Climbing Mt. Denali: Program Design For Former Army Ranger Nicholas Ige- Part 1
Nicholas Ige is a veteran, Harvard student, and adventurer...who raises funds for veteran mental health and education by climbing the world’s 7 tallest mountains.
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Nicholas Ige is an interesting dude. We met serving together at the 75th Ranger Regiment years ago. He has always been a driven and tenacious person. Nick is always striving to improve, whether in his professional or personal life. However, I should provide the following warning:
He says “bro” a lot...a lot
Has worn/possibly still wears skinny jeans.
You will spend hours writing him a comprehensive training program and then without warning he’ll just run a half marathon. Then he tells you about it like it had no impact on the rest of his training…
Now that we have gotten the prop 65 out of the way we can continue...
A little over a year ago I randomly received this text showing Nick at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Getting a message like this from him isn’t that surprising. However, then he tells me:
He is a full time student at Harvard studying Neuroscience. Interesting, didn’t realize he was that smart, and then…
He tells me he is going to climb more mountains. I mean OK I guess that sounds fun and then...
He tells me he is going to run across Puerto Rico. OK I thought we were just climbing mountains but that does sound interesting but then…
RIGHT AFTER Puerto Rico he is going to climb Mount Denali, the tallest mountain in North America…
Photo by Lukas Ruzicka on Unsplash OK…Wait what are you doing with your life?
All for a phenomenal cause, Nick calls his new mission the “Seven Summits.” His main goal is climbing the tallest mountain on each continent to bring awareness and raise funds for veteran mental health and education. Nick’s calling isn’t unfounded. Tragically, veteran suicides in the U.S. range between 17 to 44 people...a day, or about 11,000 a year. I commend Nick for taking this topic head-on and attacking it in a way that fits his personality and dedication. He’ll always be a warrior.
Now, back to Nick’s endurance, strength, and mental feats. He wants to do it all, and he certainly has the motivation and mental fortitude to do it. However, during his attempt to run across Puerto Rico (which I guess was just a nice idea?) he had to stop at 50 miles (yes, just 50) due to some overuse injuries. Although disappointing, his focus was climbing Mount Denali in a couple months and he wanted to avoid any serious injuries. From my perspective, great that you ran 50 MILES...but how do we get you to recover prior to climbing a mountain that stands 23,310 feet above sea level?
Above: Displaying his fortitude, Nick finishes the 50th mile during his Puerto Rico run despite his feet and Achilles tendon not cooperating.
As fit as Nick is at 31, he had an extremely active military career, and his civilian life is obviously quite extreme. This comes along with it’s own mileage and injuries. As previously mentioned he is also a full time student at Harvard, which creates mental stressors often overlooked in holistic training. I think he realized he couldn’t continue to burn the candle at both ends, and this is often where I can help with motivated populations.
Denali
Nick asked for some guidance with his train-up to summit Mount Denali. We had about two months once he got back from Puerto Rico. Like with Police Officers and other tactical populations, I referenced the pyramid below to determine our focus:
We worked backwards from the date of his climb, and prioritized as we didn’t have that much time. Nick described the physical requirements of this event, which included wearing an 80lb pack while dragging 50-60lbs of supplies on a sled…and lets not forget this all at altitude. Good thing he was well rested before starting all of this…oh wait never-mind he just ran 50 miles...
Breakdown of my thought process:
Lifestyle, Diet, Sleep/Recovery, Injury Prevention:
Nick was beat-up. He did more than I would like in the “bro-split” department in the gym trying to fill out his shirts that were already too tight. He would also then log double digit weekly miles running around Harvard’s campus scaring the local populace. Then there was Puerto Rico. He needed to heal and relax for a bit. Thankfully he listened and spent some time on the beach as his feet returned to normal size.
Aerobic Capacity + Total Body Strength
Despite Nick’s “Bro-ness,” he still understands how to train and is no stranger to compound lifts. He isn’t a powerlifter, but compared to most he is quite strong. Especially when we consider how much conditioning he does. For Denali, in my opinion, at this point he was strong “enough” to accomplish this task. My goal was to maintain his strength or conservatively build it, and let him recover and ramp up his energy system training.
Aerobic/Total Body Power
I decided in Phase 1 we would use a traditional submaximal 5x5 sets/reps for his primary lift day. We could always use higher intensity methods later. Again, we want to safely build Nick up as he recovers, and then in phase 2 up the intensity/load as needed. The bulk of his conditioning in phase 1 will be in Zone 2 and 3, and some will be completed under load. Again…we can always add intensity later. Once you use high intensity methods, you can’t go higher. Always start with the minimum effective dose.
Lactic Power/Capacity
We touch on this in phase 2 a bit, but generally we didn’t need to go too far here. Climbing a mountain does not have a ton of max effort intervals lasting for 30 seconds at a clip, and this kind of work can be very taxing on the body. Nor, to my knowledge, Nick would be wrestling anyone at the top of the mountain (but anything is possible with him) so our primary focus would be building a huge aerobic engine and then briefly doing some work in this zone. I had to make sure Nick “felt” like he was working hard...he is one of those people.
Phase 1 and 2 Macro:
This is the first article in this series. Next installment will go into detail for Nick’s Phase 1 training block. Later we will discuss Phase II and Nick’s performance when he conquered Mt. Denali.
Great article. Quick question, what is “hri” and “hict” and “strength 1?” I’m assuming that’s what the next articles will be about. But looks solid. Also, what weight is he using for the rucks?