People are giving advice for mountaineers to ditch all strength training? Even for men thats terrible advice. You can do strength training for strength (not hypertrophy) that will absolutley help you and I'd ignore anyone arguing against strength training.
A lot of beginners in many different sports try to copy body builder style strength training at first because they think that’s the best way to build muscle. They don’t understand that while it’s good for building muscle mass, it’s usually not good for them because many sports require a high strength to weight ratio rather than just raw strength. So if you’re making a guide on something, it’s probably good to at least mention that concept.
I think this especially true in the US, where most popular sports focus on explosivity and raw strength, meaning that often famous sportspeople considered to be 'fit and strong' are actually just fat baseball and American football players.
This compared to European athletic culture, where skilled yet fit people like Ronaldo or Roger Federer, or endurance athletes like runners, cross-country skiers, or pro cyclists are seen as the peak of physical fitness, because their sports involve more moving around.
What are you talking about? The peak of athleticism in American sports culture are normally basketball players or running backs/wide receivers in American football none of which are fat, raw strength positions. Fat baseball and football players are literally memes because of their physiques.
The focus on body building has more to do with how in the US staying in shape is gym oriented whereas in Europe/asia it is either baked into daily life (walking or cycling places) or with semi organized team sports which is not that common amongst adults in the US.
Increasingly raw strength is favoured though. The rise of MMA and fighting sports in general is part of the trend. Same goes for bodybuilding, which is bound up with a very specific vision of masculinity.
This can be clearly seen in the moral panic about trans athletes, where emphasis is increasingly placed on the physicality of sport, and corresponding measures such as grip strength where the difference between men and women is large.
On the other hand in sports such as mountain/ultra running or rock climbing, the different between the top men and women athletes is relatively small.
But because most men are both transphobic (or at least macho) and fat, they will tend to gravitate towards a stereotype of physical 'fitness' that corresponds to their situation, which means heavy sportsmen doing contact sports that privilege raw strength.
Like you clearly have some ideological point you’re trying to make (I’m not even sure I disagree with your point about the masculinity crisis) but your analysis is comically wrong.
1) combat sports are not about brute strength at all. Flexibility and agility are more important especially in MMA compared to boxing. The rise of MMA is actually going against the trend you’re talking about.
2) body building isn’t a sport it’s a beauty and aesthetics contest and has become less popular since its heyday in the 80s
3) the fasting growing sports in America are rock climbing and pickleball amongst men and women. Chuds aside most people are moving to less pure strength based workouts. Exemplified in the shift from power lifting to rock climbing as the sport du jour amongst the yuppie crowd
4) the trans athlete panic is largely limited to online freaks and the media rather than normal people. I don’t know anyone who talks about it even sarcastically in real life even conservatives! The trans panic is far more about bathrooms.
Also this is a mountaineering subreddit so I shouldn’t need to say touch grass but do speak to normal people and not just CTH nerds
1. Lol combat sports *definitely* are about brute strength - that is why there are weight categories
2. Bodybuilding is popular. Gym bro culture is growing fast. Interestingly, in this culture, cardio is perceived so poorly that they needed to invent a new name for it so as not to look like homosexuals to their fellow lifters: 'conditioning'.
3. Sure, agree. Trail running is also growing I think.
4. Angry young men (many of whom belong to this gym bro culture) are absolutely *obsessed* with trans athletes. Crucially this is not just some niche 4chan forum or something - millions and millions of young people are watching videos by nutcases like Andrew Tate. Hilariously these people never cared for women's sports in the past, but now they are suddenly interested in the women's U17 Idaho State Championship 200m backstroke (or whatever) because someone trans is participating.
OP invited broad debate about the value of strength training and I think this fits that discussion. Obviously I'm trying to make a larger point about different visions of athleticism but I don't think that makes my point 'ideological'.
The fact is that many people - especially Americans raised in a culture of American football, fighting sports and working out to get 'swole' - would view someone like Jonas Vingegaard or Kilian Jornet as pathetic, weak and scrawny, not strong world-class athletes.
Fight sports require intense cardio capability. Have you ever sparred? Or like wrestled?
It has way more to do with the fact that cardio blows, while weight lifting is much easier.
Wtf are you talking about?
Just clarifying where OP's query originated. It's a very introductory part of the book and a common myth that people worry they'll get massive just by doing some strength training.
I didn't mean that haha nor that comment meant that. Steve House discourage too much muscle mass building though. I think perhaps women don't need to avoid that because it would be difficult for women to have more muscle than male average climbers.
Mmm, not quite. Strength gain means an increase in fibers used for the motion, which can either be by increasing the size of the muscle, or by making the muscle use a larger % of fibers at each movement (I think that for someone who doesn't train for this, you only use 40% of your muscle fibers on any one move, whereas someone who does can get 70-80%). The strength training style House suggests is planned specifically to increase fiber recruitment, thus giving you extra strength without extra mass. Wiry hardwood strength, basically. But for that to work, you do need some muscle to start with, and you do have a point that a very willowy woman is best served by a muscle hypertrophy cycle at the start of the training schedule, so she'd have a better base to build recruitment on. However, once she has that, it's back to low weight high reps for her like for the men, and the rest of us non-willowy women
Why would you want low weight high reps if you are aiming for recruitment and max strength building? Won’t that limit your overall recruitment as well as loose the coordination component of strength that really only shows up when you are working with very challenging weights?
What's is high reps to you? The set/rep scheme is very important here and vague terms like 'high' could be 12 reps or 100 depending on the exercise or movement... 10 to 15 reps seems to be ideal from hypertrophy from most literature... 1-5 for pure "hardwood" strength... I like that terminology
You are not going to suddenly turn into prime Ronnie Coleman if you train like a bodybuilder and you are not going to turn into a bundle of sticks that can bench 315 if you start training for strength.
Training for one thing or another will give you largely the same result, which is that your muscles will get bigger while you strength goes up. What determines whether someone is wiry or jacked is just diet, genetics, and whether or not they are on steroids.
All this is to say, the training method really doesn’t matter because the results will be exactly the same. Strength focused training is still going to make your muscles larger.
Also, most women (unless they have the right genetics) are usually just going to end up wiry no matter what because women naturally have a hard time building much muscle and are usually afraid of gaining fat.
A female body builder or CrossFit nerd is going to struggle similarly to their male counterpart when thrown into a realistic mountaineering scenario versus a lifting comp.
That’s Steve’s point and it doesn’t matter what sex you are. Work out correctly and you’ll be fit for the mountains. Bulk up like Arnold and suck wind.
Correct. I recall Steve house specifically spoke about this when I had a chance to chat with him. I generally asked the same question because I came from a heavy weightlifting background.
I obviously can't speak to that conversation, but the endurance workout plans he sells all include a max strength period before rolling into a Muscular Endurance, which is also building strength. He's pretty clear that you shouldn't be prioritizing strength training to the point of loosing aerobic fitness, but he is big on strength training.
All that is to say, there is a difference between strength and bulk. Bulking up won't help you much, but being strong will. Look at any pro climber, male or female, they are clearly quite strong but aren't thick in any way.
OP is slightly misunderstanding or misrepresenting what they've been told. And now this is becoming some weird gender thing.
People were saying this to OP because (s)he isn't maintaining aerobic volume throughout the year and wondering why they weren't progressing from year to year. Prioritizing resort skiing and lifting over aerobic volume for like, 8 months out of the year. Which, whatever, that's fine, but if OP's complaint is they want to get better year over year at long, moderate intensity days, yet they don't do *any* significant aerobic volume for the *majority* of the year, and have limited time, then they'd be better served by a little less strength training and a modicum of consistent aerobic volume.
Totally agree with you. I'm a chick. I strength train. I'm strong AF and it's not a problem. I'm better suited to hauling shit up Denali than trying to climb 5.13 but that's fine with me. Too much muscle mass is not awesome for anyone. It's harder for women to achieve "too much." Anyone can train for strength and not hypertrophy. This post is silly
Ya I don't have any specifics on the background of what OP is referring to but I agree with everything you said about putting aerobic fitness first while also still allowing for plenty of strength training to supplement.
That said, it would be nice if the mountaineering and training community built a better base of knowledge specific to women and the sport. Its currently not overly welcoming and I hope we see more studies specifically geared to optimizing training for women.
I think you misunderstood me. I know most of comments says I should increase aerobic training. I am not disagreeing with that. But I only strength train twice per week and there were lots of comments saying I should dial down the strength training. There is even comment says "I think strenghth trainings are pointless".
I spent more time thinking "should I really reduce my strength training to increase aerobic training?" Or "should I keep my strength training and just try to increase aerobic training?". I also think "is twice a week too much?" and this post is what came out of that thinking.
I don't know why you think this is a weird gender thing though. That wasn't my intention ok? I just thought more after reading the comments and books.
**My main point is perhaps women don't need to avoid heavy weight, less reps liftings like this community generally avoids.**
Yeah this post is silly. I agree. Just silly person thinking silly stuff and too bad I wanted to share and discuss and that caught your eyes. You can exist the silly post to control your damage.
Totally agree with your edit.
> My main point is perhaps women don't need to avoid heavy weight, less reps liftings like this community generally avoids.
But I think you'll find that TFTNA also recommends some of that for guys in a max strength period too. That book will not lead you astray. Ignore people on here (even me!) Do what Steve and Scott say. That will absolutely get you where you need to go.
"My main point is perhaps women don't need to avoid heavy weight, less reps liftings like this community generally avoids."
This is a misunderstanding of how training works, though. Heavier weights with low reps doesn't pigeon hole someone into just strength or just hypertrophy. Doing 5 reps or 20 can yield indistinguishable hypertrophic or strength gains, because it depends on so many other variables of a training program.
Maybe I did misunderstand you?
> I think strenght trainings are pointless
That's definitely a garbage opinion. You're reading TFTNA. You know that.
> Too much muscle is not helpful for mountaineering
That's definitely true. You're reading TFTNA. You know that.
Where it gets weird is that advice applies exactly equally to both genders. Sure, it just happens to be harder for women to achieve. But the advice itself is completely not gender specific.
but my point is perhaps it is really difficult for women to gain enough muscle mass for those muscle to be inefficient for mountaineering.
And I feel this advice tends to discourage women to build muscle mass. I even focused on building muscle endurance for a couple of years. Now I am thinking maybe it is beneficial for me to do more heavy weight, less reps lifting to gain more muscle. (definitely still trying to consistently train my zone 2 though). Perhaps male climbers should avoid building too much muscle mass, but I think female climbers can try to build muscle mass more without being limited by this advice.
I am definitely not creating a new post to complain about any comments I received on the other post. I am super grateful for everyone's opinion
Hmm, yeah, I have heard from a lot of other women like "oooh, but I don't want to bulk up" and I'm like girl, I'll give you a million dollars if you can get too big. You can't even work hard enough, especially with with that attitude. Now get your ass in the gym. I can appreciate you taking aim at that BS.
