Goals
Build endurance for an end goal of hiking Mount Rainier which is roughly 26 miles with 9,300 feet in elevation over a 2-3 day period to complete the hike.
Maintain strength while improving on cardio/endurance capacity.
Utilize low-impact options during cardio workouts saving joint stress for high-mileage hiking benchmark sessions.
Every 1-2 weeks aim to increase your overall distance on benchmark testing by a small % to allow for adaptations to over without over stressing your body.
What You Need For Success
What is the average walking speed? – For most healthy adults, the average walking speed is about 3 miles per hour – assuming you are above average in physical performance, we will assume you can maintain a 2.5 mile pace while hiking on average. It will be paramount to pace yourself and more over collect data while training for this hike so that you are well experienced at reading the data while on the hike it’s self and then autoregulating while on the hike.
Nutrition – Please listen this podcast. (click that purple word podcast link, all credit given to Nick Bare with Bare Performance Nutrition)
It will give you an well rounded knowledge base about how to fuel your body for endurance. It’s more complicated than most realize. Endurance nutrition needs are arguably more difficult to do right than general strength training. If you do not fuel right, you will fail at traveling long distances.
Mountain Math – Plan to do a Mock Test 3 weeks out from Hike Date. – With the assumption that you will be completing the 93 mile hike over 3 days you will need to hike on average 31 miles per day. At a 2.5 mile pace that is a sum total of 12 hours & 30 minutes of hiking each day for 3 days. I believe you will complete 31 miles faster than 12 hours, but I want to prepare for worse case. We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. With that being stated you goal will be to hike continuously for around 10 hours and 30 minutes. At a 2.5 mile per hour hiking pace over 10 hours and 30 minutes you will have hiked 26 miles if not more going above a 2.5 mile pace at times.
Complete this benchmark test at least 3 weeks before race day. 21 days should be plenty of time to recover and prepare yourself for the issues you will encounter on the testing day. You goal on this testing day is not just to complete the 10 hour mark but to also expose yourself on areas which need improvement before the actual day of the hike or event. If done right, this day should seem harder than the 3 days of actually hiking the mountain. If you can do that, you should have confidence on race day that you are capable of finishing.
Weekly Split – Weeks 1-4
A Day 1 – Baseline Testing, Mock Mountain Hike
B Day 2 – Rest & Stretching
C Day 3 – Upper Body Strength & Hypertrophy
D Day 4 – Low-impact Aerobic Distance Based
E Day 5 – Lower Body Strength
F Day 6 – Rest & Stretching
G Day 7 – Full Body Hypertrophy Conditioning
H Day 8 – Low-impact Aerobic Distance Based
I Day 9 – Rest & Stretching
J Day 10 – Rest & Stretching – OPTIONAL REST DAY – TAKE IF NEEDED TO PREPARE FOR DAY 1.
A Day 1 – Baseline Testing, Mock Mountain Hike
Details for Training
You can use a treadmill at the gym, an outdoor path near you, or go to a local track at a high school. You will need a consistent place to do this training. You will come back to the same place each time on A Day 1. As your capabilities improve I challenge you to find a good hiking spot that varies in intensity. Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia is a great option. Keep your heart rate between 50-70% of your maximal heart rate. The lower % of heart rate you can stay in the longer you will be able to preform. You need to pace yourself like a Prius, not at a Corvette.
If using a treadmill do incline intervals. As you become more confident slowly modify your training sessions by introducing longer duration of incline intervals to simulate a hike or better yet find a local hiking spot.
Discovering Your Starting Point
Because each individual varies in performance and stating point – we first need a baseline for your current starting point – Go out on a walk or pick a hike and hike / walk for 2 hours continuously without stopping. You must record your distance. You as the trainee are responsible for recoding your own data and calculating the next session distance. If assistance is needed please contact your coach. If you can not sustain physical activity for 2 hours walking I recommend contacting you coach.
Progression Scheme –
Based on distance completed from the 2h test, you should know where to start form the below progression scheme.
If you are having trouble calculating % use THIS website ( click the purple THIS )
Below 5 miles – add 8% each session to total distance
5 miles – add 10% each session to total distance
7 miles – add 6% each session to total distance
10 miles – add 4% each session to total distance
15 miles – add 2% each session to total distance
18 miles – add 1.5% each session to total distance
21 miles – add 1.5% each session to total distance
26 miles – in total per session – if you retch this point you should know how to read your body and know what the nest step is in progression you endurance capabilities. – Once at this stage as well, there are better programs that are more specific that would better serve your goals for ultra endurance marathons.
B Day 2 – Rest & Stretching
Full Body Stretching – Follow this Stretch Video!
C Day 3 – Upper Body Strength & Hypertrophy
Pro-Tip – Eat sugary carb packed food while benching too prepare for squats squatting – ( Food – Gatorade, Body-Armor, Chocolate, Dried Fruit )
This day far will be the longest lasting workout of the week. Expect at least 2h of training. The stronger you become the longer it will take to warm up for each working set due to the amount of singles you take working to weight and the rest periods build up to 3-8 minutes long.
