training post 137

I know there have been a ton of posts about how to train. The majority of books or posts or articles i have read cover climbing hard OR mountaineering OR alpine. I am looking to be fairly strong in all categories but not great in any one. Id like to be able to, for example lead 5.9-5.10 on pure rock for a few pitches, climb rainier with a big pack or haul camping gear and climbing gear into the backcountry and do a 6-12 pitch alpine climb in the mountains (of a much lower grade, say 5.7), all without having to train specifically for that one task and sacrificing the others. These are all things I have done individually, but I concentrated on that thing as the trip approached.

The biggest challenge for me is living in MN. If I were able to get out on a bigger playground on weekends, that would solve most of my issues, I believe.

I have been fortunate to go on a range of trips and learn how to train for specific goals as I saw how I performed on a trip and adjusted my training plans accordingly.

Currently a typical week is 2-3x weight lifting (full body, never concentrating on a signle muscle group), 3x cardio (I mix it up between stairs, running, biking and swimming), 1x a week gym climbing, I try to do hangboarding a few times a week as well. I typically climb outside 2-4 times a month when the weather allows.

This has been my habit for around a year now. It didnt vary much before that, although I was lifting weights less often (once a week) previous to the last year. I feel much stronger and have better body control when I keep up with the weight lifting, helps prevent injury and it is not an attempt to add bulk (have been stable at 5'10" 160lbs for as long as I can remember). I have added circuit training in the past but dont know if it was a big benefit or not.

Ive never gotten shut down on a trip, so maybe this is just me being bored with no trip to look forward to until July. But I would be interested to hear other people's input.

High-level response: I'd do strength at most 2x week if you want really well-rounded performance. I'd also try hard to hit the climbing gym at least 1.5x / weekly and eschew hangboarding as a substitute; you'll get better "movement" and holistic climbing feedback that will reap long-term benefits in terms of skill development.

Stepping back, ask yourself "is there a calendar / seasonal pattern to my desired outings?" Put differently, "do I want to be ready to rock on anything at any time, or is there some periodic variation in what I want to do?"

I mean, you probably wanna be hitting Mt Rainier in late spring or early summer (winter is hard and fall sucks). The season for north American alpine rock is usually summer. Perhaps the ideal time for hard cragging for you is spring or fall (either due to your local weather or your desired performance crags).

If this does indeed describe what your goals might look like (as opposed to your various types of objectives being uniformly distributed across the year/seasons), then some sort of periodization might be in order (as opposed to the same workouts week in week out through the year).

I'd recommend reading up on "fluid periodization". This is an approach I've read advocated when an athlete desires to maintain several arenas of fitness throughout the year. Steve Bechtel uses the analogy of a four burner stove: in any given training cycle, you're really cooking on one burner (e.g. focusing on a single fitness objective such as aerobic endurance for approaches, finger strength for hard climbing, whatever), but you keep the three other burners simmering all the time by hitting the various systems at least once a week.

This contrasts with a more focused linear periodization type thing you might see where the purpose is to arrive at peak fitness of one sort (e.g. marathon shape, Ironman, or a single goal climb) where other skills / fitness are really put at the back of the bus.

Sorry if that's not a specific prescription, but I think it's useful to have a "meta" view on how you wanna go about training, and then drill down.

Straw man: Your year goals are Rainier in June, moderate alpine rock in August, and hard cragging mid-fall, then plan backwards. Spend spring relatively focused on gradually building your cardio / hauling endurance while still going to the climbing gym enough to at least stay "stationary" in your cragging ability. As you move past your Rainier trip, flip your endurance focus to more "maintaining" while focusing more on rock climbing strength (and cragging practice for systems / speed for your Tetons trip). This mix seems reasonable for moderate alpine. Once the Tetons trip is done, really cool it on the aerobic endurance stuff but then focus harder on climbing performance workouts.

Caveat: I'm not formally trained in exercise science / physiology.

I've been successful in living sea-level away from real mountains, and accomplishing a wide variety of nice climbing and mountaineering goals on trips.
My approach has been to maintain a minimal level of strength all year roung for my favored kinds of goals, but also train specifically 8 weeks or more for specific "seasons" with two or three big objectives.

Why would you _not_ want to train specifically for different kind of achievements at different times of year?

Seems less _boring_ than training the same way all year long.

Seems likely to result in better performance for each specific season. The strategy of "peaking" is used by virtually all top-level competitive athletes -- why shouldn't it work for climbing?

Ken

kenr wrote:I've been successful in living sea-level away from real mountains, and accomplishing a wide variety of nice climbing and mountaineering goals on trips. My approach has been to maintain a minimal level of strength all year roung for my favored kinds of goals, but also train specifically 8 weeks or more for specific "seasons" with two or three big objectives. Why would you _not_ want to train specifically for different kind of achievements at different times of year? Seems less _boring_ than training the same way all year long. Seems likely to result in better performance for each specific season. The strategy of "peaking" is used by virtually all top-level competitive athletes -- why shouldn't it work for climbing? Ken

hey thanks for the response. i guess its less about not wanting to train for a specific goal, cuz like you said this is a fun break from the usual. its more about wanting to be ready for any of those things at any given time. i feel like the amount of time i put in to being in shape should allow me to do any of those goals, if my training is efficient. always be up for a big wall or a mountain slog or a fun rock route i havent done before.

