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"CHINA THREAT"
Obj: Endurance/Power-Endurance
Training: 1.5 hour hike/run, 2,000 foot elevation gain
Comments:
The ability to hike uphill fast is one of those niche athletic attributes off the radar of most people, but truly appreciated
by mountain athletes. And I used to think I was a badass.
Down in Pinedale I'd do laps on 1,000 foot Halfmoon Mountain carrying 40# in rocks and crush just about everyone I could
drag up there with me - including Curtis P.
Brian Harder, the bastard, totally burst my inflated ego one summer day last year on a hike up to the base of Symmetry
Spire in the Tetons. He toyed with me at first, then shifted into his "climbing gear" and simply dusted me. I was
driving a Pinto, and he was at the controls of a Porsche. I realized the true measure of my talent.
Brian's done the same thing several times skinning uphill in skis. It's amazing and beautiful to watch.
One of Gym Jone's athletic benchmarks is the ability to climb 2,000 feet in 45 minutes. So I gave it a shot with "CHINA
THREAT", and finished in around 40 minutes. This was unloaded - no pack - and at about a sustained 85% of my Max Heart
Rate. Which means I could go for a while at that pace, but not forever.
Brian relays that the top Ski Mountaineers in the world can maintain a climbing pace of 3,000 feet an hour, and climb
at a pace of 6,000 feet an hour for sustained intervals.
Rolando Garibotti, World Class Mountaineer, Exum Guide, has completed the Grand Traverse of the Tetons - 10 peaks, 12,000
feet vertical gain/decline, in 6:49, and climbed the Grand Teton, 8,000 feet gain/decline, car to car in like three hours.
He ran the whole way!
My good buddy in Big Piney, Tom Heydt, was an All-American high school defensive lineman, the only player in Pinedale
High School history to have his jersey retired, and is a monster of a man - 6'4", 250lbs. He also loves climbing hills
and spend many a summer evening with me sweating up Half Moon Mountain. "Nothing trains like vertical," Tom would
huff and puff. Indeed.
*******
This E-mail come in from Christian Santelices, Senior Exum Guide, Marmot Sponsored athlete, great guy:
CHRISTIAN'S COMMENTS:
Hey Rob,
I was reflecting on aerobic conditioning and thought I would write this to explain more about the hour of power and another
workout that I have enjoyed in the past. I know that we have talked about some of this stuff, but thought I'd put it in an
e-mail in case anyone else was interested.
Hour of Power - As I did this last week I remembered exactly what the purpose of it is. The workout is designed to improve
VO2 max, or anaerobic threshold. The goal on this work out is to stay in an aerobic state for the whole time. By doing this,
you improve the amount of time and intensity that you can sustain aerobic work, which is much more efficient than anaerobic
work. To do this I try to row at a level where it's just uncomfortable to hold a onversation. Any harder and your body will
switch into anaerobic mode sometime during the workout.
I remembered this part of the Hour of Power the other day when half-way through my breathing rhythm changed and I knew
that I had switched over. I had been going ub-2:05/500m up until that point. When I noticed the change I dropped my effort
to go sub 2:10/500m. That did the trick and I could feel myself get "back into the groove."
At the end, the last three minutes of the hour, I got a huge endorphin buzz that had me grinning ear to ear.
As a fitness test the hour of power can be used to gauge your anaerobic threshold by keeping track of your 500m splits.
As you get aerobically stronger you will be able
to row at a higher intensity without going anaerobic.
The other workout that I used to great effect for an adventure race that I did with Sue Muncaster (my wife) and Hans Florine
(legendary Yosemite speed climber) was an interval drill. Going at a long-slow-distance pace, you switch to race pace every
three minutes. Three minutes at LSD, three at race pace.
After a couple of months training like this once or twice a week I was up to 10-12 race pace intervals (20-24 total).
The result is that you become more comfortable with race pace and are able to progressively increase your overall pace whether
at LSD or race pace. It is also a great mental
toughness workout.
I'm sure this has a name and that you can find more
details about it. I've forgotten the "nitty gritty," although I do remember that we came in 4th place in the
adventure race (our very first one) beating several pro teams that were in the elite division. - Christian
ROB'S RESPONSE/COMMENTS: One of the "dark" sides of the Strength & Conditioning world is how different coaches
and "experts" badmouth other types of training, disciplines or approaches all the while pumping up their own stuff.
In the weight room world, where I come from, aerobic conditioning is badmouthed. Aerobic athletes are seen as skinny and weak,
and often, unhealthy.
And I'm sure, that many aerobic athletes and coaches, discount lifters like me as muscle heads, and my type of training
as short, easy and vain.
