of those hard things where you kind of learn these things, but you specifically, based on being in the mountains, based on actually doing the things that you’re preparing your body for, like you basically find out what we have to fall off the wagon and then you can come up with more specific protocols like saying here, I’m like, I know again because I’m quite tall.
My low back is always going to be taking a beating when we’re in the mountains because I’m just I have to lean over way further than someone else has to lean over to go up the same England, you know, and because again, it’s my femur is quite all right. But for me, calves never a problem, you know, never an issue basically because I don’t have them.
But I’m like I actually have great dorsiflexion, you know. So for me, I’m like, I’m basic. I don’t even think I get into my fully flexed position here. I’m not getting into this stretched position. I’m like, ask, you know, where you going off? Yes. I’m like, This is cool. This is fine, you know, Whereas I know other people, they’re destroyed.
They get to the end of their their hike of that day and they’re like, my calves feel like they’re on fire. They feel like they’ve been stretched. They feel like they’ve torn you. There’s a strong you know. So again, similar what you’re saying about like having the correct ankle support, Right. Like you could be someone I know. Gary, your ankles are like, you know, goat’s right where they just fucking go all over the place, right?
So for you, you might be like, Well, that’s actually fine. I actually, I have no problem in the Mount. I wear someone else when you’re like, Well, no, if my ankle goes five degrees beyond where I want it to be, I basically feel like I’ve snapped my ankles, right? So like me personally, I like, like trail running shoes for in the mountains.
But I like people, like on a longer hike, sweat like they just can’t do it. Like I like trail running shoes because they’re really light, you know, And they’re you know, they’re they’re quite I mean, in my opinion. Whereas other people, they just need more support. They need that ankle support. Like I’ll just basically run downhill, you know, And I’m like, my ankle is going to be fine.
I don’t it could be Rocky, could be the weirdest train ever. And I’m like, I know my ankles are going to be fine, you know? And I know you’re kind of similar, right? Because I’ve been on hikes of other people and they’re like, No, I need to be very specific with this because I’m, you know, I need my ankle support.
I need hiking boots, even though they’re a little bit heavier, you know, I need that support. So, again, a lot of this does come down to training. Yes. But also the equipment and all that kind of stuff that you prepare or use in the mountains as well. I am this is one other thing I want to say about injury prevention as well.
There are little things and little things that happen in the mountains that you just generally can’t prepare for. One of the things that a lot of people do bring up, though, is that when they’re going downhill, their patella just feels quite sore and there’s no real way around this. It’s just you’re like your first of all, your knee is going quite a lot forward, so your quads have to do a lot of work and you’re going to maybe see some patella pain as a result of that.
Just constant braking constantly slowed down from going downhill. It’s basically just a lot of eccentric overload. And I’ve seen some people have some good results with doing like heavier eccentric training on something like a leg extension or stuff like that. Then maybe potentially get some specific adaptations in the patella and the quads and whatever. And obviously just getting your quads stronger, getting your patella stronger is going to help.
But I don’t think for most people there’s an easy fix for it. And it’s I think most people, if you’re going downhill, especially if it’s just like a long slog downhill and there’s no real like changes in gradient, there’s no flat land, there’s no like hell going side to side, whatever. You’re just going to feel it in your quads.
Now, again, if you’re stronger, you’re probably going to feel it less. But most people are going to feel that to some extent. Generally when I’m coaching people and they say they have goals, like they’re sort of like, Oh, you like my attending and it kind of hurts after doing this, going downhill on a hike or whatever. So my suggestion is to just change the like way you go down, like try go down like kind of sideways a little bit for a while, go the opposite side way.
You know, if you’re on the flat land, like maybe, you know, walk backwards, you know, just basically try to give yourself some rest. Which also brings me to the next point, which is take more breaks, you know, to take more breaks on the way down so that you’re a little bit more or a little bit further away from the fatigue point of your business, you know, saying you’re going to say on injury prevention specifically?
Gary McGowan
No, I don’t think so. I think I agree with you on the other thing. Like, I think sometimes it just comes with the territory, you know, strengthen your quads, do what you can. But at the end of the day, when you’re doing any sort of extreme tasks, especially with big peaks and you’re coming back down, your joints are going to get sore a while.