Warm Up – Air Bike – 2-5 minutes
Warm-Up Sets for – 1×5 – This warm-up scheme can be followed for Squat, Bench, Deadlift, and Overhead Press.
If you are already warmed up from squatting you may find you can make bigger jumps. When in doubt, play it safe and go slow.
2×8 – 45% 1RM – rest 45 seconds
2×4 – 60% 1RM – rest 1 minute 30 seconds
1×1 – 70% 1RM – rest 3 minutes – on this set should be thinking about what weight you should be at for the RPE and how the bar speed moves.
Do more warm-up sets for singles to get closer to your working weight.
Working Sets –
Flat Barbell Bench Press – 2ct pause bench
2×4 .80-.84 – rest 4-5 minutes
1×5 .75 – rest 4-5 minutes
Rest 2-4 minutes
Lat Pull Down 3×5-8 – Rest 3 minutes
Push-Ups 3xFailure – Rest 2 minutes – Can do these on partlet bars to improve range of motion & hypotrophy.
Superset
Plank Two Arm 3×30 seconds
Superset
Straddle Up 3×10 per leg alternating sides
Rest – 90 seconds
D Day 4 – Low-impact Aerobic Distance Based
Air Bike, Bike on the Greenway, Elliptical, Treadmill – Do not run, – you can do this on a treadmill, inline walk for the intervals and slow pace & decrease incline for rest periods.
2-minute medium pace you can maintain then a 30-second sprint – 5 rounds – after completion of 5 rounds then do –
35-45 minutes of steady-state cardio at a pace you can maintain
E Day 5 – Lower Body Strength
Pro-Tip – Eat sugary carb packed food while benching too prepare for squats squatting – ( Food – Gatorade, Body-Armor, Chocolate, Dried Fruit )
This day far will be the longest lasting workout of the week. Expect at least 2h of training. The stronger you become the longer it will take to warm up for each working set due to the amount of singles you take working to weight and the rest periods build up to 3-8 minutes long.
Warm Up – Air Bike – 2-5 minutes
Warm-Up Sets for – 1×5 – This warm-up scheme can be followed for Squat, Bench, Deadlift, and Overhead Press.
If you are already warmed up from squatting you may find you can make bigger jumps. When in doubt, play it safe and go slow.
2×8 – 45% 1RM – rest 45 seconds
2×4 – 60% 1RM – rest 1 minute 30 seconds
1×1 – 70% 1RM – rest 3 minutes – on this set should be thinking about what weight you should be at for the RPE and how the bar speed moves.
Do more warm-up sets for singles to get closer to your working weight.
Working Sets –
Barbell Low Bar Squat – if needed rest up to 3-8 minutes between warm up single sets to prepare for heavy single.
2×4 .80-.84 – rest 4-5 minutes
1×5 .75 – rest 4-5 minutes
Barbell Deadlift Conventional Stance or Barbell Sumo Deadlift – 2ct pause deadlift – because of all the pre-fatigue expect, working weight to between 60%-80% of your usual working weight
1×8 at RPE 5.5 60%-80% 1RM
1×5 at RPE 7 60%-80% 1RM
1×3 at RPE 8 60%-80% 1RM
Rest 2-4 minutes
F Day 6 – Rest & Stretching
Full Body Stretching – Follow this Stretch Video!
G Day 7 – Full Body Hypertrophy Conditioning
This is a lot of volume – Slowly easy into this. I recommend starting with 3 rounds on the first portion and then 4 round of the second portion. Then each session add 1 to 2 rounds on each circuit until you are able to complete 5 round of the first circuit and 10 of the last.
First Cricut
Reverse Sled Pull 5 Rounds x 100 yards
Push-Ups 5 Rounds x 10 reps
Sit Ups 5 rounds x 15 reps
Rest – 0 – do the rounds back to back
Rest 5 minutes after 5 rounds of completion
Second Cricut
Machine Two Leg Hamstring Curl 3×10 then Lat Pull Down 4×15 then Rear Delt Fly 3×10
Superset
Air Bike 10 rounds x 1 minute
Superset
Walk to the stop sign (.15 of a mile ) 10 rounds
Rest – 0 – do the rounds back to back
H Day 8 – Low-impact Aerobic Distance Based
Air Bike, Bike on the Greenway, Elliptical, Treadmill – Do not run, – you can do this on a treadmill, inline walk for the intervals and slow pace & decrease incline for rest periods.
2-minute medium pace you can maintain then a 30-second sprint – 5 rounds – after completion of 5 rounds then do –
35-45 minutes of steady-state cardio at a pace you can maintain
I Day 9 – Rest & Stretching
Full Body Stretching – Follow this Stretch Video!
J Day 10 – Rest & Stretching – OPTIONAL REST DAY – TAKE IF NEEDED TO PREPARE FOR A DAY 1.
Full Body Stretching – Follow this Stretch Video!