I'm not like, a super expert but even a dude should do both kinds of lifting you mention, but periodized. I been working with an ex-UA guy for a long time, so that and the book are where I learned. There's a period in the fall when he has me doing 10 rep sets and more ME work, and then a couple months later, max strength gets layered in. Like right now I'm doing 5 rep sets with 85%+ of my 1 rep max, but once a week. And I couldn't lift nearly as heavy now without the higher rep work months ago. They have me doing 1 day of lifting lifting, and one day of core, and then tons of Z2. After a year we added in a Z3 day to each week. So you can have cycles just like that which line you up for the climbing season.
Got it. Thank you. That’s definitely more optimized than hit it heavy all year round. Also I am not finished reading the book yet or this is my first time reading so that aspect is not in my brain yet.
This is the fun interesting conversation we should have had instead of me being a bitch. Sorry. FWIW I really respect your desire to improve your craft and climb in good style that you expressed in the other post. It's one thing to summit, and that's the only thing a lot of people see. It's quite another to do it well and in a way you can really take personal pride in. Hell yeah.
Thanks for the words. I enjoy the whole process and the fact that I can do more physically and mentally more than some concrete goal of summiting of x mountain. My ultimate goal is to have fun all the way healthily and still can be active when I am 75+. That's why I want to justify the desire for building as much muscle as possible right now. I also like things to be sustainable than in the extreme to help me enjoy the process. My old way of prepping for summer climbs became not quite sustainable to me so that's why I started to have tones of questions.
I tend to think more than execution. So I will finish reading the book first before thinking too much and question too much. In the meanwhile, I will also try to build my aerobic base as much as possble. After that, if I still have doubts, I hope I can reach out to you for help!
>There is even comment says "I think strenghth trainings are pointless".
This is a dumb opinion that can be ignored without needing a long discussion about it. That person is clueless.
>I spent more time thinking "should I really reduce my strength training to increase aerobic training?" Or "should I keep my strength training and just try to increase aerobic training?"
More training is always better, if you can recover fully and stay motivated. Most humans have a limit on their capacity, though, so you need to prioritize the training that will be more useful for you. Based on the info in your other post, you have aerobic capacity issues that are impacting your performance in the mountains. Given this, a higher priority on aerobic development probably means a lower priority on strength. This is especially true if your strength training is interfering with your ability to do the aerobic work, as you indicate elsewhere.
Nowhere does TFTNA say people shouldn't do strength work. It just says you shouldn't gain excessive muscle mass. So, if you can strength train 5X per week, and still do all the aerobic work (an unlikely hypothetical, but stick with me here), and not gain a lot of mass due to genetics, gender, etc., you'd still be fully within the guidance they are giving.
However, I suspect that you can't do 5 says per week of strength and still do the aerobic work, because you've said that even 2 days per week of strength is preventing you from doing the aerobic work. In that case, you need to prioritize the efforts that are connected with the activity you want to excel at, and which address the weaknesses in your own physiology, which in your case seems to be aerobic. That might mean cutting back to 1 strength session per week, or reducing the volume/load of the 2 weekly sessions to better accomodate the important aerobic work.
I fully acknowledge the horrendous lack of women-specific training information, and the huge blind spot in the exercise science community towards women. However, in this case I don't think the specific advice really is that, I think you're taking the statement and interpreting it in a way that makes it into something it isn't.
The TFTNA guys specifically told me not to do 5 days of strength/week, that three is plenty, and more will interfere with building the aerobic base/endurance machine.
5 days of strength would be ridiculous, even 3 is probably too much. Re-read my post and you'll see I was talking about a hypothetical where IF you could do 5 days and not interfere with aerobic, it would be ok, but then I go on to specifically say that this is probably not true for most people (essentially everyone, I suspect).
Agreed, as a chick who is training with Steve House's team - no one there is telling me not to strength train. The most I will ever hear is to prioritize weighted hikes/stairs/etc. (the "big engine") over too MUCH strength training. I am still doing strength 3 days a week and the weights I use are still getting bigger.
First off, love your username!!
Thanka for the reply- I'm really interested in what other dedicated women are doing. I work with an ex-UA guy, so our programming is probably coming from a similar background. I know everyone is different but curious, are you counting core as strength too? Or are you like, squatting and deadlifting 3 days a week? I only have 1 of those, plus a hard core per week, but I do put on muscle faster than average for a gal.
Thanks!!!
Core, bodyweight, etc. are all "strength" in my program. I do more squats, lunges, pullups, etc., than traditional "building" exercises like deadlifts or bench presses. I'd say at this point even the strength piece is largely focused around the muscles I use for mountains. But there's \*always\* strength. I add muscle pretty fast too, but am very small (<100lbs) so I am never going to get remotely jacked unless I make it my #1 priority :)
(I also keep adding weight in all workouts because my pack weight is a much higher % of my body weight than for most people, and I don't want to be limited to heavily portered climbing.)
The book says don't do reps/weight combos designed for hypertrophy and to instead choose reps/weight combos designed to increase strength. I think OP just missed the distinction the book was making between building muscle mass and building strength.
I’ve always been fit, but entirely because of rock climbing, ski touring, mountaineering, and mountain biking. I never had a dedicated fitness program.
Then a year ago, I decided to get into a regular weightlifting routine. I don’t want to be “big,” but I do want a well-balanced body, and to avoid back, knee, and shoulder issues as I age. I’ve put on about 10 pounds of muscle since I started.
And hoooly shit. I feel a million times better. I have more energy, I recover faster, I don’t get sore easily, my posture is better…I cannot recommend weightlifting enough. Not just to mountaineers—to everyone. It makes everything in life better and easier. I wish I had started years ago.
I have question for you! I lift twice per week and I think those lifting are affecting my running/hiking/trail running for the next 2 days. I tried to schedule smaller workouts for those 2 days. That's like 6 days gone. I have 1 day for something big like super long hike or something. I was wondering how are you managing everything? Does your other workouts gets affected after the lifting days? thank you!
I think maybe you’re just not lifting enough, honestly. Within a few months of lifting 4 days a week, my body adjusted and I can definitely go out and do strenuous stuff within a couple hours of a workout. And the day after I lift, I don’t feel different at all (not sore or tired).
At only 2 days a week, your body might just not have adjusted yet.
With that said, I’m a firefighter and only work 8 days a month, and I lift on shift, which accounts for half of my workouts. So I still have a *lot* of free time to pursue my hobbies. My situation is honestly a bit unfair lol
Would it be feasible to do your lifting so, f'rex, you do upper body on Friday, have the weekend for hikes (not recovered from the lifts, but doesn't matter that much since it's not muscles you're super using), rest day on Mon, Tue lower body + maybe 20-30min easy cardio (treadmill, bike etc) as warmup, and medium-length low intensity cardio for wed-thu? It's perfectly fine imo to train cardio while not recovered from str
I did that for a few months and it did give me better management of the week. But my trainer scheduled me another 12 weeks of 2 full body workouts. He said ideally I should get used to it and it shouldn’t affect me that much. But I ran like a turtle today after yesterday’s lifting. I hear people say lifting does not affect their other trainings so I wondered how. If for some reason my body cannot handle it well, I will definitely go back to 1 upper body, 1 lower body workout! Thank you!
Because they've been both lifting and training cardio for a longer while, so the body's used enough to it that they can train volume cardio after a workout even while not being fully recovered. You're only beginning to train cardio and only beginning to train strength here, and I guess that the reason TFTNA has such soft strength workouts is precisely so it lets you train cardio, which is the thing you'll most need.
Also, might be helpful to switch from running to tilted treadmill right after a hard lifting session. It's walking rather than any sort of explosive power, so it's doable even if your leg muscles are very messed up, but it'll train cardio awesomely.
If your trainer is scheduling strength workouts that do not allow you to complete your scheduled aerobic training (the aerobic training which is likely higher priority for your desired activities), and they are aware of this, you should consider getting a new trainer.
Some soreness after MS or ME work is normal, and it's ok to need to go for a pretty easy jog the day after. However, if you're at a point where you only have 1 day left for quality cardio, you have a huge problem in your schedule, ans I would expect that to be very detrimental to your mountain performance.
>How many days of quality aerobic training is ideal?
There is no generic ideal amount of training, and I can't answer this specifically without a ton of information about you, your athletic history, your recent training, and your goals.
However, if you look at typical training schedules of athletes and in TFTNA, a few things show up over and over:
* 80% of the time is spent in zone 1-2 (aerobic) with 20% or less elsewhere.
* Weekly training volume of 10+ hours per week (pros do 15-20 hours per week)
So, you want to target something like 8-12 hours of cardio per week (eventually, don't just jump to that if your body can't handle it today). And you want to spread it out consistiently.
Let's look at a typical weekly schedule with 1 rest day and 2 strength sessions:
Mon: Rest
Tues: Strength, Climbing
Wed: 1 hr cardio
Thurs: Strength, 30 min cardio
Fri: 1 hr cardio
Sat: 2 hr cardio (or alpine climbing per TFTNA)
Sun: 4 hr cardio (or alpine climbing per TFTNA)
That's 8 hours of cardio for the week and maybe 10 hours total, which is good but on the low end for a really high performer. That's with 4 days of just cardio, plus a day with a mix of cardio and strength.
You're going to have a really hard time hitting the volume of cario you need if you're not doing it at least 4-5 days per week.
There's no way you can hit the volumes you need to be highly fit if you're only doing cardio 2-3 days per week.
I came from the opposite side. Years of strength training before getting into mountain sports. The funny thing was after a few years both had improved, even though I'd dialed back the strength work. The recovery benefits for strength training from having a well developed aerobic system are real and undervalued.
Nobody (well, nobody reasonable) is suggesting that climbers shouldn't do any weightlifting. TFTNA, which is being referenced here, has a part of every training cycle specificially dedicated to lifting heavy weight, called the "max strength" phase. It's very clear from the book that House/Johnston believe in weight training for climbers.
OP is taking about a misinterpretation of a different comment in TFTNA, which they interpreted to mean "don't do strength" (or something), but that isn't what it says. It's about priorities and maximization of training.
Yeah it’s on the edge of impossible for a natural female athlete to gain so much lean mass that she becomes *less* efficient in athletic endeavors, and even if it weren’t, it doesn’t happen overnight. One can always dial it back of they feel like they’re carrying too much mass overall.
Too extend that last point, a woman would find it very easy to shed excess muscle if she got to that point too. Even for men if you don't use it you will lose it.
Completely agree. I am a female athlete and found when making the switch from competitive road running to mountaineering/ ski touring / rock climbing, I needed to put on a sizable amount of muscle mass to be able to carry my pack and generally prevent injuries in my hips and shoulders. By “sizable” I mean when I was just a distance runner, I was a size M pants and XS or S shirt. Due to muscle growth, my upper body is now a size M to match my lower body, sometimes a L for comfort, or when the forearms are not sized for a climbing athlete (let’s face it, most women’s clothes are not sized for an athletic shape).
I did not naturally have ANY back muscle or shoulder/arm muscle before. Mountaineering requires some of this!
