[Seth Keena]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for writing in.

That plan is pretty good for something like the Walker. You could replace the ‘additional ice climbing’ exercises with a basic fingerboard repeaters (7sec work/ 3sec rest) workout you can find anywhere on the internet and have something a bit more specific to the Walker. Before you go, I’d suggest doing a few very big climbing days with a lot of fast climbing and transitions, gear testing, etc. Perhaps this can also be in the Alps.

Be safe and let  us know how it goes!

-Seth

[Seth Keena]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for writing in.

In my experience, rolling terrain has a specific effect but one need not train on it constantly. Changing of cadence, speed , and impact from rolling terrain has metabolic and signaling consequences as well as mental demands. Pacing becomes more involved to manage and the varying fatigue sensations are different than an ‘up then down’ run. If rolling terrain need be limited in use, I suggest using it for some of your intensity workouts and during the final few weeks before an ultra.

Hope this helps and best of luck.

-Seth

[Seth Keena]

Hi, Thanks for writing in.

Yes, I suggest you repeat the 4week in terms of workout type and frequency, but adjust the duration of each.  Generally speaking, re-start with your highest duration values and increase the individual workout duration in the same proportion the plan does. So, if you see aerobic base run increase by ~10% week to week, do the same. Replace the AeT and AnT tests with aerobic base of the same duration as the test.  If you begin to feel strain or poor recovery, replace volume with low-impact modality (cycling, elliptical, etc) or reduce the duration.

Come week 6 you might find the base volume easy. This is fine, but don’t change the prescribed volume very much on account of the ME and Sprint workout impact. See how those impact the week’s affect before adjusting up base volume.

The water flailing does not sound like recovery 😉 I suggest you use the shallow end of the pool, hold onto the side of the pool and gently kick legs. This eliminates the swimming technique part but gets the aqueous recovery action.

-Seth

[Seth Keena]

Hi, Thanks for writing in.

This sounds like a circuit for alpine climbing or some similar sport.

Assessing optimal approach: You might be negatively effecting recovery for pull-ups, but to what degree it hard to say. The intended training stimulus should be considered. For example, you have roughly three phases for pull-ups; muscular endurance, hypertrophy, and maximal strength, ordered by increasing weight and rest time, respectively.  (All. these have other names.) If you intend to do a lot of these ‘combo’ workouts I suggest you ‘test’ pull-up performance without combining into a Z2 workout so you have some idea of performance without the load of Z2 during rest period. You can then decide if, and this could be phase dependent, the performance change is worth it for you.

I do suspect that the closer you are to your 1rep max pull-up weight or to the limits of your pull-up capacity, your performance will suffer greater.

If you’re accounting for the propulsion muscles’ duration in Zone-2 then you account for the time those muscles are producing Z2 cardiac demand level. Using lactate, you’d probably see about the same; elevated levels while doing Z2 stuff and not very much elevated doing DLs and pull-ups. Probably easies to wear a HRM and use the % of time you’re in Z2.

-Seth

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Seth Keena.

[Seth Keena]

Hi Orion,

Thanks for writing in. Unfortunately there is not a spreadsheet or PDF of that plan. We understand that there are some folks who better train with those formats and  we apologize they are not available.

Thanks,

Seth

[Seth Keena]

Hi Zero,

Thanks for writing in.

How are you tracking progress in the various facets (types of strength, aerobic threshold, power at thresholds, etc) ? Is this tracking showing your overall progress? These trackings need to be comprehensive and relevant to what you’re doing and where you plan to go with y0ur training in order to serve planning ahead and determining effectiveness and rested states.

Given the grinding efforts often found with blue-collar work, I almost always see short and high-intensity workout stimulus to bring greatest efficacy to athletes such as you. Trick is to do these workouts when you are freshest and keep them focused and short. Examples are, a couple heavy lower lifts coupled with a couple upper exercises for just 3-4 sets of 3-5reps, very high recruitment. These workouts are best done after a rest day.

If you get tired you should rest enough so you feel some energy and ‘spring’ come back to your muscles. If you’re finding 3weeks of training makes you so tired you take a few days off, overall intensity sounds generally correct as most conventional coaching and plans fit a 3week build before a 1week light-load/recovery week (7days!) before returning to another 3week build. A fine and important point to this is the 1week of light-load needs to be long enough you actually recovery significantly. With you working, it’s likely you’re not doing anything but easy walks, stretching and extremely small amount of strength during the light-week.

-Seth

[Seth Keena]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for writing in.

