Thanks for taking the time to download this free sample of the forthcoming “The Backyard, Bodyweight and Backpack Training Plan”. This free guide is designed to give you a step in the right direction to start your own training regime at home, with only a small flat space, your bodyweight and a backpack as your required equipment.

What I’ve outlined for you in the following pages is a small sample of what type of exercises are necessary to build the strength and conditioning that trekking and other mountain sports require. As a an avid hiker, skier, climber and personal trainer who works exclusively mountain athletes, I can advise that the most impor-tant aspects of fitness for popular Himalayan trekking and non technical mountaineering ascents are leg strength, core strength, balance, agility and pulmonary conditioning. These five elements are covered briefly in this sample training program, however, va-riety is the key, so to keep your workout enjoyable and to keep the body guessing you’ll need to vary the frequency, intensity, type and length of exercise sessions regularly.

Some of you may be experienced enough in the outdoors or fa-miliar enough with your own bodies to take this information and build yourself a wonderful program you can stick to. On the other hand, many of you will need more guidance and structure, and in many cases you may need to seek the assistance of an exercise professional to help you tailor the exercises to you personally, and to help you perform these exercises safely.

This free sample provides a very general guideline to preparing for the mountains and is not be suitable for everyone’s level of fit-ness, proprioception or outdoors experience. For further guidance please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have via email on train@basecampfit.com

The forthcoming “The Backyard, Bodyweight and Backpack Training Plan” will be soon available for purchase from www.base-campfit.com

Train Hard, Climb High.

Chase J Tucker- Founder & Head Trainer - Base Camp Adventure Fitness

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Base Camp Adventure Fitness and Chase J Tucker strongly recom-mend that you consult with your physician before beginning any ex-ercise program.

You should be in good physical condition and have no contraindica-tion to exercise. In particular if you suffer from pain in the lower back, knees, hips, ankles, you should consult an exercise professional before commencing this program.

Base Camp Adventure Fitness is not a licensed medical care provider and represents that it has no expertise in diagnosing, examining, or treating medical conditions of any kind, or in determining the effect of any specific exercise on a medical condition.

Don’t perform this alone if you are inexperience, injured or fatigued and always ask for instruction or assistance when exercising. If you experience any lightheadedness, dizziness or shortness of breath while exercises, stop the movement and consult a physician.

You should understand that when participating in any exercise or ex-ercise program, there is the possibility of physical injury. If you en-gage in this exercise or exercise program, you agree that you do so at your own risk, are voluntarily participating in these activities, assume all risk of injury to yourself, and agree to release and discharge Base Camp Adventure Fitness and Chase J Tucker from any and all claims or causes of action, known or unknown, arising out participating in this or any exercise program from Base Camp Adventure Fitness.

If you’re planning for a multi-day trek, hike or climb in the coming months now is a good time to start thinking about how you will prepare your mind and body for the challenge ahead. Don’t spend all the time and money preparing for an overseas trekking expedition only to pull a muscle on day one, or to be too fatigued to make the most of every day on the trail. Ad-equate physical, nutritional and mental prepa-ration will not only give you the best chance of achieving your goal, it will ensure that you can relax and enjoy the experience, rather than thinking about how numb your legs are.

If you are an experienced hiker and are con-fident your ability to push yourself and are well versed in how to hike safely and prevent injury then the following sample program may give you enough information on how

to structure a trek training regime that per-sonalised to you. After all the most effective program for you ids one that suits your body, one that is realistic for your lifestyle and your abilities, a program you will actually do. There’s no substitute for lots of time

on trail with training buddies

When should I start training?

This depends on your base level of fitness, if you have never done anything like this in your life, you’ll want to start building a solid founda-tion of fitness about four months out from your departure date, with a more intensive program in the final 10 weeks. For those who run, walk or hike often and for periods of more than an hour, 10 weeks of intensive training prior to your departure date will prepare you well for most non-technical climbs below 5500 metres above sea level. If you’ve left it very late to train, even 6 weeks of training will see you improve somewhat, and will enhance your trekking ex-perience. Experienced hikers still need to train in order to gain a level of conditioning that is adequate for the challenges that altitude and an unfamiliar environment can bring.

