mclay
Junior Member
Posts: 96 
|
Post by mclay on Jan 11, 2017 1:18:25 GMT -7
The focus of the book, and apparently the message board (simply looking at post volume), is improving for sport climbing. My general impression from the past several months of reading and posting here makes me think I'm relatively near the center of the RCTM community demographic plot - mid-30's, family, work, started late - driven to get better before old age sets in.
With this in mind I'm trying to schedule the next several cycles to maximize bouldering specific gains while I'm younger, with the premise that finger strength and power will become progressively more difficult to gain and maintain as I reach my 40's. I'm experimenting in my first cycle of 2017 with the Bouldering Season plan from the book. This is mostly down to schedule only permitting short trips to bouldering areas, rather than longer trips to sport climbing areas for the first half of the year. But as I planned I began to wonder about the wisdom of spending more of my time over the next few years hammering finger strength and power in order to solidify a base while I'm "young". I'm assuming that endurance and power-endurance will always be less affected by the aging process.
Thoughts? Anecdotes?
|
|
|
|
Post by tedwelser on Jan 11, 2017 18:00:20 GMT -7
Hey Mclay-
I would say that people who are really psyched on training for bouldering will tend to alternate between max hang series, and repeater series in their HB workouts. I focused more on bouldering this last season, and I improved and also aggravated my left elbow so I am stepping away from the hard bouldering and just doing HB workouts. I am learning how to do max weight workouts, but plan to do a period of those and a period of more typical RCTM HB workouts.
My max hang workouts are semi crimp (chisel grip) on the forge's deepest vder and had been half crimps on the big 1 inch square edge. But I am switching to the same vder edge for my half crimp next workout since shallower crimps are my biggest weakness when pulling a high proportion of body weight. I had gotten up to plus 110 which is a lot to hang from my old climbing harness. hang for 3-8 seconds, rest 1 min, repeat.
You should check out the Grippul data about strength to weight ratios for one hand pulling power on a half inch edge. When it comes to bouldering it seems that a necessary but not sufficient attribute is pulling a high proportion of your bodyweight with a single hand on a smallish edge.
https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/51hhfz/grippul_strengthtoweight_ratio_for_climbing/
dunno if anyone else here had looked at the data but I find it pretty interesting.
|
|
mclay
Junior Member
Posts: 96
|
Post by mclay on Jan 16, 2017 2:15:28 GMT -7
Ted -
Did you do the Max Hangs and then Repeaters as back-to-back training periods? (ie. without moving on to a Power phase)
My hope of focusing on finger strength and power phases for the next few cycles/years, without spending as much time on ARC'ing or PE workouts, is that I might get to a new strength/power plateau in my 30's and then gradually focus on more PE routes into my 40's.
|
|
|
|
Post by tedwelser on Jan 16, 2017 15:28:05 GMT -7
Ted - Did you do the Max Hangs and then Repeaters as back-to-back training periods? (ie. without moving on to a Power phase) My hope of focusing on finger strength and power phases for the next few cycles/years, without spending as much time on ARC'ing or PE workouts, is that I might get to a new strength/power plateau in my 30's and then gradually focus on more PE routes into my 40's. Hey mclay- I have not followed that protocol myself. I often read the reddit climbharder subreddit, and the leading protagonists are focused almost exclusively on training for bouldering and they tend to advocate strongly for training plans that include max hangs and repeater hangs. Right now I am trying a brief version of that protocol mostly just to learn what max hang training is like for me. (5 workouts of each, doing my third day of max hangs tonight). Concluding with a mini bouldering season in February. After that I plan to rest and then do a normal RCTM sport climbing training season with a peak in May. |
|
mclay
Junior Member
Posts: 96
|
Post by mclay on Jan 17, 2017 1:38:16 GMT -7
Ok, cool. That makes sense. I'm doing something vaguely similar this year (minus the max hangs). I'm following the training plan for advanced boulderers in the RCTM. This is probably a bit silly as I'm just getting to a moderate level of training. But I'm aiming for a couple of bouldering trips in the first half of 2017, with a long, route-focused cycle to end the year.
