Training & Workout

yeah … thats why i dont feel 10-20 min is a substitute for real exercise

sure a high intensity for that time will maintain some strength … but for me thats really the time it takes to warm up, which as i become older is quite important

dont get me wrong, intensity matters … but for me it only helps in addition to other stuff and over a longer period …

there are ways you can add just a bit everyday … take the stairs at work, park at the edge of the parking lot, arm curl at the office (depending on yr job), do push ups, squats or situps when the commercials come on, etc …

at the end of the day though, youll need to condition yr legs … ed vist used to go on the stair master with a large pack to get ready for ascents

It doesn't matter how you rationalize the calories burnt in a workout. Yes, if you walk all day long, in the winter, you will need a ton of fuel. Most of us don't have time for that. But, what's an hour run 3x a week? 3000 calories? Realistically that's a drop in the bucket. Who is prepared to run 5-6 times a week? Some people are, and some people aren't. There's also a hypothesis that doing very slow distance on a calorie deprivation diet turns on the "starvation mode" response, and loosing weight becomes almost impossible. And yes, competitive endurance athletes are slim… there are so many contradictions to deal with.

For those of us who don't have the time, short, high intensity and intervals work to round out your fitness base and definitely makes you shed extra weight. There's no way to get around it. It raises your metabolism and keeps you ready for something that is "all out". Now, if someone said "all you have to do is these three 10 minute workouts a week", that wouldn't be very sensible. The trick is variety.

Think about this – Have you ever been in a stage of your life where all you do is long runs, and then try to play a game of basketball or something like that? It WRECKS you. And how was you jump or explosiveness? Not that great.. How about if all you do is short intense exercise? That same basketball game also wrecks you because you're not used to to going for an hour. The lateral movement, stop and go is also hard on you regardless of whether you do intervals or distance.

I find incorporating different types of exercise at different times of the year works well, keeps things interesting and prepares me for almost anything. In the winter snow and ice, short days and weird work schedule makes running a pain. So, I'll do strength workouts 2-3x a week (one might be explosive work like broad jumps, vertical jumps or lateral movement drills), plus a few short intense bodyweight conditioning workouts, and climb indoors 2x a week (good social time also). How about a game of squash or basketball? Why not, they're fun and don't feel like "training" at all. When the spring rolls around, I'm sick of being indoors and it feels great to pick up trail running again, 2 or 3x a week. Add in a speed workout at the local track or some hill sprints once a week, and go hiking whenever I can, ramping up the number of miles I get under my feet.

When someone asks me how to loose weight, I normally just tell them to pick a few very different performance goals. Once they reach them they are normally pleased with how their body has changed to adapt to the new stresses. It helps if the goals are very different. For example – for women, setting a goal of running a sub 25 minute 5K, sub 1:25 400 m, doing a pull up and deadlifting 1.25X bodyweight is attainable – and produces results. The targets need to feel attainable but not easy, and you set short and intermediate targets to help stay motivated. It's not diet focused either. Obviously you adjust the targets based on the individual. If the person feels like they are not making good progress, it's an easy way to introduce questions about other aspects of their lifestyle, like diet and sleep quality – without being intrusive.

"high intensity for that time will maintain some strength"

Actually, interval training for 20 minutes at high intensity has shown to produce the same results in endurance as 2 hours of moderate exercise. This is because training for strength increases endurance in the muscle – but will not work in reverse. Long, drawn out workouts are not needed. How you 'feel' is less relevant than the actual results provided.

david …

im not quite sure how 20 min of exercise without anything more will get you ready for that 2000m scramble … or that week long jaunt in the hills …

sure any fitness is better than none … but will it get you ready for that 2000m+ of elevation gain with a 30 lb pack in a day … or teach you better balance when scrambling, hiking, etc … or condition your feet and legs

there's a saying in climbing that if you want to get better in climbing, climb more … sure at a certain point cross training can help … but for most people they should just climb

ive done some fairly intensive stuff … MMA, boxing, etc, stuff thats torn the knees, dislocated shoulders and needed surgery on the retinas … and other than general fitness, it doesnt help to much when climbing or scrambling … for that specific skillset id be better off doing something more directly related

i think most people here overthink it …

first … just go out and do it …

second … make sure you enjoy it or you wont keep on doing it

third … make sure it effectively relates to what you want to do

+1 "How you 'feel' is less relevant than the actual results provided."

One of the best tidbits on training that I've ever read was by Joe Defranco. Keep in mind that he mostly works with football players. At the start of a training program they take some simple metrics: broad jump, vertical jump, 40 yd sprint etc – all bodyweight stuff. If at the end of the program one or more of these have gone down or something hasn't improved, the program was not effective. For example, if they focus too much on hypertrophy the athlete will get slower and less explosive. What was the point? Perhaps bigger and stronger, but less athletic. Again, that's for football, where a good 10K or huge bench press doesn't matter as much as the combination of good 40 yd sprint, strength and explosiveness. The concept carries over between sports and you just have to pick a few metrics that relate well to the type of fitness that is required for your activity.