And it’s kind of just it’s just like an itch. As much as I’d love to try to sell people magic solutions as a physio, like, you know, at the end of the day is the time we can protect ourselves from all pain. And if you’re asking your body to just do a lot, I guess I did 25,000 steps.
My hip was really sore by the end of the day since I had my hamstring surgery and you know Laura would save me or wouldn’t you? Shouldn’t you, you know, get that fixed or get that checked out? And I’m just like, it’s just a bit of a weak point. And I know that if I if I take it too far and 25,000 steps, that’s far beyond the norm.
It’s one of those there’s links in the chain that’s going to start to work with it. And that’s that’s okay. You know, it doesn’t your body is not to be totally pain free all the time. And if you’re asking it to do far more than it’s normally used to, it’s probably going to hurt it. Which goes back to just prepare the best you can.
And if there’s niggles along the way, I would just kind of accept that that’s 100%.
Paddy Farrell
Which brings us on to cardio, whats the story with cardio for the mountains?
Gary McGowan
So yeah, look, obviously cardio is incredibly important, right now. It doesn’t need to be all super specific. Like I remember watching a guy training for mountains years ago and all he would do is just Stairmaster. Stairmaster 4 hours a day. And that’s that’s good practice. Like it? It is good to practice that stepping, but you don’t have to be so specific with every so if you’re if you have a big aerobic base, you develop through doing things like, you know, cycling, you’ve done some jogging, you’ve done some swimming, etc. it all carries over and then you you take some percentage of that and you apply it to more specific things.
For example, jogging is similar, okay. Although it might be on the flat or you could do it in the mountains. It is preparing for bend your ankles and your knees is preparing it. And of course it’s for your aerobic system. You can do work and then find treadmill, new work and Stairmaster and do some rocking. So you might go out for a really long walk, even if it’s just on a flat with a weighted vest or with a backpack that has wasted.
And again, trying to replicate some of the challenges. So I would have the majority of my cardio where I’m just thinking I’m just trying to increase my business, and then I’d take a smaller percentage of that and apply it a bit more specifically. And then as I come closer to the point where I’m doing more mountaineering, more hiking, etc., that’s when I get more specific again.
So that’s where you might want to get into the mountains for maybe some, some hill runs for some shorter periods of time and I don’t know, rock intervals, for example, up and down the hill, up and down the hill, there are different things you can work on closer to a quite a challenging event, but overall, develop your own base, take some percentage of that and try to make it more specific.
And that’s really going to take care of the vast majority of your cardio needs. The only thing is you need high volumes here. Okay? This is why I’m not so focused on all the specifics of cardio, because most people’s problem is they’re just not going to get enough time. If you’re going for a multi-day hike in the mountains, then you could potentially be talking about water, you know, being in zone two potentially where someone wants to for 8 to 12 hours per day for multiple days.
So like here are one or 2 hours of cardio, which is isn’t going to cut it, It’s not going to vary. So I’d be looking in this case of going beyond our normal recommendations. And I’m looking at at least got 3 to 5 hours of cardio at minimum per week and potentially up to 6 to 10 hours per week for someone that’s starting to speak more seriously and then even more for people who it’s really important to them.
Paddy Farrell
And I think that’s probably the biggest takeaway is you’re just going to have to spend a lot of time building this aerobic base. You know, you can do that like if you have the ability to do that in the mountains, obviously, that’s the most specific. You know, like if you’re training to be in the mountains, being in the mountains is the most specific.
Like I don’t think. Right. I think that’s pretty obvious. Right? But for most people, that’s not necessarily going to be practical. Like, yeah, they might be able to get at once per week and they might be able to go do it a three, four or five, six hour hike on the weekend or whatever. Cool happy days. But, you know, if you’re really you know, you’re you’re somewhere that just doesn’t have mountains around you, you know, or the mountains you have around you are not, you know, really usable for cardiovascular training.
Like, you know, you’re going to have to make do with what you can do. And for a lot of people, that means training in the gym or around their area. So doing stuff, like I said, jogging it it does it does your aerobic base, it’s quasi specific, like you’re going to be on your feet, you know, And so that is helpful for building up mountain fitness.