|
|
jcun
New Member
Posts: 26
|
Post by jcun on Feb 17, 2017 17:04:30 GMT -7
Ok, cool. That makes sense. I'm doing something vaguely similar this year (minus the max hangs). I'm following the training plan for advanced boulderers in the RCTM. This is probably a bit silly as I'm just getting to a moderate level of training. But I'm aiming for a couple of bouldering trips in the first half of 2017, with a long, route-focused cycle to end the year. mclay, at what level would 1 consider to be beginner/intermediate/advanced for the limit bouldering workout? if you climb v6 would you still be considered intermediate? I consider myself at v6 currently about to try some v7's at the end of this cycle. I guess so since the hardest climb outside is v16? |
|
mclay
Junior Member
Posts: 96
|
Post by mclay on Feb 17, 2017 22:47:06 GMT -7
Ability/grade levels are different for each person. I was referring to level of training when I said beginner versus intermediate. As in, I haven't been training for climbing that long. I have just recently begun to do the intermediate level workouts prescribed in RCTM, as opposed to the beginner-level workouts in the book.
The reason I tried to describe it this way is that someone may have never trained for climbing, but they have lots of natural ability and have climbed a lot outside for 15 years. Their intermediate level of training volume and intensity will be quite different from me. I've been climbing for a few years and training specifically for just over one year. Thus, the grades/ability don't really come into the discussion. Merely the quality and style of the training plan.
|
|
jcun
New Member
Posts: 26
|
Post by jcun on Feb 18, 2017 10:47:37 GMT -7
Ability/grade levels are different for each person. I was referring to level of training when I said beginner versus intermediate. As in, I haven't been training for climbing that long. I have just recently begun to do the intermediate level workouts prescribed in RCTM, as opposed to the beginner-level workouts in the book. The reason I tried to describe it this way is that someone may have never trained for climbing, but they have lots of natural ability and have climbed a lot outside for 15 years. Their intermediate level of training volume and intensity will be quite different from me. I've been climbing for a few years and training specifically for just over one year. Thus, the grades/ability don't really come into the discussion. Merely the quality and style of the training plan. Ahhh thanks for this explanation. I'm still playing with it for myself, I definitely feel like I should be training in the intermediate level. I'm on my second cycle of training and only have been climbing for 3 and a half years. Sometimes I feel as if the warm up for power training is very tiring. 20 min arc, 25 min wbl 3xVeasy, 3 v0, 3 v1, 3 v2, 3 v3, 4 hard problems, limit bouldering 30 min 2 problems. By the time I get to the limit bouldering I'm pretty warmed up! One more question for performance phase, what is your warm up? 1 boulder problem at each level up to your project? I'm starting my performance phase on monday and am going outside. |
|
|
|
Post by daustin on Feb 18, 2017 11:36:19 GMT -7
Ahhh thanks for this explanation. I'm still playing with it for myself, I definitely feel like I should be training in the intermediate level. I'm on my second cycle of training and only have been climbing for 3 and a half years. Sometimes I feel as if the warm up for power training is very tiring. 20 min arc, 25 min wbl 3xVeasy, 3 v0, 3 v1, 3 v2, 3 v3, 4 hard problems, limit bouldering 30 min 2 problems. Sounds like it might be too much medium/low intensity volume before you hit your hard/limit bouldering. I would consider scaling back the volume by either removing the ARC from the warm-up, or if you want to keep the ARC, doing an abbreviated WBL where you skip the easy boulders. I'd also consider giving yourself more than 25min to get through the WBL. You want your fingers to be ready for intense effort during LB, but you don't want to get overly pumped or fatigued during the WBL, which could be a risk if you're not resting much. |
|
jcun
New Member
Posts: 26
|
Post by jcun on Feb 18, 2017 12:38:55 GMT -7
Ahhh thanks for this explanation. I'm still playing with it for myself, I definitely feel like I should be training in the intermediate level. I'm on my second cycle of training and only have been climbing for 3 and a half years. Sometimes I feel as if the warm up for power training is very tiring. 20 min arc, 25 min wbl 3xVeasy, 3 v0, 3 v1, 3 v2, 3 v3, 4 hard problems, limit bouldering 30 min 2 problems. Sounds like it might be too much medium/low intensity volume before you hit your hard/limit bouldering. I would consider scaling back the volume by either removing the ARC from the warm-up, or if you want to keep the ARC, doing an abbreviated WBL where you skip the easy boulders. I'd also consider giving yourself more than 25min to get through the WBL. You want your fingers to be ready for intense effort during LB, but you don't want to get overly pumped or fatigued during the WBL, which could be a risk if you're not resting much. Ok I just finished up my last LB sesh of the cycle. Will try this next cycle. Thanks! |
|
