After recently trekking the ABC over 10 days in Nepal I found a few little tips helped me along the way.

Nutrition and fitness tips for trekking at attitude. These tips help in terms of not loosing muscle mass, aiding performance and good preparation.

Nutrition recommendations when trekking

• Ginger and garlic: Split the garlic and put it into your water bottle along with the ginger. It aids in preventing altitude sickness. If you feel it come on – eat a clove along with drinking lots of fluids it really does help a lot. But it tastes like crap
• Tiger balm: Not just for the sore muscles but to help you breathe and for altitude headaches. Rub it on your temples and on your upper lip
• The local dried fruit, dates: Full of electrolytes and easy carbs. Keep a handful in your pocket along with mixed nuts to constantly snack on as you’re trekking. The key is to not let yourself reach depletion but keep a constant stream of energy intake for your body
• I find it helps to eat everything in sight: When on the mountains trying to stay in a calorie surplus, which is very hard. A soon as your cal surplus goes below your expenditure your body will turn to muscle and begin breaking it down for energy and amino acids. It does this to supply other areas of you body that need it more. Trust me, you won’t be able to put on weight while hiking for ten days. Eat!
• BCAA: The foundations of protein synthesis and muscle building. The body can’t produce these and so they must be ingested from food/supps. It’s often difficult to find adequate sources of nutrition to supply your body with the required levels of BCAA for maintaining and increasing fitness whilst travelling. Having these little gems helps with that. Grab them here
• Glutamine: Taking these supps aids in reducing muscle breakdown and improves protein metabolism. Glutamine is the most common amino acid found in your muscles—over 61% of skeletal muscle is Glutamine thus it’s essential to meet your body’s demand for it. Grab them here
• Take a tub of Nutella: It’s easy sugar and high fat content will help keep you in surplus, spoon it into a food bag.
• Salts, magnesium and potassium: Electrolytes, put them in your water to aid your body in absorbing water and utilising glucose.
• Eat blue berries and beetroot: For iron leading up to the trek. The more iron in your blood the more 02 you can absorb and thus deliver to your muscles.

Training recommendations for trekking

• These single leg pistol squats to jump squat will build total leg strength and add slow twitch fibres if done to a slow tempo on the negative phase. They also increase your VO2 max and cardio vascular output.
• If you’re planning to trek and aren’t currently travelling, using a cross trainer in a gym is a great way to increase your stamina and build your legs up to the constant demand needed. It keeps them under tension for time. Running is more explosive and can wear your knees down building up to trekking.