Altitude Training Will Get You Into Amazing Shape

Sir Edmund Hillary didn't exactly prepare for the Himalayas with side planks and hyperbaric chambers. The Kiwi was a beekeeper by trade, tasked with manning his family's 1,400 hives. Daily chores on the honey farm formed the foundation of his physical conditioning, which he honed during stints in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and expeditions throughout the Southern Alps. He was an adept cross country skier, too.

When he and Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first people to summit Mount Everest, Hillary had to acclimatize to the altitude in real time. They set up progressively higher camps and spent significant time at each elevation before moving on up. What got Hillary and Norgay to the top, 70 years ago last week, wasn't their physical prowess alone. And it certainly wasn't their equipment, which was primitive compared to the gizmos available today. They relied on a combination of mapping and mettle. The duo studied the mountain ahead of time, then gritted their teeth and climbed it.

It likely would’ve shocked the duo, all those decades ago, to hear that by the 2010s, Chomolungma (the Tibetan name for the mountain), would be over-touristed. As training tenets, performance technology and flight patterns have proliferated far and wide, tens of thousands have made pilgrimages to the region's 14 eight-thousanders. More than 6,000 mountaineers have now summited Mount Everest, alone. In some cases, this yearly rush has led to sobering storylines: like a traffic jam on the Hillary Step, shown in this unbelievable photo. Stuck in "conga lines" for days on end, people have died.

Even if climbing in the Himalayas weren't such a crowded and complicated affair (the tradition's relationship to local sherpas has been imperfect, to say the least), it's also an extremely expensive one. To properly climb the Himalayas, you’re looking at least a $50,000 commitment, not to mention the employment freedom to leave work for two months at a time.

For most people, the Himalayas probably seem entirely out of reach. For a small few, they probably should be. But just about anyone can appreciate the absurd conditioning required to survive at the top of the world.

It got us thinking: instead of going to Mount Everest, how about bringing it to us? What does the casual, non-mountaineering adult have to do to get into an approximation of "Himalayan shape"? How do we prepare our lungs and legs? How might we deploy that fitness on more accessible ascents near our homes?

To be clear, if you were actually summiting Everest, you would need to have a command of: rope climbing, cramponing on ice and rock, rappelling with a heavy pack, using ascenders and jumars, crossing crevasses on ladders, etc. You can't get very far without some serious technical chops.

But this blueprint is more concerned with simulating the physical rigors of a Himalayan expedition. It outlines the modern training wisdom that Hillary and Norgay would’ve put to good use — while retaining the resilience that they clearly had in droves. Here's your best shot at attaining the athletic base of Himalayan climbers, via altitude simulation training, intense leg and core strength routines, cardiovascular endurance exercises and mental fortitude drills.

The mountains are calling, and I must cycle. For 12 hours.

The bulwark of this regimen involves hiking, which is a great thing — it's perhaps the single healthiest exercise available to the body. Lengthy "adventure hikes," of the sort we’re discussing here, involve hours spent on one's feet, weighted packs (a la rucking), elevation change, uneven terrain and time spent in nature. It's longevity bingo.

Himalayan-hopefuls are known to commence their training cycles up to 12 months before traveling to Nepal, which affords them the time to progressively ramp up their hike time and distance. After all, outfitters aren't exactly shy about conditioning requirements for Everest and the like: the training goal is 4,000 feet in less than three hours, with a 50-60 pound pack. For reference, New York's Hunter Mountain and California's Mount Diablo are both right around 4,000 feet.

Don't fret too much about those numbers, though. It's a hike. As workouts go, it's endlessly modifiable. Get a read on how long it takes you to complete a 1,000-foot climb with a pack that's 10% of your bodyweight, for instance. If that's too easy, try doing it two days in a row. (Daily climbs are a hallmark of actual mountaineering). Fill your pack with something you don't mind getting rid of at the top (water), so you can dump it and ease your descent back down.

If you don't have any mountains in your backyard, make use of the largest hill you can find. March up it and back down — "Everest" cycling-style — as a form of HIIT training. That’ll light up your lower half and core. And if you don't have any hills nearby, well, the treadmill is a special machine. Just be sure to ruck outdoors wherever, whenever possible, as you still want to challenge your footing on roots and rocks.

Outside of hiking, you’ll want to pack as much Zone 2 training into your week as possible. Make like a Norwegian cross-country skiing champion and spend five hours a week at 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. Running, cycling, swimming, whatever. Make it non-negotiable.

This is the meat and potatoes of this training scheme. Hikes are hard, but they’re beautiful. And you can always listen to a podcast during your Zone 2 work. Strength training circuits explicitly designed to torch your core and lower half, though — nothing glorious or relaxing there.

Still, they’ll serve you well in the hills, where strength, lateral mobility and balance are all paramount. Below, find two "mountain circuits" (the second leaning a bit more into unconventional moves and tools than the first), that’ll give you the extra power you need.

The gentle art is perfect for lifelong fitness

A brief aside on NCAA Division I Cross Country, if you will. The sport's top teams are about what you’d expect — Texas, UNC, Oregon, Princeton, etc. But one of its perennial contenders, Northern Arizona, might sound unfamiliar. Why is NAU so good at running? Well, its athletes train in Flagstaff, Arizona, in pine forests that are perched nearly 7,000 feet above sea level.

Training at altitude is believed to help spur the production of erythropoietin (also known as EPO, also known as the hormone that Lance Armstrong was injecting into his bloodstream in 1999). It boosts one's production of red blood cells, in turn, and helps you transport oxygen more efficiently. In the mountains, this process proves absolutely critical; there's less oxygen in each lungful of air, because of the decrease in air pressure. For years, individual athletes and teams alike (here's the French national football team training in the clouds at St. Moritz) have leveraged altitude training to their advantage. You can do some real damage once you get back down to sea level.

Something to keep in mind: programs for elite athletes consider 5,000 feet the starting point for high altitude training. Which means that if you don't live in Colorado Springs, you might be out of luck. There are a number of sea level solutions, though. Some are more effective than others, and some are simply more expensive:

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