peregrination
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Robert Barlow

As a follow up to my writing on Running around in the Mountains, I thought I should write a bit about my training. Physical preparation is a critical piece of the puzzle of safe travel in demanding environments, and more than that, it’s so much more enjoyable to really feel strong on adventures.

Training & Supercompensation

My understanding and approach to training is based on the supercomposition theory. The very high level overview of this theory is that after any given stress, the body will not only recover, but recover to a higher level of preparedness for a period after the stress. Take running for an easy example.

Say you go on a 1 mile run:

* Shortly after the run, it will be harder to run 1 mile (you’ve stressed your body’s “running system”).

The plot to the right shows an approximated supercompensation curve. This idea can be applied to any sort of physical (or even mental) activity: aerobic training, endurance training, strength training, power training, etc. etc.

Training takes advantage of the increased period of fitness after recovery. By performing another training session during this period, supercompensation will occur again, raising one’s fitness even higher after recovery. By performing training sessions with consistency, one can raise their fitness gradually over time. Once again, this is applicable to any of the body’s physical systems. Different systems have different required stresses and periods of supercompensation; for example, tendons and ligaments take longer to recover and supercompensate compared to fast-twitch muscles, but will take much longer to detrain.

The Body’s Systems

The requirements of being a human are many, and as such there are many different systems in the body for accomplishing different types of tasks. These systems are of course closely interlinked, but in training it is useful to split them out into separate categories to focus on the ones that we cares about. Personally, I split the systems into power, strength, anaerobic endurance and aerobic endurance. They exist for me along the spectrum of time scales; aerobic endurance is the longest term system, and power is the shortest term system. More on each below:

Power

The fastest system. Think jumping, olympic lifting, sprinting short distances, speed climbing, etc. This is primarily fast twitch muscle fibers. It’s the expression of as much force as possible over the shortest period possible. Trained with plyometrics. Recruitment of fast twitch muscle fibers using carbohydrates as the fuel source.

Strength

Maximum force system. Durability. Power lifting, strongman stuff, bouldering, traditional gym workouts. Not super useful on its own, but in my own experience, one of if not the most important elements of any training program for its carryover to all of the other systems. Recruitment of all muscle fibers using carbohydrates as the fuel source.

Anaerobic Endurance

Longer term (< 30 mins) maximum force system. Extended periods of the use of force. Downhill skiing, sport climbing, mountain biking up a hill. Running a mile or a 5k as fast as you can. Anything that feels medium to really hard that you can only do for ~30 mins or less. For a lot of people, this includes hiking (think 30 mins of hard hiking, then a 10 minute rest/slow down, then another bout of hard hiking, repeated ad nauseam). Recruitment of most muscle fibers using primarily carbohydrates as the fuel source.

Aerobic Endurance

Longest term (1hr+) system for sustained activity. Half-marathon+ running, ski touring, long hiking, walking, cycling. Easy to medium effort. Recruitment of some muscle fibers using primarily fats as the fuel source.

Aerobic/Anaerobic Endurance crossover

You’ll note that the Aerobic Endurance system uses a completely different fuel source. It goes beyond that- at a biological level, aerobic metabolism is completely different than anaerobic metabolism. To oversimplify, there are two different biological systems within us to provide energy: the short term (“anerobic”) system, based primary on using sugars for energy, and the long term system (“aerobic”), based primary on fats. Here’s the kicker- this means that at any given point, the body is using both of these systems at the same time to provide us energy! As such, the names aerobic endurance and anaerobic endurance are a bit of a misnomer, as both metabolisms are active in both systems. I use these names instead to denote the metabolism primarily used: Anaerobic endurance primarily uses carbohydrate metabolism, and aerobic endurance primarily uses fat metabolism.

Using carbohydrates is much more efficient for the body and provides more energy, so why can’t we use carbohydrates as a energy source for everything? It comes back down to time periods. The body can only store a limited amount of energy in carbohydrate form. This supply will be exhausted after roughly 30 minutes of hard “anerobic” endurance on an empty stomach. I’m sure we’ve all been there- going all out for a while, feeling really good, then BAM: it gets really hard to keep going. That’s because one physically can’t; carbohydrate stores are nearly depleted, and the body is throwing up a ton of warning signals to let us know.

For longer term activity, it’s critical then to develop the aerobic system. Building a stronger and more efficient aerobic system allows one to have plenty of energy for endurance activities, without having to rely on carrying around a million sugary snacks. The aerobic pathway taps into the fat energy stores that our body naturally carry around, so we can go for long periods without needing to eat anything at all. Even better, because the carbohydrate energy metabolism and the fat energy metabolism are separate, they stack on top of each other for all activities. A stronger aerobic system not only allows for more energy during longer term activities, but adds to fitness in shorter term activities as well. Think of aerobic fitness as a “base” that anaerobic fitness sits on-top of: a strong, wide base promotes a tall peak.

Understanding Strength

I like to think of strength using an analogy of piano movers (I think I heard this from Steve House). Let’s say you have a piano moving business, and there are five pianos to move across town each day.

In this analogy, muscle fibers are analogous to the piano movers. If you don’t have enough for what you’re trying to do, you’re going to hurt them. Even if you have enough to get the job done, it doesn’t mean you have enough to do the job safely and efficiently. If you have too many, it’s going to cost you a lot (time and food here instead of money).

Somewhere in there, there’s an appropriate amount of muscle fibers/piano movers to do what you want to do well without getting hurt. It depends on what you want to do, and once again, even if you have just enough to do it, you’re going to be safer and have a better time if you have more.

Prioritizing training of each system

As great as it would be to improve all the time as fast as possible, most people only have a limited amount of time to devote to training. What has helped me to prioritize my training is to focus in on what I enjoy doing/what I want to get better at doing. If I really wanted to do a backflip, I’d spend my time mostly focused on power and strength training. Multi-day backpacking would require a mix of aerobic endurance training for long term energy, and strength training to be durable to carrying weight up long hills. Downhill skiing could be a mix of power training for explosiveness, strength for durability, and anaerobic endurance for the demands of fast ~10 minute runs followed by chairlift rides.