And obviously the aerobic adaptations you build do translate, and you’re still strengthening and improving a lot of the same musculature, ankle stability, hips low back core, all those kind of things that you’ll be challenging when you’re in the mountains as well. Obviously doing stuff like rocking. If you’re going on a hike where you’re going to be self-supported, you have a big backpack, like rocking is going to be specific.
Now, obviously, again, the idea would be to do it in the mountains, but if you don’t have mountains, you just make do with what you do. Like I live in London. There’s not exactly a lot of mountains around here, Right. So for me, I just have to build up general fitness. If I’m doing something like rocking, I’m putting on my backpack and I’m putting whatever, 20 kilos in there, which is 20% or so of my body weight, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend people start out with that.
But you know what I mean? And I’m just going for effectively a walk, you know, a relatively fast paced walk. But that’s what I’m doing and it’s just on the flat. Yeah, there might be some small inclines, declines, whatever, but I don’t have a mountain near me. Right. And and like you said, you can be more specific with the gym work.
You can do stuff like incline, incline, treadmill, walking or running or whatever. That obviously can potentially benefit Stairmaster as well. Again, it can definitely help build your aerobic base and but all of these things are just tools. The biggest thing is not the specifics. Yes, some of these options and modalities might be better or worse for you given your situation.
But for the vast majority of people, the biggest thing is actually just dedicating sufficient time or being able to dedicate sufficient time to aerobic fitness. You know, like I would I don’t even think I could give specific numbers in terms of how much across the week you need, because it’s going to be different for everyone because there’s there’s two competing things here.
One, you need to build up to adaptations of being able to do that, you know, being able to I know whenever you go for a rocking session or a job for 2 hours, you know you’re going to do both of the adaptations to be able to even just do that. But then also you’re trying to build up the general aerobic adaptations and.
They are complementary, synergistic, but they’re not exactly the same thing. Like right now I have a resting heart rate of like 43. I think you something like 35, you know, And so I know you’re not I know you’re not going out and doing like 20 hours of aerobic training. Right. So while you have a lot of the aerobic adaptation is, you know, like your cardiovascular fitness is in a good place, right?
So you have the endpoint, quote unquote, but you don’t necessarily have all the adaptations of the training as well. You know, like I say, Daria, you’re going to be doing 30,000 steps, you know, in in a rock tomorrow night. Yeah. Your cardiovascular system might be able to do that, but your body is not right. So, again, there’s there’s two components here.
So it’s very hard to deal in the specifics. Right. And saying that like VO2 max or whatever objective measures you want to use for assessing your aerobic level or aerobic fitness, like running on my VO2 max at the moment, just on the Apple Watch is like 50 5 a.m. or thereabouts, which is decent. But if I wanted to train that specifically, if I was like No, I want to have a 60 VO2 max for being in the mountains.
Like I would still have to train for that. But I haven’t really been training specifically to get it to 55, which is already in a good place. I’ve just been doing like jujitsu around the occasional better like zone to cardio, you know. And so with all that added weight, that’s not cardio, it’s very vague. But also you just need to do a lot.
You just need to do a lot of aerobic training, right. However, what’s the sort of what any of the anaerobic work is coming? We have the system here in Gary. Can we do some more like sprints or high intensity intervals and, you know, maybe get some of those adaptations, you know, the quicker or, you know, do we need to be doing any anaerobic stuff?
Should I be doing sprinting, even though I know a lot of this is going to be aerobic aerobically focused, at least?
Gary McGowan
Yeah. So, I mean, like I would dedicate a small portion of training to, to this. I do think it’s useful to get some exposure to anaerobic training, even if most of your hiking is going to be in that same zone two to zone three. If you’re pacing yourself fairly well, you know there will come points, especially if you’re doing larger peaks where altitude starts to become a factor, you know, with your swimming relatively more hypoxic, where you are dealing with more and aerobic conditions that see your heart rate start to spike more, you’re not able to option eight your tissues quite as well.
Having some kind of preconditioning for that through your own aerobic training is something that’s probably going to be useful. You are getting adaptations to that already from your weight training, especially if you’re doing a lot of that at higher training. So you are getting some preparation, but it could still be beneficial to try to include a small portion of anaerobic training or high intensity intervals, etc. and you are still developing your aerobic fitness when you do intervals.
