Denali workout program

I acknowledge that mountaineering in foreign countries entails known and unanticipated risks that could result in physical or emotional injury, paralysis, death, or damage to myself, to property, or to third parties. I understand that such risks simply cannot be eliminated without jeopardizing the essential qualities of the activity. Furthermore, MTI employees have difficult jobs to perform. They seek safety, but they are not infallible. They might be unaware of a participant's fitness or abilities.

They might misjudge the weather, other environmental conditions. They might misjudge whether the terrain is safe for travel or where or when an avalanche may occur. They may give incomplete warnings or instructions, and the equipment being used might malfunction. I expressly agree and promise to accept and assume all of the risks existing in this activity. My participation in this activity is purely voluntary, and I elect to participate in spite of the risks.

Should MTI or anyone acting on their behalf, be required to incur attorney's fees and costs to enforce this agreement, I agree to indemnify and hold them harmless for all such fees and costs. I certify that I have adequate insurance to cover any injury or damage I may cause or suffer while participating, or else I agree to bear the costs of such injury or damage myself. I further certify that I am willing to assume the risk of any medical or physical condition I may have.

In the event that I file a lawsuit against MTI, I agree to do so solely in the state of Colorado, and I further agree that the substantive law of that state shall apply in that action without regard to the conflict of law rules of that state.

I agree that if any portion of this agreement is found to be void or unenforceable, the remaining portions shall remain in full force and effect. By signing this document, I acknowledge that if anyone is hurt or property is damaged during my participation in this activity, I may be found by a court of law to have waived my right to maintain a lawsuit against MTI on the basis of any claim from which I have released them herein. I have had sufficient opportunity to read this entire document.

I have read and understood it, and I agree to be bound by its terms. At Denali Fitness our team of nationally certified personal trainers will design a custom exercise program for you to help you to reach your goals.

Our trainers are dedicated to your specific health and fitness goals; whether you are trying to lose weight, gain strength or achieve a healthier lifestyle, we have a trainer for you. Repeat the climb until you have completed a minute session. Carry a backpack that has about 20 lbs. Avoid stopping during this routine. This workout is probably the best simulation of what you will be doing most on McKinley.

Caution: do not carry too much weight in your pack now because the coming down portion of this workout can kill your knees if you are not use to the weight. Aerobic workouts should now be five days per week, with one day rest. Increase your workout sessions to a minimum of 45 minutes. Concentrate on working continuously throughout the entire 45 minutes.

Continue to include a hill- or stair-climbing workout with a backpack at least once a week. Increase the weight carried in your backpack by 10 lbs.

You can substitute one or two of your aerobic workouts with the hill- or stair-climbing session. Be careful with your knees on downhills. Strength workouts should increase to four days a week. Increase weights and repetitions, but again, do not exceed maximum repetitions already mentioned.

At this point of your training you may find that motivation might be lacking at times. Be creative, find new places to train, more friends to train with, go climbing to get psyched, read books on mountaineering, and watch videos or slide shows of other mountaineering adventures. This month you begin your training in earnest. You must now get mentally conditioned, as well as physically.

Take each day as it comes. You may want to consider taking a good daily multi-vitamin with the RDA of iron, if you do not already do so. This will ensure that your body is getting its recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals that you might need with your increased exercise routines. The iron will assure that your blood will have the iron needed to maintain the hemoglobin in your red blood cells good for carrying oxygen. Your aerobic workouts should remain at five days per week, with one rest day per week.

Your sessions should now last a minimum of 50 minutes. This workout should be around 30 minutes, and you want this session to get your heart rate up to around to beats per minute for at least one minute duration at a time, but not longer than two minutes.

Recuperate between these high-intensity bursts within three minutes before going at it again. Physiologically, the faster your heart rate during the stress exercise, and the less rest time you give yourself between the exercises, the more training benefit you will reap.

You should really be working hard during this session and feel relatively exhausted at its end. An example of this type of workout is running a hilly course, sprinting uphill as your high-intensity burst , and jogging the downhills and flats, for your recuperation.

This type of workout is one of the best natural ways to build up your red blood cell count which is responsible for getting oxygen to your cells and getting your cells to get rid of lactic acid a waste product of cellular respiration and cause of muscle fatigue more efficiently. Strength workouts remain at four days per week and should be a habit for you by this time.

Increase your weights and repetitions accordingly. This can be a replacement of two of your aerobic sessions. Increase your backpack weight by another 10 lbs. You may want to consider carrying jugs of water for weight so you can empty them at the top of your elevation gain, assuming that you do not have to repeat the climb often in the one session.

