People like to take challenges and achieve them. Climbing a mountain is one of them which is challenging as well as exciting. But it’s not something you decide today and start climbing tomorrow.
It takes months of preparation. Here me out clearly; it takes a lot of preparation. And by preparation, I mean preparing your body and mind. You have to be physically fit and your stamina should be on the peak.
Do not believe those junky guides on the internet that says just buy some climbing gears and bring a guidebook. And you are all set to go! It’s not just a great lie; it’s actually life-threatening.
How To Train For Mountain Climbing?
In detail, I will be discussing how to prepare yourself and when you will be ready for the expedition. To train yourself completely, you need at least a few months (if you are not already physically fit). Take more time if you don’t think you are ready even after completion of all the training.
- Get Physically Strong!
Climbing the mountain will test your strength to the deep. Unless you are physically strong and fit, your body will crap-out on you while climbing. So, you need to start physical training right away!
Climbing a mountain involves carrying a heavy backpack with all of your outdoor gears. So, your body has to be strong enough to climb vertically with that heavy load. Start bodyweight training immediately.
Your heart and lungs have to be fit to keep climbing at a fast pace. So you must do the cardio exercises.
For bodyweight exercises, you can start pushups, pull ups, squats, Olympic lifts, dips and so on. After a while when you are comfortable enough with those exercises, carry a heavy load on your back and continue doing such physical exercises.
Only such exercises are not enough. You need to be prepared for the real adventure. So, continue doing such exercises wearing all of your climbing gears like the mountain climbing helmet, boots, and other gears. That will make you prepared for the real world. Now, watch the essential training for mountain climbing!
- Prepare Your Mind
In mountain climbing, mental fitness is as equally important as physical fitness. It’s the powerful will of human that keeps human going. In the worst case scenario, the physically fit and mentally strong climbers will survive, no doubt about that.
There are some techniques to make you mentally strong. Set a small challenge of climbing for yourself and achieve it. Even the achievement is small, it will make a significant impact on your mind gradually.
Try to focus on all the green scenery and cloudy environment up on the mountain; that will keep your mind fresh.
- Stamina Training
Hours after hours and sometimes days after days, climbers have to keep climbing or keep moving. If lost from the team, they have to survive the wilderness and harsh environment. So, what’s keep them moving? Stamina!
To keep climbing the mountain hours after hours, you need to keep your lower parts of the body fit and strong. And stamina is not something you achieve overnight. You need to work on that to increase your stamina.
There are some aerobic endurance and anaerobic endurance training to increase your much-needed stamina. For the anaerobic training, you can start cycling and running. In the U.S., some gyms offer pretty specific anaerobic training as well.
You need interval training for anaerobic endurance training. To keep your lower parts of the body feet, always use the stairs instead of the lift while keeping a heavy backpack. You can also start hiking steep terrain to achieve this.
- Eat Nutrition Enriched Foods
Athletes put a great emphasis on nutrition, the mountain climbers too. Without good nutrition, you can’t have a physically fit body. A sound mind can’t grow inside an unfit body. Besides, to keep up with the physical training mentioned-above, you need nutrition!
It’s the nutrition that will keep you stronger and help you recover faster! You must eat 3 healthy meals each day. Make sure to have a good balance between the carbohydrates and proteins.
- Outdoor Training
You need to familiarize yourself to the wilderness to make yourself comfortable climbing the mountain. On the weekend, make a plan with your friends for the hiking in your nearby woods. If there are low altitude hills, that’s even better. Try to climb it carefully. Get familiarized on climbing the hill.
As for other activities, you can try skiing and swimming as well to prepare your body and mind.
- Get Real – Start Altitude Training!
Trust me; everything gets so hard on the high altitude. Climbing a mountain is never the same as other outdoor sports; though some training may be similar. But you need to be physically fit at the high altitude.
Sadly, it’s not easy to train at a high altitude. But the good news is if your plan is to climb the mountain for a short term, you don’t need those high altitude training. Only physical and stamina training will be enough for you.
For the pro, there is a high altitude training which is done in the hypoxic tent.
- Get Familiar with The Course
The more information you have regarding the mountain you are about to climb, the more confident and comfortable it will be to climb when the time comes. So, it’s better to know the course of climbing your mountain. Do a little bit of investigation.
Try to get information exactly how high you will go. For the first time climber, choose an easy trail with less challenging terrain.
- Keep Climbing
All the physical and mental training will take you so far only, but there is no alternative to have some real-life experience on mountain climbing. Start with the small mountain, do some rock climbing.
Wrapping Up
Do you like my article on how to train for mountain climbing? Trust me, it’s the most elaborate and detailed article out there on this topic. I tried to cover everything so that you can prepare yourself completely.
Let me know your thoughts so that I can improve this article.