EP 169: Scott Johnston — A Masterclass in Training Principles, and Why Boulderers Should Train Their Aerobic System

Scott Johnston is a world-class coach who specializes in mountain endurance sports. This episode is a masterclass in training principles and is packed full of nuggets for climbers, including boulderers. We talked about why it’s a mistake to mimic top athletes, tips for balancing climbing with other sports, capacity vs. utilization, why to back off after a personal best, developing layers of endurance, the flaw with HRV, how to test your recovery before training, how to fail successfully, the future of alpinism and mountain running, and much more!

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• Leo Franchi, Michael Roy, David Lahaie, Robert Freehill, Jeremiah Johnson, Scott Donahue, Eli Conlee, Skyler Maxwell, Craig Lee, Mark and Julie Calhoun, Yinan Liu, Renzollama, Zach Emery, and Brandt Mickolas

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Show Notes:

thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/scott-johnston

Nuggets:

0:04:56 – Inventing telescopes, and refurbishing European sports cars

0:11:25 – Being a cross-country ski racer, climbing with Steve House, and getting into coaching

0:13:22 – Why Scott and Steve decided to write Training for the New Alpinism

0:15:30 – Partnering with Kilian Journett on a second book Training for the Uphill Athlete

0:19:00 – The mistake of trying to mimic people like Killian Journett or Adam Ondra

0:23:05 – Sound bites, the dumbing down of our attention spans, and applying traditional training methods to unconventional sports

0:25:09 – Who is the Uphill Athlete book for?

0:27:56 – Being a general outdoor athlete and a climber

0:28:54 – Patron question from Alex: Tips for training for bouldering and sport climbing during ski season and vice versa?

0:34:42 – Why more training isn’t always better

0:37:39 – Building capacity, and why you rarely perform well while you’re training

0:39:19 – Block periodization

0:42:09 – Monitoring your recovery, using a hangboard to check in, and the restorative effect of easy aerobic activity

0:46:59 – Capacity vs. utilization training

0:54:26 – Training vs. randomly exercising

0:57:16 – Fundamental qualities of sports, and building capacity in different qualities

1:03:32 – Putting money in the bank vs. spending it

1:07:18 – Why you should back off after you hit a PR in your training

1:12:24 – Deloads

1:16:40 – Non-linear periodization

1:18:54 – The aerobic system, and the vacuum cleaner analogy

1:25:54 – Developing layers of endurance

1:27:52 – How and why boulderers and sport climbers should train endurance

1:31:56 – More about the layers of endurance

1:38:25 – My upcoming Follow-Up with Steve Bechtel, why training needs to be more specific at higher levels, and how recovery makes you stronger

1:41:33 – How important is active recovery?

1:44:32 – The flaw with HRV for measuring recovery

1:50:20 – Tuning in to your body, and how to test your level of fatigue

1:53:34 – Using the Tindeq to test your finger strength before training (use code NUGGET for $10 off)

1:56:47 – Why monitoring your progress leads to mental toughness

2:03:19 – How to get the experience you need to climb technical mountains and alpine routes

2:06:25 – The Dreaded Water Carries, and improving muscular endurance

2:19:29 – How long and how often should our training blocks be?

2:22:20 – Losing two climbing partners on K2

2:27:33 – How to fail successfully

2:34:09 – Inventing challenges, and the essential parts of being human

2:38:02 – Scott’s current outdoor lifestyle, and trying to slow the decline as aging athletes

2:42:26 – Doing max strength to recover from hard endurance work

2:46:15 – A teaser for how to increase your weighted pull-ups

2:50:29 – Where to find Scott

2:52:33 – What excites Scott the most about the future of alpinism and mountain running

2:56:40 – Understanding training principles, and the key takeaway from this episode