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Training for Altitude: Mental Training Tips for Altitude Trips
6.9k Plays8 months ago
In the newest episode of the Uphill Athlete podcast, Director of Coaching, Chantelle Robitaille and Director of Memberships Alexa Hasman, join Alyssa to discuss mental training tips in the preparation phase for big mountain expeditions or races in altitude. The three break down the unique mental challenges athletes face at altitude as well as sound principles of mental training recommended for safety and success. They address fears athletes may face in higher altitudes along with how to manage the stress of travel and foreign environments. Continue your altitude education with this episode to prime your mental game.
Check out more information here: https://uphillathlete.com/mountaineering-training/
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Transcript
Introduction to Mental Training at High Altitudes
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the uphill athlete podcast. Our mission is to elevate and inspire all mountain athletes through education and celebration. My name is Melissa Clark and I will be your host today. We're continuing with our educational series about altitude with our third episode and an emphasis on mental training prior to reaching the mountain or race situation.
00:00:31
Speaker
I'm joined today by return guest and director of coaching, Chantel Robitai, and our director of memberships and coach, Alexa Hasman. We learned of Chantel's background in altitude on our first episode, but Alexa, I'd love to hear a bit about your background and interest in mental training and your relationship with altitude.
Understanding Mental Challenges at Altitudes
00:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, so I am I have a master's in sports psychology. It's always been really interesting to me, basically how the brain works and how our mood state changes when we're in, especially endurance events and how our psychological experience with that changes. So I wanted to understand my clients better from psychological aspects. I always saw that as sort of a limiter. So that's why I focused my career and my education on the psychological side of things. So
00:01:20
Speaker
really interested in that. And then when I joined uphill athlete, you know, you add in this extra element of altitude, which can change everything when it comes to psychology and mental training. So that adds an extra interesting layer on top of it. It definitely does.
00:01:35
Speaker
I'd like to get more into it with you, Chantel, with your studies. I was never sure whether to say of altitude, on altitude, in altitude, all of the things. How much did you look at the mental aspects of altitude? Definitely, I would say during my studies, we did look at that aspect and sort of, I would say almost like two prongs of this aspect.
00:02:05
Speaker
One aspect were the challenges faced by simply by decreased ability to recover, decrease in performance, decrease in sleep, how those things affect someone's mood and things like that. But also looking at when people were traveling for an expedition or for a race, they're also faced with not only these physiological changes that are happening when they go to higher altitudes.
00:02:36
Speaker
not so shameless plug. Check out our other episodes on this where particularly the one where Martin, Alyssa and I dive into physiological changes. You know, female athletes will experience some potentially some perturbations to their menstrual cycle. They're going to be exposed to different foods, different culture, different communications that elevates your stress level. And
00:03:02
Speaker
on top of the physiological stress that you're faced that can make even simple things harder than they typically would be. You have also the extra mental challenge for people spending longer periods at higher altitudes, particularly expeditions. You have different types of weather and climates that people are experiencing, especially on those
00:03:29
Speaker
very long climbs. Like if we're looking at our very extreme climbs, like you're going to extreme altitudes, 8,000 meters, you're going to have some weather delays.
Impact of Altitude on Mood and Cognitive Function
00:03:42
Speaker
That's lots of time sitting around in a camp. That's lots of time doubting your abilities. That's lots of time not adapting maybe to the food and not sleeping. So there's all of those different challenges that are happening in conjunction with the physiological changes.
00:03:58
Speaker
And as we learned from one of our previous episodes, one of the aspects that is important to think about when we're going to higher altitudes is the fact that we have lower blood oxygenation. So that means there's reduced blood supply going to the brain. And whether or not you're experiencing any type of degree of acute mountain sickness or something more serious, it's going to affect that oxygen supply. And so that can have an effect potentially on
00:04:28
Speaker
mood. And that's something that a lot of people aren't necessarily aware of in the beginning. So people might feel like they're a little bit more irritated or agitated. Combine that with some sleep deprivation or dehydration, you get the picture of how this can be a little bit of a snowball effect. And so I think it'll be great today to talk through some of those things that are happening, how you can be prepared for those things and how you can work in advance to try to mitigate some of those things.
00:04:58
Speaker
I want to talk about the other aspect of this that I also looked into through my studies. That was some really interesting studies that started to be done in the early 2000s, I would say, in the Western states, so the Rocky Mountain states. There were some studies being done that showed that there were higher incidences of mental health issues for people living in the Rocky Mountain states based on altitude.
00:05:28
Speaker
So they found that in some of these studies that there was an increased risk for depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts. Some of these studies show that these types of symptoms can be happening at
00:05:44
Speaker
even 1000 meters, so like three, you know, just under 5000 feet, which is, you know, pretty interesting to know. And then that there were a few more studies that were done more around like 5000 feet and 1500 meters. And this was theorized to be from the inflammatory and structural changes that happen in the brain when people are spending extended periods of time at altitude.
