[leonardthedog]

Thanks Scott! This is super helpful to get confirmation that it’s a strength thing. I’ve wondered about how relevant a stairmaster is to bootpacking – simply because the step height is relatively low on the machines I’ve seen (seems to be ~8″), compared to the typical amount you’re stepping up on a bootpack. Any thoughts on that?

[leonardthedog]

Can you run outside? I’ve always done the gym ME warmups as a regular road run.

[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.

[leonardthedog]

Thanks for sharing your story about the difference in weight between your hunting and ME loads, and congrats on a successful hunt! It’s great to hear that training ME with moderate weight still benefits real-world situations with heavier loads.

With three ME workouts left in my 24-week plan, I’ll stick with my strategy of using heavier weights and a slower pace on the stairmaster. I’ll see how this works for spring/early summer volcano slogs and overnight ski tours. Later this year, I plan to shift my training focus to trail running, where I’ll likely use gym-based ME, as it seems better suited for dynamic, faster-paced movements.

[leonardthedog]

Thanks Josh!

Your DOMS experience is similar to mine. Previous training cycles I used the gym based ME and got smoked like you described. This is my first time doing ME on a stairmaster.

As far as the weight, I’m further along in the plan now and just did ME #3 with 65lb  (35% of my BW) and did 2900 steps in 70 min (1900 ft of gain).

I was pretty close to my AeT the whole time but didn’t go over. I do think if I did lower weight and went faster I’d probably bump over the AeT, but that may mean I still have some room to grow in terms of aerobic capacity. I had COVID in December, which resulted in a break from training and a bit of residual fatigue for a week or so – probably lost some aerobic fitness during that time.

Sounds like you think it may be worth it to lower the weight even if that bumps me above the AeT?

Probably also worth noting that my AeT was determined on a flat run heart rate drift test, so it could be a bit different on a vertical gain training day.

[leonardthedog]

I guess another way to ask the question is:

When balancing the weight carried vs. the speed of the stairmaster, is it better to have as much weight as possible even if that means a very slow speed, or is it better to have the weight be just barely high enough that the leg muscle burn is the limiting factor instead of the HR/breathing?

[leonardthedog]

Ah okay – well I don’t wanna just copy/paste from the book into here since I’m sure Scott would prefer folks to buy it, but they talk a bit about the theory behind pickups and short intervals in the “book club” about Chapter 5 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOG5cPN_vkQ&ab_channel=Evokeendurance

[leonardthedog]

Check out page 168 of Training for the Uphill Athlete, there’s a section on why they recommend incorporating 8-10 second pickups.

[leonardthedog]

My amateur understanding is the following:
1. Stay below AeT other than the pickups, don’t worry if you go above AeT during the pickups
2. Not a typo, it’s just 10 seconds. The point of these pickups is to give your cardio system some experience running fast and then recovering while still moving. Also probably helps stimulate tendons and connective tissue to strengthen (similar to how a relatively low volume of plyometrics will stimulate this)
3. Not applicable since it’s not a typo
4. Doesn’t matter how high it goes, since it’s only for 10 seconds before you slow down and let it drop below AeT

I’ve found myself wondering about specifics on the training plan sometimes as well, but I find that if I return to the fundamentals of why a given type of workout is in the plan, I can generally figure out how to best carry it out. In this case, the workout is meant to be a base building workout, but includes the pickup intervals in order to prep for the Z3 workouts later in the plan and also train your ability to actively recover from short harder efforts while still moving. Hope this is all helpful and not more confusing!

[leonardthedog]

I had a similar question and landed on the following: If I am already strong enough to add those 3 core exercises to the Killer Core Workout, then why not? If I am getting absolutely rocked by the core workout, then I’d skip them until the core workout becomes a bit more manageable.

For general strength, none of these exercises are the magic bullet on their own so as long as you are getting stronger day-by-day and you are addressing your weaknesses, I don’t think your choice will derail your training either way. However, if you are looking ahead to the max strength portion of the 24-week plan (weeks 9-16), you may want to think about which 4 core exercises and which 4 lower/upper body couplets you will be doing and make sure you work on those during the first 8 weeks so that you have good form/mobility when you start upping the weight.

For example, the max strength as written has box step downs as part of couplet two, which are not part of the general strength workout, so I’d personally recommend adding box step downs to your general strength circuit in weeks 1-8, or doing a different lower body exercise when you get to the max strength portion – I chose to do couplet 1: box step ups + push ups, couplet 2: split squats + pull ups w/ lowering.

I don’t think there’s much of a point in doing hanging leg raises in both core and general strength circuits, but doing them in one or the other makes sense to me. Basically, the whole point of the general strength sessions is 1) to build good form and baseline capabilities 2) to address weaknesses or deficiencies 3) to prepare for harder strength sessions/muscular endurance in the future parts of the plan.

[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.

[leonardthedog]

Thanks, this is very helpful! Great to have the added context about recent training load suppressing the HR and the different results for uphill vs flat.

[leonardthedog]

Follow-up to mention that all HR measurements were done with chest HRM, other than the resting HR.

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