"HORNY OLD WOMEN"

OBJECTIVE: Power/Power Endurance

WARM UP: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Jumping Squat
Clapping push up

TRAINING:

(1) Work up to 1RM Power Clean

(2) 3 Rounds
2x Power Cleans @ 90% 1RM
10x Pull ups

(3) Every Minute for 10 Minutes
3x Power Clean
3x Hanging Squat Clean
3x Push Press

(4) 5 Rounds
15-foot Rope Climb
10x Dips
15x GHD Sit ups

"SCIENCE SCHOOL"

OBJECTIVE: Strength Endurance

WARM UP: 3 Rounds
400m Run
25x Airdyne Calories

TRAINING:

(1) 80-60-40-20-10 Air Squats
40-30-20-10-5 Push ups
20-15-10-5-3 Jumping Lunges Each Leg
First round looks like 80 squats, 40 pushups, 20 jumping lunges, etc.

(2) 5 Rounds
15-foot rope climb
15x Airdyne Calories

Comments:

Brian Harder placed 9th in the Jackson Hole Ski Mountaineering race Saturday, a strong follow up to his 6th or 7th (I can't remember for sure) place at the Wasatch Powder Keg ski mountaineering race earlier this month.

In January, Brian was disappointed by his 14th place finish at the Snowmass Ski Mountaineering Race in Colorado, and changed his training significantly. He greatly decreased his time in the gym, and greatly increased his time on Snow King Mountain doing skinning intervals. In the process, he's dropped 5-6 pounds - which is saying something seeing how lean he was before.

Brian is a gym rat, and he still dabbles in the gym, once or twice a week. He doesn't do any power endurance or metabolic conditioning work, but instead lifts heavy, but not a lot of volume. He's noticed his deadlift max has decreased. Before switching his training, he was pulling twice his bodyweight.

We're both pretty sure Brian is the strongest guy overall in the ski mountaineering field. But the fact that he can do 30 strict pull ups and dead lift close to 350 pounds really doesn't matter when the goal is to skin up the mountain as fast as possible. Big lungs and a light body are what count here.

Sport specific training - skinning in this case, is essential to competing at these high levels. It can't be avoided - there is no silver bullet. You've simply got to put in the volume and interval training to develop elite level mode-specific fitness.

I would argue that Brian is the most "fit" guy in the field, the most prepared to survive is something happened, and the most durable in the face of potential injury.

But clearly, in the fall, to do better in the early races, he should have been spending less time in the gym, and more time doing skinning intervals - a shift in his training Brian intends to employ next year.

So why train in the gym at all? Why dead lift, clean, and suffer through thrusters and rowing, when to do the best in the race, you should just do the sport?

I've read big wall climber Lynn Hill's blog on the Patagonia web site, and all she does to train is climb. This is the tradition.

Here's my answer.

First, preparing for elite status in a race is different than preparing for a mountaineering expedition. The race activity is known, help is there if you get in trouble, and it is of a relative short duration. Thus, the down sides of having sport specific strength, and imbalances, and mode specific carido vascular fitness are minimized.

The unknowns are greater on the mountain and because of this, your preparation has to be more broad. You might have to pack your climbing partner out on your shoulder, and for an event like that, being able to bench more than 75 pounds and squat more than 135 pounds is an asset.

The feedback I've received from several of the climbers and mountaineer who train at Mountain Athlete has been consistent. They simply feel "stronger" climbing. Thus, even though the bulk of the stuff we do in the gym is not sport specific, it has some solid transfer.

What we're learning is how to balance the high level general fitness attained in the gym with the true need for sport-specific training outside. Clearly, the closer the athlete gets to his or her race/climb/event, the more sport-specific training they should be doing. Also, we must apply common sense in the gym - to keep the work we do there transferable. A lot of time can be spent developing a 3x bodyweight dead lift - but how much is enough?

We have to be careful not to get caught up in the gym. There's a point where doing more and more Mountain Athlete stuff will just make you good at doing Mountain Athlete stuff.

Throw into the mix the differences between individual athletes, and things really start to get complicated.

Brian, for example, is a true gym rat, in addition to being a national class aerobic athlete. Tuesday night I was teasing him on how skinny he looked, and he reminded me that being able to do bodyweight thrusters wasn't going to help me get up the mountain fast - I'd be hauling all that extra muscle mass. At the same time, I could see he was just a little bit bothered that his dead lift had gone down, and I'd be surprised that after the last ski mountaineering race, if he wasn't back in the gym pulling heavy 2 - 3 times a week.

About "Horny Old Women" - the power clean/hanging squat clean/push press complex is one of the more painful things we do. Essentially this is interval training with weight, and it can be crushing - just peak at the photos of Andy suffering below.

Use the push presses on the fourth round as a gauge for loading. Loading is tricky - and can't really be based on a 1RM push press or power clean.

If the athlete is able to get the push presses up on the 4th round, even though they are hard, the weight is about right. If the presses are easy, add weight. If they can't be pushed up, start stripping.

Enjoy.

- Rob Shaul

This hurts.

So does this.

This really hurts.

Glad it's over.