Prior to embarking on any training programme you should seek clearance from a trusted and qualified medical professional to see if you are healthy and fit enough to partake in it. You should also seek professional coaching in order to safely learn the movements. Immediately stop all exercise if you feel dizzy or weak. It is your responsibility to safeguard against risk.
Episode 1
I have heard it said, and I agree that climbers mostly approach their training in a couple of different ways. Some people are Engineers at heart. They pay close attention to detail. Everything is weighed, measured, calculated, and analyzed. They make plans, and then they have contingency plans, because ‘if you don’t have a plan B, then you don’t have a plan’. They also keep meticulous records of their doings. They have intimate knowledge of their stuff. Their resting and maximum heart rates, VO2 max, caloric intake, sleep quality, exactly what their current 1 rep max is on any given weightlifting exercise, and much more.
Others are Craftsmen, or Artists, or maybe even Shamans. For them, it is all about creation, and the process. They don’t get hung-up in the devils playground. They have a good sense of self awareness and somehow manage to feel their way through workouts and training. These are the folks that have the innate sense of being able to really listen to their body. They don’t require a lot of structure. What they lack in preparation they make up for in going with the flow and adaptability. One approach is probably not better or worse than another. It is highly individual. For the most part people’s inherent nature will dictate which path they walk down. It is not a conscious decision. And some people by nature will have various combinations of these approaches. For others it is more situational, and they will lean more one way or the other as conditions dictate.
I only plan ahead what is absolutely necessary. I believe in being independent of my future
-Reinhold Messner
If you live in the mountains, training to climb them can be vastly easier than if you don’t. A bunch of your training can be just climbing if you do it right. If you happen to live thousands of kilometers from the nearest mountain then training to climb them is a very different story. A story that I will chronicle here. If you are a frequent visitor to Pan Granitic Highway you will have had the opportunity to read about various climbs and an assortment of thoughts on a wide range of training techniques. This on-going piece is about one way the two sort of fit together.
Some of my friends appear to be naturally fit. I love them dearly yet they piss me off… They don’t seem to do anything specific to get in shape for a climb. I have never been that person. I was never a gifted athlete and any gains in fitness and performance have always been exceptionally hard won and ephemeral in nature. This fact coupled with my current geographical/topographical limitations conspires to make training for an alpine climb a real challenge, as well as a bit of a motivational rollercoaster.
You need to start somewhere however, and even though I would like to think of myself as mostly process orientated as opposed to goal oriented it still pays to have an end in mind so that you can properly direct and focus your training.
We have two climbs planned for next summer. Both Alpine, with a significant amount of elevation gain, exposure, and historically dodgy weather. In the overall universe of climbing these would be considered fairly casual efforts by today’s standards. The climbing is only low class five at the cruxes on each, but there is a significant amount of exposed stiff class four on each that must be negotiated quickly and safely. The rub is that type of climbing is not really something that can be trained for in the flat lands. No Sir. So in my opinion the best thing that you can do in these situations is to develop a very high level of fitness that incorporates Aerobic, Strength, and Muscular Endurance components in a blend that mimics the actual climbing as much as possible. Once you are that fit then take it to the next order of magnitude and double it. My reasoning, flawed as it may be is that if you can handle the physical aspects of any given route like it was a stroll on a beach then you will be less daunted by any exposure or technical issues and should be able to think and clearly work through them. This of course assumes that you have at least a certain amount of appropriate experience on the terrain in question and a reasonable technical competency to match. Because of that, this approach will only work up to a point. Obviously all of the fitness in the world will not allow you to climb something you don’t have the skill or experience to do, and you shouldn’t even think about doing so.
Speaking of points… everyone will have a different starting point for something like this. So what I will be relating is not meant to be instructional in any way. It should not be copied or emulated. It is simply meant to be illustrative of what I have done and am doing. Its structure and content is based on a wide variety of sources. Some interpreted from leaders in the climbing game and some of it from leaders in the underground fitness industry (if anything is really ‘underground’ any more) and some based on my years of experience, and knowing what sort of works for me.
We don’t have an exact date for our trip just yet, but vaguely we expect July sometime. So, armed with that I built a timeline; (yes that’s the engineer part of me showing through). It may seem excessive to many but I built a 38 week plan. Yeah…you read that right! 38 Weeks. This brought me to a starting point in early November. I would drop all of my ‘normal’ training and begin the plan then. The overall scheme has four phases.
To be continued…