Training
Develop Mountain Strength
Strength Training For Hiking And Mountaineering
- Date - 30/05/2023
- Author - Josh Hamill
Develop Mountain Strength
Training | 30/05/2023 | Josh Hamill
Article Contents -
So… you want to develop mountain strength? Well, you’re in the right place. In this article we’ll be covering strength training and how it exactly relates to mountaineering and hiking.
Strength is an important aspect of any training program, and should be the first element that you focus on if you’re just getting started. Strength training carries over well into endurance training, which when it comes to training for mountaineering, is a main focus.
Strength is a bit different to endurance training, the two get confused quite often. Pure strength training is not just weight training, it is a specific type of weight training that stimulates strength gain. The majority of weight training that you will do in the gym is not actually strength training. There are a few key exercises to focus on, and that is where you will put your energy. Most of your weight training will be endurance based rather than strength, as the strength benefits of key compound movements carry over to your endurance exercises.
Strength training alone is very important for overall health and athleticism. It develops power, speed, boosts joint health – all things that are necessary to be strong In the mountains.
What Is Strength?
So what is strength? Strength is your body’s ability to produce force. The greater the force your body is able to produce, the more efficient it becomes at exerting itself. For the mountaineer, or hiker, your strength translates into your ability to exert small amounts of maximal force for long periods of time. This sounds a lot more like what endurance training aims to achieve, but to become a more efficient endurance athlete, you need a strong foundation of strength.
As we discussed in the previous episode, speed and power are very important attributes to possess in the mountains. For you to be able to move quickly up and down the mountain, you need to be able to generate sufficient force to support quick movements. This is why developing your strength is a key element to training for mountaineering.
How To Train Strength
Strength training for mountaineering involves exercises that train the strength of your key muscles that you use in the mountains. This means that exercises such as bicep curls and the bench press are not essential to developing mountain strength.
You need to develop functional strength for mountaineering. Functional strength is strength that you will utilize for your specific activity. For mountaineering and hiking, you need to develop strength in your lower body, core, forearms, and back. You don’t need to carry with you excess muscle fibre that you won’t use. The more muscle you carry, the more fuel your body needs, and the more rest it needs to function. Mountaineering specific strength training aims to turn you into a lean mean mountain machine, not a powerlifting champion.
Strength can be built through following an intense weightlifting program that focuses on lifting heavy weights for low repetitions. Your body’s ability to produce force can be tested through the maximum amount of weight you can lift for 1 repetition for any given exercise. In order to gain strength optimally, you need to lift at a certain intensity relative to your maximum power output – your ‘1 rep max’. A ‘1 rep max’ can be a risky lift if you aren’t trained and experienced, luckily there are plenty of online calculators that can calculate your 1RM based off of your best lift using rep conversion calculations; these are accurate if you convert a maximum lift of no more than 5 reps. Knowing your 1RM is important as you need to lift in the range of 80-90% of your 1RM for optimal strength gains and maximum safety. Going too heavy can lead to excessive muscle fatigue and risks injury.
Strength training exercises fall into the realm of 1-8 repetition sets, but these repetitions should take you close to muscular failure at the upper end of the rep range. By doing this, your body develops the muscle required to produce the force required to complete the exercise you train, and to do it easier – your body adapts to the stimuli. As such, you need the right stimuli to gain the strength that you need.
Lunges can be done for strength, or for endurance. The execution of the exercise determines if the exercise trains strength or endurance…
The Key Exercises
Before we jump into my picks for the most functional strength exercises for mountaineering, I think it is important to differentiate weight training for strength, and weight training for endurance.
Some people discussing ‘strength training for mountaineering’ confuse endurance weight training exercises for strength. In order to train true strength, you need to train with heavy weights, at an intensity of 80-90% RPE (rating of perceived exertion), for 1-8 repetitions. Doing exercises such as the calf raise are extremely important for developing functional muscular endurance for mountaineering, but doing 20+ reps of a calf raise is not true strength training – it is endurance. It is not building strength, rather, it is training that muscle to perform under tension for longer periods of time. This develops the muscle for a different purpose.
Strength training exercises are also rarely isolated movements. They typically incorporate many muscles and can be considered ‘compound movements’. With that being said and hopefully made clear to you, my picks for the best exercises to train full body strength for mountaineering are:
- The barbell back squat,
- The pull up,
- The deadlift,
- And weighted step-ups.
For learning how to perform the following exercises, I suggest watching the video linked to this article as it offers far greater detail simply through being able to show what the movement is, and how it is performed.
Barbell Back Squat
This exercise is the cornerstone of any strength training program. Many sports and disciplines rely on the squat to develop large amounts of functional strength, and mountaineering is no exception.
The back squat works your calves, quads, glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors and spinal erectors. All these muscles are incredibly useful for mountaineering and hiking.
Before performing any weightlifting exercise, it is important to warm up your body and stretch the key muscles that you will be working. For the lower body, I like to warm up on the Stairmaster for 5-10 minutes, you don’t want push yourself here, just enough to break a light sweat. Next, I follow with a few dynamic stretches for the hips, hamstrings, and glutes, this gets the joints feeling flexible. Now, before I begin to perform the exercise, I make sure firstly to do 1 set of no weight on the bar for 15 repetitions for a further warm up.
To perform the back squat, grip the bar with your hands placed as close to your shoulders as possible. This will help to keep your upper back stiff during the exercise. Next, un-rack the bar by propelling yourself underneath the bar and pushing your hips forward. Take a few steps back and get into a shoulder width stance. Some people find a wider stance is more comfortable and helps with their form, I say do what feels most comfortable for you.
