Training: What I’m Currently Doing & Tracking

Training for Pole to Pole is about building a body that can keep going, day after day, across some very different environments and modes of travel. So, right now, my training is deliberately broad: strength, aerobic fitness, movement, and recovery.

The bigger picture

Pole to Pole will take me from the Geographic North Pole to the South Pole, largely under my own steam. That means skiing, bikepacking, kayaking and ocean rowing – and a lot of time doing things that my body would quite reasonably prefer I didn’t do.

I’m therefore not trying to peak for one event yet. I’m building the base. The aim at this stage is to keep my general fitness high while developing the strength and durability I’ll need when the expedition-specific work starts to ramp up.

If I have to miss a session, I’ve prioritised strength training over cardio based training. 

What the numbers say

I’ve been tracking a handful of basic measures week by week on my Google Fitbit Charge 6. 

Here are some daily averages across each week from early May to early September.

Daily steps and Calories

My daily step goal is 10,000 per day and the average has been 9,353 to 14,740. This about keeping my body used to walking (skiing is going to be more like walking). To note, strokes in kayaking get recorded as steps, so it makes this a reasonable reflection of my entire training. 

My average calories have generally sat around the 2,000–2,300 mark. My BMR is about 1,300 calories. I track this more to make sure I’m getting enough calories and not overdoing them (more likely to be the latter than the former…)

Sleep

My goal is 7-8 hours and a sleep score 80+. The former has ranged from 6.14 to 8.30 hours a night, and sleep scores between 78 and 84, so doing pretty well at the moment. Have to say, my sleep has been really good recently – I think it being winter has helped… Summer+no aircon messes with my zeds. 

Heart Rate (resting and low) and HRV (heart rate variability)

I’m monitoring these to keep an eye on overall fitness and health. While it’s not shown here, I’ll also track my max HR. As mentioned, I’m favouring strength over cardio sessions, but if these start trending the wrong way, then I’ll give the cardio some focus. 

I’m not pretending these numbers tell the whole story, they don’t. They’re a way of keeping an eye on the bigger picture, alongside how I actually feel and perform in training.

Four days of strength

The backbone of my training at the moment is four gym sessions a week. They’re designed around hypertrophy (building muscle) while giving particular attention to single-leg work, glutes, trunk strength, pulling strength and the general robustness I’ll need for the expedition. Each session begins with mobility work and prehab.

Day 1 – legs and trunk

Step-ups, Bulgarian split squats, deadlifts, toes-to-bar, leg press, single-leg calf raises, single-leg hamstring curls and hip thrusts.

Day 2 – push/pull (mostly) vertical plane

Pull-ups, Pallof press, dumbbell shoulder press, front raises, lat pulldowns, leaning lateral raises, face pulls and cable rear delts.

Day 3 – single-leg strength and glutes

Single-leg squats (to a box), ab rollouts, GHD work, single-leg Romanian deadlifts, hip thrusts and a bunch of glute-machine work. I will get a bootie if it kills me….

Day 4 – push/pull (mostly) horizontal plane and abs/trunk

Close-grip bench press, Garhammer, incline press, suitcase carries, single-arm seated rows, dips, hammer curls, flies, skull crushers and pullovers.

If you’re interested in seeing the reps/sets and loads, I recently shared my training sessions across a week on Instagram and TikTok (both are @sarahgoesexploring).

And then there’s Wilson

Cardio is deliberately about maintaining a good base across different types of fitness rather than hammering away at one discipline. I’m generally doing three to four cardio sessions a week, plus an interval or VO2 max session at least once a week as part of one of my gym sessions.

Wilson (the tyre pictured above) and I currently spend some quality time together at the beach in preparation for the polar training and, ultimately, the South Pole. At the moment, the sessions are only 45–60 minutes, but that will ramp up as I get closer to my next polar training in February 2027.

Alongside Wilson, I’m cycling for 60–90 minutes once or twice a week and doing around an hour of ski paddling (ocean/surf kayaking) once a week. Sometimes I’ll swap one of those sessions for a swim, or add a swim as an extra session.

Why so much variety?

Because Pole to Pole is going to demand it. I need the engine to keep moving, the strength to carry and pull things, the durability to cope with repetition and the ability to switch between very different physical demands.

But also – I like variety. I’m far more likely to stick with training when it is interesting and challenging. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my training as well as from my clients back in the day when I was a Personal Trainer: the perfect programme on paper is useless if I hate doing it.

This is the base 

For now, I’m building the platform. The training will get more expedition-specific as Pole to Pole gets closer, particularly around the polar work. The tyre sessions will get longer, the endurance demands will increase and I’ll need to spend much more time training the specific movements and systems I’ll rely on in the expedition.

For the moment, though, I’m happy with the mix: four days of strength, three to four cardio sessions, regular intervals, plenty of movement and an ongoing conversation with Wilson at the beach.

It’s a long way from the North Pole to the South Pole. Right now, I’m just making sure I’m building the body that can get me there.