How often should I train?

Aim to get in for 5-6 training sessions per week. The best way to train for a hiking trip is to of course, go hiking, but this should be supplemented with two functional strength training sessions, one high intensity cardio vascular session and as 2-3 sessions of walk-ing, the length of which will increase with your fitness level. If you’re new to hiking, start small with two, two hour hikes a week then build up to longer day hikes and if pos-sible consecutive days of 6 to 7 hours walk-ing. To ensure you are prepared for your trek, know the longest kilometre distance you plan to do in one day on your trek and use this as a guide to work towards. Ideally, you want to prove to yourself that you can hike one or two kilometres more than this during train-ing. The average kilometre distance per day on your chosen trek will also be a good guide as to how many kilometres you should be clocking up in your weekly training program.

Always Warm Up/Cool Down:Your warm up/cool down can be as simple as a ten minute walk around the block or a quick circuit of exercises like star jumps, jogging, arm circles, leg swings, or skipping to promote muscle activation, joint mobility and functional movement patterns. This is very important not only to prevent in-jury but is essential for getting the best results from your workout. A sample warm up routine appropriate for the gym and for the trail head are available on the Base Camp Adventure fitness youtube channel, which is accessible from www.basecampfit.com

Cardio Sessions (2-3 per week)Many people who train themselves for trekking make the mistake of solely do-ing cardio within a single heart rate range. Your cardio sessions should ide-ally include at least one high intensity in-terval training (HIIT) session per week to vastly improve cardio vascular fitness, espe-

cially if you’re planning to trek at altitude.

This means doing hard sprinting or cycling at a perceived rate of exertion of 8 to 10 out of 10, followed by periods of active recovery. For the bulk of your cardio training, try to hike or walk for between 40- 120 minutes two times dur-ing the week incorporating hills and fartlek or ‘speed play’ as your fitness level increases.

Finally, and most importantly, ensure you dedi-cate one day a week to do a decent full day of hiking, beginning at a comfortable distance

Resistance Training (2-3 per week)Often overlooked by many trekkers in training, functional resistance training that strengthens and stabilises the body will improve trekking performance and lessen the chance of injury. Strengthening each individual leg muscle in your typi-cal machine-based training program fashion will be great for building muscle size in isolation, but will not improve your ability to deal with the rigors of the outdoors; therefore, re-sistance training must be more functional and practical. This means training your body’s full range of movements that are specific to trekking to build total body, multi joint strength.

While a focus on the strength of the legs and the core should be paramount, it is important to vary the workout to build a balanced body. Each workout should include exercises that are based on the essential and primal movements of pushing, pulling, squatting, lunging and lifting. Furthermore, the im-portance of the stability, balance and flexibility of the lower body should not be overlooked, meaning that exercises such as planks, slow walking, one foot balancing, one legged squats, hops and various fit-ball or Bosu ball balances should be regu-larly included in resistance training sessions.

HydrationWe all know the importance of hydration. Your body is mostly made of water and needs it to function ef-ficiently; this is even more crucial when training hard. There are many set in stone recommendations to hydration such as drink a litre of water immedi-ately upon waking, drinking 3-4 litres of water a day etc. but I would recommend just constantly having a bottle of water with you at all times. Drink when your thirsty, its that easy. Replace all your other daily beverages like juice, cordial, soft drink with water. They’ll only get you further way from your goals. Your body will need a great amount of water, especially with this type of training. It also needs to get in the habit of hydrating, especially if you plan to hike at high altitude. Although I live at sea level, I spend a great deal of time in simulated altitude con-

RestRest and adequate sleep are one of the most sig-nificant aspects of appropriate resistance train-ing, If you are constantly training at a high in-tensity, you allow no time for your muscles to properly recover and repair. Think about it like Stretching/Flexibility