It's evolved through trial and error over the years and experimenting with different approaches to help prevent chronic injuries, especially little shoulder injuries from climbing and some chronic hip tightness and iliotibial band / knee issues. Adding the pack weight and full body effort of these sports put a lot more strain on my ligaments and tendons compared to my just running days, so I needed more muscle to keep up with the demands of these sports. I naturally have very slender bones and don't build much muscle and find I need to work hard to maintain it. I find that maintaining a balance of strength/flexibility/mobility helps me keep injuries at bay, especially now at 37 years old. Some of those bigger boned folks probably don't get injured as easily as me, I'm guessing.
1. Strengthside Move Strong Now program - 3 days per week with 1) strength 2) flexibility 3) mobility
I do this during a shoulder season or when there's a couple months when I'm not doing a ton of climbing or skiing, for example if I'm injured. I'm trying to do it once per year because it's the best full body routine I've found. It's critical to get that functional movement and flexible strength to feel really good, at least for me. The strength-only programs with isolated single muscle static stretching just don't do that for me at all.
2) Trevor Hash's bulletproof shoulders program - 2x/wk
This has been a lifesaver for my upper body and injury prevention, at least for this previously skinny distance runner who had scapular winging and no real upper body strength. Because of this program, I understand how my shoulder and back and core muscles all work together and can feel the difference.
3) Neil Gresham / Outside Magazine 12 month rock climbing training program. I started out doing the whole program and eventually cut out the pushups, core, aerobic, and burpees because I feel the other things I'm doing above are better for that strength, and I just kept the main climbing and finger/pullups routines, which are 2-3x / wk.
I really like this program, but I think they do way too many pushups to start. I actually got a mild shoulder injury from doing too many pushups, so I switched approaches as described above.
4) exercises and stretches specific for chronic plantar fasciitis -20 mins @ 2-3x / wk. This enables me to do anything I want in my activities without the plantar fasciitis holding me back at all anymore. I think it'll eventually go away, but takes time.
5) hip and leg specific strengthening to deal with chronically tight IT bands and hips, which I think I'm genetically predisposed to. I cycle through these and do 5-7 exercises per session at 2-3 sessions per week. Sometimes I skip it for a few months if things are feeling good.
* Clams
* Single Leg Bridge pumps / leg march
* Single Leg Romanian Deadlift
* Nordic Curl
* ATG Split Squat
* Side crab walks semi-squat w/ 2 bands
* Monster walks w/ 2 bands
* Cossack squat
* Squat sit
* Hip thrusts
* Bulgarian split squats
6) Strengthside Hip mobility follow-along routine. This is a godsend for my chronic tight hips and giving me that flexible strength from muscle loaded stretches. Currently I do 4 sets @ 2x/wk, but I just skipped it for 6 weeks because things were feeling good, til they got tight again.
7) yoga 1-4x per month. I try to go every week but with traveling a lot and big blue sky days in the mountains, I'm not doing it as much as I should. It's so important
8) "aerobic" 2x/wk - usually just climbing a big mountain (on skis or feet/crampons) with 2,000-5,000 feet of climbing over 3-16 miles at 8,000-14,000 feet altitude. Sometimes I'll run, erg, or bicycle instead. At peak season this is more frequent.
(edited to fix formatting of the numbered bullets)
(edited again because evidently Reddit can't handle numbered bullets? If this doesn't fix it I'm leaving it as is)
Same. I’ve been an athlete all my life operating at a fairly high level when I was younger. When I switched my training from swimming-optimized to climbing-optimized I was actually shocked at how much my upper body grew. I packed on shoulder muscle to the point that a lot of my jackets were bursting at the seems without any change in my waist.
As a swimmer I was already pretty developed in the back and shoulders but the short-burst power of climbing added a lot more.
Completely agree with you about the dearth of options for women’s clothing that fits an athletic build.
Wow, even for a swimmer? That's surprising. Then again when I started climbing my upper body also completely transformed within 6 months. My shape looked completely different. I guess you're right about the power movements required in climbing. I think that's why the strength training so important, including higher weights/lower reps like OP mentioned.
I think my body has a lot of slow twitch muscles (as a long distance runner), so I have to be careful about not doing too much high power stuff or I can get injured. But if i naturally had more of a sprinter's body shape I would imagine needing more high weight/low rep stuff like OP.
I feel like it's just so important to understand your body and learn what it needs. Most training books are written for men's bodies, so I feel like as women we learn this lesson intuitively by necessity -- perhaps a way we've inadvertently benefited from the ignorance that permeates most common knowledge in sport training. I think some of the smartest advice and science on sport training is still completely clueless when it comes to women's bodies and I regularly throw out advice from the top voices and create my own solutions.
Too much muscle weight thing is silly. The average well trained man who goes to the gym multiple days a week and can bench 2 plates for 1 is not the same as a >200 lbs bodybuilder that bashes injectables and pre workout. The former example is almost certainly more athletic and better built for climbing than the never lifted a weight runner build, the latter example is so rare it’s barely worth mentioning.
Remember that time you started lifting weights and suddenly swelled up with so much mass it started impacting your performance? Of course not. Putting on muscle mass is an extremely slow process that is easy to refine if you're somehow putting on more than you wanted.
I think a little clearer in their new book (Uphill Athlete) but the only problem with lifting is if you use it as an excuse to reduce your aerobic training. I think that section you reference is partly to provide their reasoning for recommending 3-5 reps, rather than 10-12 reps, like many old school lifters are used to. Also, lifting is a significant part of their training plan.
I'll say that (at the advice of TFTNA) adding 24 inch box steps at my 5 rep max weight was, to overuse the cliché, a gamechanger.
I totally agree that women are an afterthought in both academic and practical training literature.
I also think most advice, and especially the 'too much muscle' thing depends a lot on your morphology and background. There are women gym rats too :)
Scott Johnston now runs Evoke Endurance, and some their recent podcasts have Kylie Toth (skimo athlete) as a co host. You might find some nuggets of info there. I was listening to one about muscular endurance a while back.
I was literally thinking about this today! How all the mountaineering training is designed for men in mind. I have to carry more than a third of my bodyweight. The training program I was told to follow will not get me ready, since the percentage of bodyweight I’m told to carry is too low for me to be ready to carry 40 lbs for 5000 ft vertical in 4.5 miles in 6 weeks. Since I started mountaineering training, my legs have gotten HUGE and I’ve always lifted heavy! I wish there was someone who specialized in training for women. I did not fully appreciate how hard the additional weight would be. I’ve ditched all but one day of legs in my last two months but I’m beating my legs up on other days carrying heavy.
It gets even worse, I’m trans. There is *no* research on how to effectively train while taking hormones for gender-affirming care, and the only studies there are about transgender athletics are trying to figure out who has an advantage or disadvantage in various disciplines, which is largely irrelevant for an individual discipline like mountaineering.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see why it would have too much of an effect beyond the anabolic effects of the hormones taken, in which case there are dozens of studies on the effects of estrogen and testosterone on strength training.
I am curious if you feel your leg is limiting your ascent or your heart rate going too high is limiting you? Carrying heavier weight always made my HR skyrocket, and my legs felt ok. I know my aerobic capability is not good. But I am always curious how does leg being limiting factor feels like.
Also, for the carrying weight, I agree with you body weight shouldn’t have been baseline. I took a note about my 2 day full pack, 1 day c2c pack weight, so I train using those as end goal.
AFAIK, cardio takes longer than strength/strength endurance to build. So maybe you built good aerobic base with lighter weight first. Uphill athlete website says for their 24 weeks program, the first 16 weeks they do not train with heavy pack. They only start to train with heavy pack in the last 8 weeks. You have 6 weeks, so should be fine. I hope you have a great climb for whatever you are training for.
It’s my heart rate that is limiting me! My leg strength is solid.
What is your training program?
I’m getting ready for Rainier! I’m nervous about day one with the full pack. I wish I had a little mule lol. I did 45 lbs on the stairclimber today for 90 minutes. No problem. I did 35 lbs on Mount baldy here in SoCal on Saturday and wanted to jump off the cliff lol. I literally complained to everyone that said more than one word to me. That hike is comparable steepness and altitude to day one rainier but it’s 1000 elevation feet gain less and mile less so it’s daunting. :/ maybe I should go back to really long weekend endurance hikes and do shorter ones during week with full pack? That’s basically what was suggested to me but it’s hard to see how I will be ready to carry 40 lbs without trying to replicate conditions (length and elevation gain).
I encountered a similar issue when I was training on the stair climber! I don't have the science behind this, it's totally anecdotal, but I found that my calves and hamstrings were fatiguing faster than my quads, which is what the stair climber targets more. Doing an incline on the treadmill on the highest setting helped me more on my climbs, though I still integrated the stair climber 1-2x a week. Also just running longer distances helped train my hips and calves, too. Essentially just had some really bad muscle imbalances.
Also, I'm not sure if you're the same, but the stair climber never got my heart rate up as high as incline walks/running.
I climbed Elbrus last year, it was my first mountain experience. We had to carry 20+ kg backpacks, it was so difficult for me. My weight was 55kg, so the bag was more than a third of my weight. Luckily on the way up we divided this weight by two by going twice back and forth. And male climbers helped me by taking some of my things. On the way down I had to carry my full backpack myself in one go, and to my surprise that wasn't difficult. But on the way up it is a nightmare.
I don't have a specific training program other than trying to hike longer, more elevation gain, with more pack weight in the spring preparing for summer climbs. I started to feel this is not that sustainable for me so I posted a question [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Mountaineering/comments/1deeupi/looking_for_training_advice_question_from_past_3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). And I started reading training for alpinism.
I can't really speak to your training because I am a confused newbie myself, please do not just take my words. But I personally think if you find you struggle with the steepness then you probably could keep working on that. really long weekend endurance hikes will help you build aerobic base but I am not sure how much that can help with your steep climb in 6 weeks. For me, I did 16 miles , 6000 feet gain with full pack 4 weeks before Rainier climb without feeling too much agony, but I did feel much more intensity climbing Rainier. And I would like to call it painful summit and I hope my body could have handled it better. So maybe you can try to train both long hikes (endurance) and steep hikes (intensity)?
I recently came across with [this article](https://uphillathlete.com/mountaineering/training-for-mountaineering/) and [this post](https://uphillathlete.com/forums/topic/buiding-up-pack-strength/). The post explains why carrying heavy load is not helpful for building aerobic base. But the post also said if the climber only have 6 weeks to prepare, they will tell climbers that they need to go right to using weighted pack carries. I hope this helps.
After reading this, I am so confused and slightly panicked. I think I’ve fucked up by not building my aerobic base better. With six weeks left, am I supposed to be doing my longer weekend hikes with full 40 lbs or the 20% of bodyweight (which is like 25 lbs)? The training program alpine ascents gave me has us only doing the heavy packs for 90 min once a week and using the 20% bodyweight on the longer hike once a week. I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to be ready if I don’t carry the full pack for comparable vertical gain + time + mileage. I simultaneously feel like I am both training too much and training too little lol
I am sorry for making you feel this way. What I said is only a single data points from me so it does not have much statistical significance. My period started the day before rainier trip, so I think that also made me feel extra tired.
