Self-made program feedback

I've put together a five week training program that I'm planning to start in the next couple of weeks.  I did two six week sessions of really lose programing over the winter, and I tried to take what I feel like worked from that combined with reading through "Self coached climber," and online information.  Essentially it is two weeks focused on power, two weeks focused on endurance and the final week focused on power-endurance.

My current gym bouldering flash limit is V5, V7 max send; lead on-site limit, .11b, redpoint .11d.  

Photo is what I have mocked up for myself.  Any feedback greatly appreciated.  

Day 1: Monday; Day 2: Wednesday; Day 3: Friday; Day 4: Saturday
 

I would do the endurance phase before the power phase. Focus on one system at a time during each day or phase (power, endurance or power endurance). Do not ARC to gain power, ARCing focuses on an aerobic metabolic energy system not an anaerobic (power). For the power phase do limit bouldering or the hardest moves you can ( short work and long rest). When working on endurance (aerobic) you should ARC so long work period with short rest. I recommend looking into metabolic energy systems when trying to plan each phase. You have the right idea by planning your schedule, but your daily planning does not seem to be specific towards your weekly goal. Just my opinion.

I put short periods of ARC in each day primarily as a warm up, not necessarily as a focus of the weekly goal.  

I'm curious why you would do endurance before power? 

Paul L wrote: I put short periods of ARC in each day primarily as a warm up, not necessarily as a focus of the weekly goal.  

I'm curious why you would do endurance before power? 

The idea is that quality that is quick to gain, also tends to be ones that’s quick to lose. Power tends to be one of those qualities. So if you train power first, then do two weeks of endurance, by the time to get to your performance phase you’ve lost much of the power you’ve trained in the first two weeks.

Even though you named your three phases “power”, “endurance”, “power endurance”, the exercises you designed for each phase are not entirely focused on these. Which is fine if you’re doing more of a block (conjugate) periodization instead of a linear one, just something to be aware of. 

Personally, I wouldn’t dedicate one day per week just to campusing, I would do it once every other week. I also wouldn’t do two power days in a row (limit bouldering and campusing).

The “roped laps” exercise you have for both the “power” and “PE” phase doesn’t make much sense to me. If you’re just climbing one route, rest 4 mins, then climb the next, it’s neither a power nor PE exercise.

aikibujin wrote:

The idea is that quality that is quick to gain, also tends to be ones that’s quick to lose. Power tends to be one of those qualities. So if you train power first, then do two weeks of endurance, by the time to get to your performance phase you’ve lost much of the power you’ve trained in the first two weeks.

Even though you named your three phases “power”, “endurance”, “power endurance”, the exercises you designed for each phase are not entirely focused on these. Which is fine if you’re doing more of a block (conjugate) periodization instead of a linear one, just something to be aware of. 

Personally, I wouldn’t dedicate one day per week just to campusing, I would do it once every other week. I also wouldn’t do two power days in a row (limit bouldering and campusing).

The “roped laps” exercise you have for both the “power” and “PE” phase doesn’t make much sense to me. If you’re just climbing one route, rest 4 mins, then climb the next, it’s neither a power nor PE exercise.

Thanks for the feedback.  The reasoning behind doing power second makes sense, and I'll switch the blocks to account for that.  Would you cut down to three days/week in the power phase, or just adjust the exercises?  I'm going to go back to back days at some point during those weeks with a 4-day schedule. 

If this were your plan/schedule, what exercises would you switch up to better meet the stated goal in each block?  

The 'roped laps,' is mainly there to accommodate what is my regular gym day with my regular partner(s) and what is realistic to expect they'd be into doing for a session, too.  These would be up & down climbed routes, but not as many or as quickly as the pyramid laps in the 'endurance' phase.  I also want to maintain those climbing days, as getting miles in for technique/head-game is still a big goal of mine.  I suppose I could do something like lock-off routes or "leapfrogs," if that would be more effective.  

I put this together thinking I would basically use this plan maybe four to six times a year, adjusting grades, weights, times, etc, as necessary with progression (hopefully not regression).  I'm sure I'll end up tweaking the exercises, also.  

What's your goal? I really like training with a specific goal route in mind and tweaking the schedule to focus on my point of failure.

If I had to guess what's going to see the fastest progress short term is focusing on power endurance and endurance and getting that 12a sport redpoint, but if you don't care about that...

Jer wrote: What's your goal? I really like training with a specific goal route in mind and tweaking the schedule to focus on my point of failure.