Mark Twight discusses in detail the relationship between bodyweight and his ability to gain vertical ft/hr while being able to do a certain number pull ups etc. Obviously that's a little bit more relevant for hiking. The key is the test. What does it mean if you have a local hike that normally takes you 3 hours to complete, and after after doing a 20 minute weight circuit 3x a week over the winter the same hike takes longer come the spring? Did the hike make you sore the next day? Was it really good exercise program? "Feeling the burn" during leg curls in a circuit doesn't really mean anything.

When you talk to competitive athletes, most have a few "tests" that tell them if they're on their game or not. It could be some kind of run, some kind of weird workout, a basic strength test, or normally the combination of several tasks.

Ya know – it does.

I started squatting again with weight to help with scrambling. The results have been mind bending. 405lbs for 5's at a body weight of 210 (I am 43 years old). This workout takes 9 minutes to do and I do it 2-3 times per week. My legs burn far less scrambling now; I am able to dispose of lactic acid more quickly. There is clearly some gains to be had with specificity of training – like walking, walking, and more walking when training for backpacking, but without general strength training, one is missing out on very real benefits that can be achieved with abbreviated workouts.

A couple of years ago when getting prepared for the West Coast Trail Yo Yo and all of the ladders one encounters, I did 20 minutes of 30 second intervals on a stationary bike. I got the nickname 'The Goat' from my hiking buddies because of the way I moved up and down the ladders. Could I have gotten a similar response from 2 hour cardio workouts? Maybe, although I would have been missing the strength component.

Have a look at Starting Strength by Rippetoe.

Eric – Re: "im not quite sure how 20 min of exercise without anything more will get you ready for that 2000m scramble … or that week long jaunt in the hills "

Done right, those short hard workouts can really help with steep climbs. Of course, long pre trip "depletion" days are pretty key also. I agree that the best thing to get in shape for a week long climbing trip is a week long trip. But how do you get ready for a week long trip when you live in flat, sea level Ontario, and you can't take a week off before your week off?

If you live close enough to the mountains and have the time to stay in mountain shape, I'm jealous! But not everyone is that lucky.

david …

i used to do quite a bit of weightlifting including squats … it helped for general fitness … including the squats they make you do with a heavy bag or partner on yr shoulder

ive since stopped, especially after knee surgery … i find that climbing or scrambling moderate grades are basically a series of one legged squats anyways …. the difference is that it also helps with your balance

funny thing is that after not weightlifting for quite a while … i went back and was able to lift within 10% of what i used to … not to mention that climbing is much more fun than weights … and did i mention the benefit of belaying hawt chicks in yoga pants ;)

kane …

simple … move to vancouver ;)

i live about 15 min away from a 1000m peak … and have probably 5+ easily accessible 1200m+ peaks within an hour or so

or hit the climbing gym up …

"and did i mention the benefit of belaying hawt chicks in yoga pants ;)"

No but I would like to see some pics…..

Eric,

"funny thing is that after not weightlifting for quite a while … I went back and was able to lift within 10% of what I used to …"

"I'm not as good as I once was, but I'm as good once, as I ever was."

By Toby Kieth

;-)

Party On,

Newton

David – 405 x 5 is SOLID. 2x bodyweight… plus interval training . I'm sure you're tough to keep up with.

Eric- Your observation about staying within about 10% of your previous standard is inline with my experience. I didn't lift for about 5 years, replacing it with climbing. My squat did drop quite a bit, but it went back up pretty quick. However, since I've started to deadlift fairly seriously in the last two years it's really helped my climbing. I'm 6'3 and 205lbs – so core strength is definitely key on the steep stuff. My DL is now just around 400 lbs and I'm a fraction off of holding a solid front lever, something that seemed unattainable in the past.

Eric – I'm working on it. Either Vancouver or Calgary in the next year. Climbing gyms get old in a hurry…

"No but I would like to see some pics….."

time for you to give up 9 min of squats for hours of climbing ;)

kane … do both … fly into calgary … climb in canmore, lake louise, squamish and everything you can in between (bugs, skaha, yak peak, sir donald) … fly out from vancouver … you wont regret it … youll start off on limestone, go onto quartzite and gneiss, and end up on beautiful squamish granite … 2-3 weeks should be good enough .. bring a full rack

youll also start off eating alberta beefsteak and finish up with sushi …

My 15 year old daughter reads BPL. She'll definitively learn something here.

Edited to change title of my post.

Eric – I've been many times. I did my first "big" hiking trip in Alberta in 2001, and did basically what you just said but by car in 2004. Drove through Canmore, climbed a bit there. Moved on to Squamish, climbed for four months, drove back though the US – Utah, Colorado. Climbed a bit in Riffle. I was in Canmore again this year for two weeks of hiking. Mostly day scrambles though. Our only overnight was on the Skyline Trail.

I was talking about moving there – I'm done grad school in Ontario this spring. Time to move on to somewhere more interesting.