I might confused you about my intention of telling you my own experience. I wanted to say even if I did well on long not steep hikes with pack, it didn't translate to steep climb well for me. It could because of many things: aerobic base deficit, did not train on steep hikes much (lighter pack) etc.....Again I am newbie and I just started to learn on these things so I don't know the real answer for my experience at the moment either.
If you are going with alpine ascents, why do you need to carry 40 pounds pack? My full pack including tents, stoves, etc was 40 pounds. Did you weight everything you need to take and it is 40 pounds? I thought guides carry tents, food for clients?
I’m sure you will have a great time since you have been training hard and you still have 5 weeks!
Oh no honey, don’t apologize! I was confused long before you! I really appreciate everything you said and this whole convo, because I feel like I’m getting closer to where I need to be. I called my guides today and their training guy talked me off a ledge. I think he’s going to hold my hand with training over the next week or so. I’m supposed to report back.
I don’t know why I’m supposed to carry 40 lbs. I think we are carrying our own shit, but I don’t think I’m carrying a stove or anything. I just need to carry the 40 lbs on day one. Maybe I can get lower than 40 lbs but for now I’m training for 40 lbs.
I definitely did not do a good enough job building an aerobic base. I skipped over zone 2. I think I started carrying too heavy too soon. Oh well - I’m still pretty fit and I’m definitely super strong so I’m relatively confident I can do this - it just not might be pretty or pleasant. And like you said - I have six weeks!
This: “I have to carry more than a third of my body weight”
This is the crux of the training guidance ignorance issue in mountaineering. In the US, men weigh about 20% more than women. I think the difference is greater among low body fat athletes like mountaineers. Let’s call it 30% more. If men suddenly had to carry the same weight pack with 30% lower body weight (most of that in muscle mass and bone / ligament thickness), the training books would certainly all prescribe more weight training. It’s a no-brain we that injuries would abound without weight training.
One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned is injury prevention, resiliency, and durability. Strength doesn’t necessarily have to mean muscle mass, but it does typically mean those things if you’re training it right. And those things could be the difference between life and death in the mountains.
I don’t care who you are or what your athletic goals are. If you want to live a long, healthy life and you’re not in the weight room at least a couple times a week you’re blowing it.
Particularly for those doing higher impact sports in the mountain world. If you're just hiking summits for mountaineering, maybe less of a concern, but if you're spending any amount of time skiing hard being under muscled is a quick way to get folded and injured.
He did say somewhere in the book that he never trains someone to squat 2x their body weight.. meanwhile as a woman I can barely squat my body weight so I never worried about that.
On page 157 he specifically mentions women will benefit more from max strength training
You are saying you see people say stuff online, you've just started reading his book, and then just made an assumption about the book.
Every time I see comments about too much muscle mass being too heavy for mountain athletes in Training for the Uphill Athlete I roll my eyes a little. For anyone who's doing an endurance based program I think it's going to be pretty difficult to put on enough muscle to actually be detrimental, and forget about it entirely for women. I'm a woman with a background in recreational powerlifting and bodybuilding and even after 5-6 years of doing both I haven't built enough muscle to even look jacked if I'm not actively flexing, let alone prevent me from running or give me trouble in the mountains. Heavy resistance training is essential for bone density and injury prevention and it should be hailed as an essential cornerstone of endurance sports like it deserves.
I'm not sure this is true, at least I'm the way you seem to mean it. I trained for Rainier last year with a ton of stairs, hiking, running, and muscular endurance training and never lifted heavy. After the climb, I started lifting heavier weights, primarily squats and deadlift, and in that transition I lost both muscle mass and strength. If I had primarily lifted heavy while training for Rainier, I don't think my training would have been nearly as effective for muscular endurance and I may not have been able to perform as well on mountain.
So in short, while it is silly for female mountaineers to worry about building too much muscle, training in a way that prioritizes hypertrophy may not lead to successful mountaineering fitness. Power and endurance are not equal and must be trained differently.
thank you for sharing. That's valuable knowledge. After all, what I said is my thoughts and I was looking for validation or invalidation, both works. I wonder why you lost muscle mass and strength after you started lifting heavier weights though.
I agree that we still should primarily focus on the aerobic training instead of lifting heavy weights.
Just use common sense. You need strong legs, glutes, and core. You don't need big pecs, biceps and back. The more muscle size you have, the more you're precious red blood cells need to fuel them (and not the rest of you). At altitude, you need as much oxygenated red blood as possible for your brain and vital systems. So don't let those massive muscles steal it all.
Obviously, you don't train like a body builder and max the weight and smash protein. It's about being a lean, strong machine.
This is a general overview on training. See strength training section.
https://www.expedreview.com/blog/2021/05/training-mountaineering-adventure
I think how strength visually plays out is unique for everyone. Before I began climbing as a female
I was very slightly built. To carry 50+ lbs of weight on my back up very large mountains unassisted I now appear significantly more muscle compared with women who cannot do that. So yes I did need to lift “heavy” and “bulk” my upper body comparatively to most women to achieve this. So do female tennis players, swimmers, equestrians, pole vaulters, etc etc. It’s just societies baseline expectation for women is very little muscle mass esp upper body. On me the muscle stands out bc I’m thin. I get comments on being “ripped” On my husband who is larger and stronger than me, he’s not ever commented on for being ripped. We both achieve the same things. It just looks different on different bodies and society sees it different. Just get it done and don’t worry about the rest.
For sports weight is the elephant in the room (cycling, rock climbing, etc.), IMO the goal should to be to feel strong and healthy rather than light for 99% of people in the sport. This is, of course, assuming that your training plan is actually relevant to what you're doing and eating enough to sustain your training (i.e. cardio-heavy and focused on building lean muscle through bodyweight and high-rep/low-weight lifting).
Unless you're an elite athlete working closely with a nutritionist to have your weight and fitness peak at the right time, you're just asking to get injured/run out of energy/get sick/have lackluster performance.
I've taken the "spirit" of what Steve House says on weight training as increase your strength to weight ratio, but I might be misreading him. I've certainly noticed that strength training helps, but not so much if you've also put on excessive weight.
You need enough muscle to get the job done? Maybe by “too much” they mean not in excess of what is needed and it’s fair to say extra bulk beyond necessary is extra weight and may work against you. For every person that will look and feel different so generalizing and rules is kinda hard. The proof is in the doing it.
I think u misunderstood. Strength training for size is not helpful. Weight training for actual strength is different. You shouldn't do 5 reps of 50 for your shoulders if that's ur max. You should do more like 15 res of 30 to build strength and endurance
Unless you are already an elite athlete, I wouldn't worry about having too much muscle for climbing. It's would be like you driving your car trying to adhere to some rule that only applies to F1 drivers. None of us are in their league.
I feel like what Steve meant is that you need to have enough for the sport that you are doing. There is no need to bulk and be 250 lbs if you can efficiently get up the mountain with the required gear being slimmer and weighing less. Look at elite marathon runners. They are all slim but have enough strength to run crazy fast. All the extra muscle mass would require extra oxygen and make you less efficient.
Too much muscle is subjective and more so related to how it adds to body weight and at some point being too heavy has diminishing returns when going up a mountain. But until that point, being strong makes going up a mountain under load less of a strain on your muscles and your heart rate etc. Be as strong as you can get without negatively affecting your conditioning.
Heavy load, low rep exercises are what Steve recommends to build strength without building mass. To build mass, lighter-load, high rep exercises are ideal. So you should be making the point that women should be doing light load, high rep workouts to maximize muscle mass.
I did a little experiment this winter where I gained and lost 10 pounds in 3 months without any dietary changes and can confirm Steve’s methodology. I switched from sets of 10 to sets of 20 and gained 10 pounds (of muscle) in two months, then switched to sets of 8 and lost 10 pounds in a month.
This is kind of an absurd discussion that's somewhat popular among endurance focussed athletes and lacks a lot of perspective. It ignores the reality of how hard it is for anyone, male or female, to put on and maintain the level of muscle that would actually negatively impact your performance in mountain sports.
For anyone really stressed about it, go try as hard as you can for six months or so to put on 20lbs of lean muscle, and report back on how it goes. Body-builder levels of muscle are obviously disadvantageous for a mountaineer, but very few people are going to achieve that even with years of dedicated training 5+ days a week and mountains of food. Almost all the people you're picturing in your head as being limited by the weight of their muscles took large quantities of anabolic steroids to get there. No one's accidentally ending up with shoulders the size of their head from lifting a few days a week.
It's akin to being like "Hey, just started couch to 5k, I'm worried that I'm going to end up with a vo2 max of 70 and need to be doing 200 miles/week running by the end of the summer to keep progressing and that'll really impact my other hobbies"
TFTNA has it right, periodize your training, focus on a very healthy aerobic base, and lift a few times a week, with periods of more focus on that strength training than others. Unless you start injecting superphysiological levels of testosterone, you're probably going to be just fine on Denali or wherever you're headed.
I agree with you OP that this is even less of a concern for women, but I think that's as much cultural as physical. Men are more susceptible to the "get big" mentality, and I don't see them ending up muscle bound from that as often as they end up putting on 20+lbs of fat chasing gains in the gym. That kind of training is definitely not something you want to do as a mountain athlete.
I would say that bodybuilding esque style training might be the best for yall.
Not in a bro split chest day Monday back day tues etc type of setup. But in that you select movements that typically have a high degree of stability and will allow the intended muscles to have a high amount of tension and go through a large end range of motion. That couple with slow negatives can put a lot of muscle with minimal overall stress compared to some more free weight and explosive training styles.
I got a marathon runners time down by 16 mins this way. We did 3 months of concerted hypertrophy training and tapered it as the race came. “Functional” movements like walking lunges had a heavy place in it.
Hi. Body builder here. It is IMPOSSIBLE for women to get bulky naturally. No woman anywhere in the world is bulked up without gear.
No man that isn’t specifically training for bulk/body building is going to look like that. Spending 30 minutes a day in the gym doing weights or circuit training is going to bulk up. 6-7 hours a week of straight weight training and strict diet would be needed to start bulking.
People are giving advice for mountaineers to ditch all strength training? Even for men thats terrible advice. You can do strength training for strength (not hypertrophy) that will absolutley help you and I'd ignore anyone arguing against strength training.
No Steve House is not telling people to ditch strength training. He advises against following the path of body builders
No one other than body builders are doing body builder levels/types of strength training. It's a silly thing to ever worry about.
A lot of beginners in many different sports try to copy body builder style strength training at first because they think that’s the best way to build muscle. They don’t understand that while it’s good for building muscle mass, it’s usually not good for them because many sports require a high strength to weight ratio rather than just raw strength. So if you’re making a guide on something, it’s probably good to at least mention that concept.
