Most Popular Entries
Posted by: Casey Grom, Jess Wedel, Charlie Harrison, Joey Manship, Roland Scott, Will Ambler
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
RMI Guides Casey Grom and Jess Wedel called from the crater rim this morning after their successful climb of Mt. Rainier. The teams enjoyed some light winds and a bit of precipitation as they bagan their descent back to Camp Muir.
The teams will be back in Ashford this afternoon to celebrate their accomplishments! Nice work team!
Posted by: Seth Waterfall, Solveig Waterfall, Adam Knoff, Zeb Blais
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 10,060'
Posted by: Eric Frank, Hannah Smith
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
RMI Guides Eric Frank and Hannah Smith led a team of climbers with the Inspiration4 Team to the summit of Mt. Rainier today. The teams enjoyed nice conditions on the mountain and a direct route via the Ingraham Direct.
Congratulations to the Inspriation4 Team!
Posted by:
Categories: Mountaineering Fitness & Training
Posted by: JJ Justman, Brent Okita
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 10,300'
Congratulations Chad on your summit. I am so proud of you. Continue to follow your dreams. Thanks to the whole team for such a great adventure.
Posted by: Warren Burgert on 5/17/2013 at 12:15 pm
Jeff, Scott, Laura, and Craig. Bravo! on your great adventure. Mom and I are in England tracking and admiring your achievement. Best wishes and God’s speed and safekeeping as you march to summit!!
Love,
Mom and Dad
Posted by: George and Lucy Galllimore on 5/14/2013 at 2:03 pm
Posted by: JJ Justman
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mexico
This article provide many tips. Very useful to me. Thanks a lot ?
Posted by: Michelle M Ruiz on 11/1/2012 at 12:21 pm
Posted by: JJ Justman, Kel Rossiter
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: Summit
A most excellent trip! We gelled as a team early and JJ, Josh and Gilbert were awesome. Look forward to climbing with you guys again. No one legged midgets though, please.
MP
Posted by: MIKE PROBSTFELD on 6/25/2012 at 8:38 am
Thanks to JJ, Josh and Gilbert for a great & fun trip and JP for getting the whole shootin match organized! Great way to start the summer of 2012
TVH
Posted by: Thomas Harmon on 6/24/2012 at 9:15 pm
Posted by:
Categories: Mountaineering Fitness & Training
This is the second of a two part series looking at the benefits of improving rates of fat metabolism to prevent or delay bonking in endurance sports. For week one of the series, click here.
Last week, we introduced the idea of training or developing fat metabolism to preserve glycogen stores, utilize our body’s largest energy store, and ultimately prevent “bonking” while climbing. This week we’ll look at how to accomplish it!
There are two main components that we can alter to affect our body’s use of fat: diet and training. The two work hand in hand – a change in diet without a focus on aerobic training volume is of little use, as anaerobic workouts require glycogen by definition, and aerobic training volume while continuing to eat a high carbohydrate diet will cause little change in your body’s metabolic pathways.
Diet
The key to training fat metabolism is to adjust your diet to take in more calories from fat than carbohydrates. This doesn’t mean you need to take in more calories overall, but instead, shift the nutritional balance of your diet. These diets have taken on the moniker LCHF or low carb high fat in studies and the media. There are a number of specific diets out there that align with this description (the paleo diet, the Atkins diet) but the specific diet is less important for the purposes of an athlete than the nutritional balance. Some articles suggest about 15% of your daily calories coming from carbohydrates, which is a significant shift for those of us that have trained under the paradigm of carbohydrate loading!
Changing our diet to make carbohydrates more scarce, and fats more plentiful accomplishes several things that will ultimately help our fat oxidation rates. The first is that when sugar is present in the bloodstream at high levels, insulin is released to control rates of blood sugar—extremely high rates of blood sugar are treated as a toxin by the body—and consequently insulin is a fat oxidation inhibitor, as the body wants to burn off the excess sugar and uses the opportunity. If we keep our levels of blood sugar lower with diet, our body releases less insulin, and fat oxidation rates are not suppressed.
Second, while sugar is easily transported across cell membranes and into cells, fats require transport by specific enzymes. Reducing our blood sugar and allowing fat oxidation to take place stimulates the production of these fat transport enzymes, so that fat can be brought into the cells at higher rates and utilized.
