UKC

Preparimg for Cho Oyu later in the year. Preparing for one year already and spending 30 days in Nepal for fitness, altitude and checking gear starting March 14th. Just been offered free-of-charge support from a local hospital sports medicine / well-being centre. Plus-side will be free support and blood tests, lung capcity tests etc. On the downside it'll be one hour plus drive to get there after work rather than 5 minutes to my gym. Anyone had such support and have a view on whether it was useful? Most don't ever have the chance and do get by without it so I'm reluctant to accept the offer. Experiences / views? thanks

In reply to andrewm1000:

I'm not a physiologist but I thought the general consensus was physical fitness does not a play any significant role in whether you get altitude sickness or not.

Obviously having a very high level of aerobic fitness will give you a better chance of summiting, but only providing altitude sickness doesn't get you!

In reply to stevez: thanks, yes that's why I'm hesitant. Likely to be more trouble than its worth and once I commit to it I'd have to attend sessions regularly. I can fairly easily go on pre-climb acclimitisation trips and manage the fitness myself without the external motivation so I'm not sure of any added value for me.

Hey sounds great to me. Can you do just once a month to see any trends emerging?

Whilst there may be no correlation between fitness and susceptibility to altitude sickness, once you are acclimitised you will be a lot more efficient climber the more fit you are. You can use the hospital tests to gauge the effectiveness of your fitness regime.


You may want to check out Clyde Soles: Training for Peak performance for some fairly no-nonsense advice on training.

In reply to radson: thanks. I spoke to them today and they suggest a couple of visits for the baseline work / tests and then to follow me over the course of six months with monthly sessions unless I want them more frequently - so its less inconvenient than i first thought. I'll give it a go, sounds very interesting and I'll learn a lot, - also free-of-charge which sways me. cheers