Jake wander wrote:Currently a typical week is 2-3x weight lifting (full body, never concentrating on a signle muscle group), 3x cardio (I mix it up between stairs, running, biking and swimming), 1x a week gym climbing, I try to do hangboarding a few times a week as well. I typically climb outside 2-4 times a month when the weather allows.

"general" aerobics is of little value for climbing and mountaineering objectives.

Swimming is notably inefficient use of training time. "Stairs" is rather good if you mean actual flights of stairs (not a stair-climbing machine, most of which are of little value for mountaineering or climbing, unless used very thoughtfully with unusual techniques + strategies).
. (Also good to run down real flights of stairs).

3 times a week of weight-lifting is surely not efficient use of training time (especially if "general" full body) - (and likely you're adding anti-climbing-performance muscle mass).

Running on flat ground is not efficient training (compared with running stairs or hills).

Unless you're trying to prove some point by _not_ training specifically for your objectives - (once some climber said he viewed any specific training as "cheating") - you've got substantial gains waiting for you by changing your strategy.

Ken

jared, thanks for the great response. what you are recommending is essentially what ive been doing for the last couple years (minus the hard trad climbing, more in the 5.8-9 range).

i was just hoping i could hone a few things and feel less like going through cycles and more like i was always ready for any of it.

my time learning the training cycles has paid off. for example i felt fairly weak the first time i was on rainier, when i climbed denali i felt much stronger, but this past year on rainier i felt much stronger than i did when i was on denali.

the thing is i ended up spending so much time hiking with a pack, i didnt get to do the fun training (actually climbing).

cycles specific to the objective mixed with maintenance of the rest is probably the best method though.

Jake wander wrote:wanting to be ready for any of those things at any given time. i feel like the amount of time i put in to being in shape should allow me to do any of those goals, if my training is efficient.

Well you're a real human being (unless you're a software "bot"?).
With a finite limited existence.
With a real human body.

That means trade-offs and choices of priorities within limits.
Means different parts of your body need different specific stimulus for growth.
Need time for recovery from stimulus and for growth.

I guess if you keep your objectives mediocre enough, you could always be "ready" for any of them.

But most "real human beings" want to achieve "impressive" objectives (at least impress yourself, if not other people).

Ken

kenr wrote: 3 times a week of weight-lifting is surely not efficient use of training time (especially if "general" full body) - (and likely you're adding anti-climbing-performance muscle mass).

We as climbers need to dispel this myth from the body building 3 sets of 10 routine. Lift heavy with lower reps and you will train your nervous system to recruit more muscle fibers. You will not induce hypertrophy. You will not gain any muscle mass.

80% of 1 rep max. 4-6 sets. Never to failure.

Nick Drake wrote: We as climbers need to dispel this myth from the body building 3 sets of 10 routine. Lift heavy with lower reps and you will train your nervous system to recruit more muscle fibers. You will not induce hypertrophy. You will not gain any muscle mass. 80% of 1 rep max. 4-6 sets. Never to failure.

this is something ive been reading lately and part of why i made this post.

i want to continue weight lifting because i strongly feel that it does improve my climbing. not from the sense that i think it should replace climbing, but based on my experience, if i climb once a week and weight lift i can climb harder than if i climb once a week and dont weight lift.

the old theory was always low reps high weight gets you big, while high reps and low weight gets you toned. i always want to continue to build strength but i also want to avoid adding weight if at all possible.

nick have you put this to the test with good results?

Jake, yes I had great results over the last two winters. Both years I gained strength and maintained the exact same lean mass (per skinfold tests). I lost 10lbs in fat though.

I was following overall training plans based on TFTNA. This was 8 weeks doing a variety of lifts for general strength, two sets of all with 10 reps. As I had never done any resistance training this was a good place to start.

Then it was another 8 weeks of the max strength. 2 times a week with a two day rest in between. In both years I did this with 2-4 reps of each exercise. 2015 I did two sets only. In 2016 I started at 3 sets, ending with 6 sets by the end (huge work load, cut back on other training). After this I cut to 2 sets once a week for a month and then maintained decently throughout the entire summer by doing a 2 set max strength session every 2 weeks.

Upper body was narrow grip pull ups and dips. My leg work was single leg, box steps above mid thigh height and one leg Romanian deadlifts. This likely limited my potential gains with small muscles of the feet/calves for balance coming into play. I figured that these were more specific to what we do climbing though. In the future I may train squats and standard deadlifts.

From the start of my max strength in 2015 to the ending in 2016:
Box step went from 60lbs to 100lbs
One leg dead lift went from 40lbs to 75lbs
Pull up went from 2 reps w/o weight to 3 reps with 25lbs
Dips went from 4 rep w/o weight to 4 reps with 27.5lbs

Also to add on that, doing the strength session every two weeks seems to have really helped keep those numbers up for the next year. I'm doing far less volume of strength training now as I'm focusing on my technical level more than doing alpine routes this year. My limit in technical climbing is finger strength, shoulder stability, and core tension.

I've had two sessions of max strength with 2 sets. Currently I'm at:
Wide grip (lat dominant) pull up, 3 reps with 20lbs
One leg deadlift 3 reps with 70lbs
Dips 3 reps with 30lbs
Bench with barbells 3 reps with 120lbs