I've become fascinated by both fields. While I write and coach mostly about the weightroom stuff, two or three days a
week I'm training myself aerobically. I even wear a heart rate monitor (Glassman would disapprove), run distance (Boyle would
disapprove) and hike in my aerobic heart rate zone (Cosgrove would disapprove).
The fact is, you've got to train long to go long, and mountain athletes, soldiers, and industrial athletes like my guides
have to have endurance.
I've got my own little test similar to the one Christian describes above. I time my hike up a 1,000 foot hill right behind
the gym. I keep my heart rate at 155 bpm or below - the conversational pace - and over the past two months my time to the
top of the hill has decreased from 25 minutes to 23 minutes. Not a lot I know, but interesting none the less.
*******
BRIAN'S RESPONSE to JOHN and CONNIE'S COMMENTS:
First, to John's observations. The most important thing to point out is that my challenge to Rob was not some sort of
blanket recommendation to readers, John included. It was more entertainment and mental masturbation than anything. And flog
some minds it did and John's comments raise other topics worth discussing.
John's struggles with his own body composition mainly involve adipose tissue. The weight that I suggested Rob lose is
pure muscle and muscle in particular places, at that. Neither Rob nor I struggle or have ever struggled much with being fat
to any degree. This is the result of lucky genes and life long activity. But what makes a guy like John who was extremely
active fail to change his body composition in the way he desired even though he seemed to be doing all the "right"
things? Although difficult to prove in a purely experimental sense, there are many in the conditioning field that believe
some individuals can damage their metabolisms through dieting and other lifestyle choices. It is known that morbidly obese
patients have severely down-regulated metabolic rates from chronic calorie restriction compared to normal subjects. Their
bodies become very efficient and hold onto stored fuels tenaciously. The same is thought to exist to some degree with certain
individuals who engage in a lot of steady state aerobic training (recreational long distance running, triathlons, etc.).
One only needs to go to a large gym and witness the multitudes of underwhelming physiques passing the hours on the rat wheel
of choice getting nowhere in their fitness goals. Hundreds of thousands of individuals wallowing in the "fat burning
zone" driving their metabolisms to a veritable standstill while carving away every last shred of metabolically active
muscle tissue. It is a misguided, sadly ill-informed army of gym goers who fail to take advantage of the magic John discovered
at Mountain Athlete.
The magic is that adding muscle through rigorous strength and hybrid training will add muscle that is more metabolically
potent than fat. Simply stated, the athlete burns more calories at rest just to keep the muscle alive! Honestly, if I was
coaching John and he came to me with his athletic history and his frustrations with body composition, I would put him on a
program just like M.A.'s. I don't pretend to know the type of training John was engaged in and make few assumptions about
it. Having coached a few good cyclists and been around hundreds of others I do know that not all training programs are the
same. Triathletes, particularly those at the recreational level, race and train at mostly steady states. This breeds efficiency
both at the level of the muscle cell and metabolically. This efficiency is a double-edged sword. These workouts are also
not great developers of muscle mass. We need constant, changing and always challenging stimulation to continue to grow.
No one will argue that the workouts at M.A. are any less than that.
John also mentions a frustrating drop in his climbing performance despite being 15 lbs lighter and much stronger than
before. All I can go off is the information given but it seems like the fastest way to mediocrity is to get spread too thin.
According to his comments, he is involved in at least seven different activities. I am quite confident that once he returns
to his climbing training with the same intensity and frequency he once gave it, he will reap the benefits of his lighter frame.
Sorry to disagree but, all things being equal, (finger strength, technique, experience, etc.) lighter is always better in
rock climbing. A heavier climber who performs well has developed the strength to do so. Strip off a few pounds of uninvolved
tissue and his grades will go up or he will climb at the same grade with greater ease without exception. Thirty five years
of climbing experience and observation repeatedly reinforce this belief.
I realize that all this is easy to say but not always easy to do for some athletes. There is much we don't understand
about the various factors that affect body composition. Not all athletes respond the same way to similar stimuli when attempting
to manipulate their own physiques. One can only hope that through trial and error they, like John, find the key to reaching
their performance goals.
As for Connie's comments, female or male, I'm simply speaking of the lightest athletes in the gym, Connie among them.
This is precisely the point. Strength to weight ratio is high in these gals. Sure, some have spent years gaining experience
and all have some degree of talent. I'm not referring to "sperm count" or anything male but rather the right parents
that gave them the winning numbers to the gene pool lottery. For without the genetic predisposition to hard climbing no amount
of motivation or training or desire will get you up that 5.13 or whatever your grade "ceiling" might be. It is
true that Rob may never climb 5.11 but he will optimize his chances of finding out if he disposes of some dead weight. The
other factors have yet to be revealed.
Cheers,
Brian Harder
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