00:06:11
Speaker
So we're not talking even just people going to the death zone climbing Everest that are going to be experiencing these rather interesting changes in the brain, but they can happen at more moderate altitudes as well. And so typically thinking about some of those things that may happen to people or that people may experience when they're either moving from a lower elevation and going to a higher elevation or they're spending
00:06:39
Speaker
you know, maybe they're spending a vacation, a longer vacation or a longer chunk of time at higher elevations. These are things that people should kind of be aware of and alert for. And also thinking about like just in general from the physiological changes that happen, we know that sleep deprivation, regardless of where we live, is going to affect us, right? We know that
00:07:04
Speaker
physical adaptations are going to be harder because recovery is more challenging. And then also for people on expedition, the sort of social isolation or even the pressures that they feel to summit are also there. So all of these things are going to play a big role in terms of how we perform from a physical aspect, but also how we perform from a mental aspect, how our brain is being
00:07:35
Speaker
impacted by this, how our ability to think clearly and adjust to changes and challenges are also going to be an impact. So it'll be awesome to have Alexa's perspective on this as well from a mental health and mental preparation side of things.
Psychological Preparation for Altitude
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that was an amazing overview of
00:07:58
Speaker
just the different ways the altitude affects us because I think there's a little bit of an idea of like oh you can get to altitude that's always good and I think it's great to step back and realize like hey it could have actually an impact on your day-to-day life that is beyond just kind of that like I don't feel this good for a little bit and then I get these huge training boosts etc so I think that that is a really good
00:08:25
Speaker
note to take is that, hey, if you are feeling that your mental health is not in a place that maybe it should be, you know, you're not alone in that. And that maybe there are factors that you can change or control. So I think that's super good. Just knowledge to have out there.
00:08:44
Speaker
So, Alexa, I'd love for you to start us off on, and Chantal mentioned a few of these, but what are some mental challenges that athletes could face heading into altitude that are, you know, unique to being in altitude versus say a race at sea level or, um, you know, a hard training day or hard effort?
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah, good question. So there's two main things that I consider when it comes to psychological aspects of preparing for altitude, and that is cognitive function. And the other one is mood states. So your cognitive function is a little bit
00:09:22
Speaker
less when we're at altitude. So we need to be aware of that. And by cognitive function, I mean how we're thinking, how quickly we're thinking, how fast we're reacting, all of that stuff. So we need to be aware of that. And our thinking might just be a little different than it is at sea level. Especially like Chantal said, when we're above 8,000 meters, that's when it gets even more of a consideration. But still, altitude of any sort can lead to cognitive function differences. And then you have mood states.
00:09:52
Speaker
like Chantal mentioned too, mood states, you're going to be more irritable. A lot of the time we see a lot more anxiety. And then couple that with already this innate fear that can come with these high altitude adventures or expeditions. So you have this already sort of underlying fear, then you add cognitive issues, and then you have anxiety on top of that.
00:10:20
Speaker
that's coupled with that creates a mood state that changes rapidly. So irritability, anxiety, extreme fear, irrational thoughts can be a big one. All of those things are things that we need to consider when we're out there in altitude. Yeah, Chantel, do you want to add anything that you've observed with athletes? I think Alexa gave a good overview there. I think one other thing to think about is that if someone is dealing with certain
00:10:48
Speaker
If a person is dealing with certain types of health conditions in their regular environment, being in this type of special environment, the altitude is one factor, obviously, but the environmental conditions in general are going to have a factor too, right? You could have altitude and
00:11:09
Speaker
Adverse weather conditions. And then you layer onto that someone being out of their routine away from their family and friends, not sleeping very well. It can be very isolating. People pay a lot of money for some of these expeditions, right? There's a lot of pressure to, to summit and they're sitting in the tent for like four or five days. It's boring. And they're wondering if they're going to be able to complete this mission. And that's really stressful, right?
00:11:37
Speaker
And so trying to manage that when you are experiencing some cognitive decline and sleep deprivation, you have a little bit of a perfect storm. So it's really important to know these things in advance and to think about these things in advance so that you can learn some coping strategies to work through these. And also thinking about, you know, your health in general, if someone is dealing with a certain type of health condition,
00:12:06
Speaker
where they live, like if someone is dealing with a mood disorder or a sleep disorder or something like asthma, these types of conditions, and these are just a few, these could be exacerbated in these new conditions because there are additional stressors, right, as someone's body is exposed to hypoxia and your body is trying to acclimatize. So for someone with asthma, for example,
00:12:32
Speaker
Even just knowing that you have it and it's in your brain that I'm probably going to suffer or this is maybe going to be difficult. That layer of stress is often there for someone who has asthma anyway when they're encountering a new situation, right? So that's going to be an additional stress that's going to be challenging to deal with. And if you already are susceptible to
00:12:56
Speaker
mood disorders or sleep disorders, we do know that there's some potential for an exacerbation of sleep problems and some mood issues at higher altitudes. So that's stressful. So you have all these layers of different types of stresses and some of the stresses are good and some of the stresses are not, but your body doesn't know the difference. So it's really important to be aware that all of these little things
00:13:27
Speaker
when you add them all together are not so little anymore. So we have to pay attention to all of those things. Definitely. And hopefully one of you might know this, sorry for the left field question, but how would someone go about finding out if their medication perhaps would conflict with going to altitude? Is that something like a general practitioner would know or would that be more of a specialist?
00:13:54
Speaker
who would say like, hey, if you're taking X for depression or anxiety or asthma, this could cause an issue at altitude. Yeah, I'm hoping that their doctor would know that. You know, I think that that would be your first line of defense with that. So, but if you're not sure, or if you're not feeling comfortable with if your, you know, medical professional seems to just brush you off,
00:14:21
Speaker
and doesn't take this, your question seriously or says, oh yeah, just says you have no reason to worry about it. A second opinion might be a good idea, right? There are some great travel doctors out there and some of these travel doctors are able to do online consultations.
