#Vanlife, apparently trends well.
Certainly, people seem to think our lifestyle - living in a caravan
and wandering around the country engaged in an endless series of
outdoor adventures - is pretty awesome. And, mostly, #vanlife is
very good. In fact, I have got so used to the constant novelty that
is #vanlife that I get twitchy if I am in one place for more than a
week. But, just like every other lifestyle, #vanlife is not perfect.
The big downside of #vanlife that has triggered Doug and I to start
looking for a real home is the inevitable physical degradation that
accompanies long term #vanlife.
#vanlife
Reality is, adventures are great, but,
without regular systematic training, you lose strength, aerobic
fitness and flexibility. Even the great Stevie Haston has commented
on how weak he gets on long climbing trips. The side-bar, of
course, is that Stevie Haston is one strong dude and his weak is most
people's strong. But, I am not Stevie Haston, and, at 54, I have to
protect all the strength, conditioning and mobility I have.
#vanlife and #training
In an effort to “be a better human”
(my standard response when people ask me why I am training) I bought
House and Johnston's book “Training For The New Alpinism (TFTNA),”
carefully read the book through and developed my own training plan.
Now this might seem a bit of a strange choice after my last blogpost, but, if I were Steve House fit, I would feel that I had met my
goal for being a “better human.”
Bouldering in the shire
The training approach is classic linear
periodization with a big emphasis on building a solid aerobic and
strength base. Unlike typical endurance training programs, aerobic
capacity and strength are trained concurrently. If you are fit and
strong already, a non-linear approach, such as the one described by Steve Bechtel, is probably superior (at least in terms of year round
climbing performance), but I am neither (fit nor strong).
Big pack, no track, thick bush
The first training block (the
Transition Phase) lasts 6 to 8 weeks and is basically two endurance
sessions a week, two general strength sessions a week, and one day
climbing. Without going into too much boring detail, training volume
and intensity gradually increase up to week 8 at which point volume
is halved for one week (deload) prior to the next training block. Of
course, training without attention to diet leaves at least 50%
(possibly more) of your potential gains on the table, so there is
also a recommended diet.
Bacon and eggs before a ski day in the Monashee Mountains
Without a recent history of this type
of training, I had to estimate my training hours using the guidelines
in TFTNA. That got me started at about 5 hours a week, increasing to
around 6 hours by the end of the Transition Phase. Looking back over
my logs, I actually did about twice that amount of training per week
if you count all the additional Zone 1 exercise I did each week. My
two biggest weeks came in at around 20 hours per week, but, as all
but 30 to 60 minutes of that was at Zone 1, it was not overly
stressful.
Guy Fawkes National Park
The two structured endurance sessions
were surprisingly easy, if going slowly, so, so slowly is ever easy.
For the first couple of weeks I had no heart rate monitor and had to
guess at intensity. Once I got a heart rate monitor, I realised I
had been way out of Zone 1 and had to slow right down. My jogging
pace – no way I could call it running – at Zone 1 is so slow that
were I more susceptible to shame it would be embarrassing.
In the Budawangs
As an aside, TFTNA recommends doing a
maximum heart rate test (easily done with a steep hill and a heart
rate monitor) rather than using standard formulas. But, I am a fan
of Phil Maffetone and the Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF) approach so I
used that formula. I suspect all the various formulas and tests come
out fairly similar.
Training stairs, Blue Mountains National Park
Anyway, I went from never doing
anything more than walking (albeit I do a lot of walking) to jogging
for up to 1.5 hours at a time with no real issues. For a couple of
sessions I did switch from my usual zero drop, zero padding shoes to
a more regular running shoe as I had a slightly irritated shin, but
this quickly resolved. Also, I had no problem doing these sessions
fasted, although I was ready to eat afterwards.
Kanangra Tops National Park
Which is a perfect segue into the diet
aspect of training. This was really easy for me as I have been
following a real food diet for well over 8 years now, so I had
already stopped eating sugar, grains and industrial seed oils. My
standard diet would generally be considered ultra-low carbohydrate by
conventional standards and I can easily go many, many hours without
eating (Google “fat adapted”). I did find, however, that I
performed better on the strength sessions with a bit more
carbohydrate than normal so I actually ate at least one piece of
fruit a day, and sometimes a little potato or white rice.
Sandstone climbing can be brutish
And that leads me back to the strength
training sessions. In the Transition Phase, there are two strength
sessions per week of alternating upper and lower body exercises
preceded by a series of trunk/core exercises, starting with 1 round
at week 1 and culminating in 4 rounds at week 7. These were tough
and left me most fatigued which is not surprising as #vanlife is
quite congruent with maintaining endurance but not at all conducive
to maintaining strength.
Fooling around on Marshmallow Sea, Arapalies
Recovery from strength sessions takes a
frustratingly long time as you get older and I found two strength
sessions per week once I got up to three rounds hard to recover from.
I recovered best with four days off between sessions but that means
only three strength sessions in a fortnight not four. For a concrete
sequentialist, who likes everything divided neatly into standard
seven day weeks this requires difficult mental gymnastics and I
continued to train twice weekly in the Transition Phase.
Focus, El Portero Chico, Mexico
In a similar struggle with mental
gymnastics, I found it hard to NOT train to failure during my
strength sessions and this may have contributed to my slower recovery
in the later weeks of the Transition Phase. Overall, however, my
numbers (reps and weights) did go up over the Transition Phase.
Cascade Mountains, BC, Canada
Instead of climbing one day per week, I
went paddling instead. This was solely geographic. Right now we are
near the ocean, but over two hours drive from any climbing. In less
than a week we will be about five minutes from a well developed sport
climbing crag but a long drive from the ocean, so climbing will be in
and paddling out. I'll also have access to some legitimate hills to
train on instead of having to plod up and down the single 40 metre
hill near where we are staying.
Tollgate Islands, NSW
Finally, what I would do differently
next time:
- Go somewhere nice for the long endurance sessions even if it means getting in the car and driving. I avoid driving at all costs and so did most of my endurance training from the neighborhood where I am living. There are some good trails around here but about half my endurance training time was taken up getting to the trail through residential neighborhoods. Around week 6, I decided to drive a short distance to the local forest to train and it was so worth the 22 km round trip that I wished I had done so much sooner.
- Avoid the temptation to train to failure on the strength sessions. Training to failure is great for hypertrophy, and I plan on doing a hypertrophy phase next, but, it should not be a component of the Transition Phase.
- Space strength sessions out for optimal recovery even if this does not nicely fit into a one week format.
- Manage stress, however you do that. I walk a lot, hence my 22 hour training weeks.
Gorgeous forest for those long runs
No comments:
Post a Comment