Minimum Suggested Health Requirements for Climbing Kilimanjaro

When ascending mountains at high altitude, perhaps the most significant factor contributing to success, beyond acquiring safe and thorough acclimatisation, is the trekker's power to weight ratio. If you're heavy, you're going to struggle, whether the reason you're heavy is that you're carrying a lot of muscle, or your body is well equipped with unused "emergency reserves".

So, while we leave the choice of whether or not to join one of our climbs to you, we prefer climbers to be properly informed about what are realistic expectations for heavy people.

The following are our recommended physical limitation guidelines for joining a Team KIlimanjaro trek.

Body Mass Index Result

• Maximum of 29
• Aim for 18 - 25

To have a realistic expectation of reaching Kilimanjaro's summit, a person 5’7” tall should really weigh no more than 13 stone (185 lbs). A person 6ft tall should weigh under 97 kg (215 lbs). Use the BMI Calculator.

Basic Fitness Test Result

Maximum best time of 15 mins 30.

This is a mile and a half run (2.4km), usually including only a very slight incline. However, we suggest you test yourself either on a treadmill at a gym, or by running 6 times around an athletics track.

Although no running is required on the expedition, nonetheless, a BFT is a good indicator of cardio-vascular output, a reasonable level of which is required on Kilimanjaro.