Importance of Mental and Physical Training
00:14:40
Speaker
So I would say for anyone that's a little bit worried, for instance, I spoke to a woman the other day who is going on her very first
00:14:48
Speaker
high altitude expedition and she has sickle cell anemia. And her doctor had no idea if this would affect her. And so it's really important to try and get, you know, she was feeling nervous about it and reached out to us for some guidance. And I was able to point her in the direction of a travel doctor who has some experience in that area. So don't be afraid if you're worried about something in advance, I think one of the big things, we'll probably have a theme here today,
00:15:18
Speaker
controlling the controllable, it's always worth that extra call or extra little bit of investigation. Yeah, I think that makes total sense. I just wanted to kind of push on that point because
00:15:33
Speaker
general doctor, I mean, there's a lot of amazing medical professionals out there, but some of them are not, you know, as attuned to say, what a high altitude environment will be. And so I think sometimes what fits for the general public doesn't work as well and could become really problematic if you're going into extreme environments. So I think just making sure
00:15:56
Speaker
that you're finding the resources that understand what you're doing and the stress that you're putting on your body is super crucial, rather than sometimes more of a general population doctor just may not know that or may not, you know, there's so much to know having that specific focus is, is just a maybe outside of the scope of what they do.
00:16:23
Speaker
So we talk a lot about physical training. I think I am definitely at fault of this, of how we say one of the best ways to go into altitude, you know, be as fit as you can. Fitness cannot overcome everything with altitude, absolutely, but it is a great way to come into it. You know, you want to be as prepared as possible. But why is mental training just as crucial for going into these situations?
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, well, so mental training is important when going into any situation and or any sort of expedition or adventure, even at sea level. And then, you know, you add in altitude. You've got to think about a few more things. So, yeah, it's it's incredibly important because you're preparing yourself, you're preparing your mind. And that's why interventions like imagery is a really good one because you're preparing yourself for that situation.
00:17:21
Speaker
and prepping yourself as much as possible. And when we talk about imagery in terms of altitude, we want to think of it a little bit differently. And we want to try and put ourselves in a little bit of a closer situation in terms of in an altitude room or something like that or in a colder temperature so that we can properly imagine the circumstances. This might not always be possible, but we want to try and mimic it
00:17:47
Speaker
as close as we possibly can to try and imagine, all right, this is how it's gonna feel. What am I gonna do? How am I gonna stay calm? And then you switch over to self-talk and you practice that self-talk when you're in that situation too. I am strong, I am capable, I've done the training. And you really talk yourself through that stuff. So those are some of the key things that we wanna think about when heading into altitude and when we're adding in mental training
00:18:13
Speaker
to our physiological training. Add in that psychological training too. When you're out on those long days training, think of those mantras that you're going to tell yourself when you're out there climbing during your expedition. That way when you go out there and that cognitive function is a little bit less than ideal, you have it in the back of your head. You're not scrambling for, okay, how am I, how do I turn around myself talk now? You have it ready and practiced.
00:18:39
Speaker
you have that imagery ready in practice that you've been doing before you head out onto that expedition. Yeah, I love that. And also I think with
00:18:49
Speaker
altitude often comes, I think they're a little bit hand in hand, an element of danger, where things can go unexpectedly, there could be crevasses, there could be syrochs, you know, there's a lot of extra elements, and just the nature of being in an altitude is it's compromising. And so it sounds like, you know, if you practice that imagery, if you practice how you're going to react,
00:19:13
Speaker
to potentially stressful situations, then you can help yourself not to react in it versus acting as you've pictured yourself doing. Yeah, and then once you're out there, the mental training gets a little different.
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if we want to jump ahead to that. Yeah, let's go. Chantel, do you want to add anything? I think what you said, Alyssa, is really great. Because when we're doing these types of things, for many people, this might be a brand new unique challenge that they're encountering. And so there are a lot of different things that are going to be new. So preparing yourself for all those elements the best you can, obviously, by
00:19:57
Speaker
you know, making sure your fitness is where it should be, making sure you have the skills to do what you're doing, like be honest with yourself. You know, practice, practice, practice and practice in all those different conditions. So like Alexa was saying, if you have the opportunity to go to, to spend some time doing some higher altitude hikes, do that. If you can get to an altitude room, do it. If you can do inter intermittent hypoxic training where you're doing some
00:20:24
Speaker
some different intervals on a treadmill or on a bike with the mask on and you're getting to experience how it feels to be in those different oxygenated and less oxygenated environments, the more prepared you are for how it's going to feel so that there's less of a panic response I think is also good. What's it like to eat food on the run? What's it like to
00:20:53
Speaker
deal with ropes and equipment when you have gloves or mittens on, all of those things, right? If you're prepared, then when something happens, then there's a little bit more of a, your brain kind of knows what to do. And when your mental capacity is a little bit diminished, if there's a little bit more, if you can be a bit more reflexive or not having to go through a list of 20 scenarios, but you've already cut three things already there in your brain that you can pick from to do, it's helpful.
00:21:23
Speaker
Recognizing that fear is going to be there and we can react to fear or we can respond to fear. I think to your point, Alyssa, by doing this type of preparation, we can be prepared to respond to our fear rather than reacting to it.
Personal Experiences and Comprehensive Preparation
00:21:43
Speaker
We can keep as much of our level of power and control as we can in the situation.
