Posted On:

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Winter is a great time to build our aerobic base and you don't need to live anywhere near the mountains to get results that will help you get faster on the uphills and go for longer without getting tired. You just need some commitment to getting outdoors in the cold and some consistency with your training. 


What is Aerobic Base Training

Aerobic base training is all about increasing the volume of low-intensity exercise you undertake which in turn will create physiological changes in your body that improves endurance, reduces injury and makes the body less susceptible to fatigue. 
It's the foundation of any endurance training program and is essential if you want to reach your potential. Think of your training as being like a pyramid with the foundations and base being your aerobic training and the upper parts being the anaerobic training.

 

Aerobic vs Anaerobic 

Aerobic exercise would be any activity where the body utilises oxygen to generate energy, this would be a low-intensity exercise that you can sustain over several hours or days. 

Anaerobic exercise is where your body utilises glucose without utilising oxygen* the downside is this process produces large amounts of waste in the form of acid and lactose, hence the pump feeling when you lift weights, do hill sprints or undertake any high-intensity training. 

*Anaerobic exercise can still utilise oxygen but it does so at a much reduced rate and reduces furthermore as the intensity increases. 

Building your Aerobic Base.

Building an aerobic base is certainly not the most exciting part of a training plan which is why it's often skipped over or rushed through. You need to keep the workouts low intensity (Read Below) - over a longer duration and they don't need to be specific to the activity you're training for. Activities like running, cycling, swimming, walking etc are all perfect for aerobic base building providing the intensities are not too high and over a sufficient duration.

A typical period for aerobic base building would be anything from 6-8 weeks for the moderately trained to 16+ weeks for those with little or no training. The benefits of a well-built aerobic base cannot be understated and there is no limit to how big this base can be.

 

How to make sure your training is in your aerobic zone. 

The simplest way to make sure you are training in your aerobic zone is to make sure you can still talk while exercising - this method ensures you train in your lower heart rate zones and don't dip into your higher anaerobic zones. 

A more complex method is the MAFF (Maffetone Method) where you use 180bpm - your age. This will give you a rough idea of where your aerobic threshold is, for the untrained you probably need to be aiming another 10 beats per minute below that range. For example, if you're 40 years old, with limited training your aerobic threshold will be around 130bpm so all exercise in the base-building phase should be at or below this target.

 

Tracking heart rate with a watch. 

GPS watches can be a great tool for tracking exercises but it won't come as a surprise that the features are not always accurate. The Heart Rate function uses light to detect your heartbeat which can be inaccurate especially for those with darker skin (See the JCC Study Notes). Purchasing a chest strap will offer a more accurate measure of HR and they're compatible with most GPS devices and mobile phones. 

If you can't justify the cost of a GPS watch try using a perceived effort scale for your workouts. Aerobic exercise should be in the conversational range so you can still string together sentences while exercising. Some people try using the nose breathing method where you close your mouth and breathe through your nose, if you can sustain this for a long period you will be exercising well below your aerobic threshold. 

 

Tips for keeping within the Aerobic zone - 

The hardest part about training in the aerobic zone is it doesn't feel hard or like you had a brutal workout - that's the whole point. If you don't have much free time, naturally, you will want to push yourself into fatigue or feel exhausted, it won't help you build an aerobic base though. The whole concept of aerobic base building is it MUST be done in the aerobic zone or else you're only training your anaerobic energy system which has limited use in the mountains. 

 

Sources

https://strengthrunning.com/2015/02/maffetone-method-and-base-training/

https://uphillathlete.com/mountaineering/training-for-mountaineering/

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/science-of-aerobic-base-training/

 


Part 2 | Strength training for mountaineers | Coming in December

you may also be interested in...
Blog Category From September 2018 From November 2018 From January 2019 From February 2019 From April 2019 From June 2019 From July 2019 From August 2019 From November 2019 From December 2019 From March 2020 From April 2020 From May 2020 From June 2020 From July 2020 From August 2020 From November 2020 From March 2021 From August 2021 From October 2021 From January 2022 From April 2022 From May 2022 From June 2022 From December 2022 From February 2023 From July 2023 From January 2024 From February 2024 From May 2024 From October 2024
Stay Up To Date With The Latest Courses & Dates

Stay up to date with our latest course offerings and dates.