Preparing to walk 7-13 hours a day at high Altitude isn't as easy as most people think, in fact climbing Kilimanjaro is very underestimated and most of the 35'000 people that attempt to climb each year don't make it to the summit, because they didn't prepare.
The approach that Cathy and myself are taking is to be as specific as possible and have started 6 months out from the climb.
The Body and mind are going to take a bit of a beating for long periods over 6 days, so I've opted to start my training with strengthening my body through strength work also working on my cardiovascular system through long walks and continuing to use Boxing and interval methods.
As you can see from the workout below it will be a mixture of single leg, single arm movements but also trying to keep the bodies primal movements involved, squat, push, pull, bend, lunge, and rotation, using body weight, machines, and free weights to keep variation in my workouts fresh to avoid boredom.
The approach that Cathy and myself are taking is to be as specific as possible and have started 6 months out from the climb.
The Body and mind are going to take a bit of a beating for long periods over 6 days, so I've opted to start my training with strengthening my body through strength work also working on my cardiovascular system through long walks and continuing to use Boxing and interval methods.
As you can see from the workout below it will be a mixture of single leg, single arm movements but also trying to keep the bodies primal movements involved, squat, push, pull, bend, lunge, and rotation, using body weight, machines, and free weights to keep variation in my workouts fresh to avoid boredom.
I was once told by a wise Japanese man, " through training your lunges, your heart will follow", so my approach to cardio is to monitor my heart rate during cardio workouts, I'm also using a power breathe trainer to condition the strength of my lunges each day, which in turn will increase my volume (V02), I feel this important because at high altitude there will be only 10% oxygen and it will be harder to breathe compared to what we are currently breathing higher volumes of oxygen which is 21%, the power breathe tool is a resistance tool you can use anywhere and fits in your bag with ease.
We have started going for longer walks when we can, and I've recorded the recent walk as a trial to test kit monitoring my heart rate and the speed I was travelling, although we will be walking half the speed when climbing Kilimanjaro, its safer to test your kit in advance rather than leaving it until the last minute. Click here for stats from my training log with Suunto. and click here for details from map my walk, I'm looking forward to using these gadgets when we start bigger walks on some of the UK's highest peaks.
We have started going for longer walks when we can, and I've recorded the recent walk as a trial to test kit monitoring my heart rate and the speed I was travelling, although we will be walking half the speed when climbing Kilimanjaro, its safer to test your kit in advance rather than leaving it until the last minute. Click here for stats from my training log with Suunto. and click here for details from map my walk, I'm looking forward to using these gadgets when we start bigger walks on some of the UK's highest peaks.