00:21:51
Speaker
Practicing that and putting ourselves into new situations and working through those situations gives us the confidence to work through that.
00:22:01
Speaker
Absolutely. And I can say from experience that there is a big difference between rock climbing at 100 feet at sea level and 11,000 feet. There's just a massive difference in A, the physical capacity that you need, but also when you have, for example, my husband and I did a trip to Chamonix and we were doing, you know, some albinism and rock climbing and all of that and
00:22:30
Speaker
when you add in like okay preparing everything then taking um you know the gondola up and then you have to generally do some kind of a catwalk a glacier traverse you're carrying all this gear you might have a sarok crossing um i'm sorry or a bertrand crossing there might be a sarok above you and then you're rock climbing it's like all these moments where your your
00:22:59
Speaker
ability to kind of keep it together and stay mentally sharp or test it in a way because you're not just walking from your car on a nice dirt path to you know go boulder or go sport climb for a little bit. So there's so many mental elements of safety of like the weather etc that are coming into it. I know for myself that I
00:23:24
Speaker
I'm really good for a few days and then I kind of reach this capacity where it's like I'm so I like my stress levels too high and I have to like decompress because it's just it's really taxing just to exist in that environment and then add on the physical challenge, you know, taking on something that
00:23:43
Speaker
you know is pushing you in a different way like you're already pushed and then that extra level can be um a lot so i can say from experience that it definitely you know there's so many pieces like something that might be really straightforward uh when you're kind of quote unquote on the ground is very different when you're adding in um all of those altitude pieces
00:24:07
Speaker
Sorry for the little rant, but when should athletes start this mental training, this imagery? How much time should they devote within their training to specific mental training? So I think they should start right away. I think when you start training,
00:24:29
Speaker
physically for your expedition you should be start mental training and that's you know you can start with setting goals and knowing that your goals might change when you're out there and being flexible and adaptable with that but setting goals has been shown for altitude expeditions to be really beneficial when it comes to mentally preparing.
00:24:50
Speaker
So set your goals, make sure that they're not, you know, not I want to summit goals because that's not necessarily up to you, right? So that that can be the call of the mountain. But process goals. What am I going to do while I'm out there? What do I want to feel like? How, you know, when do I want to
00:25:12
Speaker
Do I want to make sure I'm doing a good job with that? Do I want to make sure I'm doing a good job of feeling strong legs wise or whatever it may be? But process goals rather than you know outcome goals. That's what I would I would want for the expeditions So yeah starting right away right when you start training set those goals then start switching over to imagery training and add in that self-talk to practice all those things and
00:25:41
Speaker
Chantel, anything you want to add into that? I think also thinking about like there are going to be certain aspects that you're not going to be able to control, but there are certain ones that you can. So really start to think about the things that you can control. So one, how can you make sure that you're the best prepared, you know, and that goes from like, of course, do your training and be prepared, but also like look into your health.
00:26:06
Speaker
Make sure that you are healthy and in a good place. In particular, that your iron stores are in a good place so that you'll be able to adapt well, making sure that you don't have any other underlying health conditions that you haven't really been aware of. What medications are you on? Talk to your doctor to figure out whether there might be some adjustments to make to your medications.
00:26:32
Speaker
Making sure that you are really well aware of all the different technical skills that you're going to need for your expedition, your climb, or your race. And do a proper evaluation of where those are at. And make sure that you dedicate time to really bringing those skills up to the highest level that you can manage. And also think about your personal limitations and risk tolerance.
00:27:03
Speaker
This is a good time to talk that through with whether it's a guide that you're going to be going with or a partner that you're going to be going with. Talking those things through early, talking about your fears with those partners early, I think is also important so that you can, it's a little bit easier if you each are aware of each other's strengths and challenges or strengths and limitations in advance of your objective, whatever that might
Managing Mental Challenges and Personal Limitations
00:27:30
Speaker
be.
00:27:30
Speaker
so that it's not a surprise. You know, it's not a good idea that when you get into your tent with your partner that you tell them suddenly that you have anxiety being in a small space, right? So it's good to try to get these things out in advance if you can and talk through those fears with them. So as you're, you know, Alexa had some really great tips on
00:27:53
Speaker
on imagery and self-talk, you can practice that every day as you're going about your everyday business. And we all do this all the time, right? It's like you forget something and you say, Oh, how could I be so stupid? There's a perfect opportunity to practice that in your everyday, right? That's a negative thought. That's not going to be helpful. What is going to be a more helpful thing to say to myself and start bringing this into your everyday practice so that it's becoming
00:28:20
Speaker
more of a habit and it's more of a reaction. You're not having to think it through. And that same goes for like all skills, right? We have to continually practice them until they're really automatic. And I think that is also really helpful. And also make sure that you are realistic about the goal that you're putting yourself towards and that you're realistic about your acclimatization schedule and strategy.
00:28:45
Speaker
because a big part of being able to manage the mental challenges that you're going to face are really closely tied to how well you're going to be able to sleep, eat, and take care of yourself. Because if you don't, you're going to start experiencing some problems and then all of these small things start to become like a snowball. So really making sure that you have a realistic plan in mind
00:29:14
Speaker
and that you're listening to your body and that you're communicating your limitations to the people that you're on your adventure with.
