[Felix]

I have started over a 20 week Training plan for Mountain running i’ve purchased on Uphill Athlete a few years ago.

My Goal is a 100k Race with about 7000m(23000ft) vertical.

I have done the first two ME Workouts like Scott described in his article

6*10 Split Jump Squats , 6*10 Jump Squats, 6*10 Box Step ups, 6*10 Front Lunges

Without additional weight for the first two weeks.

Because my Event will be very long with lots of vertical, i will be powerhiking with poles all the uphills because running uphill for this amount is far above my capacity.

Im am also doing hill-sprints once a week.

My question now is: Almost all the Movements in the ME Training are quite explosive and when im too fatigued at repetition number 9 or 10 i cant complete the movement. (For example cant jump high enough at SJS to switch legs in airtime)

So im wondering if adding or replacing some movements with some more static movement patterns but to more fatigue like walking lunges. Will this be beneficial for me since i still get the Power from hill sprints but more fatigue resistance from slower but more “burning” movements in ME training?

Greetings

Felix

[leonardthedog]

I had a similar experience – what worked for me was dialing down the intensity for the entire set (i.e. make sure even the first couple reps are at an intensity I could do 10x). I think that’s better than going really hard out of the gate and then being too fatigued to finish the set.

If you still feel too fatigued even with starting “less explosive” then replacing the last couple SJS with regular split squats seems reasonable? I also feel like you’re probably already getting a ton of benefit even if you can’t quite finish the 10 reps.

I will also say that I followed the same training plan a couple years ago and found that I was not strong or fit enough to recover well between days. I think that plan in particular is well suited for someone with a solid training history because it’s pretty intense, but there are other plans out there that might be a better starting point if you find the same issue with recovery that I did. I ended up overtrained and got some tendon injuries that I dealt with for a year or so.

[Felix]

I think i wrote it a bit misunderstanding. ( Sorry im not a native english speaker)

Up to this point i have no issues completing all reps with good form. I am a bit stiff and sore for two days after.

So i am wondering if i should keep the intensity so that i can complete 10 explosive reps or should i do something like walking lunges for maybe 20-30 reps?

In my understanding this kind of movements are specific to RUNNING uphill and i was thinking that maybe some more powerhiking specific and less explosive but longer duration movements are better to my needs. But now when i think about it, these explosive movements will help me on the downhills and i plan to run all the downhills, and the powerhiking uphill with almost no additional weight is more an endurance component rather than a muscular one.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by Felix.

[Scott Johnston]

Felix:

Thanks for writing in with your question.  The gym ME program will make your legs stronger for the uphills, but where this program really pays off is in preparing people for downhill running.  The eccentric loading in the jumping exercises helps build fatigue resistance in your legs.  Walking lunges are a great exercise for glutes and hamstrings, which will help you.  However, the gym ME does include lunges done in a more dynamic way.  with as much vertical as you have in that race, where you will be hiking steeply for much of it, I would add weighted uphill ME work as well.  If you do not have access to steep hills, you can use a stair machine in a gym to very good effect for this and for high volume unweighted aerobic volume.  Evoke coach Jack Kuenzle trains a lot this way on stair machines and holds many mountain fastest known times.

I hope this helps.

Scott

[Author]

Posts