Elements of Training

Positive changes in your fitness require physical stress, followed by recovery and repair. There are three basic elements of training that can be manipulated in a variety of ways to create the right stresses at the right times to achieve a positive benefit.

• Frequency
• Duration
• Intensity

Frequency

Research shows that 3-5 workouts a week result in the greatest results from your time invested. Additional workouts beyond that show diminishing returns. If you’re new to the sport of climbing or mountaineering, you can see great improvements in your first year by following this training frequency. On the other hand, if you’re looking to send that 5.12 next season, lead a grade V mixed ice route, or summit Denali, then you may be interested in investing additional training time to eek out the best performance you can expect from your body

Training stresses vary throughout the year and the season. Early in the season (fall for a spring/early summer mountaineering trip) should focus on increased frequency of workouts to increase the training stress and bring about positive adaptations. The month or two before the trip, frequency decreases to allow for increases in intensity and to allow for adequate recovery and repair of tissues before your peak performance.

Duration

Duration can be measured as distance (miles, vertical feet) or as time. Longer workouts are generally intended to build endurance, whereas shorter workouts allow for either recovery, or for increased intensity to improve power and speed. As you get closer to your objective, combining duration and intensity can be beneficial to more closely mimic your climbing trip, approach or summit push.

Intensity

In general terms, intensity is how hard you are working. Intensity is the most difficult variable to measure and can vary immensely from person to person who otherwise seem to be exercising identically. Volumes of material and scores of websites address intensity in athletics and the amount of information available can be difficult to sort through. We will discuss some specific measures of intensity and ways to begin incorporating it into your training.

Other terms you may hear discussed when referring to training are volume and workload. Volume is equal to the frequency x duration (i.e. 20 miles of running/week, or a Micklo 20 pitch weekend at Seneca). Workload refers to the total combination of frequency, duration and intensity. Conditions that favor a high workload tolerance include youth, experience and a high level of fitness.

Integration

Here are a few examples of how you can manipulate each of these. Suppose you are currently running 20-30 minutes at a time, three times a week and your goal is to be able to run a 10K in a few months. You can increase your current training stress by one of three simple ways:

• Frequency – increase your running from 3 days a week to 4. this single change will increase the traing load that your body is accustomed to.
• Intensity – vary the intensity of your runs to better match your specific goals. If you are struggling just to finish your 30 minute runs and are trying to get to 60 minute runs, try running a little bit slower…this will enable you to run longer, and thus achieve the training benefits specific to creating endurance fitness. Conversely if you want to run faster, or maintain a medium pace for a longer duration, you need to begin increasing the pace during your runs. There are so many ways to manipulate this that entire books are written on the subject, but just as an example, you could take your mid week run, and after doing a brief warmup, run a few ¼ mile (400m) intervals at a pace that is closer ot your goal pace for your event. Suppose you do 10 minute warmup, 2 400m intervals with 1 minute of walk/jog recovery inbetween and a 10 minute cooldown, your total workout time remains similar to before, but you are increasing the intensity slightly, thus increasing your traing stress. This type of training will help you maintain a faster pace for a longer period of time
• Duration – keeping the first two variables the same, frequency and intensity, you can simply increase the duration of your runs. So the first week, you can go from 3 30 minute runs to 2 30 minute runs and a 40 minute run the following week. By gradually increasing your duration, you will find your long run quickly turning into that 10K you are striving for.

Keep in mind with all of these ways to manipulate your training that doing too much too soon will lead to injury, and adequate rest & recovery is always needed, especially when increasing your training stress. A general rule of thumb used by many athletes & coaches is not to increase your total training volume by more than 10% each week. Every 3rd-4th week, cut back on training by up to 20% to allow for recovery.