00:29:25
Speaker
No, I love that. I mean, the partnership is so crucial. I mean, it's literally life or death. Those partnerships that guide our communication. Yes, totally. And also, you know, how you're going to react in rescue situation, making sure that your partner knows how to rescue you. Do you only possess that knowledge? Is your gear distributed correctly? Like there's all of those pieces to it.
00:29:54
Speaker
But also just practicing those skills and practicing the mental pieces of that. Are you ready to achieve your mountaineering objectives and perform better at altitude?
00:30:10
Speaker
At Uphill Asset, you can train your way with our field-tested, science-backed training programs. Choose from training plans, personal coaching, or the new Uphill Asset training membership. Check out the link in the show notes and start training.
00:30:25
Speaker
Alexa, you've mentioned a few specific pieces, but how, say someone has a climb coming up in five to six months, do you have, like, not, you don't have to go through the full thing, but kind of how would you outline some mental preparation for that person?
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, and that's also super person-specific, too, because you have to take into consideration whether they have anxiety or fear if they're coming off of, if they're recovering from injury. All sorts of factors go into mental training that are very personal and highly individualized. But from the perspective of just a very general outline, you want to set those goals immediately.
00:31:15
Speaker
And you can work on them as you go for the first little month or so. And then outline when we're going to move on to imagery in the next two months after that. And then self-talk as we get closer. And you still want to intermix all these things at the same time. While you're working on imagery, you want to add in that self-talk as well.
00:31:36
Speaker
But then, you know, add in if we're dealing with fear, we're going to want to have some aspect that we're conquering that fear or working towards like overcoming it. If we have anxiety, we're going to be working on breathing techniques. If we're coming off of an injury, we're going to be dealing with calming down that nervous system and and having
00:31:55
Speaker
Decreasing that fear of injury or fear of illness that seems to be a lot to you know Like oh I had haste last time I did this expedition Now what do I do as I head into this next one? I'm terrified of going through that again So we need to work on what are we gonna do in terms of decreasing that anxiety around those things as well So you have a lot of factors that go into that mental training. I wish it was like I
00:32:22
Speaker
You know, like you could write a training plan for somebody for. Here are your five steps. I know. I was like, I feel like such a jerk that I just asked you the worst possible question to a coach ever. That's like, oh, go through a training plan for someone specifically for six months. So you answered that perfectly. Depends on the person, you dumb dumb in a much nicer way. The standard coach answer.
00:32:48
Speaker
I think that you bring up a good situation with that. A lot of people do think mental training is this one size fits all, and it's really not because our brains are all so different. My fears might be different than Alyssa's fear. My anxiety is definitely different. All those things are going to be totally different, and my history of training is going to be different.
00:33:13
Speaker
You got to take in that individual into consideration. And so, you know, you can read a blog that says the five mental training tips and sure, that'll give you some good ideas. That's great. But you're going to have some gaps in who you are as an individual when conquering this expedition with mental training. I love that. Chantal, do you want to add anything on? No, I think Alexa did a great, great job covering that. I think it's also it's a little bit situational, too, right?
00:33:42
Speaker
Um, if people are doing different things over their lifetime, there may be times where, um, like, let's say someone starts climbing and they're in their twenties and they are single and they're, have a certain element level of comfort with risk because they're, they've got their challenges and whatever. I think this is a common one that, that we, we see.
00:34:07
Speaker
And then they get a little bit older and they're still continuing to challenge themselves in different ways. But now they maybe are a different person a little bit. They now maybe have children. They maybe now have a partner. They maybe now have some kind of injury that they're dealing with that they didn't have before. So every single time it's also going to be different. It's going to be situational. You know, it could be, it could be they as a person who are a little bit different.
00:34:34
Speaker
Their tolerance for risk may change a little bit over time. Their abilities may change, they scale up or down at different times. And also if they're going, exposing themselves to different environments and different places in the world, different levels of technicality, it's not always going
Adaptation and Overcoming Mental Barriers
00:34:55
Speaker
to be the same. So they could have a situation where everything worked perfectly
00:35:00
Speaker
And it could be just that the stars all aligned and that was how it was. The next time it's not, might not be the same, but it doesn't mean that like, same goes as if you had a bad experience. It doesn't mean that you're going to have a bad experience the next time, but you have to really break down that experience to figure out what are the things that I can do? What are the most things I can do to mitigate as much as I can? Of course, there's always going to be stuff that we
00:35:26
Speaker
don't expect and that's part of the fun, right? But we want to think about what are the things that we really can control and manage in advance so that we take away as many of those factors as we can. And be realistic, you know, like just because you, like if you were someone who did a lot of adventures and climbing in your 20s and 30s and then you did nothing for 20 years because you, you know, in the mountains for 20 years because you were working and
00:35:54
Speaker
raising kids and now you have your 60th birthday coming up and you want to climb Mont Blanc, you're not that same 20 year old person that you were. You know, physically, mentally, your life too is not the same. So you have to really always evaluate who you are and where you're at now as well.
00:36:14
Speaker
Definitely. I think of the things I did before I had a steady partner and got married and all of that. You feel bad for parents because you're like, oh wow, I just didn't really think that much. I just went for it. Assessment of risk tolerance is, I think, super critical.
00:36:36
Speaker
I just, this just occurred to me and again, sorry for throwing the curve ball, but I, and again, I'm at fault of doing this too, but I really often will say when I'm talking to a new client, like how have you dealt with altitude in the past or like, what's your experience with Ben? Like, are you good at altitude or are you bad at altitude in a way?
