Training for the New Alpinism A Manual for the Climber as Athlete

The content was interesting and informative but it was like reading one of my college textbooks. Some parts were definitely a struggle.

Reading Jon Krakauer's superb memoir Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster has left me with a lot of questions, so I started looking for a book that would help me get to the bottom of high-altitude climbing. I hit the jackpot with "Training for the New Alpinism". Steve House and Scott Johnston start with the fundamentals of training, eating, and exercising and then show how to translate that knowledge into a proper methodology for getting your body and mind ready to hit 5,000+ meter peaks. Even if you are not planning to climb Denali or Annapurna anytime soon, I strongly recommend this book for the amount of valuable advice it has on building your strength training routine and devising the right nutrition and regimen to go along with that. For example, Steve and Scott's advice on increasing the number of pull-ups you can do is brilliant and immediately actionable. And their stories on the challenges of maintaining proper calorie intake at the high-altitude - eye-opening (and downright scary). But of course, there is more! The book is choke-full of gorgeous climbing pictures and personal stories of celebrity climbers. And, you know, reading about how all these people caught their mountain bug; the type of gruelling training they have to put up with for a chance of spending a few weeks in the mountains; learning about the tough situations they face when exposed to the elements and how much ingenuity goes in surviving these - all of that puts the daily grind we - regular mortals spending their lives at the sea level - in a perspective. I felt inspired to reach for more and challenge myself to do the things I would never dream of before. And for that, I thank you Steve and Scott!