Planning a Year of Training for the Multi-Sport Mountain Athlete

by Charlie Bausman
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We often receive questions from athletes who participate in mountain sports year-round on how to schedule out their training to retain a high level of readiness and long-term durability development, as well as timing on when to drop into a sport-specific preseason plan.

Periodizing a year of training isn’t easy, so let’s break it down.

What are your options? Below you’ll find a table of our Pre-Season and Base Fitness training options for Mountain Athletes broken down by season.

Fall

Base Fitness

Pre-Season Prep

Winter

Base Fitness

Pre-Season Prep

Spring

Base Fitness

Pre-Season Prep

Summer

Base Fitness

Pre-Season Prep

Frank the Mountain Athlete

Let’s use an example Mountain Athlete… we’ll call him Frank.

Frank lives in Colorado. He loves to Mountain Bike, Backcountry Ski, and Bow Hunts in the late summer. How should his training be periodized so he’s physically prepared to get the most out of his mountain sports?

The chart above shows how Frank can easily plan his year, rotating between Base Fitness programming (Mountain Elite) and Sport Specific Pre-Season plans.

Base Fitness is intended to develop the base of your fitness pyramid. This is the foundation, building your strength, endurance, work capacity, and chassis in order to improve performance and build long-term durability.

Pre-season training switches gears to get hyper-focused on the demands of the sport. For instance, the Backcountry Ski Training Plan will narrow it’s focus to improving your aerobic capacity specific to uphill skinning, the repeated eccentric demand of the downhill ski, and the general muscular endurance for repeat efforts on a good powder day.

Still curious on how to best plan out your training? Email us – coach@mtntactical.com

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