00:36:58
Speaker
because some people tend to naturally fare a little bit better in altitude than others. But I think that pretty much sets someone up for immediately being like on bad at altitude. And so that's running through their head. Yeah, it's in, sorry, Alexa was just like, yes, that's kind of me. And like, I have always felt pretty good at altitude. So I'm like, oh, yeah, I deal with altitude fine. And that could not actually be that true.
00:37:28
Speaker
But I feel like there is that mental barrier that you're already setting yourself up from that like very binary black and white, whereas it's probably or it is much more gray than that situation. Yeah, I'm curious what your both your thoughts are on that. I've had to really change myself talk around that because you know, I had a potential hate situation.
00:37:51
Speaker
at an ultra and um and i was terrified of like well i i cannot run at altitude at all like i i suck i'm just physiologically not made for it and i think that that was a narrative that i wrote myself into because since then i have
00:38:08
Speaker
been at that same altitude and done fine. And I need to like sort of overcome that fear myself and work on myself talk of like, it's not that I suck at altitude, it was the situation, it was the all these factors that sort of combine to make that day just a really
00:38:26
Speaker
bad day for me. And that doesn't mean that I can't make the next time I'm at that altitude a much better experience. So I look forward to doing that at Tor and it will go way better. I believe it. Chantel, what do you think about that? Also with your coaching background? Yeah, the brain is so powerful, right? You know, if and we have so many stories that we might be telling ourselves, and I think that's why it's
00:38:55
Speaker
it's really important to also get some proper advice because people are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on an expedition or a trip or something like that. But then they balk at getting a coach or even just having a proper medical consultation. Maybe a travel doctor is outside of your insurance and the consultation with that travel doctor might be
00:39:25
Speaker
$300. What's $300 in the grand scheme of things if you can get some good information about how to prepare yourself better or speaking with a mental performance coach, you know, once a couple of sessions with a mental performance coach or speaking with a coach that can make sure that can walk you through a lot of the things we talk about controlling the controllable
00:39:54
Speaker
you know, being really well prepared, like taking away as many of the small details that you have to think about. So your brain has a little more capacity for the important things because the brain is so powerful. And you know, the more you can minimize those, those little, uh, circular things going around in your brain so that you have more capacity for the important things, the better.
00:40:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I see it all the time in a different example of
00:40:25
Speaker
People trying to cut nutrition, well, they won't take the nutrition they need for a race and practice. And it's like, but it's not going to work. It's like you put so much effort, time, plane tickets, race entry fees, all of that. And then they try to cut on the thing that's keeping them moving forward. And I feel for it. It's expensive. These sports are really expensive. And it's unfortunate that they're prohibitive in that regard.
00:40:54
Speaker
But there's also things where it's like, wait, but no, that's not where we can compromise. Like, that's really important. And I yeah, it's, it's just always very interesting where people choose that line to fall for a lot of things. And I totally agree. It's like, you've invested this much. And then, you know, the stumbling factor is something that actually was pretty doable to at least be aware of it. Mm hmm. Yeah.
00:41:23
Speaker
You know, like I think those are when we think about like the whole cost of going on an adventure. I think all those aspects, you know, that are important in terms of the preparation, particularly for people that are doing something that is new or outside of their comfort zone. I think it's important to think about like, what can you do? What are the things you can do to give yourself the best chance of success? And don't skimp on that. Like you wouldn't skimp on, you know,
00:41:52
Speaker
a good quality sleeping bag to keep you warm at night or a tent. Why are you skimping now? I feel like people will, but. Well, maybe some people will, but you know that we think about the things that that we're willing to maybe more willing to spend money on. You know, it's like easy to like sign up for the race and absorb that cost and book the flight tickets and the Airbnb and everything else and prepare the crew and
00:42:19
Speaker
all of those things. Um, but if you do all of that work and you invest all that money, but you don't train properly or you don't fuel yourself properly and you don't get to the end of that race, right? With a little bit more, um, with, with, uh, managing your resources a little bit differently and preparing yourself a little bit better. That's really the key part of your, a really key part of your success is your own physical and mental preparation.
00:42:49
Speaker
Yeah. No, it is. It's super crucial. And it just, I always say also, you know, a lot of times you can grit through it. I mean, people, humans are amazing. They can get through kind of unbelievable feats of physical and mental difficulty.
Balancing Enjoyment and Challenges in Altitude Events
00:43:07
Speaker
But if you want to enjoy it,
00:43:09
Speaker
Like, that's the other piece. I say this with clients at times where I'm like, do I believe that you could grit through X event? Yes, I do. But I want you to enjoy the actual event. I don't want you to just barely survive it. So how, you know, these are the things we need to do to make that an actual like, I can't say fun all the time, because it's not I don't think the point of it is to be fun all the time. But at least like, overall,
00:43:37
Speaker
you look back at it with like, this was an incredible experience. Yeah, you want it to be more type two fun than type three, right? Yeah. Let's keep it type two. Oh, gosh. Type two. Yeah, I think I've only had one experience in my life that was really type three fun. And I still like that was the worst. What's it for? Honestly, that's to be fair is a racing experience.
00:44:08
Speaker
Tor was, oh man, still not that far off. No, it was this really silly hill repeat thing. Did not want to do it. Did not enjoy it while I was doing it. Do not look fondly on it retrospectively. That's what I think of as type three fun where it's like, didn't want to do it. Didn't enjoy it. Regret doing it. Yeah, totally. I feel this.
