Mountaineering is just plain hard, and climbers who do big mountains tend to have a perverse attraction to suffering. I have heard mountain climbing described as hours and days of boredom and hard labor punctuated by an occasional moment of stark fear. Of course Ernest Hemingway made his famous quote, “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”

There is a Pilates exercise called The Mountain Climber. It is done on an apparatus called “The Chair,” When I was first being taught the beginner version of the exercise I thought “this will be a piece of cake,” after all I am a climber. I was surprised to see the weakness the exercise revealed in my ability to step up and balance on this chair with its spring loaded pedal. Like many Pilates exercises, Mountain Climber requires an athlete to fully commit to the movement from their core, to use all the muscles of the leg (not just the quads,) and to do so while their balance and proprioception are challenged. Also, like many Pilates exercises this one gets progressively harder as the resistance of the apparatus is reduced, forcing the athlete to move and control their body weight more.

My own experience is this. Pilates will not help a mountaineer with aerobic fitness, altitude training and technical skills.  What Pilates gives me is the strength and toughness to take a beating – something the mountains are always able to deliver. A little slip when tired is less likely to cause a pulled muscle or more severe injury. Moving over difficult terrain with a heavy pack is easier. Cleaner, more efficient movement leads to improved endurance and speed. Something Joseph Pilates used to talk about was how a person should be able to use 25% of their strength for almost everything they do, keeping the balance in reserve for an emergency. On a mountain this emergency could be the difference between life and death, for example having to regain one’s balance to avoid a fall.

photo: Kristian Solem

Royce Peak as seen looking up through the steep pass known as “Coco-la” in the California Sierra Nevada.

When I was trying to get back to rock climbing and mountaineering following shoulder surgery it took one workout with a good teacher for me to realize the potential of this method. Before then my concept of Pilates was that it was a weak workout you could read about in Cosmopolitan magazine. Now I know better. Pilates is hardcore, and even the toughest mountain men and women will be challenged by the work, and made stronger by it.