My newest hobby is high-altitude mountaineering. There’s so much different advices out there about how to improve endurance and speed, to go faster for longer. Information from runners and climbers and cyclists can be very different.

I got nerdy and dug into the physiology and evaluated the main training methods:

• Long-duration low-intensity (LD)
• Interval/tempo-runs/maximal-steady-state (Interval)
• High intensity interval training (HIIT)

To find which one or combination is the most optimal training solution for climbing big mountains, along with other training techniques.

Here is my summary. Interestingly, I found the recommended polarized training combination of LD and HIIT to be the same as the one I experienced during college crew, and also similar to Nimsdai’s training (he doesn’t do much HIIT though).

If you have time, go read Training for the new alpinim book, it’s legit and it passes my personal physiology check.

Now I can get ahead with my training without constantly wondering if I’m doing the most optimal things (why don’t you get a coach, d00d?!)