UKC

For improving fitness?

Is it long walks / steep hills with a heavy pack or running?

For ice axe stamina improvement will sessions at the bouldering wall be beneficial?

In reply to Sliabh1982:
Not sure why you ask this from your profile info. Here's a genuine answer, not meant in any ways patronising or sarcastic...

Go walking, do ridges. Don't get a heavy pack on purpose: on the contrary get into good habits and start making it as light as is safe.

Re strength: go climb winter stuff lots. If that's not available (time, money...) do some dry tooling. At the very worse (which is already a lot) climbing will always be beneficial. If none of the above is available, keep generally fit, and have stamina.

Anyway, winter climbing makes you (for most people anyways) good at winter climbing.

In reply to French Erick: You can of course improve winter hill fitness by going winter climbing but I get the impression from the OP he's looking for advice on how to get fit for winter climbing before going.

By all means lighten your load when your out but why make your training bag as light as possible? If you're doing one or two up hill load carries a week and you reduce the load you reduce the training. Training needs to be hard, if you keep trying to make it easier your only wasting your own time.

If you can do a few runs a week, strengthen your quads and calfs and do 1 load carry a week you shouldn't have any trouble with fitness. For your load carries just fill your bag with 15-30 kg of weight and walk uphill, if you make as much of that weight as possible water (bottled obviously) you can pour it out at the summit and jog back down.

Ben

In reply to Sliabh1982:

Anything which has you gasping for breath is good news.

In reply to Jamie Bankhead:

So checking my bank balance then?

In reply to idiotproof (Buxton MC):

or lack of balance anyhow

In reply to Sliabh1982: If you want to get fit for the hills, go fell running. North Manchester there is lots of options. Do not train with a heavy bag, I think if you out winter climbing/mountaineering in general and doing it alot with a bag this will do. If you train intensely with a bag this will only mess up your knees. I went fell running to give me good cross fitness for the mountains in the beginning and then got addicted to the pursuit itself. I know for some, or a lot running in winter can be very hard to get motivated for. So once you have become used to enjoying running, which you may do already, it may be harder to motivate your self to rest!

http://bobwightman.co.uk/ Good website for fell running information
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/index.htm Good website for sports related science
For good ideas that can be applied for mountain sport read Mark Twights Extreme Alpinism.

In reply to Sliabh1982:

Flogging up hills with a heavy sack is what you are training for, so fairly obviously that is what you should ideally do. Over the autumn, put on your heaviest boots and make your sack noticeably heavier than you will be carrying for winter climbing so that it feels rewardingly light when you actually go climbing. If you are worried about your knees descending, carry the extra weight in water and empty it at the top.

Of course running is less time consuming and for many people more convenient, so do that when you can't get to the mountains and include as much uphill as possible.

Once winter starts,save yourself for the real thing! I(assuming you can get out regularly).