[Andrew Bollard]

Thanks for joining in Scott. I guess the $64,000 question here is “How strong is too strong?” Myself, @alpinewithb, and @josh (if I recall correctly from another topic) all seem to be in the same boat where strength isn’t our limitation for our chosen goals. So for folks like us, it can be hard to judge how beneficial max strength training would be vs devoting more time to aerobic capacity work, which is where our limitations usually lie.

To put some context on my own situation, at a bodyweight of 81kg and a height of 1.78m (178lbs and 5’10” in American) I can do a 2RM of 101kg total load in the box step up on each leg, 5×5 in the single leg deadlift with 2x32kg kettlebells, push press 2x32kg kettlebells overhead for 4 reps, 5×5 windmills with a 32kg kettlebell, currently swinging a 36kg bell for the gym-based ME program… You get the picture. I’m pretty confident that my strength is sufficient for my mountaineering goals, which at the moment only consist of a 7 day Mont Blanc itinerary in June.

Another factor for me when I started structured training for Mont Blanc last July was a kind of burnout; I had been consistently lifting weights for nearly two years at that stage, and I was getting bored to be honest. I found it quite hard to motivate myself for strength training, whereas with aerobic capacity I knew I had a lot of low-hanging fruit to pick and so I was much more motivated to consistently run and hike. I’d be curious to hear if anyone else has ever experienced this too.