The story behind TTM

There was no tool that told me the truth about my readiness.

"I trained harder than I ever had. But I arrived at altitude unprepared - not from lack of effort, but from lack of the right information."

Train to Mountain was founded by Jakob Ulcnik, a mountain athlete based in the Netherlands. After years of training for alpine climbing and high-altitude mountaineering revealed that no existing platform actually measured readiness for a specific peak, Jakob built the personalised mountaineering training app he could not find.

Jakob Ulcnik, founder of Train to Mountain, at altitude with mountain backdrop
Jakob Ulcnik - founder & mountain athlete

My name is Jakob and I'm a mountain athlete. Like many people who pursue alpine climbing and high-altitude mountaineering, I've spent years building strength, endurance, and technical skill. I've logged thousands of vertical meters. I've trained periodically, tracked my Chronic Training Load (CTL), optimized my Acute Training Load (ATL). I did everything right - or so I thought.

Jakob ascending a snow slope with trekking poles
Somewhere in the Alps - training day

But when I arrived at altitude for my objective, I wasn't ready. Not because I hadn't trained hard enough. I'd trained harder than ever before. The problem was different: I didn't actually know if I was cardiovascularly prepared for the specific altitude and duration of my climb. I had data scattered across different platforms - my Garmin tracked metrics, various apps logged my sessions, a spreadsheet held my plan. None of them actually understood whether I had the VO₂max, the aerobic base, the Acute Training Load (ATL) resilience, or the Training Stress Balance (TSB) profile to succeed at the altitude I was targeting.

Aerial view of an alpine face - snow and rock debris
The mountain seen from above

I looked at every tool available to mountain athletes. Endurance training platforms are powerful - but they're built for cyclists and triathletes working with coaches. They don't understand altitude physiology or mountain-specific demands. Mountain-specific coaching platforms have excellent methodology rooted in solid exercise science - but the training is rigid, template-based, with no adaptive engine. General fitness and activity trackers don't even attempt to model readiness. They're logbooks, not intelligence systems.

A lone climber - barely a dot - on a vast alpine face
The scale of it - one person, one mountain

The insight came when I realized something that changed everything: The science already exists. The Banister fitness-fatigue model has existed since 1975 (with sex-specific coefficients added in the 1991 validation). We understand VO₂max decline at altitude. We know how Chronic Training Load (CTL), Acute Training Load (ATL), and Training Stress Balance (TSB) predict athletic performance. We can model the Summit Readiness Score (SRS) - the probability of success at your specific objective altitude and duration. What was missing wasn't research. It was a platform built for mountain athletes that integrated real wearable data, applied altitude-specific exercise science, and made it conversational and adaptive instead of rigid.

So I built the tool I wished had existed: Train to Mountain. Not another training app. A unified training intelligence system that understands what it actually takes to arrive at altitude ready. Shaped by the physiology of altitude, and designed from the ground up for mountain athletes like you and me.

One platform. Every mountain discipline.

Today, Train to Mountain focuses on what we know best: alpine climbing and high-altitude mountaineering. But the vision is much larger.

Today
Alpine climbing, mountaineering
Building Now
Trail running & ultramarathon, ski touring & ski mountaineering, high-altitude trekking
The Long Vision
Every aerobic mountain sport where cardiovascular readiness determines whether you reach your objective

The model scales because the physiology is the same. Across alpine climbing, trail running, ski touring, and high-altitude trekking, the factors that determine success are remarkably consistent: VO₂max at altitude, the Banister fitness-fatigue relationship, periodized progression, and the ability to sustain aerobic effort in thin air. One intelligence system can serve them all.

Editorial standards

How a Train to Mountain guide gets written

Every training guide on the site is written, edited, and verified by me. The byline is on every page because every claim is mine to defend.

How it works

Research first. Each topic is built from primary sources: peer-reviewed sports science, published expedition reports, and the original methodologies (Banister fitness-fatigue model, polarised training distribution, eccentric overload protocols, Seiler's 80/20). Where a number comes from research, the reference is named inline.

Drafting from the research. Drafts are structured around what a mountain athlete actually needs: what the data says, what to do with it, what to ignore. Pages are as long as the topic requires and no longer.

Verification before publication. Every number, citation, route grade, elevation, physiological claim, and training prescription is verified before a guide goes live. Where the science is contested, we say so and link both sides.

Dated and versioned. Every guide is dated. When the science updates or the methodology evolves, the guide is updated and re-dated. We don't quietly rewrite history.

What we won't do

Corrections

If you spot a claim you believe is wrong or out of date, email us. Corrections are made fast, dated, and visible: we annotate the change rather than silently overwriting.

- Jakob Ulcnik, Founder