Kane – Calgary is ideal. I was there for 16 years. Now I am in Edmonton, which is not as ideal ;)

Lots of mountains here so hurry up.

"405lbs for 5's at a body weight of 210 (I am 43 years old)"

Awesome, David! Without trying to be a naysayer, one observation: As you get older, maintaining joint health becomes increasingly difficult. Cartilege starts to show wear and tear, tendons grow less flexible, menisci develop small tears. One needs to exercise caution when weight lifting not to up the ante too far. The muscles can get your soft tissues in trouble, and once you start down that road it is enormously difficult, if not impossible, to reverse the damage. Same goes for ballistic motions like jumping, cutting sharply, etc. It's hard, as I well know, but when you get into your 40's it is wise to start incorporating the idea of "good enough to get the job done" into your training and let it go at that. FWIW.

Tom – "good enough to get the job done" is a wise recommendation. I think that as we have more and more access to information about high end athletes, we tend to try and emulate their training. We definitely don't need to be putting in the hours or effort of a competitive triathlete just to be able to have a good time hiking on the weekends.

There is a flip side though. If you put a stress on your body from a young age it grows accustom to that stress. When I was 19 one of my college teachers was the canadian national master's hammer throw champion (Dr. Emil Muller) and a former coach of the Czechoslovakian Olympic weight-lifting team. I watched him squat 465 on his 65th birthday – that was a lifetime PB. He had been training heavy without any problems since he'd been a teenager. I'd bet that he's still training pretty hard… You can see what he threw last year at age 75:
http://canadianmasters.ca/wp-content/uploads/CAN-Records-Throws-Dec-2010.pdf

I don't know if there are any stats on this, but an awful lot of my parents acquaintances who've had knee replacement surgeries in their 50s were runners. I also know several people who've had stress fractures in their feet from excessive running (young and not so young). You get thousands of impacts every time you go for a run. That vs moving a joint through it's natural range of motion a couple of times a week when lifting seems almost more risky. I guess that I'm doomed because I do them both :P

" don't know if there are any stats on this, but an awful lot of my parents acquaintances who've had knee replacement surgeries in their 50s were runners. I also know several people who've had stress fractures in their feet from excessive running (young and not so young). You get thousands of impacts every time you go for a run. That vs moving a joint through it's natural range of motion a couple of times a week when lifting seems almost more risky. I guess that I'm doomed because I do them both :P"

Yup. I guess everyone names their poison. I would say, however, that for every Emil Muller, there are thousands who will go down hard if they try to emulate him or any other world class athlete. Some are genetically gifted, most are not so fortunate.

That said, I've been philosophical about it ever since a buddy once told me not to worry about it because nobody gets out of here alive anyway. ;-]

Good points Tom. I have been training off and on since my teens and have definitely noticed an increasing non-elasticity to the joints as I get older. The biggest issue has been recovery. I am still having difficulty in identifying the ideal train / recovery cycle, both in the short term (i.e. weekly) and the longer-term (i.e. 3 month cycles).

Oh, and I am on a strength cycle and am NOT combining this with interval cardio workouts. That would probably kill me.

David – Seems like you plans things out pretty well. Have you ever experimented with sled dragging or pushing a prowler? Apparently they work wonders for conditioning & recovery but I don't have any first hand experience…

"and have definitely noticed an increasing non-elasticity to the joints as I get older. The biggest issue has been recovery. I am still having difficulty in identifying the ideal train / recovery cycle, both in the short term (i.e. weekly) and the longer-term (i.e. 3 month cycles)."

I've been in the process of learning that the hard way the past 2 years, David. I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that, in my case at least, it is better to error on the side of caution and hope that the result is still "good enough to get the job done". I'll know by the end of this season.

"Oh, and I am on a strength cycle and am NOT combining this with interval cardio workouts. That would probably kill me."

I've got a friend, a genetically gifted 57 year old woman, who has been combining strength and cardio, both interval and endurance, for the past 3 years in preparation for high altitude climbs. She has finally reached a level where she is starting to get into trouble. We have been having a running, sometimes heated, conversation for several months now about whether it is time to start thinking about "good enough to get the job done". It is extremely difficult mentally to back off when you have a gift and are highly motivated to exploit it to the max in pursuit of lofty goals; it has led to a lot of broken dreams down through the years.
It sounds to me like you have got that figured out and are exercising restraint. I commend you. The yin of restraint does not often tame the yang of desire.

Exercise Restraints? Where can I get some?

"Exercise Restraints? Where can I get some?"

There are several shops down on Broadway that sell restraints. I don't know if exercise is what they're designed for but hey, Dan, you're good at modifying gear…. ;=)

Swimming and calisthenics! I rarely ever use weights, I use my body weight for resistance (push ups, pull ups, lunges, etc).

I downloaded in PDF format the U.S. Army physical fitness manual, INCREDIBLE stuff in there, all with descriptions and photos, and its free, google it.