Once you are ready, take a deep breath in and tense your core. You will want to firstly hinge at your hips before the knees, this will help keep your back in a neutral position. After hinging at the hips, you can then sink down through the knees into the squat position. Then, drive the weight up through the middle of your feet.
Cues that may help you are to twist your feet into the ground before you begin the squat, and to look forward during the movement. Some of you, like myself, may need to have your heels slightly elevated from the ground to get full depth on your squat without bending your back. Doing a squat with your heels elevated slightly is completely fine and if anything only adds additional tension on your calves, which is not a bad side effect by any means.
The back squat is a very technical movement. If you are new to weight training and haven’t been coached to do a correct squat before, I recommend changing out the squat for a leg press or split squat.
Heavy squats – as you can see, strength training is hard work.
Pull Up
Next up we have the pull up. This is the key upper body movement for developing functional back strength for mountaineering and other types of climbing. I like to warm up for the pull up by performing light single arm lateral pull downs.
To perform the pull up, grab the bar with your hands at or wider than shoulder width. Then, activate your upper back, angling your chest towards the bar. Next, pull with your back and bring your chest to the bar. It is ok to rest your feet on the ground between reps, as the aim of this exercise is to build strength, rather than having perfect execution. You need to progress this movement through adding weight. This can be done with a backpack, or a weightlifting belt with a chain attachment. Doing pull ups for 10+ reps is not going to generate the strength that you want. Add weight to the pullup until you can only do 3-8 repetitions – I typically avoid falling under 3 reps. If that happens, you most likely are lifting too heavy.
If you are unable to do 1 pull-up, don’t try and train assisted pull ups for high repetitions. You need to develop strength, not muscular endurance. If you can’t do a pull up, train assisted pull ups in the rep range of 3-6 – this will help you develop the muscle required to do a bodyweight pull up.
Deadlift
The deadlift is the ultimate full body exercise. It activates your glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors, lower back, upper back, forearms, mid back, and quads. That’s a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to an exercise. Some people believe that training the deadlift is dangerous, this is not true. Any exercise is safe with correct form and technique.
For the deadlift, warm up similarly to the squat. Before I begin to deadlift, I like to perform Romanian deadlifts with the unweighted barbell, this helps further to activate the muscles I am about to use during the deadlift.
The deadlift is all about maintaining a neutral spine and hip flexion. Step up to the bar and grip the bar with a shoulder width stance, keeping your legs between your arms. Bring the bar to your shins. I like to then sink down as far to the ground as possible. This can seem unconventional, but it helps to position your body correctly to begin the movement. The movement begins with pushing up through your legs, this is then taken over by hip extension where you bring your hips forward whilst keeping a straight spine and tense upper back. Finish the movement by activating your glutes and pushing your hips forward.
If you haven’t trained the deadlift previously, I suggest that you begin by training Romanian deadlifts. This will develop the muscles that you need to be able to complete the deadlift safely. For proper execution of the deadlift, and any other compound movements, flexibility is very important. Ensure that you are stretching out the correct muscles and that you have no severe stiffness in any key areas of the movement.
Performing a deadlift.
Weighted Step Ups
An exercise that is very specific to hiking and mountaineering, training your strength through high intensity step ups is a great way to develop functional strength.
There are a few ways to do this, either through using a weighted pack, holding onto dumbbells, or by having a barbell on your back. My favorite method for training strength with step ups is using the barbell, as other methods can limit the amount of weight that you can carry.
The step up is a simple movement. Choose a stable object that is roughly the height of your knee, step up onto the object with one leg and allow the other to follow. Then, keep the leg you just used to step up on to the object, and lower yourself back down with the opposite leg, keep that leg on the object. Then, repeat this until you have completed 3-8 repetitions of the exercise per each leg.
Training Intensity And Volume
As we have discussed, strength training should occur in the rep range of 1-8, but personally I find that 3-6 reps is the sweet spot. At this range the weight isn’t too heavy, but still requires significant exertion.
You do need to be performing these reps at an RPE of 80-90%. This is so that you are going all out and risking injury and breakdown of technique. For reference, an RPE of 80-90% translates into you having roughly 2 to 3 reps in the tank, that is, you aren’t pushing yourself to the max.
In terms of optimal sets, 10 sets per week per muscle is the gold standard. For example, If you exercise your quads for 10 heavy sets at the correct intensity within the rep range of 1-8, you are maximizing your strength training. You shouldn’t perform more than 10 sets per week per muscle, as past this point you have diminishing returns. Another important note is that you don’t need to perform 10 sets per week per muscle to see significant increases in strength. Rather, 1-4 heavy set is likely to give you 80% of the benefits of training. By completing 10 sets, however, you are completely maximizing your training. But, for the time conscious, 1-4 sets per week is, evidently, still very useful.
It is important to note that for mountaineering specifically, and the majority of sports, you shouldn’t train your body to lift more than twice your body weight in a given movement. After 2x body weight, you aren’t going to receive as much benefit as before, and you are only risking injury.
Conclusion
Developing strength is one of the key elements to a successful training program for hiking and mountaineering, and often a good starting point for individuals new to training. Remember, don’t confuse strength with endurance. To train strength, you have to expose your body to heavy loads, as this can’t be achieved through endurance based exercises.
If you enjoyed this video, make sure to stick around for the next one as we’ll be jumping into everything you need to know about aerobic training for mountaineering – a very important element of any mountaineering training program.
Train hard and look out for the next article on training aerobic endurance and aerobic capacity.
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