Muscular Endurance for Mountain Athletes

[Poser]

I can see that, I have access to a pretty steep trail, but even with 110 pounds my heart rate is up in zone 4. I'll have to chase down some steeper slopes.

I agree with the others: no need to be training with that kind of weight. Reduce the weight, use steeper terrain. I did a pack out recently that was 140 lbs. It was stupid and it sucked etc, but there's no benefit I can see to train with that kind of packweight. Get your muscular endurance in order with a conventional pack weight and use the gym to get strong so you can shoulder that can weight on the occasion that you need to.

 

[mtwarden]

Got another one in Sunday— longer at 1.3 miles w/ 1950' gain, roughly the same steepness (we did an additional 6-ish miles w/ very little gain, almost all down hill).

I think I was calculating slope degree wrong. I was using distance traveled with ascent putting it into a calculator that shows both grade % and degrees. Looking at it, they use the "horizontal travel" and ascent; horizontal travel is not the long side of the triangle, the long side is the actual distance traveled—so that shortened up (not a lot, but a little) the one side I needed to enter w/ the ascent. Had to brush up a bit to the horizontal travel side—who said geometry would never be useful

Both of these were pretty close to 20 degrees, which IMHO you're not going to get much steeper without being on your toes the entire time and most likely pulling on rocks/vegetation to help get you up the slope.

We were able to carry on a conversation the entire way up and according to my watch pretty solidly in Zone 2 (occasional Zone 3).

Like the prior session, pretty sore/fatigued legs, but not sore enough I couldn't hike my regular trails the next day.

 

[mtbraun]

Got another one in Sunday— longer at 1.3 miles w/ 1950' gain, roughly the same steepness (we did an additional 6-ish miles w/ very little gain, almost all down hill).

I think I was calculating slope degree wrong. I was using distance traveled with ascent putting it into a calculator that shows both grade % and degrees. Looking at it, they use the "horizontal travel" and ascent; horizontal travel is not the long side of the triangle, the long side is the actual distance traveled—so that shortened up (not a lot, but a little) the one side I needed to enter w/ the ascent. Had to brush up a bit to the horizontal travel side—who said geometry would never be useful

Both of these were pretty close to 20 degrees, which IMHO you're not going to get much steeper without being on your toes the entire time and most likely pulling on rocks/vegetation to help get you up the slope.

We were able to carry on a conversation the entire way up and according to my watch pretty solidly in Zone 2 (occasional Zone 3).

Like the prior session, pretty sore/fatigued legs, but not sore enough I couldn't hike my regular trails the next day.

I suspect the eccentric contractions while working the downs are very beneficial also.

 

[mtwarden]

I suspect the eccentric contractions while working the downs are very beneficial also.

I think so; we didn't go back down the way we came up as that might have been a wee bit painful , but we still lost a lot of elevation w/ weight on out backs.

 

[Jason Snyder]

I suspect the eccentric contractions while working the downs are very beneficial also.

Absolutely.

 

[mtnbound]

You guys are 100% correct; you must also do loaded downhill work. I will also angle up and down to where I'm overloading one leg and then rotate to the other to further push ME. I do this for time, distance, or elevation.

 

[AkMtnRunner]

Don’t over complicate things. To improve muscular endurance, simply do the target activity with a little more weight, or a little steeper, or for a little longer, or more frequently, or some combination of those, a little more than you are currently adapted too.

 

[Poser]

Just got 4 consecutive days of M.E. in while helping a buddy archery elk hunt. We climbed avalanche chutes ranging from 800-1700 feet all 4 mornings in the dark just to get the days started. By day 4, I was feeling fantastic: had my pacing dialed in perfectly and noticed my leg muscles were staying cool/cold despite the effort. I notice every Fall when my endurance starts peaking that I can do quite a bit of hard climbing while still wearing (zip-off) base layers on my legs and not have them overheat. -that's when I know I'm in "elk shape." Legs are so efficient that they don't get "hot"

 

[mtwarden]

^ Good deal!

I did my fourth go round today (twice a week); shaved 7 minutes off (~12%) my previous times. I did bounce into Zone 3 near the top, slowed it down a little and got it back into Zone 2.

I'm going to add 5 lbs on my Sunday workout and see how that goes.

I'm still adding 3-5 miles at the top to make it a loop; almost all downhill. Those miles are solidly in Zone 2, nowhere near 3.