[leonardthedog]

Hi there, I read through all the forum posts as well as the excellent article on ME from Scott. I do have one question – if given the choice between a Stairmaster ME workout or a gym-based ME workout as described in Scott’s article, is there a preference for one or the other?

And if so, would this preference change depending on which type of activity you are training for? The gym-based ME workout is more dynamic in it’s movements, so I imagine it might be preferred over the stairmaster for runners? Thanks in advance!

[Scott Johnston]

Great question. It is one I hear a lot and one I have pondered many times.  I have used these and other ME protocols with equal success.  I tend to lean toward the gym ME for runners and skimo racers.  I lean toward weighted hiking (either on a stair machine, actual stairs, or a steep hill for mountaineers.

However I have mixed these using the gym ME progressions for 6-10 weeks before shifting to steep weighted hiking for mountaineers. I  have used weighted stairmaster for mountain runners as well.  You might recall that in a couple of podcasts I have done with Jack Kuenzle he did a LOT of stair master ME in preparation for some of his mountain running and skiing FKT.

This may not seem very helpful in answering your question but you can take some solace that you can come at this from different directions and still get very good results.  With some of the athletes I have coached for years we have tried all these combos with no significant differences and we end up either going with the one that the athlete enjoys more or we cycle them at different times of the year.

The thing that is similar across all of them is that we always include ME in every athletes training.

Scott

[leonardthedog]

Thanks Scott, this is extremely helpful. I always wondered about mixing them and how that would look. I’m also curious what the maximum amount of ME weeks you’d recommend for someone who has the luxury of an extended timeframe, but I suppose that probably depends heavily on how they are recovering and past training history.

[Scott Johnston]

I’m not sure of the maximum number of ME weeks. I have had athletes go for 16 weeks and see very good gains.  And I have seen noticeable results from only 4 weeks

Scott

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