That’s something I’ll always be mindful of. It’s not just solely anaerobic training, but it is something that I would consider. But again, just remember you have it really is about doing as much kind of as much volume as you can from a practical perspective for most people. So, you know, if if you don’t have that much training available, you could, you know, try to focus on intervals.
If you just have 15 minutes in the morning, for example, could you do a hard interval session? Yeah, that is something that actually would be productive. But overall it’s the volume. The cardio key determines what I would consider so many compliments.
Paddy Farrell
Generally, what I just suggested lines disposition and like, look, we need to get the aerobic base covered. You need to get some resistance training covered. Some of the anaerobic connotations are going to be covered, which are resistance training. We could maybe spend five or 10 minutes at the end of the resistance training session to, you know, more specifically to the anaerobic systems.
You know, maybe it’s like sprints on the interval biker versus climber, if you have one. That’s a that’s a good one as well. So like, we can definitely touch on what the bulk of your training is probably going to be focused around more aerobic training. I know there’s definite points when you’re up mountains or you know, you’re being challenged in specific ways.
Like I remember I was walking or hiking up. Ben MacDui There’s a smaller mountain before. Ben MacDui In Scotland, and that one, I was just fucking redlining my heart rate, my anaerobic system was being challenged to the max, you know, even though it was just like constant uphill and I had a fucking eight kilo pack on my back and everything, you know.
So for that I was like, Yeah, maybe actually I, I probably should have done a little bit more anaerobic conditioning, even though like two days beforehand I had done like Ben Nevis at I don’t think my heart rate got over like 130 on that, you know. So again, the specifics of the the hike, the specifics of the challenge in front of you, that’s going to dictate what adaptations you really need to focus on.
You know, like if you know, there’s going to be lots of scrambling, you know, there’s going to be lots of like, well, I need to like push for 10 minutes, 5 minutes, couple of 30 seconds, whatever, and then going to have a break and there’s going to be lots of sprints, basically on the hike. Yeah. Cool. Then you probably should train that a little bit more.
But that’s not the case for the vast majority of hiking or Imagineering. It’s a lot of just the low, steady state car race, you know? And you know, there’s just a few things that I want to touch on before we kind of wrap this up. The first one, as it’s related to all of this, is, of course, what we’re going to call a cardiovascular system, is that sometimes in the mountains, again, depending on the specifics, we’re also dealing with other things, which we would probably categorize as like extreme physiology, you know, low oxygen concentrations, altitude or higher altitude, I should say, altitude sickness.
You know, there’s lots of various things that we probably wouldn’t do. It just it’s just covering it in this podcast, you know?
Gary McGowan
Yeah.
Paddy Farrell
They’re probably more of an extreme physiology podcast that we could we could do, you know. But do you have anything to say on any of those things, any of the more like extreme physiology related phenomena that you would experience again in the mountains? Know, obviously that’s a very small segment potentially of our audience, but I know I do have personally a few well actually clients that are training for some peaks next year where we’re like, Yeah, we have to get it or cognizant.
That’s altitude sickness is probably going to be a thing. You know, one of them has had it before when they got they tried this and they didn’t accomplish it. So we have to be more aware of that. Now, some of these clues go back to just the planning, the preparation and all that stuff, like the altitude sickness is a thing like can you spend some more time acclimatizing, you know, rather than trying to do it in two days?
Can we spend an extra day at the higher altitudes? You know, like there there are certain planning and preparation things around that. But what are your thoughts here?
Gary McGowan
Yeah, to be honest, I think the biggest thing here really is just is smart, smart climbing practices, you know, basic safety like you should if you’re going on every challenging hike, especially if you’re just a novice because a lot of people do this, they they go abroad traveling, for example, and they’ve never done any hiking and they’re like, Oh, there’s this 6000 meter peak in the area.
Let’s go and do that. It’s like if you’re doing that and you don’t have like a legitimate guide, like that’s just very unwise. So what you so what you need are a few different things. You need guides that are going to ensure that you’re going up to an appropriate altitude. You come down, you sleep slightly lower it you’re going you’re doing basic acclimatization practices.
That’s really important, like preparation. What’s something like democracy, it is all made is something that can also be useful for preventing some of those problems with altitude and, you know, not not trying to rush it. And then also really important is knowing when to stop, because I’ve I’ve spoken to people like this or people about this who they total total rookies.