If I had to guess what's going to see the fastest progress short term is focusing on power endurance and endurance and getting that 12a sport redpoint, but if you don't care about that...

My goal is to redpoint .11a Trad, .11+/.12- Sport this year.  I'm a ways off.  My hardest current trad redpoint is .10b, sport is .10c (i've one fallen to .11b).  

Admittedly a lot of my issue in progression is in head game as much as strength, but I find that on harder routes I often just don't feel secure physically which makes me get more panicky mentally.  Fighting through the pump to make hard clips or place gear is a challenge, as is feeling secure in difficult terrain and technical cruxes.  I'm hoping that by coming out even a little physically stronger it will help my confidence to push grades a bit more, that I'll feel more sure in making the next hard move or pushing to a higher clipping stance or gear placement.  

When it comes to the limit bouldering and system board work I'll be focusing on movements that are the most difficult for me: moves from high foot positions, moves that require a lot of tension, and technical moves on small holds/feet.  I'm fairly tall with a positive AI, so I'm strongest on bigger holds, compression moves, etc.  

Paul L wrote:

Thanks for the feedback.  The reasoning behind doing power second makes sense, and I'll switch the blocks to account for that.  Would you cut down to three days/week in the power phase, or just adjust the exercises?  I'm going to go back to back days at some point during those weeks with a 4-day schedule. 

If this were your plan/schedule, what exercises would you switch up to better meet the stated goal in each block?  

The 'roped laps,' is mainly there to accommodate what is my regular gym day with my regular partner(s) and what is realistic to expect they'd be into doing for a session, too.  These would be up & down climbed routes, but not as many or as quickly as the pyramid laps in the 'endurance' phase.  I also want to maintain those climbing days, as getting miles in for technique/head-game is still a big goal of mine. 

That’s fair. Keeping a psyched partner is important, otherwise it’s all for nothing when it comes time for the actual spending spree and you don’t have anyone to climb with. And often when we look at a training plan, we don’t consider the fact that maybe our weakness is not just physical but also mental. You wrote your “threshold boulder” as “45mins, V8-V9 x3, 2 min rests”. If you’re working on V8-V9s, sending V6-V7s, yet only redpointing 5.10s, maybe it is best to do more roped climbing and get your lead head in place.

Keep in mind that we are different climbers, so what I would do or what works for me doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what you should do or it will work for you. If I have the time to climb 4 days a week (and still recover), I wouldn’t cut it down to 3 days, I would just adjust the schedule so I’m not doing high-intensity sessions on two consecutive days. For example, assume you can only climb with your partner(s) on Wed, I’d structure my power phase like this:
Mon: rest
Tue: limit bouldering
Wed: roped climbing/keeping partner psyched (lead medium difficulty routes, dial it back if feeling fatigued from the day before. Focus on technique/mental development rather than difficulty)
Thu: rest
Fri: limit bouldering
Sat: rest
Sun: climbing outdoors

In terms of what exercises I would switch up, based on your stated goal of redpoint 5.11a on gear, 5.11+/5.12- clipping bolts, I would drop campusing from the plan entirely, and focus more on limit bouldering for power and movement practice. You can still do some campus workout from time to time, mainly to practice the technique of campusing and get used to moving dynamically, but I wouldn’t make that a regular part of a plan.

Paul L wrote:

My goal is to redpoint .11a Trad, .11+/.12- Sport this year.  I'm a ways off.  My hardest current trad redpoint is .10b, sport is .10c (i've one fallen to .11b).  

Admittedly a lot of my issue in progression is in head game as much as strength, but I find that on harder routes I often just don't feel secure physically which makes me get more panicky mentally.  Fighting through the pump to make hard clips or place gear is a challenge, as is feeling secure in difficult terrain and technical cruxes.  I'm hoping that by coming out even a little physically stronger it will help my confidence to push grades a bit more, that I'll feel more sure in making the next hard move or pushing to a higher clipping stance or gear placement.  

When it comes to the limit bouldering and system board work I'll be focusing on movements that are the most difficult for me: moves from high foot positions, moves that require a lot of tension, and technical moves on small holds/feet.  I'm fairly tall with a positive AI, so I'm strongest on bigger holds, compression moves, etc.  

I've found that ARC training really helped with my confidence/head game because I am more aware of what moves I can complete at certain levels of pump. 

The Andersons recommend picking specific goal routes that inspire you in order to motivate yourself through tough or boring bits of training.