Training & Fitness for hiking

@Elinda: you have no idea how helpful those pics are (well I guess you do since ST and ST2 did the same thing for you in the last few hours)! Greatly appreciated. Wow that pass looks so awesome. It looks no harder than Bannerman Pass, that scree field looks no worse than the stretch from the chokestone (that isn't really a choke stone) to the bit just above Spare Rib Cave.

I'm curious to find out what kind of training people are doing to prepare for hiking and climbing?

I run 5 times a week and do a little callisthenic stuff and push ups but it's pretty basic and could probably do with a lot of refinement and input to ensure I train for more specific results.

If anyone doesn't mind sharing I would like to know what sort of regimes you are doing and what benefits you see in terms of your training purpose/ objectives.

I run most weekends. In the build up to my last hike a walked up the stairs at work every morning, I'm on the 22nd floor so this is quite a work out

makes sense... that's a lot of stairs

I once trained for a Mont Blanc climb by walking hills with a backpack full of magazines. My strength was great but it didn't do enough for my cardio so now I've added the running. I do feel it's important to mix strength for the mountains particularly for going uphill under load and for handling a heavy pack in precarious situations.

I notice that climbers like to use kettle bells and other heavy objects to build "instant" strength as needed.

I try to get to the escarpment at least once a month, and depending on the intensity of the hike my training is anything from one 30 minute session a day for 2 days on my treadmill on 5km/h on max incline (to prepare for an easy day hike like what I did last weekend) to 4 days of one 30 minute session per day with a 12kg pack at 4km/h at max incline.

I also walk 2km minimum on the road (usually to the shops to buy groceries) every day - not exactly real training, but it is carrying a bit of weight and walking a short predominantly flat distance. One way or another - its a way of making sure I don't stay indoors all day

I find it to be crucial to train in the week before a hike - train properly and don't do anything within 2 days of a hike.

As for my climbing I have started to practice randomly jumping and touching the roof (calf exercise and a sure way to look like a lunatic). I am definitely jumping higher now than I was when I started a few weeks ago. I also occasionally treat a doorway as a chimney to practice stemming.

Incidentally the only case this year of me not training within a week before a hike was when we went up Gray's in June. This was because I was supposed to do the hike the weekend before I had done that the previous week and didn't feel it was necessary to do it again - apparently I was wrong. I also hadn't done anything since April.

The best way to train for hiking in the mountains is hiking in the mountains of course, but failing easy access to said mountains, I have found nothing better than a regular running routine (especially trail running) to improve cardio fitness, endurance and conditioning for mountain missions.

For those who are interested, I keep an online training log: ar.attackpoint.org/monthlyactivityall.jsp/user_4372

You can select individual months to see more of the detail of each session.

Might be cool to get a VE group going on that site? It's a great way to motivate each other to train, see what other peeps are up to and also post hike reports as training logs.

22 flights of stairs, wow Firephish,....can I come train at your work? I find running up and down stairs the best training for the berg. And like Stijn says, hiking regularly in the mountains. I don't run at all!

Yes, getting out there as often as possible is the best, but in the gym:
Stepping machine at VA! If you can do 100 floors in 20 mins then you are doing OK.
Also go to the end of the stepping bench at the circuit area and do double height steps.
Another strange tip from a sports medicine doctor for downhill strength was to run backwards as much as you can. Not easy.
Keep the hints and tips coming.

My two cents:

Deadlifts (Heavy sets of 5 x 5)
Bench "ups n' downs" - Put two bosu balls either side of a bench-press bench. Put a barbell on your back and step onto bosu onto bench and down the other side. Repeat until you fatigue (safely). Great for stabilisers and concentric contraction of the quads (like they do downhill...).

I used to play provincial underwater hockey and love the following to optimise cardio and VO2 max.
Swim "5 m above and 5 m below" lenghts in a good sized pool.
Do "lines" ... Swim across the breadth of a pool, going underwater to touch the line on the pool bottom and then come up for one quick exhale and one quick inhale, going down to touch the next line and so on, moving across the pool and back. As fast as you can. Does wonders for what your body can do with limited oxygen... Regularly test how far you can go underwater on a single breath to measure this kind of fitness. Back in high school I could do about a length and a half (70 odd meters). Those were the days

Finally, about once every two weeks or so, I take a bag, weighted with 14 metal objects, for a walk that tends to be about 6-7kms. Every 150m or so, I stop to swing one of these weighted objects, for a total of about 90-100 times over the distance

But jokes aside, try the pool stuff for about two months and watch how little altitude affects you next time you're up there