(Daily)Arguably one of the most important parts of your training, and again, something that is often overlooked, is your flexibility and stretching rou-tine, which should be done daily, if not twice a day. It is important to stretch those muscles that are tight, which will increase flexibility, aid muscle recovery and assist in recovering your body’s strong neutral posture. Trial each ma-jor stretch that you know, hamstrings, quads, lower back, calves, gluteus, chest, shoulders and mid back. What feels tight? Which muscles are quite flexible? Identify 3-4 of the tightest muscles and work on stretching these twice a day, holding for at least 30 sec-onds for gains in flexibility.

and gradually increasing the distance to and beyond the longest planned day of your hike as your fitness level increases. It is always a good idea to train with the equipment that you will trek with, especially with your shoes, socks and pack.

Start with a small pack of 3-4kg and increase gradually to your trekking weight. Remember to taper off around a week before the trek as you begin to rest and prepare your body for trav-elling and trekking. All of the hiking training that you do should ideally be done in an envi-ronment that resembles your trekking environ-ment as closely as possible.

By this I don’t mean turning the air con down to -20 and walking on a treadmill with your duck-down suit on. But rather walking outside, over steep, hard, rocky or soft, uneven, unpredict-able terrain.

By doing this, you will be training the small sup-porting and stabilising muscles in your lower body, improving your balance, fall reflexes and thereby reducing your chance of ankle injury, the trekkers nemesis.

this, you don’t get stronger whilst you train, as you’ll notice, tyou actually become weaker dur-ing the training. You actually become stronger when you rest. So make sure you are including at least one rest day per week and ensure that you are getting good quantities and quality sleep!

ditions, training clients all throughout the day, and I find that I am terribly thirsty under these condi-tions, the same occurs in the high mountains, don’t ignore your body. Drink!

TuesdayFocus: Leg Strength and Conditioning

Warm up: see Base Camp warm up video on YouTube

Buy in: Max squat jumps in 1 minute

3rounds (15-25 reps)

Bulgarian Split Squats

Slow step downs

Calf Raises

Pack Thrusters

Finisher: Max jump lunges in 1 minute

ThursdayFocus: Stairs and Core (60 mins)

Buy In: 1000 stairs with a 10kg backpack

3 rounds

30 crunches

40 side bends

15 metres forwards/ backwards Bear Crawl

2-3 minute static Bend

10 toe touch crunches

Finisher: 4 mins of wall sit

SaturdayFull Hike Day: Focus: elevation - 4-6 hours

Length of hike is less of an issue than height gained. Choose a local trail or mountain that allows 500-700 metres elevation gain or one with 300m and repeat it. Time will very much depend-ing on the terrain and the length of trail. Minimise breaks, especially on the up-hill push yourself hard. Tread carefully, Injury is your greatest nemesis.

SundayFocus - Rest/Food Preparation for the week

Recover from your walk, attend to any tight muscles with stretching, clean, in-spect and stow

Wednesday- Focus: Speed/Cardio (30-40 minutes)

30-40 minute run - Fartlek Speed play

Alter speed and effort as follows

30 seconds Easy Walking

20 seconds Moderate Jogging

10 seconds Hard, All out Sprint

Repeat, incorporate hills, run on trails and natural surfaces if at all possible

Sample 1 week Training Pro-gram – an average week on a serious training schedule

MondayFocus – Time on Feet (60-90 mins non stop)

Moderate paced walk incorporating hills on trails and natural surfaces if at all possible.

FridayFocus - Rest /muscular Recovery/

Take a rest and prepare your gear and supplies for tomorrows hike

ALWAYS Warm up: see Base Camp warm up video on

ALWAYS Warm up:see Base Camp warm up video on YouTube/Base-campbrisbane

Figure 1.2 -Launch dynamically Figure 2.1 Deep squat, butt down to heels

The Exercises 9: Squat jump

Set your feet in a squatting base, as if you are about to squat with a heavy load, with hands out in front. Descend into a parallel position and then drive up as high as possible, making sure to consciously push as hard as you can through your ankles, knees, and hips. Upon landing, attempt to absorb the load of the jump by landing on the front half of your feet and then sinking back onto your heels as the hips descend into the next squat.

