Training

Training in a traditional gym with weights, bands and body weight will help you gain strength and learn how to balance your own body while carrying weight. This will help you improve your functional movements you will need for every day tasks on the mountain like ascending and descending slopes, walking on ice and slippery terrain while carrying you backpack, etc. You should train all your body including your core (abdominals and lower back) calves, hips, quads, hamstrings, and glutes which are all used for ascending and descending slopes. Training your upper back, and shoulders will help you endure the weight of your backpack, and strength endurance is required for all your leg muscles.

Exercises that are widely used in gyms are overhead presses, pushups, bench presses, dead lifts, rows, pull-ups, dips, step-ups, lunges, and squats.

When beginning your training, you have to focus on building a solid foundation without harming yourself, so you should concentrate on doing the movements completely and slowly even though you use light weights. You should start doing 8 to 15 reps and adding weight slowly but progressively. As you get accustomed to the training, you can start shifting the focus and doing less than 8 reps but adding more weight. This will avoid stagnancy in your strength building. Two months away from your climb, you could focus your training on strength endurance to turn the gained strength into greater endurance on the mountain. You can start doing 15+ reps with light weights until muscle failure. Always remember to perform the exercises properly to avoid injuries or strain.

Although biking, rowing and swimming are great aerobic activities widely recommended because they injure your body, for mountaineering it is absolutely necessary to include activities that load your spine and legs in the same way that hiking up the mountain will do it. So, although you can start in a very early phase with the activities mentioned above, you will have to add training activities such as jogging, walking up and down hills, trail running, stair-stepping or even step-aerobic classes.

Always remember to warm up your muscles for 5 to 10 minutes before beginning with the activity, not forgetting to stretch your muscles as well. You can start with 40 minute workouts three times a week and gradually increase the effort until you can do 60 minute workouts 4 or 5 times per week. Remember to stretch after your training sessions.

You should include in your routine 10 minutes of stretching before every workout and 10 minutes after every workout. This will help you protect your muscles and avoid injuries. Since you will be hiking for multiple hours, on extreme conditions every day, you should pay special attention to gaining flexibility in your quadriceps, lower back, forearms, calves, hips, glutes and hamstrings.