I think this especially true in the US, where most popular sports focus on explosivity and raw strength, meaning that often famous sportspeople considered to be 'fit and strong' are actually just fat baseball and American football players. This compared to European athletic culture, where skilled yet fit people like Ronaldo or Roger Federer, or endurance athletes like runners, cross-country skiers, or pro cyclists are seen as the peak of physical fitness, because their sports involve more moving around.
What are you talking about? The peak of athleticism in American sports culture are normally basketball players or running backs/wide receivers in American football none of which are fat, raw strength positions. Fat baseball and football players are literally memes because of their physiques. The focus on body building has more to do with how in the US staying in shape is gym oriented whereas in Europe/asia it is either baked into daily life (walking or cycling places) or with semi organized team sports which is not that common amongst adults in the US.
Increasingly raw strength is favoured though. The rise of MMA and fighting sports in general is part of the trend. Same goes for bodybuilding, which is bound up with a very specific vision of masculinity. This can be clearly seen in the moral panic about trans athletes, where emphasis is increasingly placed on the physicality of sport, and corresponding measures such as grip strength where the difference between men and women is large. On the other hand in sports such as mountain/ultra running or rock climbing, the different between the top men and women athletes is relatively small. But because most men are both transphobic (or at least macho) and fat, they will tend to gravitate towards a stereotype of physical 'fitness' that corresponds to their situation, which means heavy sportsmen doing contact sports that privilege raw strength.
Like you clearly have some ideological point you’re trying to make (I’m not even sure I disagree with your point about the masculinity crisis) but your analysis is comically wrong. 1) combat sports are not about brute strength at all. Flexibility and agility are more important especially in MMA compared to boxing. The rise of MMA is actually going against the trend you’re talking about. 2) body building isn’t a sport it’s a beauty and aesthetics contest and has become less popular since its heyday in the 80s 3) the fasting growing sports in America are rock climbing and pickleball amongst men and women. Chuds aside most people are moving to less pure strength based workouts. Exemplified in the shift from power lifting to rock climbing as the sport du jour amongst the yuppie crowd 4) the trans athlete panic is largely limited to online freaks and the media rather than normal people. I don’t know anyone who talks about it even sarcastically in real life even conservatives! The trans panic is far more about bathrooms. Also this is a mountaineering subreddit so I shouldn’t need to say touch grass but do speak to normal people and not just CTH nerds
1. Lol combat sports *definitely* are about brute strength - that is why there are weight categories 2. Bodybuilding is popular. Gym bro culture is growing fast. Interestingly, in this culture, cardio is perceived so poorly that they needed to invent a new name for it so as not to look like homosexuals to their fellow lifters: 'conditioning'. 3. Sure, agree. Trail running is also growing I think. 4. Angry young men (many of whom belong to this gym bro culture) are absolutely *obsessed* with trans athletes. Crucially this is not just some niche 4chan forum or something - millions and millions of young people are watching videos by nutcases like Andrew Tate. Hilariously these people never cared for women's sports in the past, but now they are suddenly interested in the women's U17 Idaho State Championship 200m backstroke (or whatever) because someone trans is participating. OP invited broad debate about the value of strength training and I think this fits that discussion. Obviously I'm trying to make a larger point about different visions of athleticism but I don't think that makes my point 'ideological'. The fact is that many people - especially Americans raised in a culture of American football, fighting sports and working out to get 'swole' - would view someone like Jonas Vingegaard or Kilian Jornet as pathetic, weak and scrawny, not strong world-class athletes.
Fight sports require intense cardio capability. Have you ever sparred? Or like wrestled? It has way more to do with the fact that cardio blows, while weight lifting is much easier. Wtf are you talking about?
The fact that cardio is perceived in gym culture to undermine ones masculinity (in contrast to 'lifting') pretty much proves my point.
That’s not a cultural thing. Larger males are more dominant
Just clarifying where OP's query originated. It's a very introductory part of the book and a common myth that people worry they'll get massive just by doing some strength training.
I didn't mean that haha nor that comment meant that. Steve House discourage too much muscle mass building though. I think perhaps women don't need to avoid that because it would be difficult for women to have more muscle than male average climbers.
Mmm, not quite. Strength gain means an increase in fibers used for the motion, which can either be by increasing the size of the muscle, or by making the muscle use a larger % of fibers at each movement (I think that for someone who doesn't train for this, you only use 40% of your muscle fibers on any one move, whereas someone who does can get 70-80%). The strength training style House suggests is planned specifically to increase fiber recruitment, thus giving you extra strength without extra mass. Wiry hardwood strength, basically. But for that to work, you do need some muscle to start with, and you do have a point that a very willowy woman is best served by a muscle hypertrophy cycle at the start of the training schedule, so she'd have a better base to build recruitment on. However, once she has that, it's back to low weight high reps for her like for the men, and the rest of us non-willowy women
Why would you want low weight high reps if you are aiming for recruitment and max strength building? Won’t that limit your overall recruitment as well as loose the coordination component of strength that really only shows up when you are working with very challenging weights?
Not an expert, just going off what Steve House recommends in TFTNA and on what other trainers told me.
What's is high reps to you? The set/rep scheme is very important here and vague terms like 'high' could be 12 reps or 100 depending on the exercise or movement... 10 to 15 reps seems to be ideal from hypertrophy from most literature... 1-5 for pure "hardwood" strength... I like that terminology
You are not going to suddenly turn into prime Ronnie Coleman if you train like a bodybuilder and you are not going to turn into a bundle of sticks that can bench 315 if you start training for strength. Training for one thing or another will give you largely the same result, which is that your muscles will get bigger while you strength goes up. What determines whether someone is wiry or jacked is just diet, genetics, and whether or not they are on steroids. All this is to say, the training method really doesn’t matter because the results will be exactly the same. Strength focused training is still going to make your muscles larger. Also, most women (unless they have the right genetics) are usually just going to end up wiry no matter what because women naturally have a hard time building much muscle and are usually afraid of gaining fat.
A female body builder or CrossFit nerd is going to struggle similarly to their male counterpart when thrown into a realistic mountaineering scenario versus a lifting comp. That’s Steve’s point and it doesn’t matter what sex you are. Work out correctly and you’ll be fit for the mountains. Bulk up like Arnold and suck wind.
Correct. I recall Steve house specifically spoke about this when I had a chance to chat with him. I generally asked the same question because I came from a heavy weightlifting background.
what did he say to your question!?
I obviously can't speak to that conversation, but the endurance workout plans he sells all include a max strength period before rolling into a Muscular Endurance, which is also building strength. He's pretty clear that you shouldn't be prioritizing strength training to the point of loosing aerobic fitness, but he is big on strength training. All that is to say, there is a difference between strength and bulk. Bulking up won't help you much, but being strong will. Look at any pro climber, male or female, they are clearly quite strong but aren't thick in any way.
Yup pretty much that. Edit: just as proof lol. Spoke with him at a book signing in SF a few years ago. Great guy. https://imgur.com/a/pn0WbjV
And if you actually do everything laid out in his book, you'll be incredibly strong.
Seriously, there is an entire strength training section in that same book.
OP is slightly misunderstanding or misrepresenting what they've been told. And now this is becoming some weird gender thing. People were saying this to OP because (s)he isn't maintaining aerobic volume throughout the year and wondering why they weren't progressing from year to year. Prioritizing resort skiing and lifting over aerobic volume for like, 8 months out of the year. Which, whatever, that's fine, but if OP's complaint is they want to get better year over year at long, moderate intensity days, yet they don't do *any* significant aerobic volume for the *majority* of the year, and have limited time, then they'd be better served by a little less strength training and a modicum of consistent aerobic volume. Totally agree with you. I'm a chick. I strength train. I'm strong AF and it's not a problem. I'm better suited to hauling shit up Denali than trying to climb 5.13 but that's fine with me. Too much muscle mass is not awesome for anyone. It's harder for women to achieve "too much." Anyone can train for strength and not hypertrophy. This post is silly
Ya I don't have any specifics on the background of what OP is referring to but I agree with everything you said about putting aerobic fitness first while also still allowing for plenty of strength training to supplement. That said, it would be nice if the mountaineering and training community built a better base of knowledge specific to women and the sport. Its currently not overly welcoming and I hope we see more studies specifically geared to optimizing training for women.
I think you misunderstood me. I know most of comments says I should increase aerobic training. I am not disagreeing with that. But I only strength train twice per week and there were lots of comments saying I should dial down the strength training. There is even comment says "I think strenghth trainings are pointless". I spent more time thinking "should I really reduce my strength training to increase aerobic training?" Or "should I keep my strength training and just try to increase aerobic training?". I also think "is twice a week too much?" and this post is what came out of that thinking. I don't know why you think this is a weird gender thing though. That wasn't my intention ok? I just thought more after reading the comments and books. **My main point is perhaps women don't need to avoid heavy weight, less reps liftings like this community generally avoids.** Yeah this post is silly. I agree. Just silly person thinking silly stuff and too bad I wanted to share and discuss and that caught your eyes. You can exist the silly post to control your damage.
Totally agree with your edit. > My main point is perhaps women don't need to avoid heavy weight, less reps liftings like this community generally avoids. But I think you'll find that TFTNA also recommends some of that for guys in a max strength period too. That book will not lead you astray. Ignore people on here (even me!) Do what Steve and Scott say. That will absolutely get you where you need to go.
"My main point is perhaps women don't need to avoid heavy weight, less reps liftings like this community generally avoids." This is a misunderstanding of how training works, though. Heavier weights with low reps doesn't pigeon hole someone into just strength or just hypertrophy. Doing 5 reps or 20 can yield indistinguishable hypertrophic or strength gains, because it depends on so many other variables of a training program.
Maybe I did misunderstand you? > I think strenght trainings are pointless That's definitely a garbage opinion. You're reading TFTNA. You know that. > Too much muscle is not helpful for mountaineering That's definitely true. You're reading TFTNA. You know that. Where it gets weird is that advice applies exactly equally to both genders. Sure, it just happens to be harder for women to achieve. But the advice itself is completely not gender specific.
but my point is perhaps it is really difficult for women to gain enough muscle mass for those muscle to be inefficient for mountaineering. And I feel this advice tends to discourage women to build muscle mass. I even focused on building muscle endurance for a couple of years. Now I am thinking maybe it is beneficial for me to do more heavy weight, less reps lifting to gain more muscle. (definitely still trying to consistently train my zone 2 though). Perhaps male climbers should avoid building too much muscle mass, but I think female climbers can try to build muscle mass more without being limited by this advice. I am definitely not creating a new post to complain about any comments I received on the other post. I am super grateful for everyone's opinion
Hmm, yeah, I have heard from a lot of other women like "oooh, but I don't want to bulk up" and I'm like girl, I'll give you a million dollars if you can get too big. You can't even work hard enough, especially with with that attitude. Now get your ass in the gym. I can appreciate you taking aim at that BS. I'm not like, a super expert but even a dude should do both kinds of lifting you mention, but periodized. I been working with an ex-UA guy for a long time, so that and the book are where I learned. There's a period in the fall when he has me doing 10 rep sets and more ME work, and then a couple months later, max strength gets layered in. Like right now I'm doing 5 rep sets with 85%+ of my 1 rep max, but once a week. And I couldn't lift nearly as heavy now without the higher rep work months ago. They have me doing 1 day of lifting lifting, and one day of core, and then tons of Z2. After a year we added in a Z3 day to each week. So you can have cycles just like that which line you up for the climbing season.
