Frequently asked questions

Train to Mountain is an adaptive training app for athletes with a real mountain objective. You tell it your peak, your timeline, and where you are starting from. It builds you a personalised training plan, then adapts that plan every week based on what your body actually does, not what an off-the-shelf program assumes.

We are also expanding TTM to support ongoing maintenance training between objectives, so the fitness you build does not have to start from zero every time.

TTM is built for athletes preparing for objectives in the 3000-5000m (9,800-16,400 ft) range. Mountains where the difference between summit and turnaround is fitness, not luck. If you have a specific peak or route in mind, the enthusiasm and motivation to start, and you are taking it seriously, you are in the right place.

TTM is not built for elite expedition climbers. And if you are a weekend hiker without a specific summit in mind, we are also building a parallel program for ongoing year-round mountain training rather than peaking for one summit, so you have a home with us too.

Your plan is built from three inputs: your objective (peak, route, summit-day demands), your timeline (how many weeks until you go), and your starting fitness (assessed in onboarding and refined every week).

The algorithm uses a polarised 80/20 training distribution backed by endurance research, tunes load progression to your individual response, and rebuilds next week's plan every Sunday based on what you completed and how you felt.

A great human coach is a real relationship. They know your patterns, push you when you need it, and adjust your plan as your life and your training move.

TTM is built to give you the structural side of that work, periodisation, weekly adaptation, honest readiness checks, in an app that costs less than hundreds of dollars a month. If you have access to a great coach, use one. If you do not, TTM is built to put the same training discipline within reach.

Three things, in the order that matters:

1. You arrive at your mountain trained for that mountain, not for a generic plan.
2. You stop guessing whether you are doing enough, doing too much, or doing the wrong thing.
3. You build the kind of confidence at the trailhead that comes only from knowing your body has done the work this objective actually demands.

Not a full gym, but you do need access to incline cardio equipment, a treadmill that goes to at least 12% or a Stairmaster, plus a small bit of floor space for bodyweight strength sessions. Outdoor vertical (stairs, hills, trails) covers a lot of the work too.

Living near real hills or mountains is, of course, the ideal setup, the terrain itself becomes part of the training plan. If you have a full gym, even better. We will layer heavier strength sessions into your plan. If your access is limited to one piece of incline cardio plus bodyweight, the plan still works.

Yes, within the limits of what is possible at sea level. The plan builds the aerobic base, hypoxic tolerance training, and pacing discipline that load the same physiological systems altitude exposes.

What no app can give you is actual altitude exposure. That comes from acclimatisation rotations on the mountain itself. We tell you exactly what to do in the weeks and days before you fly out, and what to expect once you arrive (see our full altitude acclimatisation guide for more).

It depends on your starting fitness, your objective, and how much time you have. As a rough rule, a 4000m (13,100 ft) alpine peak with a reasonable base needs at least 12-16 weeks of structured training. A more demanding objective needs more.

The honest way to find out for your specific peak is to run our Summit Simulator. Tell it your objective, your current fitness, and your timeline, and it tells you whether you have enough runway, what you need to fix, and where to start.

Every Sunday. At the end of each week, the algorithm looks at what you completed, how it went, and how your body responded. Then it rebuilds the next week's training to match.

The same adaptive engine handles real life too. When you have a trip, a busy work week, an injury niggle, or anything else that breaks the rhythm, the plan reshapes around it instead of pretending it did not happen. That responsiveness, training to what your week actually looks like, is the heart of what we mean by adaptive.

Weekly is the cadence the training science supports, and it is responsive enough to hold up against how athletes actually live.

Mountains in the 3000-5000m (9,800-16,400 ft) range where summit success depends on fitness. Alpine 4000m (13,100 ft) peaks, Andean objectives, Caucasus and Atlas summits, Himalayan trekking peaks with technical sections.

If your objective involves a long approach, sustained vertical, exposure, and a real descent, you are our audience.

Yes. TTM connects to the wearables most athletes already use, including Garmin, Coros, and Suunto. Your training data flows in automatically, which gives the algorithm the signal it needs to adapt your plan precisely.

If you do not own a wearable, you can also log workouts and how they felt directly in the app.

Yes. TTM is built so any athlete with a real mountain goal can start, whatever your current fitness level looks like. The plan meets you where you are and grows from there.

If you are newer to structured training, the first weeks focus on building your aerobic base safely before the load ramps up. If you already have a strong base, we move you into objective-specific work sooner. Either way, the early phase is about understanding your body so the plan can adapt to you, not the other way around.

Right now, nothing. TTM is in beta, and the first wave of users get full access free while we refine the algorithm. We are open about the trade: access in exchange for honest feedback.

Once we move out of beta, early beta users continue at a minimal cost that only covers the running costs of the platform.