This way you do not have to carry the weight down and pound your knees. Caution: remember that you will be carrying very heavy loads down the mountain when the expedition is over, so you should consider strengthening your leg muscles for downhills.

This month try to get out into the wilderness once or twice to test your gear. Make sure your boots are comfortable, apparel fits and does what you want it to do, tent sets up easily, backpack fits and handles the heavy loads, sleeping bag feels good, and you are getting familiar with the stoves, etc.

The only way to do these things is to go camping and climbing. You do not want to find out that things are not just right on Denali. You can substitute two of your aerobic workouts for this outing if it is an overnighter.

Continue your aerobic workouts at five days per week with at least one rest day. Workouts should be a minimum of an hour in duration. One aerobic workout per week should last for at least an hour and a half. Continue with at least one stress session per week and shorten the rest periods between the high intensity portions.

Wear your climbing boots for these sessions to get used to them, if you have not been doing so already. Strength training is now for endurance purposes. Continue to strength train four times per week, but use two of those days for emphasizing repetitions done quickly. You should use a weight that gets you to almost complete exhaustion at the end of the minute. If no one is available to time you, do your exercises until muscle failure. Caution: do not lift free weights alone! The other two days should be used to maintain your routine from last month.

Again, this month get out to the wilderness and test your gear. Get the kinks out of them and you. Remember to still drink your quarts of water, eat well, and get lots of rest. The final month to tune up for this long-awaited climb. This is the month of training that will get you physically up the mountain. Your aerobic workouts will still be five days a week. Remember to rest at least one day per week. Each workout session should be maintained at a minimum of one hour in duration.

You should be able to do two stress sessions per week. You can forego the stress sessions the week prior to departure. Physical training contains inherent risks including, but not limited to, muscle strains, tears, physical and bodily injury up to and including death.

This training program is not meant to provide medical advice; you should obtain medical advice from your private health care practitioner. If you are unable to assume these risks then you should not engage in this training program.

No liability is assumed by Mountain Tactical Institute, Inc, its owners or employees, and you train at your own risk. Mountain Tactical Institute makes no warranty, express or implied, of any kind in connection with this training program.

Gym numbers mean nothing. All that matters is mission performance. We begin with the raw fitness demands of the mission and build a fitness solution which directly prepares the athlete for those demands. The Fluid Periodization methodology we deploy to concurrently train multiple fitness attributes is completely original and has continued to evolve and improve over the years. Our mid-section training methodology, Chassis Integrity, is also original, as is our endurance programming, 7 strength training progressions, tactical agility, and work capacity programming.

Our mountain sports pre-season training plans, tactical PFT, selection, school, course, and fitness improvement training plans across military, LE and Fire Rescue are MTI-developed, tested and athlete-proven. Over the years hundreds of athletes and coaches have taken our advanced programming and unit fitness leader programming courses and MTI is widely recognized within the mountain and tactical professions and fitness media as a thought leader in fitness programming for military and tactical athletes.

Training session and cycle issues are identified and fixed as we work through the training plan. Several of our individual training plans are on their 4th or 5th version. Our stuff works. Weekly we receive unsolicited reviews of our programming and testimonials to its effectiveness. Resources range from specific programming for tactical special forces selections, to specific plans for climbing Rainier and Denali, to general fitness solutions such as running improvement, to post-rehab from injury.

Over the past decade, MTI has partnered with hundreds of athletes throughout their individual mountain and tactical careers, and provided fitness solutions as they face new mountain objectives, tactical schools, selections, PFTs and deployments, and came back from injury.

Our non-fitness research has included tactical cultures , combat uniforms , and gore-tex performance , and effect of stress on marksmanship. Our work on defining what it means to be a Quiet Professional has had penetrating influence and driven healthy conversations with both mountain and tactical professionals.

By Rob Shaul I received notes frequently from athletes hesitant to purchase a subscription or training plans asking me to sell them on why they should make the purchase.

We begin with extensive research on the fitness demands of the event, identify the exercises and progressions which sport specifically meet those demands, chose end-of-cycle goals, and program backward to design the plan.

Then we test the cycle on ourselves and our lab rats here in Wyoming. Then we publish the programming in the form of one of our plans or as part of our subscription daily training sessions for tactical and mountain athletes. We use these sessions to learn and make continuous improvement. As we learn more and improve, we go back, and update the sport-specific training plans on the website.

All that matters for us is outside performance, and we feel strongly that Our Stuff Works in the real world. Email: rob mtntactical. Click HERE. Is it true you guarantee your stuff works? This is a common question.