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Butcher's Dog! Regular
outdoor fitness tips from the canine on creatine. Cold wet
nose and glossy coat guaranteed.
Fine-tuning For The
3,000s
• Okay, there's one month to go
before the Welsh 3000s, or maybe that trip to the Alps, or
perhaps the long-awaited trekking holiday - the good news is
that these tips apply to all those and more. Anyway, back to
specifics: the 3000s walk is around 24 miles. On the flat
you could simply bimble round at a low intensity, stay
hydrated and rely on your slow, efficient, fat-burning mode
to get your round. You'd be working aerobically burning fat,
oxygen and a small percentage of liver and muscle glycogen
for fuel.
• Unfortunately there are three
major mountain ascents plus a good few undulations on the
route. You could try ambling up these at your low intensity
pace, keeping your pulse low and never approaching your
lactate threshold, breathing heavily or going anaerobic. You
could, but you'd be incredibly slow. The reality is that in
order to finish, you're going to have to accept that you'll
be pushing yourself a little harder, that means occasionally
going anaerobic on ascents - that means you'll burn less fat
and oxygen and more liver and muscle glycogen.
• This creates two problems: one is
that you'll deplete your glycogen reserves more rapidly - a
bad thing as they can take several days to replenish, the
other is that in anaerobic mode, you generate lactic acid in
the muscles. This is a bad thing, because unless you train
to withstand it, a by-product of lactic acid is a hydrogen
ion, which will sit on the muscle and inhibit your ability
to use oxygen. In simple terms, unless you're trained to
withstand it, a few anaerobic bursts will mean your legs
will hurt towards the end, regardles of how slow you're
going.
The Aims
Assuming you have reasonable base
fitness, the two aims of the fine-tuning training are
to:
1. Increase your aerobic threshold, so
you can work harder before you start producing lactate
acid.
2. Increase your body's ability to cope
with entering the anaerobic zone and its tolerance to
the horrid hydrogen ion which stops your muscles absorbing
oxygen as efficiently.
If you manage to do this your crucial
muscle and liver glycogen reserves - the stuff you need for
sudden bursts of energy - will last longer, so that final
sprint to the summit cairn will be feasible. The other
benefit will be that your body learns to tolerate lactate
more effectively, so even if you do go anaerobic during the
walk, your legs should be less trashed and feel fresher
towards the end of the walk.
Base Fitness
Okay, listen in, this assumes that you
have a reasonable level of base fitness already. If you've
been doing long hillwalks and/or long, steady runs or
mountain bike rides you should be okay. If you know you
haven't got reasonable fitness now, it's better to
concentrate on long, steady hill walks, fell runs or cycle
rides. Aim for a pace where you can chat easily. If you're
not sure, then try our programme, but remember you shouldn't
feel trashed the day after a session. If you do, it's
probably because you don't have quite enough base fitness
yet or are training too hard and you should back off till
you feel okay again. Oh, one more thing, you shouldn't feel
sick, dizzy, lightheaded or exhausted during these
workouts.
The Programme - One
Week
1) Your weekend walk should be
long and steady. This will maintain your base
fitness.
2) Either in the Gym or out on the
trail, 2-3 sessions of 15-20 minutes with eight minutes
rest (but keep walking!) between each session at an
intensity that gets you out of breath. On the rating of
perceived excertion (RPE*) - see below - original scale
15-17. Do not do this on the same day of your long walk.
This workout will help increase your aerobic training
zone and mean you can move faster without going
anaerobic.
3) Either in the Gym or out on the
trail up a very steep hill, 2-4 sessions of five lots of
30-40 second 'bursts', 30-40 seconds rest between each burst
and five minutes rest (again keep walking!) between
each session. These 30-40 second 'bursts' should be done at
RPE original scale 17-19. For example 30 seconds hard
followed by 30 seconds rest, repeat five times, take five
minutes rest, followed by 30 seconds hard followed by 30
seconds rest, repeat another five times. This workout
will increase your body's ability to cope with entering the
anaerobic zone and its tolerance to the hydrogen ion.
This workout will help your body get used to lactic acid
and to expel it more efficiently
Important You must leave a day
between the longer, aerobic sessions and the sprint sessions
so your body can recover effectively. Always warm up for
around 20 minutes before hammering yourself and warm down
and stretch afterwards.
4) Gentle recovery for 30-40
minutes (120bpm) just to help flush remaining toxins
from your muscles. RPE 7-9.
To maintain progress, you need to
increase the exercise by 10 per-cent every week. So if you
start with 15 minute aerobic sessions this week, next week
they should be 16.30 and the week after that around 18
minutes and so on, don't be tempted to cut the rest period
between sets.
Rating of Perceived Excertion
(RPE)
This rating is subjective, but will help
you judge how hard you should be working :
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RPE
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6
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7
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Very, very light - gentle walk perhaps
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8
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9
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Very light
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10
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11
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Fairly light
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12
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13
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Somewhat hard
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14
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15
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Hard
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16
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17
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Very hard
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18
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19
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Very, very hard
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20
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* From this you can see that your longer aerobic intervals
should be at a pace between 'hard' and 'very hard', while
the sprints, which only last 30-40 seconds, should be
somewhere between 'very hard' and 'very,very
hard'...
Alternatives
Add these two sessions a week to longer,
steady weekend outings to maintain your base fitness and you
should be revving like a Ferrari come D-Day. If you're
terrified of all that structure, then a good, less formal
substitute would be a short, hardish mountain biking session
on hilly terrain with a mix of long, hardish climbs, short
brutal ones and easier downhills and flat sections, or you
could do the same with a run, just varying the pace. The
programme above though is calculated carefully to help you
improve in a systematic way and is worth doing. Of course,
mountain walking will also build the right sort of
fitness.
Yes, we know it seems odd Yep,
you'd think that the best training for a long slog would be
a long slog, but once you have the base fitness, sorting out
the harder bits will actually be more effective than just
being able to roll along at a very gentle steady pace. Give
it a go, you might be surprised.
Enjoy
The Butcher's Dog, woof!!!
Big thanks to Simon for the more
technical aspects of the programme, all of it in fact...
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