00:44:32
Speaker
Yeah, type one is like pure enjoyment. Type two is like, it was hard, but it was like, so worth it. And I'm so glad I did it. Yeah. Type three is like none of those things. Never again. So we've kind of touched on this, but what are some of the fears that athletes face going into altitude and how might they deal with them?
00:44:56
Speaker
Alex, you've spoken a bit about your own experience, and Chantel has mentioned these as well. But yeah, what are we thinking about going into altitude? Oh, man, there's so much. There's so much. There are. Altitude sickness being one of the biggest ones, you know, death being a huge one, injury being a huge one. Oh, yeah, there's just so much that
00:45:20
Speaker
um can happen out there so there there's there's very rational it's infinite yeah it's infinite totally yeah and so yeah to touch on sort of when we're out there when we're doing mental training when we're out on the expedition
00:45:36
Speaker
We want to play into our imagery and our self-talk and looking back at our goals, but there's two other things that we can really work on too. What's been proven to work really well at altitude is association. There's two different sides of things. There's association and there's disassociation. Both are helpful in mental training and during the endurance events.
00:46:00
Speaker
When you're out at altitude association, which is thinking about exactly what's going on in the moment is really beneficial. So thinking like, all right, my right foot is taking a step. My left foot is taking a step. Those sorts of things. Looking around you, thinking about, okay, I can feel my quad muscles. I am so strong. Stuff like that. Being really in that moment can be really helpful in mitigating that fear.
00:46:25
Speaker
and staying really present. Then you also have disassociation and it has its role too in the altitude experience. So disassociation is thinking, you know, saying your favorite
00:46:41
Speaker
song or just thinking about the beach that you want to be on. Or I like to think about the burrito I'm going to have afterwards, disassociating from where I am at that moment. And that can help relieve some of that anxiety and tension too. But between the two, when we are at altitude, we want to focus a little bit more on association versus disassociation. When we think of something like a 100 miler, disassociation is going to come a little bit more in
00:47:09
Speaker
in handy because we can't physically say associated for 24, 25, 26 hours straight, right? That would just be mentally exhausting. So we do need to play with that disassociation too. Yeah, that's super helpful. How do we then taking that and yeah, the fear factor is infinite. And I think you broke it down beautifully. Also the controllable and the uncontrollable and recognizing how those shake out in the mountains.
00:47:39
Speaker
But Chantel, how do you help an athlete to deal with the stress of traveling to a big expedition, often in very far away countries? Yeah, how do you help them navigate that?
Addressing Travel Stress and Mental Clutter
00:47:55
Speaker
I think Alexa touched on this a little bit, too, is that the fears are normal, and there are going to be rational fears and irrational fears, right?
00:48:07
Speaker
Thinking about what those are in advance. What are those? As silly as they might be. Put them somewhere. And so I know for when I work with a lot of athletes, we do this in a few different ways. So one, we think about like, what are the skills that we feel you are going to need for this adventure expedition race? Let's write them all down. And now let's rank them on a scale of one to 10.
00:48:37
Speaker
uh, strong, do you think that skill is right now? So that could be, that could be rope skills. That could be, um, that could be nutrition. That could be, you know, uh, being able to sleep and recover all those things. So we rank them in advance. Where do you think you are right now? And anything that is like, uh, that they rank, self rank as an eight or less, we talk it through and think about how can we improve that skill or how can we improve that thing?
00:49:06
Speaker
So it's kind of like, and then we can build our training plan around that. So the training plan will have elements of yes, the physical training, but there will also be elements of improving skills. And some of those are hands-on technical skills. And some of those are mental training skills, you know, putting yourself through different scenarios, practicing different skills. Another one, if we think about like the travel aspect, same kind of thing, what are you afraid of?
00:49:35
Speaker
Write them all down. It could be as small or as big as you think it is. And we just have a Google document. And if it pops in your mind and you're thinking about it and that thought pops up more than two times, it's going on the list. Because now get it out of your head, stop it from rattling around, park it somewhere. Park it somewhere so that we can look at it and we can analyze it and determine, is that a rational fear or an irrational fear? And if it's a rational fear,
00:50:05
Speaker
What are some ways to tackle that, either in advance or in the moment? And so I think some people can make themselves crazy thinking about all of the different aspects, or they're reading a million blogs. They're reading a million blogs, a million books. They'll listen to all the podcasts. And then every day, they have something that they're texting their coach about, like, I'm really worried about this. I'm really worried about that. They might need to stop researching a little bit, right?