Finally, mitochondria are responsible for oxidizing fat and producing the ATP that fuel our cells. By reducing our carbohydrate fuel and relying more on fat, we stimulate the growth of mitochondria in the cells. Studies of athletes that are efficient fat oxidizers vs. sugar burners show a significant increase in mitochondrial density in the muscle cells.
Training Type
Our body is able to burn fat as fuel during aerobic exercise – those workouts and efforts that stay at level 3 or below. Once we cross the anaerobic threshold into lactate production, glycogen is the only fuel source that the body uses for energy production, so the stimulus to oxidize fat is gone. Thus fat oxidation is best trained during an aerobic base or volume phase, when the preponderance of workouts focus on relatively lower intensity, higher volume (hours or miles).
This isn’t a process that can be changed overnight. The cellular development that is required to shift your metabolic pathways takes time and sustained stimulation to change. With dedication to diet and training, studies show marked improvement in rates of fat oxidation after 8 to 12 weeks, so stick with it!
It’s often tempting as athletes to take things too far: if more of something is better, even more of it must be better still. Fat oxidation alone isn’t enough to keep up with our energy demands when we are training heavily for a climb. Therefore, maintaining some carbohydrates in your diet is important. Think of it as replenishing the fuel you spend: a workout of harder intensity will deplete your glycogen stores more; a 4 hour workout will require some carbohydrate fuel intake during the workout to prevent depleting glycogen stores as well. For those who want to really dig into the numbers, Alan Couzens has a calculator for balancing your nutritional intake depending on the phase of your training plan, hours, etc. It is designed for ironman triathletes, but can provide some interesting numbers for us as climbers as well!
_____
For more reading Alan Couzens has a number of interesting blogs on the subject. A good one to start with is Improving Fat Oxidation. Also see Deborah Schulman's Fuel on Fat for the Long Run.
Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!
I know this was posted some time ago, and it’s a good reminder get back to the low carb/ no sugar diet that I have done a few different times over the last couple of years. However, I have a major question and challenge which is:
How to sustain this type of diet in the backcountry?
I’ve had a few different foods that work, but the limitation of boiling water for heating/reheating food is a pretty big obstacle to doing this in backcountry settings (I’ve yet to do an actual ski mountaineering trip but it’s coming up). Any tips there would be very welcome.
Thanks!
Posted by: Zachary Richmond on 1/16/2017 at 11:50 am
Regarding training for fellow
Flatlanders:
Find a hotel or office building that has a minimum of 10 stories but preferably 20-30 or more. Ask the manager for permission and train!
I will carry a weighted pack up the stairs and take the elevator down. I often wear my climbing double boots to simulate the real thing!
Enjoy!
Posted by: Eli Berko on 1/15/2017 at 5:40 pm
On The Map
On The Map
Hey SENIOR! Haha good luck on the mountain must be freezing up there while its a horrible 100 degrees back in Tucson :b. Well I drove my bros to pinetop without crashing I think Im ready for my drivers test! Anyway God bless you SENIOR everyone misses you down almost 14,000 feet! From the JUNIOR
Posted by: Junior on 5/25/2012 at 7:31 pm
I love you so much, mom. I was crying about it five minutes ago. Maybe Im on a sugar high from mission carnival. Sherman
Posted by: Sheena on 5/25/2012 at 6:48 pm
I’m glad somebody finally realized that actual stairs need to be done, not just walking on a Stairmaster since it doesn’t reproduce the motion of lifting one’s whole body against the gravity exerted by Earth, just the legs. But while I’m on legs, think of adding ankle weights to this workout to simulate the weight of boots/socks/gaiters/crampons/whatever else you’ll have on your feet.
Posted by: Jim Pasterczyk on 3/4/2019 at 10:00 pm
Thanks for these comments from the two re: climbing Mt. Rainier!! I have done hot yoga for a few years, awesome to hear it will be helpful :-) It helps and enhances EVERYTHING; so…great news re: that. I do have a question re: Ady saying “throw weight in your pack now”. I am JUST getting started on working on my leg and back muscles to strengthen them…I have questions re: do I go rent/buy a pack now (was planning on renting one for the hike), or? I have heard another good way to train is a weighted vest…Anyway..a little feedback re: the rationale of throwing weight in a day pack now…I don’t think it would be distributed evenly, etc. I have NEVER backpacked; and honestly carry any weight when bike riding on paniers/ NOT on my back if I can help it..thanks!
Posted by: Shelby Schneider on 10/1/2018 at 5:14 pm
View All Comments