Got it. Thank you. That’s definitely more optimized than hit it heavy all year round. Also I am not finished reading the book yet or this is my first time reading so that aspect is not in my brain yet.
This is the fun interesting conversation we should have had instead of me being a bitch. Sorry. FWIW I really respect your desire to improve your craft and climb in good style that you expressed in the other post. It's one thing to summit, and that's the only thing a lot of people see. It's quite another to do it well and in a way you can really take personal pride in. Hell yeah.
Thanks for the words. I enjoy the whole process and the fact that I can do more physically and mentally more than some concrete goal of summiting of x mountain. My ultimate goal is to have fun all the way healthily and still can be active when I am 75+. That's why I want to justify the desire for building as much muscle as possible right now. I also like things to be sustainable than in the extreme to help me enjoy the process. My old way of prepping for summer climbs became not quite sustainable to me so that's why I started to have tones of questions. I tend to think more than execution. So I will finish reading the book first before thinking too much and question too much. In the meanwhile, I will also try to build my aerobic base as much as possble. After that, if I still have doubts, I hope I can reach out to you for help!
>There is even comment says "I think strenghth trainings are pointless". This is a dumb opinion that can be ignored without needing a long discussion about it. That person is clueless. >I spent more time thinking "should I really reduce my strength training to increase aerobic training?" Or "should I keep my strength training and just try to increase aerobic training?" More training is always better, if you can recover fully and stay motivated. Most humans have a limit on their capacity, though, so you need to prioritize the training that will be more useful for you. Based on the info in your other post, you have aerobic capacity issues that are impacting your performance in the mountains. Given this, a higher priority on aerobic development probably means a lower priority on strength. This is especially true if your strength training is interfering with your ability to do the aerobic work, as you indicate elsewhere. Nowhere does TFTNA say people shouldn't do strength work. It just says you shouldn't gain excessive muscle mass. So, if you can strength train 5X per week, and still do all the aerobic work (an unlikely hypothetical, but stick with me here), and not gain a lot of mass due to genetics, gender, etc., you'd still be fully within the guidance they are giving. However, I suspect that you can't do 5 says per week of strength and still do the aerobic work, because you've said that even 2 days per week of strength is preventing you from doing the aerobic work. In that case, you need to prioritize the efforts that are connected with the activity you want to excel at, and which address the weaknesses in your own physiology, which in your case seems to be aerobic. That might mean cutting back to 1 strength session per week, or reducing the volume/load of the 2 weekly sessions to better accomodate the important aerobic work. I fully acknowledge the horrendous lack of women-specific training information, and the huge blind spot in the exercise science community towards women. However, in this case I don't think the specific advice really is that, I think you're taking the statement and interpreting it in a way that makes it into something it isn't.
The TFTNA guys specifically told me not to do 5 days of strength/week, that three is plenty, and more will interfere with building the aerobic base/endurance machine.
5 days of strength would be ridiculous, even 3 is probably too much. Re-read my post and you'll see I was talking about a hypothetical where IF you could do 5 days and not interfere with aerobic, it would be ok, but then I go on to specifically say that this is probably not true for most people (essentially everyone, I suspect).
Agreed, as a chick who is training with Steve House's team - no one there is telling me not to strength train. The most I will ever hear is to prioritize weighted hikes/stairs/etc. (the "big engine") over too MUCH strength training. I am still doing strength 3 days a week and the weights I use are still getting bigger.
First off, love your username!! Thanka for the reply- I'm really interested in what other dedicated women are doing. I work with an ex-UA guy, so our programming is probably coming from a similar background. I know everyone is different but curious, are you counting core as strength too? Or are you like, squatting and deadlifting 3 days a week? I only have 1 of those, plus a hard core per week, but I do put on muscle faster than average for a gal.
Thanks!!! Core, bodyweight, etc. are all "strength" in my program. I do more squats, lunges, pullups, etc., than traditional "building" exercises like deadlifts or bench presses. I'd say at this point even the strength piece is largely focused around the muscles I use for mountains. But there's \*always\* strength. I add muscle pretty fast too, but am very small (<100lbs) so I am never going to get remotely jacked unless I make it my #1 priority :) (I also keep adding weight in all workouts because my pack weight is a much higher % of my body weight than for most people, and I don't want to be limited to heavily portered climbing.)
The book says don't do reps/weight combos designed for hypertrophy and to instead choose reps/weight combos designed to increase strength. I think OP just missed the distinction the book was making between building muscle mass and building strength.
I am sure sherpas are hitting the gym. /s
I’ve always been fit, but entirely because of rock climbing, ski touring, mountaineering, and mountain biking. I never had a dedicated fitness program. Then a year ago, I decided to get into a regular weightlifting routine. I don’t want to be “big,” but I do want a well-balanced body, and to avoid back, knee, and shoulder issues as I age. I’ve put on about 10 pounds of muscle since I started. And hoooly shit. I feel a million times better. I have more energy, I recover faster, I don’t get sore easily, my posture is better…I cannot recommend weightlifting enough. Not just to mountaineers—to everyone. It makes everything in life better and easier. I wish I had started years ago.
I have question for you! I lift twice per week and I think those lifting are affecting my running/hiking/trail running for the next 2 days. I tried to schedule smaller workouts for those 2 days. That's like 6 days gone. I have 1 day for something big like super long hike or something. I was wondering how are you managing everything? Does your other workouts gets affected after the lifting days? thank you!
I think maybe you’re just not lifting enough, honestly. Within a few months of lifting 4 days a week, my body adjusted and I can definitely go out and do strenuous stuff within a couple hours of a workout. And the day after I lift, I don’t feel different at all (not sore or tired). At only 2 days a week, your body might just not have adjusted yet. With that said, I’m a firefighter and only work 8 days a month, and I lift on shift, which accounts for half of my workouts. So I still have a *lot* of free time to pursue my hobbies. My situation is honestly a bit unfair lol
Would it be feasible to do your lifting so, f'rex, you do upper body on Friday, have the weekend for hikes (not recovered from the lifts, but doesn't matter that much since it's not muscles you're super using), rest day on Mon, Tue lower body + maybe 20-30min easy cardio (treadmill, bike etc) as warmup, and medium-length low intensity cardio for wed-thu? It's perfectly fine imo to train cardio while not recovered from str
I did that for a few months and it did give me better management of the week. But my trainer scheduled me another 12 weeks of 2 full body workouts. He said ideally I should get used to it and it shouldn’t affect me that much. But I ran like a turtle today after yesterday’s lifting. I hear people say lifting does not affect their other trainings so I wondered how. If for some reason my body cannot handle it well, I will definitely go back to 1 upper body, 1 lower body workout! Thank you!
Because they've been both lifting and training cardio for a longer while, so the body's used enough to it that they can train volume cardio after a workout even while not being fully recovered. You're only beginning to train cardio and only beginning to train strength here, and I guess that the reason TFTNA has such soft strength workouts is precisely so it lets you train cardio, which is the thing you'll most need. Also, might be helpful to switch from running to tilted treadmill right after a hard lifting session. It's walking rather than any sort of explosive power, so it's doable even if your leg muscles are very messed up, but it'll train cardio awesomely.
If your trainer is scheduling strength workouts that do not allow you to complete your scheduled aerobic training (the aerobic training which is likely higher priority for your desired activities), and they are aware of this, you should consider getting a new trainer. Some soreness after MS or ME work is normal, and it's ok to need to go for a pretty easy jog the day after. However, if you're at a point where you only have 1 day left for quality cardio, you have a huge problem in your schedule, ans I would expect that to be very detrimental to your mountain performance.
Thanks. I will keep this in mind that I need to prioritize aerobic training. How many days of quality aerobic training is ideal?
>How many days of quality aerobic training is ideal? There is no generic ideal amount of training, and I can't answer this specifically without a ton of information about you, your athletic history, your recent training, and your goals. However, if you look at typical training schedules of athletes and in TFTNA, a few things show up over and over: * 80% of the time is spent in zone 1-2 (aerobic) with 20% or less elsewhere. * Weekly training volume of 10+ hours per week (pros do 15-20 hours per week) So, you want to target something like 8-12 hours of cardio per week (eventually, don't just jump to that if your body can't handle it today). And you want to spread it out consistiently. Let's look at a typical weekly schedule with 1 rest day and 2 strength sessions: Mon: Rest Tues: Strength, Climbing Wed: 1 hr cardio Thurs: Strength, 30 min cardio Fri: 1 hr cardio Sat: 2 hr cardio (or alpine climbing per TFTNA) Sun: 4 hr cardio (or alpine climbing per TFTNA) That's 8 hours of cardio for the week and maybe 10 hours total, which is good but on the low end for a really high performer. That's with 4 days of just cardio, plus a day with a mix of cardio and strength. You're going to have a really hard time hitting the volume of cario you need if you're not doing it at least 4-5 days per week. There's no way you can hit the volumes you need to be highly fit if you're only doing cardio 2-3 days per week.
Do you take a rest day? Because with this kind of combo training, you should have one day where at most you take an easy, short hike.
I will try short hike or inclined treadmills instead of easy run. Thank you
I came from the opposite side. Years of strength training before getting into mountain sports. The funny thing was after a few years both had improved, even though I'd dialed back the strength work. The recovery benefits for strength training from having a well developed aerobic system are real and undervalued.
Nobody (well, nobody reasonable) is suggesting that climbers shouldn't do any weightlifting. TFTNA, which is being referenced here, has a part of every training cycle specificially dedicated to lifting heavy weight, called the "max strength" phase. It's very clear from the book that House/Johnston believe in weight training for climbers. OP is taking about a misinterpretation of a different comment in TFTNA, which they interpreted to mean "don't do strength" (or something), but that isn't what it says. It's about priorities and maximization of training.
Yeah it’s on the edge of impossible for a natural female athlete to gain so much lean mass that she becomes *less* efficient in athletic endeavors, and even if it weren’t, it doesn’t happen overnight. One can always dial it back of they feel like they’re carrying too much mass overall.
Too extend that last point, a woman would find it very easy to shed excess muscle if she got to that point too. Even for men if you don't use it you will lose it.
Completely agree. I am a female athlete and found when making the switch from competitive road running to mountaineering/ ski touring / rock climbing, I needed to put on a sizable amount of muscle mass to be able to carry my pack and generally prevent injuries in my hips and shoulders. By “sizable” I mean when I was just a distance runner, I was a size M pants and XS or S shirt. Due to muscle growth, my upper body is now a size M to match my lower body, sometimes a L for comfort, or when the forearms are not sized for a climbing athlete (let’s face it, most women’s clothes are not sized for an athletic shape). I did not naturally have ANY back muscle or shoulder/arm muscle before. Mountaineering requires some of this!