Again, no experience in mountains. And they’ve gone on one of these kind of novel hikes because they were abroad and very clearly symptoms of altitude sickness and like neurocognitive deficits from altitude. And they said, oh, let’s just keep going. And by the time they got to the top lights, people I’ve heard of people being like, just totally deluded, like they’re drunk, like stumbling and stuff like that is ridiculously dangerous.
Like, you know, not good practice at all. So it all starts with basic safety. Know knowing what you’re doing when you’re going to the mall, it’s like, don’t, don’t think you’re better, you’re better than nature. You will you will feel the repercussions of that.
Paddy Farrell
Nature always wins.
Gary McGowan
Always nature, always win. So prepare wisely, have an appropriate guide and all of that is a hundred times more important than like going to your local altitude simulator or something like that. Like that’s the type of thing you can consider down the line when you’re more advanced. And as I said, we can cover that in an extreme physiology podcast.
But the most important thing is just basic safe.
Paddy Farrell
Yeah. And then to final throughout this off and especially with mountaineering, but also to an extent with hiking, there are also a lot of technical skills that you have to develop. Obviously this is not the podcast to discuss technical skills of being in the mountains. While I quite enjoy talking about that stuff, I have been putting 40 books inside on that stuff.
I love being in the mountains. That’s not the goal of this podcast, right? However, the reason I bring it up is there are potential benefits to training some of these skills as part of your training, right? Like if you’re doing something like a I don’t know, whatever, 30 reps out of Bulgarian split squats and you know, you’re fucking gasping for air and you’re, you know, you’re destroyed of that.
There’s potential benefit to training some of these mountaineering skills, whether it’s, you know, map reading, whether it’s, you know, tying knots, like whatever specific it’s, you know, there’s potential benefits there to layer that into your training as well because you’re going to be in this petite stage when you’re in the mountains, you’re going to be in a state where, you know, stress is high, you know, your adrenaline is pumping, etc..
So there is potential there to layer in some technical skills. Again, obviously, it depends on the exact technical skills. Like I’m not saying you’re going to allow fucking more complex skills being in the mountains. I’m not saying you can necessarily do them in the gym, but there is potential benefit here too, Larry Not in especially if you’re getting to a stage in your training.
Like again, maybe you do something like whatever assault bike sprints or the eco bike sprints, you know, and you’re like, okay, I know I’m gasping for air here. I can hardly think straight. Here’s a thing that I have to do that’s a technically demanding thing that I’m going to be presented with in the mountains. You know, there is potential benefit there to having that in the overall program.
But again, this comes down to the specifics. It depends on if we’re talking about your your local hike of the mountains that you’re going to do in an hour, that’s, you know, not demanding at all versus, okay, I’m trying to climb fucking 20 of the highest peaks next year. You know, like obviously there’s radiation zero.
Gary McGowan
Yeah, absolutely. So I that covers everything else. And we wrap up. Perfect. Okay. So enjoy your time in the mountains, guys. Now, if you would, like, help with your efforts in schools, whether they be mountain related or otherwise, we do have quality spaces available here. Tree has been working myself or Patty or another member of our expert coaching team.
Information about that is in the description box below where you can find the form to apply and you can also find other client testimonials from people that we’ve worked with. You’d like to see the type of clients that we’ve helped before. We have plenty of other free information that we put out, so make sure you subscribe to our newsletter.
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We have the podcast here. Obviously that goes out every week. If you enjoy it, we always appreciate it. You can leave a rating or review or share it with a friend or on your Instagram story or wherever. And yeah, if you have any ideas for content you’d like to see from us on social media, on the podcast or otherwise, we’re always open to your suggestions as well.
Paddy Farrell
Yeah, the only thing I have to add is that we do have a nutrition coaching certificate. It is closed at the moment, but if you’re into join up with us maybe in the new year when it relaunches, get your name down on the waiting list because realistically we’ll probably do some early discounts, early bird discounts whenever people might have expressed interest earlier than the relaunch days, you know, So again, that can be found in the description box below or not, I don’t know anything else to say, so goodbye.
Enjoy yourselves. Hopefully anyone that’s in the mountains, stay safe and we’ll talk to you soon.
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