Just before New Year’s Eve Jur came home to celebrate the holydays with his friends and family and to recall two very successful summit attempts.
The last weeks where great because of the 2 victories but just as much interesting because of all the important things we have learned. Many things worth to evaluate. We will become more and more experienced along the way but with Mnt. Everest next in line there is not much time to play around.
After 1,5 weeks of semi rest, I put both guys (Hylke, our camera man also has to give it his all) on a “Transition” training schedule. How do we bridge this gap in the most efficient way? Let me explain…
Macro, Meso, Micro
Last year we worked with an empty agenda. No real peak moments, no interruptions in our macro (annual) planning because we had no competition going on, just building. This is easy for a trainer. Just a clean distribution of the different phases: General Conditional Phase, Specific phase, Competition preparation, Tapering-off.
A gradual accent of training effort in strength, endurance, speed, agility and coordination etc.
We discussed it before in previous blogs.
But this year is different and slightly more complicated than our year of preparations. This year we place the priority on trying to stay healthy, followed by maintaining current fitness levels (improvement would be great!) and last but definitely not least, peak at the right moments!
After a 2/7 completion of the 7 Summit list Jur will be home for 3 months in a row. We discussed all his experiences on the first two mountains to clarify the challenges and goals for upcoming expeditions. Based on these outcomes and new results of an intermediate fitness test which I told him to do, I composed his new training schedules (http://endvr.nl/7-summits-1-year/training-course/).
This Transition Phase is a small version of last year’s macro periodization. We started with 1,5 week of recovery training for which I allocated Jur to the tapering off schedules before his departure to Mnt. Vinson. After these 1,5 weeks we want to slide straight into the Specific Phase because we can assume that a sufficient foundation was laid last year. I wrote him a schedule that exists of about 80% of the intensity of the Specific Phase in 2019. Over training would be the silliest thing to defy, so I don’t want to focus on maximizing overall fitness levels but more on strengthening the weak spots.
From this starting position I implemented some specific strength exercises. For example, the shin curl in the strength work out because Jur mentioned aches on the top op his foot during descending. A pain of which I think there is a good chance that muscle exhaustion of the shin muscles is what causes the pain. We want to make them stronger before setting off to Mnt. Everest.
In the endurance work outs I choose a more interval approach. The reason theretofore is to maximize training efficiency in combination with maximum recovery time. Interval training is the fastest way to gain high power endurance performance.
In upcoming weeks I will adjust the training schedules according to the outcomes of the previous work outs. Next to that we will go into conversation with Arnold Coster to study the Mnt. Everets track to respond to that with targeted training. Obviously I will guide you trough these facts in upcoming blogs. About 2 weeks before departure we will start with the Tapering off plan.
Along with new training schedules additional nutritional guidelines will also be discussed in upcoming blogs.
Do it yourself!
Every expedition and every person that went on the expedition is different. There is no way you can copy a training schedule from anyone else and get your best personal outcomes. Therefor you need to log, recall, measure and adjust along the way. Always keep in mind that time will not allow you to get away with over training. Don’t take to many risks here and always keep in mind that staying healthy and injury-free is the main priority.
If you like extended information to set-up your training schedule, feel free to leave a comment below or send me an email to; [email protected]