Jump Lunge Step Downs

Crunches

Bulgarian Split Squats

Start in a traditional lunge position with chest and torso upright, front leg in 90 degree angle, and knee lowered almost to the ground. Powerfully push the body back up and into a jump. While jump-ing, change their feet position in the air, moving the front leg behind them and the back leg in front. Land in the lunge position.

Stant up straight on an elevated box or sturdy platform. Look straight ahead and don’t arch or curve yourback but maintain neutral spine position. Flex your knee and hip to ‘drop’ your butt towards the floor. Keep your chest lifted. Arsm can be used to counterweight an balance. Lower to the point where it becomes difficult to maintain your balance, pause and extend your knees and hips to return to the start position. Make sure you do this in a controlled fashion. The slower, the better.

Place one foot well out in front of the other in a staggered position with your rear foot placed firmly on top of a bench or box no higher than 18 inches. Set your core and maintain an erect torso as you descend as deep as possible with your front heel firmly on the floor. You should feel a stretch in your rear leg’s hip flexor region as you descend. Drive upward and exhale as you pass the halfway point during the ascent. Complete all the repetitions with one leg, then switch to the other to complete the same number of reps.

Lie down flat on your back with your knees bent and your feet on the floor.

Hold your hands wherever you feel comfortable (on your chest or beside your head - just be sure you don’t pull on your head). Push your chest and head up towards the ceiling pushing your lower back flat onto the floor

• Holdatthetopofthemove-ment for a second and squeeze hard.

• Do not lift up into a sit-upas this works the hip flexors and can strain your back.

• Return to the star position,aim for 20-30 reps

TOE touches

Side bend

Beginner: 1 leg at a time / Intermediate: both legs

Lie flat on your back on a gym mat with legs straight. Raise both legs straight up. Keep a slight bend in the knees. Crunch the abdominals and reach up to touch the toes with with both hands. Return to the start position. This is one repetition aim for 15-20 reps Stand with feet shoulder width apart. Bend forwards until your hands rest just above the knees. Keep

your head and spine in a neutral position - your chest should be raised and you should be bending from the hips and not the waist. Start with Maintain this position for 30 - 60 seconds and build up to holding it for longer periods, of up to 3-4 minutes, always ensuring perfect form.

To do the bear crawl, simply drop onto all fours with your hands directly under your shoulders, knees directly under your hips then rise up onto your toes. Push your chest out and maintain a neu-tral spine. Move your left and right foot 15cm forward at a time and vice versa. Move forward for 10 meters and return going backwards.

Begin in the crunch position, lying down on the floor with knees bent and abdominals tight. Bend waist to opposite side of dumbbell until slight stretch is felt., you can tap you heel if you are able to. Return to neutral and then bend to the opposite side for the same distance and repeat. Continue with quick repetitions aim for 15-30 reps on each side. Ensure the shoulders remain off the ground and abdominals remain tight during the exercise.

Static bend

Bear crawl

Pack Thrusters Calf Raise Intervals

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, toes pointed out slightly to allow you to squat, your lower back tightly arched, and the pack in the racking position at your chest. Keeping your head and chest held high, push your hips back and descend into a below-parallel squat. From the bottom position, explode back to the start position as hard as you can, using your momentum to simultaneously press the pack over your head. Finish in a standing position, with the pack over and slightly behind your head, then smoothly lower it and descend into another squat in one continuous motion.

Begin standing with your feet on the edge of a curb, box or step and drop your heels below the level of your toes. Flex your calves and raise your heels as high as you can. Repeat quickly. You may use your hands to balance but do not lean or put weight upon anything that will assist the calf muscle, Calve Raise Intervals are 15-25 reps continuously, rapidly, followed by 10 seconds in a holding “rest” position up on your toes. Repeat for the stated time and reps.

Stay tuned to Base Camp Adventure Fitness by signing up to our mailing list for more information and some examples of how to perform some of these exercises with perfect form and posture.

Train Hard, Climb High.

Chase J Tucker

Founder & Head Trainer - Base Camp Adventure Fitness