00:50:35
Speaker
they might need to stop the madness a little bit and like put a little bit more emphasis on like what they're doing and what's important for them. And for others, they might need to do a little bit of research. Like, you know, you're worried about this, like maybe the maybe there's a book you might read or a blog that you might be interested in or something like that. Or maybe they need a little bit of extra help from someone else. So maybe if they have like a lot of these fears and
00:51:05
Speaker
they find like that list of things that they're parking, they're sort of like parking space is getting really jammed up. Maybe it's a good idea to talk to someone about it, you know? And there are some really great mental performance coaches that can do a really great job of that because sometimes they might just need an extra person. Yeah, we have one on our team, Alexa for sure. And that can be helpful. But just know that like, there's no,
00:51:35
Speaker
judgment on these things, right? Like how you feel is how you feel that no one gets to tell you you can't, but it's not a bad idea to like get that stuff out of your brain and then look at it from a more objective point of view and then look at the things that you could do something about, that you can do something about, that you should do something about or that you shouldn't spend too much time thinking about and try to manage
00:52:04
Speaker
some of the mental chatter that's going on and maybe clouding things for you. Yeah, I think that's super helpful and I think oftentimes just the nature of writing it down or addressing it can be so relieving because it gets it out of the space
00:52:23
Speaker
in your head where you're just ruminating on it and figuring out worst case scenarios where it's like, Oh, you say to someone and they go, Oh, well that doesn't normally happen. Or like, that would be create, like, that would be super rare to have happen. Or yeah, you should probably research that a little bit more. That's very possible. So I find often when I just verbalize it is massive sense of relief of just, okay, I don't have to either take this on alone, or be dwelling on it without an answer.
00:52:53
Speaker
How does that old saying go when you're worried about something? It's, can you do something about it? The question is, can you do something about it? Here's my fear. Can you do something about it? If the answer is yes, then don't worry because you can do something about it. You can take action. There's no need to worry. Then if your answer to the question is no, there's nothing I can do about it, the answer's the same.
00:53:20
Speaker
then don't worry about it because there's literally nothing you could do about it. So like sometimes just like getting it out of there and then looking at it from an objective perspective can help maybe put it into perspective. But if you're really struggling with that, then, you know, talk to your climbing partner about it. And sometimes talking it through with someone kind of helps you realize like, okay, now I've talked about it. I just actually wanted to get it out of my brain and now I'm okay. Yeah.
00:53:49
Speaker
I also find sometimes acknowledging that something is scary actually makes it also way better where I've had a couple of times where I've been really scared. And I've been fine. But I had a friend be like, Yeah, that's your body's natural instinct to prevent you from dying. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, that's true. Like, this is scary. This is not without consequence. And that's okay. And just, yeah, and you're not you're not weak. There's not something wrong with you for being scared.
00:54:19
Speaker
No, that's actually good. It means your body's trying to keep you alive. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, feeling. Exactly. And I think that really helped. I was like, Oh, yeah, because I think sometimes, well, yeah, this is a huge topic. But yes, fear does not mean weakness. It does not mean you're not capable. It's yeah, we've got an actually your brain's response to, you know, what's happening around it. So
00:54:49
Speaker
Yeah, if you didn't have that, you would be in a lot of danger. You'd be if you didn't have a fear response, like you could end up in some really bad situations. Definitely. And we've actually, gosh, if you go back to our mountaineering episodes, we've had an episode on fear. So if you if you care to dig back in the archives, Alexa was on with Steve and myself to talk about fear.
00:55:18
Speaker
All right, well, I think that's about it.
Benefits of Mental Training Beyond Expeditions
00:55:21
Speaker
This has been awesome. Are there any other pieces you'd like to touch on before we sign off? No, I think I just want to say, I think that mental training is a really big aspect of training for these expeditions or when you're going to altitude. So consider preparing yourself and consider getting a mental training coach. So throw that out there. And actually, it's just good for life.
00:55:48
Speaker
It really is. Having mental flexibility and adaptability and being able to have positive self-talk and work through challenges in a calmer way, it's just a good life skill. So even if you think about, you know, you're investing in this
00:56:12
Speaker
aspect of your training for a race or for an expedition or an experience, it's actually going to benefit you in life. Just like doing these hard things and going through these adventures makes us feel stronger, more capable, more independent, more competent, more assertive, maybe in regular life. I feel like
00:56:40
Speaker
My nanny used to always tell me that it costs you nothing to carry around in education. And I feel that's what these things are, right? We are learning about ourselves. We are learning about our limits. And that's why it's exciting to put ourselves through these challenges. And this investment in time in ourselves is more than getting to the finish line or getting to that summit. It's really about life. I love that. Absolutely.
00:57:09
Speaker
Alexa, can you plug how people can do, be a part of receive mental training through UpoAthlete and through your services? Yeah, absolutely. Reach out to us for a consultation and we will connect and get to work on your mental performance.
00:57:29
Speaker
There's also mental training and memberships right now too, right? There is mental training and memberships. Right now we have a series going on for our group coaching level three membership. And we went over adaptability and resilience a couple weeks ago. But yeah, so we're doing a mental training series this next week, we actually are doing going through how to overcome slumps.
00:57:53
Speaker
when we're in slumps for training or during races. So it's been really fun. It's really interactive. We get to hear each other's stories of personal experiences with each of the topics, which has been really great. Just also want to mention that for our athletes who are working one on one with a coach or would like to work one on one with a coach, this mental training series that's happening in our group coaching is also available to our coached athletes.
00:58:23
Speaker
We have Alexa, who is a coach and is taking athletes still. And she's also available for one-on-one consultations, even though she might be a little bit too humble to share about her superpowers sometimes.
00:58:40
Speaker
Yeah, and all of those sessions are recorded. So even if you haven't signed up, you still want to sign up, you can go back and revisit those lectures and discussions on your own time and join in on the ones that are left. That's awesome. Part of memberships and being part of the community within coaching is that all these things are recorded. So
00:59:05
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thank you both and thank you audience for listening to the uphill athlete podcast. If you could rate, review, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, that helps us to help more athletes. It's not just one, but a community. We are uphill athlete.