ARCing for Bouldering?

[tahmad]

Hi All,


I've been hearing some discussion lately of the benefits of ARCing/Aerobic capacity training for boulderers specifically.  I was a bit skeptical of these claims but curious.  The basis for the argument that ARCing could help improve bouldering ability mainly seems centered around a couple rationales, including 1. a certain amount of ARCing/capillary development will probably be good for your ability to recover between exercises in a workout as well as between workouts, 2. Even boulder problems (unless they are one or two move-wonders or otherwise very short) will involve at least some small level of aerobic input so you might as well maximize that part of your climbing energy systems as well and 3. working different energy systems, even if very different from what your goal problem may be as a boulderer, may help break through plateaus. 

Was curious to hear all of your thoughts on these claims, and also whether it might be worth throwing two weeks or so of ARCing into my next training cycle before I embark on the repeaters-->max hangs-->campusing program I've been doing.

Thanks!

Taimur

[dsm]

I think one can get a lot of out of arc'ing, just by the sheer amount of time on the wall and movement. I really like arc'ing to practice technique. But in retrospect (because I've stopped doing it) I don't think arc'ing really helped my bouldering too much other than to help refine technique and movement (which is not nothing). I think volume bouldering makes more sense for people who exclusively boulder and produces the same aforementioned benefits if done right. Though if route climbing were in my near future, then I would arc.

[daustin]

Here's a relevant quote from Tom Randall's interview on TrainingBeta that touches on the energy system claim, if you haven't seen it already:

Okay, so I’ve got a case study here of a boulderer who wants to achieve their project on a trip later in 2016, which will be a long-style boulder problem, so around a 16-move boulder problem. They came to me for an assessment and training program to prepare for that long boulder problem. When I first analyzed them and looked at their finger strength they were carrying around 100% body weight and they were aiming for a boulder problem that was around V11, so their base finger strength was within range and acceptable for where they should be for the grade, so that base finger strength was sorted. I was happy with that because there were no major adjustments needed.

Then, I looked at their aerobic capacity, so this is the base aerobic function, and their aerobic capacity was very, very poor in this boulderer, which is not surprising. Most boulderers do have a poor aerobic capacity and people would say, “What’s the point? Why do I want to train my aerobic capacity as a boulderer?” Well, there’s a really, really good reason for this and that’s because if you look on the other side of the coin, if you flip the coin over and you look at that anaerobic side, what we know is that boulderers have to have a highly functioning anaerobic system. The problem is, is that if you have a highly functioning anaerobic system you produce a lot of lactate, so your lactate production is very high. If you want to deal with that you need a good aerobic capacity to deal with it and make that system continually functioning/to continually function at the highest percentage for your event, so that’s like your duration, your 16 moves. Therefore, if you’re a boulderer, this boulderer I was looking at wanted to have the highest expression of his finger strength and his anaerobic capacity so he had to develop that underlying aerobic capacity.

[dsm]

So I went and listened to that podcast and Tom Randall said two interesting things I'll point out for this thread:

1. If the project boulder problem is 5 moves rather than 16, aerobic capacity essentially doesn't matter. He talks about aerobic capacity on a scale. It matters the longer the problem gets, which makes sense.

2. He says he recommends interval training for aerobic capacity. He essentially says it's important to go through a spectrum of intensities. He also talks about what these sessions would look like.

Really good listen. Thanks for the heads up.

[tahmad]

Really helpful responses folks, thanks a lot. My projects range everywhere from 3-5 moves to 12-16 moves so I could probably use a bit more aerobic work.

What I did last cycle was do my repeaters one day, and then the next day come in and climb very light on lead, hard enough that I might get a mild pump but never to the point where I was worried about falling. I suppose that's close to ARCing, but in retrospect I was never on the wall for long enough, maybe 2-3 minutes at a time at most.

I guess my questions here is, would it be possible to combine repeaters with ARCing, or are the two going to act detrimentally on each other/one will hinder the progression of the other?