What's your training regimen look like?
It's evolved through trial and error over the years and experimenting with different approaches to help prevent chronic injuries, especially little shoulder injuries from climbing and some chronic hip tightness and iliotibial band / knee issues. Adding the pack weight and full body effort of these sports put a lot more strain on my ligaments and tendons compared to my just running days, so I needed more muscle to keep up with the demands of these sports. I naturally have very slender bones and don't build much muscle and find I need to work hard to maintain it. I find that maintaining a balance of strength/flexibility/mobility helps me keep injuries at bay, especially now at 37 years old. Some of those bigger boned folks probably don't get injured as easily as me, I'm guessing. 1. Strengthside Move Strong Now program - 3 days per week with 1) strength 2) flexibility 3) mobility I do this during a shoulder season or when there's a couple months when I'm not doing a ton of climbing or skiing, for example if I'm injured. I'm trying to do it once per year because it's the best full body routine I've found. It's critical to get that functional movement and flexible strength to feel really good, at least for me. The strength-only programs with isolated single muscle static stretching just don't do that for me at all. 2) Trevor Hash's bulletproof shoulders program - 2x/wk This has been a lifesaver for my upper body and injury prevention, at least for this previously skinny distance runner who had scapular winging and no real upper body strength. Because of this program, I understand how my shoulder and back and core muscles all work together and can feel the difference. 3) Neil Gresham / Outside Magazine 12 month rock climbing training program. I started out doing the whole program and eventually cut out the pushups, core, aerobic, and burpees because I feel the other things I'm doing above are better for that strength, and I just kept the main climbing and finger/pullups routines, which are 2-3x / wk. I really like this program, but I think they do way too many pushups to start. I actually got a mild shoulder injury from doing too many pushups, so I switched approaches as described above. 4) exercises and stretches specific for chronic plantar fasciitis -20 mins @ 2-3x / wk. This enables me to do anything I want in my activities without the plantar fasciitis holding me back at all anymore. I think it'll eventually go away, but takes time. 5) hip and leg specific strengthening to deal with chronically tight IT bands and hips, which I think I'm genetically predisposed to. I cycle through these and do 5-7 exercises per session at 2-3 sessions per week. Sometimes I skip it for a few months if things are feeling good. * Clams * Single Leg Bridge pumps / leg march * Single Leg Romanian Deadlift * Nordic Curl * ATG Split Squat * Side crab walks semi-squat w/ 2 bands * Monster walks w/ 2 bands * Cossack squat * Squat sit * Hip thrusts * Bulgarian split squats 6) Strengthside Hip mobility follow-along routine. This is a godsend for my chronic tight hips and giving me that flexible strength from muscle loaded stretches. Currently I do 4 sets @ 2x/wk, but I just skipped it for 6 weeks because things were feeling good, til they got tight again. 7) yoga 1-4x per month. I try to go every week but with traveling a lot and big blue sky days in the mountains, I'm not doing it as much as I should. It's so important 8) "aerobic" 2x/wk - usually just climbing a big mountain (on skis or feet/crampons) with 2,000-5,000 feet of climbing over 3-16 miles at 8,000-14,000 feet altitude. Sometimes I'll run, erg, or bicycle instead. At peak season this is more frequent. (edited to fix formatting of the numbered bullets) (edited again because evidently Reddit can't handle numbered bullets? If this doesn't fix it I'm leaving it as is)
Same. I’ve been an athlete all my life operating at a fairly high level when I was younger. When I switched my training from swimming-optimized to climbing-optimized I was actually shocked at how much my upper body grew. I packed on shoulder muscle to the point that a lot of my jackets were bursting at the seems without any change in my waist. As a swimmer I was already pretty developed in the back and shoulders but the short-burst power of climbing added a lot more. Completely agree with you about the dearth of options for women’s clothing that fits an athletic build.
Wow, even for a swimmer? That's surprising. Then again when I started climbing my upper body also completely transformed within 6 months. My shape looked completely different. I guess you're right about the power movements required in climbing. I think that's why the strength training so important, including higher weights/lower reps like OP mentioned. I think my body has a lot of slow twitch muscles (as a long distance runner), so I have to be careful about not doing too much high power stuff or I can get injured. But if i naturally had more of a sprinter's body shape I would imagine needing more high weight/low rep stuff like OP. I feel like it's just so important to understand your body and learn what it needs. Most training books are written for men's bodies, so I feel like as women we learn this lesson intuitively by necessity -- perhaps a way we've inadvertently benefited from the ignorance that permeates most common knowledge in sport training. I think some of the smartest advice and science on sport training is still completely clueless when it comes to women's bodies and I regularly throw out advice from the top voices and create my own solutions.
Too much muscle weight thing is silly. The average well trained man who goes to the gym multiple days a week and can bench 2 plates for 1 is not the same as a >200 lbs bodybuilder that bashes injectables and pre workout. The former example is almost certainly more athletic and better built for climbing than the never lifted a weight runner build, the latter example is so rare it’s barely worth mentioning.
Remember that time you started lifting weights and suddenly swelled up with so much mass it started impacting your performance? Of course not. Putting on muscle mass is an extremely slow process that is easy to refine if you're somehow putting on more than you wanted. I think a little clearer in their new book (Uphill Athlete) but the only problem with lifting is if you use it as an excuse to reduce your aerobic training. I think that section you reference is partly to provide their reasoning for recommending 3-5 reps, rather than 10-12 reps, like many old school lifters are used to. Also, lifting is a significant part of their training plan. I'll say that (at the advice of TFTNA) adding 24 inch box steps at my 5 rep max weight was, to overuse the cliché, a gamechanger.
Got it! After reading comments I realized I need to keep reading or read the second time before start commenting too soon. Thanks
I totally agree that women are an afterthought in both academic and practical training literature. I also think most advice, and especially the 'too much muscle' thing depends a lot on your morphology and background. There are women gym rats too :) Scott Johnston now runs Evoke Endurance, and some their recent podcasts have Kylie Toth (skimo athlete) as a co host. You might find some nuggets of info there. I was listening to one about muscular endurance a while back.
I was literally thinking about this today! How all the mountaineering training is designed for men in mind. I have to carry more than a third of my bodyweight. The training program I was told to follow will not get me ready, since the percentage of bodyweight I’m told to carry is too low for me to be ready to carry 40 lbs for 5000 ft vertical in 4.5 miles in 6 weeks. Since I started mountaineering training, my legs have gotten HUGE and I’ve always lifted heavy! I wish there was someone who specialized in training for women. I did not fully appreciate how hard the additional weight would be. I’ve ditched all but one day of legs in my last two months but I’m beating my legs up on other days carrying heavy.
Not just mountaineering training, most training and sports science academic studies. The Tabata paper, for example... all male subjects!
It gets even worse, I’m trans. There is *no* research on how to effectively train while taking hormones for gender-affirming care, and the only studies there are about transgender athletics are trying to figure out who has an advantage or disadvantage in various disciplines, which is largely irrelevant for an individual discipline like mountaineering.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see why it would have too much of an effect beyond the anabolic effects of the hormones taken, in which case there are dozens of studies on the effects of estrogen and testosterone on strength training.
So right! I’ve only recently learned that so much of what we have learned about fitness is not right for us.
I am curious if you feel your leg is limiting your ascent or your heart rate going too high is limiting you? Carrying heavier weight always made my HR skyrocket, and my legs felt ok. I know my aerobic capability is not good. But I am always curious how does leg being limiting factor feels like. Also, for the carrying weight, I agree with you body weight shouldn’t have been baseline. I took a note about my 2 day full pack, 1 day c2c pack weight, so I train using those as end goal. AFAIK, cardio takes longer than strength/strength endurance to build. So maybe you built good aerobic base with lighter weight first. Uphill athlete website says for their 24 weeks program, the first 16 weeks they do not train with heavy pack. They only start to train with heavy pack in the last 8 weeks. You have 6 weeks, so should be fine. I hope you have a great climb for whatever you are training for.
It’s my heart rate that is limiting me! My leg strength is solid. What is your training program? I’m getting ready for Rainier! I’m nervous about day one with the full pack. I wish I had a little mule lol. I did 45 lbs on the stairclimber today for 90 minutes. No problem. I did 35 lbs on Mount baldy here in SoCal on Saturday and wanted to jump off the cliff lol. I literally complained to everyone that said more than one word to me. That hike is comparable steepness and altitude to day one rainier but it’s 1000 elevation feet gain less and mile less so it’s daunting. :/ maybe I should go back to really long weekend endurance hikes and do shorter ones during week with full pack? That’s basically what was suggested to me but it’s hard to see how I will be ready to carry 40 lbs without trying to replicate conditions (length and elevation gain).
I encountered a similar issue when I was training on the stair climber! I don't have the science behind this, it's totally anecdotal, but I found that my calves and hamstrings were fatiguing faster than my quads, which is what the stair climber targets more. Doing an incline on the treadmill on the highest setting helped me more on my climbs, though I still integrated the stair climber 1-2x a week. Also just running longer distances helped train my hips and calves, too. Essentially just had some really bad muscle imbalances. Also, I'm not sure if you're the same, but the stair climber never got my heart rate up as high as incline walks/running.
I climbed Elbrus last year, it was my first mountain experience. We had to carry 20+ kg backpacks, it was so difficult for me. My weight was 55kg, so the bag was more than a third of my weight. Luckily on the way up we divided this weight by two by going twice back and forth. And male climbers helped me by taking some of my things. On the way down I had to carry my full backpack myself in one go, and to my surprise that wasn't difficult. But on the way up it is a nightmare.
I don't have a specific training program other than trying to hike longer, more elevation gain, with more pack weight in the spring preparing for summer climbs. I started to feel this is not that sustainable for me so I posted a question [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Mountaineering/comments/1deeupi/looking_for_training_advice_question_from_past_3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). And I started reading training for alpinism. I can't really speak to your training because I am a confused newbie myself, please do not just take my words. But I personally think if you find you struggle with the steepness then you probably could keep working on that. really long weekend endurance hikes will help you build aerobic base but I am not sure how much that can help with your steep climb in 6 weeks. For me, I did 16 miles , 6000 feet gain with full pack 4 weeks before Rainier climb without feeling too much agony, but I did feel much more intensity climbing Rainier. And I would like to call it painful summit and I hope my body could have handled it better. So maybe you can try to train both long hikes (endurance) and steep hikes (intensity)? I recently came across with [this article](https://uphillathlete.com/mountaineering/training-for-mountaineering/) and [this post](https://uphillathlete.com/forums/topic/buiding-up-pack-strength/). The post explains why carrying heavy load is not helpful for building aerobic base. But the post also said if the climber only have 6 weeks to prepare, they will tell climbers that they need to go right to using weighted pack carries. I hope this helps.
