Everything you need to read the mountain.

The default program and the best starting point. Zones climb progressively from warmup through Zone 4 at the summit push, then descend for cooldown. What a structured cardio workout looks like when drawn as a mountain.

Base Camp (Zone 1) → Forest Trail (Zone 2) → High Camp (Zone 3) → Summit Push (Zone 4) → Descent (Zone 1).

The most studied HIIT protocol for VO2 max improvement, developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Four four-minute intervals at Zone 4–5, each separated by 3-minute Zone 2 active recovery.

Research shows ~46% VO2 max improvement in cardiac patients over 12 weeks. The mountain silhouette shows four sharp peaks of equal height — one per interval.

Dr. Izumi Tabata's 1996 protocol: 20 seconds all-out / 10 seconds rest × 8 rounds = one 4-minute block. Hits anaerobic and aerobic systems simultaneously. Best for limited time and high calorie burn.

The mountain silhouette is rapid jagged spikes — an EKG drawn on a ridge. Zone 5 tolerance is widest here; scoring rewards anything at Zone 4 or above during the 20-second sprint.

Jens Bangsbo's protocol from the University of Copenhagen: 30 seconds easy / 20 seconds moderate / 10 seconds maximal, cycling in 1-minute blocks grouped into 5-minute work periods. Participants found this particularly "fun" — directly relevant for a game format.

A 7-second haptic countdown fires before each 10-second maximal sprint. The mountain silhouette is rolling repeating hills. Research: improved 5K times by 38 seconds on average.

Ascending-descending intervals: effort climbs from 1-minute pushes up to a long summit hold, then descends back through shorter and shorter efforts. Builds speed and endurance simultaneously. Used widely in competitive running and cycling.

The mountain silhouette is a classic symmetric pyramid — rises to a single peak, descends the same way. The 60-minute version adds a 5-minute sustained hold at the top.

Sustained effort at 80–85% max HR — the point where the body barely clears lactate as fast as it produces it. Two long sustained blocks at Zone 3–4, separated by active recovery. Builds the ability to hold higher paces for longer.

This is the tightest zone tolerance of all programs. The score multiplier is highest here to reward the discipline it takes. The mountain silhouette is a long flat high plateau.

Sustained 60–70% max HR. Pure aerobic base training. Burns predominantly fat, improves mitochondrial density over weeks, and is championed by endurance athletes and longevity researchers. The challenge is staying inside a low zone when the impulse is to go harder.

Dynamic events are disabled here. Instead: a "fog clearing" visual — the scenery gradually becomes more vivid as you maintain the zone. The mountain silhouette is low rolling hills. Minimum 45 minutes — shorter sessions can't accumulate a meaningful base-building stimulus.

30 seconds at 90–95% max HR / 30 seconds active recovery. The recovery is intentionally too short for HR to fully drop — so Zone 5 time accumulates efficiently. Hard, quick, repeatable.

Two clusters of 8× (30s Zone 5 / 30s Zone 1), separated by a 2-minute rest. The mountain silhouette shows two sharp symmetric peaks. Short by design — long enough to earn the adaptation, short enough to actually finish.

Fartlek is Swedish for "speed play." No fixed structure. At session start, the game generates a random zone script: always bookended by warmup and cooldown, with random Zone 2/3/4 phases in between, plus brief Zone 5 spikes. No two Wild Peaks runs are the same.

The mechanic: you can only see the current phase. "A surge is coming — 10 seconds" is the only warning. After the climb, the Summit Card reveals the mountain silhouette — the unique shape of what you actually climbed.