[dsm]

I haven't arced in a while, so someone else might be better to answer this, but I used to arc before my hangboard sessions. I would do 2 sets of 20 to 30 minutes on the wall at the gym, then go home and hangboard (the drive home is actually a nice little break). I don't think this was detrimental to my hangboarding at all, unless I let myself overdo it, or if I was already tired that day from something. If I was already tired, I'd just arc less, like do 1 set rather than 2.

Of course, there was some build up to being able to do 2 sets of 20 to 30 minute arc sessions. I think I started slowly increasing the time i was on the wall as I got more fit/better at arc'ing.

[jeremie]

In the RCTM it actually recommends doing arcing as a warmup per dsm's comment. It also suggest doing a day of arcing on the days following a hangboard working, then a full rest day. So looks like this:

Day 1 - ARC warmup, hangboard session
Day 2 - ARC
Day 3 - Rest
- Repeat above

My take on that is that ARC'ing is not detrimental to hangboarding, and can help recovery. However, if you notice that your recovery is not catching up, then it's possible your overdoing it. Or, if you hangboard working are really really intense, you might need a full 2 days rest, and would have to pass on the ARC'ing.

[daustin]

I've also ARCed as a warmup for repeaters, and it's works OK. I think there can be value in pure ARC workouts where you push the intensity a bit (i.e., try to climb with a moderate pump instead of a light pump, still nothing extremely intense), but that this would interfere with a HB session. So if you're going to mix them, I would err on the side of keeping the ARC pretty light, or doing a shorter duration at a more moderate intensity.

[tahmad]

Thanks all. Went back to the book and saw that it does indeed note that you can mix ARC + HB. That's what I'll do this coming cycle. Hoping a focus on Aerobic work will translate to bouldering gains in the long run.

[tahmad]

Hi All,

In the interest of sharing data, thought I'd post about how this experiment went for me.

I combined ARC with Repeaters and made huge gains in my ARCing capacity, as a boulderer with very poor endurance the gains in my ability to recover and hold on on easier terrain were remarkable.

My repeaters cycle was unremarkable, however. I either matched PRs or even regressed by 5-10 lbs in a few hangs. Hard to say exactly why this was, as there were other factors in play (switching up some grip ordering, etc.). Since I was so new to ARCing however, it may well have hurt my repeaters sessions a bit, as my body was probably pretty shocked by the new stimulus (low intensity ARCing was still hard for me, at first, if that makes any sense). This coming cycle, my plan is to dedicate a solid 5ish sessions to just ARCing, and then combine my early repeaters workouts with more ARCing and taper off the ARC sessions as I go deeper into the repeaters workout.

Despite the lackluster repeaters cycle, I finished my max hang #12 yesterday and set a new PR hang, 5-10 lbs higher than my previous PR hang (half crimp, 14mm edge, 10 sec hang, maintaining solid form the whole time).

Hard to say if this is because of the ARCing per se, but the result is positive either way!

My plan now is to ARC-->ARC+repeaters-->just repeaters-->max hang. I'm also going to try to incorporate maintenance max hangs (reduced volume, just trying to not lose too much pure finger strength) this cycle - I've posted in a thread on the "strength" forum about this if you are curious. Basically I've always been really frustrated by how much max hang strength I lose by doing repeaters (and ARCing) so I'm going to see if I can maintain it to at least some degree without causing my ARC/Repeaters workouts to suffer. Idea is to do 3 lopez style max hangs twice a week (before ARCing or repeaters). Any thoughts on this are also welcome!

[scojo]

Feb 16, 2018 10:39:10 GMT -7 tahmad said:

My plan now is to ARC-->ARC+repeaters-->just repeaters-->max hang.  

I'm curious if you'll be doing any climbing during the "just repeaters" and max hangs periods. I find it helpful to mix max hangs with bouldering, because it helps me learn how to articulate that new strength on the wall. The max hangs are quite low volume, so I find that I can add quite a bit of workload on top of them.

[tahmad]

Definitely planning on doing Limit bouldering with the max hangs!