Sounds like the stimulus is definitely ME (not Maximal/Strength or Capacity). ME should be specific to the event you’re training for. Sounds like the tire drags simulate going uphill with and without boots, weight and snow. So, if you are facing forward for these drags than you’re achieving as much of the specificity as you can without the potentially harmful downhill action that would otherwise happen if you were going uphill.

Forward step-down from a low (6-8inch) box might help the knees and give you controlled stimulus missing from not descending, if you’re looking for that stimulus.

-Seth

[Seth Keena]

Hi  Stephen,

Thanks for writing in.

Week 16 of the 24-week Mountaineering plan is when the training is almost entirely ‘specific’ in ME/strength modality. Here is when the infamous heavy-weight hikes start where your legs burn. Otherwise, the strength is not quite specific enough to warrant calling the previous periods ‘specific’. All the while though, the aerobic volume is suggested as specific (hiking) in modality and elements of strength workouts (ie box step-ups) are specific in nature.

Best of luck,

-Seth

[Seth Keena]

That is actually not too bad for a visitor and such stormy/snowy conditions. There were very limited ‘good weather’ windows for climbers last winter…skier were psyched!

Good luck whenever you go back!

[Seth Keena]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for writing in. The list of TP clunkiness seems nearly endless… A few weeks ago TP solicited feedback from coaches and listed TSS planned/completed as something they’re going to fix. For now, I create a blank strength workout below the new strength workout and input TSS into that workout. Annoying , but hopefully short-term. If watch data is relevant to the strength WO, it can go in that WO too.

-Seth

[Seth Keena]

Hi, rbj7787

Thanks for writing in.  The ME workouts are obviously excellent for mimicking and training for vertical and general running events. If possible, bring a small backpack to add some liters of water  making more challenge. You can also do a lot of sets (like 10 or more) in a workout, aiming to maintain high-velocity throughout.

A workout I and Scott have used is ‘water intervals,’ or whatever you want to call them: Basically, pick an interval length, eg. 3min of hard with 2min easy, and run in shin+ deep water for the hard period; wet sand for the easy rest interval. The sticky and heavy water is very effective resistance training. The intensity can be adjusted with velocity and water depth. Beware of running in sand as it can cause soft tissue damage under high load or long duration running – be conservative to start!

Hope the trip is fun and fitness-productive.

-Seth

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by Seth Keena.

[Seth Keena]

Read this article, namely the parts about drift test; https://evokeendurance.com/our-latest-thinking-on-aerobic-assessment-for-the-mountain-athlete/

It will do 10x better job of explaining your question than I would 🙂

[Seth Keena]

I suggest going with the drift test and only the drift test – we have a lot of data correlating it tightly to GET and lactate, but it tends to be more ‘functional’ and is definitely easy to repeat. The above article has all the guidance for the treadmill test and it sounds like you are already seeing it closely track your lactate tests of past. Negative drift usually means the beginning HR was significantly below AeT.

Some folks take more than 15min to warm-up for aerobic workouts, strength, etc. Do what you need to in terms of warm-up.

[Seth Keena]

Hi Training_for_something,

Thanks for writing in. I understand your frustration.

To get to the point: There is probably not one easy answer for what’s going on here and I urge you to have a short phone call with us so we can get more details and get you pointed in a helpful direction; doing so will probably be rather efficient for you. I don’t typically advise such things on our forum, but your situation is a bit unique. Perhaps the below questions can help… https://evokeendurance.com/talk-to-a-coach/

What age were you 4years ago? After a certain age our AeT and max HR decline with time no matter what training we do, sadly…

Were you doing any intensity (Z3 / Z4) during these several years and if so, how much?

I do not know if the stimulants have an affect on the test or now. Lightheadedness with high-efforts/high-resistance can be from a multitude of causes and might be related to the declining AeT or might not.

-Seth

[Seth Keena]

Hi SlowAndSteady,

Thanks for writing in. Firstly, great job improving your AeT and by so many beats!

Did you also do a drift test around the time you found 2mmol/L at 145bpm?

Were you especially fatigued the day of this high-drift walk?

If this high-drift walk was anomalous I would ignore it as just that; an anomaly. It seems that way to me from where I sit. Even with clean, fresh battery chest straps and excellent GPS data I see HR in places it otherwise ‘shouldn’t be’ on not too rare occasions.  Perhaps do another drift test on a treadmill at 115bpm and see what happens.

Drift tests, lactate test and gas exchange tests are all proxies for aerobic threshold and fitness. We have come to prefer the drift test over the other testing means for its excellent specificity and reproducibility. Nose breathing is also a fine method for observation and control. If you’ve not read our most updated article on this subject area : https://evokeendurance.com/our-latest-thinking-on-aerobic-assessment-for-the-mountain-athlete/

-Seth

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