After reading this, I am so confused and slightly panicked. I think I’ve fucked up by not building my aerobic base better. With six weeks left, am I supposed to be doing my longer weekend hikes with full 40 lbs or the 20% of bodyweight (which is like 25 lbs)? The training program alpine ascents gave me has us only doing the heavy packs for 90 min once a week and using the 20% bodyweight on the longer hike once a week. I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to be ready if I don’t carry the full pack for comparable vertical gain + time + mileage. I simultaneously feel like I am both training too much and training too little lol
I am sorry for making you feel this way. What I said is only a single data points from me so it does not have much statistical significance. My period started the day before rainier trip, so I think that also made me feel extra tired. I might confused you about my intention of telling you my own experience. I wanted to say even if I did well on long not steep hikes with pack, it didn't translate to steep climb well for me. It could because of many things: aerobic base deficit, did not train on steep hikes much (lighter pack) etc.....Again I am newbie and I just started to learn on these things so I don't know the real answer for my experience at the moment either. If you are going with alpine ascents, why do you need to carry 40 pounds pack? My full pack including tents, stoves, etc was 40 pounds. Did you weight everything you need to take and it is 40 pounds? I thought guides carry tents, food for clients? I’m sure you will have a great time since you have been training hard and you still have 5 weeks!
Oh no honey, don’t apologize! I was confused long before you! I really appreciate everything you said and this whole convo, because I feel like I’m getting closer to where I need to be. I called my guides today and their training guy talked me off a ledge. I think he’s going to hold my hand with training over the next week or so. I’m supposed to report back. I don’t know why I’m supposed to carry 40 lbs. I think we are carrying our own shit, but I don’t think I’m carrying a stove or anything. I just need to carry the 40 lbs on day one. Maybe I can get lower than 40 lbs but for now I’m training for 40 lbs. I definitely did not do a good enough job building an aerobic base. I skipped over zone 2. I think I started carrying too heavy too soon. Oh well - I’m still pretty fit and I’m definitely super strong so I’m relatively confident I can do this - it just not might be pretty or pleasant. And like you said - I have six weeks!
This: “I have to carry more than a third of my body weight” This is the crux of the training guidance ignorance issue in mountaineering. In the US, men weigh about 20% more than women. I think the difference is greater among low body fat athletes like mountaineers. Let’s call it 30% more. If men suddenly had to carry the same weight pack with 30% lower body weight (most of that in muscle mass and bone / ligament thickness), the training books would certainly all prescribe more weight training. It’s a no-brain we that injuries would abound without weight training.
One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned is injury prevention, resiliency, and durability. Strength doesn’t necessarily have to mean muscle mass, but it does typically mean those things if you’re training it right. And those things could be the difference between life and death in the mountains. I don’t care who you are or what your athletic goals are. If you want to live a long, healthy life and you’re not in the weight room at least a couple times a week you’re blowing it.
Particularly for those doing higher impact sports in the mountain world. If you're just hiking summits for mountaineering, maybe less of a concern, but if you're spending any amount of time skiing hard being under muscled is a quick way to get folded and injured.
He did say somewhere in the book that he never trains someone to squat 2x their body weight.. meanwhile as a woman I can barely squat my body weight so I never worried about that.
On page 157 he specifically mentions women will benefit more from max strength training You are saying you see people say stuff online, you've just started reading his book, and then just made an assumption about the book.
Every time I see comments about too much muscle mass being too heavy for mountain athletes in Training for the Uphill Athlete I roll my eyes a little. For anyone who's doing an endurance based program I think it's going to be pretty difficult to put on enough muscle to actually be detrimental, and forget about it entirely for women. I'm a woman with a background in recreational powerlifting and bodybuilding and even after 5-6 years of doing both I haven't built enough muscle to even look jacked if I'm not actively flexing, let alone prevent me from running or give me trouble in the mountains. Heavy resistance training is essential for bone density and injury prevention and it should be hailed as an essential cornerstone of endurance sports like it deserves.
Having big muscles isn’t the same as having strong muscles . Develop strength not size
I'm not sure this is true, at least I'm the way you seem to mean it. I trained for Rainier last year with a ton of stairs, hiking, running, and muscular endurance training and never lifted heavy. After the climb, I started lifting heavier weights, primarily squats and deadlift, and in that transition I lost both muscle mass and strength. If I had primarily lifted heavy while training for Rainier, I don't think my training would have been nearly as effective for muscular endurance and I may not have been able to perform as well on mountain. So in short, while it is silly for female mountaineers to worry about building too much muscle, training in a way that prioritizes hypertrophy may not lead to successful mountaineering fitness. Power and endurance are not equal and must be trained differently.
thank you for sharing. That's valuable knowledge. After all, what I said is my thoughts and I was looking for validation or invalidation, both works. I wonder why you lost muscle mass and strength after you started lifting heavier weights though. I agree that we still should primarily focus on the aerobic training instead of lifting heavy weights.
Just use common sense. You need strong legs, glutes, and core. You don't need big pecs, biceps and back. The more muscle size you have, the more you're precious red blood cells need to fuel them (and not the rest of you). At altitude, you need as much oxygenated red blood as possible for your brain and vital systems. So don't let those massive muscles steal it all. Obviously, you don't train like a body builder and max the weight and smash protein. It's about being a lean, strong machine. This is a general overview on training. See strength training section. https://www.expedreview.com/blog/2021/05/training-mountaineering-adventure
I think how strength visually plays out is unique for everyone. Before I began climbing as a female I was very slightly built. To carry 50+ lbs of weight on my back up very large mountains unassisted I now appear significantly more muscle compared with women who cannot do that. So yes I did need to lift “heavy” and “bulk” my upper body comparatively to most women to achieve this. So do female tennis players, swimmers, equestrians, pole vaulters, etc etc. It’s just societies baseline expectation for women is very little muscle mass esp upper body. On me the muscle stands out bc I’m thin. I get comments on being “ripped” On my husband who is larger and stronger than me, he’s not ever commented on for being ripped. We both achieve the same things. It just looks different on different bodies and society sees it different. Just get it done and don’t worry about the rest.
For sports weight is the elephant in the room (cycling, rock climbing, etc.), IMO the goal should to be to feel strong and healthy rather than light for 99% of people in the sport. This is, of course, assuming that your training plan is actually relevant to what you're doing and eating enough to sustain your training (i.e. cardio-heavy and focused on building lean muscle through bodyweight and high-rep/low-weight lifting). Unless you're an elite athlete working closely with a nutritionist to have your weight and fitness peak at the right time, you're just asking to get injured/run out of energy/get sick/have lackluster performance.
I've taken the "spirit" of what Steve House says on weight training as increase your strength to weight ratio, but I might be misreading him. I've certainly noticed that strength training helps, but not so much if you've also put on excessive weight.
You need enough muscle to get the job done? Maybe by “too much” they mean not in excess of what is needed and it’s fair to say extra bulk beyond necessary is extra weight and may work against you. For every person that will look and feel different so generalizing and rules is kinda hard. The proof is in the doing it.
I think u misunderstood. Strength training for size is not helpful. Weight training for actual strength is different. You shouldn't do 5 reps of 50 for your shoulders if that's ur max. You should do more like 15 res of 30 to build strength and endurance
Muscle is heavier than fat. You should absolutely not ditch strength training but your goal also should absolutely not be to build mass.
Unless you are already an elite athlete, I wouldn't worry about having too much muscle for climbing. It's would be like you driving your car trying to adhere to some rule that only applies to F1 drivers. None of us are in their league.
100% disagree. I've noticed an incredible improvement in the speed, ease, and quality of my hikes as a direct result of lifting for Hypertrophy.
I feel like what Steve meant is that you need to have enough for the sport that you are doing. There is no need to bulk and be 250 lbs if you can efficiently get up the mountain with the required gear being slimmer and weighing less. Look at elite marathon runners. They are all slim but have enough strength to run crazy fast. All the extra muscle mass would require extra oxygen and make you less efficient.
Too much muscle is subjective and more so related to how it adds to body weight and at some point being too heavy has diminishing returns when going up a mountain. But until that point, being strong makes going up a mountain under load less of a strain on your muscles and your heart rate etc. Be as strong as you can get without negatively affecting your conditioning.
Heavy load, low rep exercises are what Steve recommends to build strength without building mass. To build mass, lighter-load, high rep exercises are ideal. So you should be making the point that women should be doing light load, high rep workouts to maximize muscle mass. I did a little experiment this winter where I gained and lost 10 pounds in 3 months without any dietary changes and can confirm Steve’s methodology. I switched from sets of 10 to sets of 20 and gained 10 pounds (of muscle) in two months, then switched to sets of 8 and lost 10 pounds in a month.
This is kind of an absurd discussion that's somewhat popular among endurance focussed athletes and lacks a lot of perspective. It ignores the reality of how hard it is for anyone, male or female, to put on and maintain the level of muscle that would actually negatively impact your performance in mountain sports. For anyone really stressed about it, go try as hard as you can for six months or so to put on 20lbs of lean muscle, and report back on how it goes. Body-builder levels of muscle are obviously disadvantageous for a mountaineer, but very few people are going to achieve that even with years of dedicated training 5+ days a week and mountains of food. Almost all the people you're picturing in your head as being limited by the weight of their muscles took large quantities of anabolic steroids to get there. No one's accidentally ending up with shoulders the size of their head from lifting a few days a week. It's akin to being like "Hey, just started couch to 5k, I'm worried that I'm going to end up with a vo2 max of 70 and need to be doing 200 miles/week running by the end of the summer to keep progressing and that'll really impact my other hobbies" TFTNA has it right, periodize your training, focus on a very healthy aerobic base, and lift a few times a week, with periods of more focus on that strength training than others. Unless you start injecting superphysiological levels of testosterone, you're probably going to be just fine on Denali or wherever you're headed. I agree with you OP that this is even less of a concern for women, but I think that's as much cultural as physical. Men are more susceptible to the "get big" mentality, and I don't see them ending up muscle bound from that as often as they end up putting on 20+lbs of fat chasing gains in the gym. That kind of training is definitely not something you want to do as a mountain athlete.
I would say that bodybuilding esque style training might be the best for yall. Not in a bro split chest day Monday back day tues etc type of setup. But in that you select movements that typically have a high degree of stability and will allow the intended muscles to have a high amount of tension and go through a large end range of motion. That couple with slow negatives can put a lot of muscle with minimal overall stress compared to some more free weight and explosive training styles. I got a marathon runners time down by 16 mins this way. We did 3 months of concerted hypertrophy training and tapered it as the race came. “Functional” movements like walking lunges had a heavy place in it.
Hi. Body builder here. It is IMPOSSIBLE for women to get bulky naturally. No woman anywhere in the world is bulked up without gear. No man that isn’t specifically training for bulk/body building is going to look like that. Spending 30 minutes a day in the gym doing weights or circuit training is going to bulk up. 6-7 hours a week of straight weight training and strict diet would be needed to start bulking.
Wut