Offshore tips

[robin]

Hi. New guy on the forum here. I have some upcoming training challenges i need to figure out.

I have gotten a chance to take a very interesting offshore job. It will involve 3 months on a boat, and 5 months off. So obviously my question is. How do you stay in shape when you have 5 months to just travel around and climb?

But ok. 3 months without access to any climbing, I will need some tips here.

It's a large boat with a gym, i'm sure i can fix some sort hangboard there. I have done so previously in small gyms just by putting a 2x6 over a squat rack. Portable hangboards are also a possibility, but i would prefer to have something more stable for a whole strength cycle.

I would love to have a small campus board. I will have to experiment a bit to see if i can make something small enough to bring with me and large (and stable) enough to actually train on.

Various grippers and other dynamic exercises will also be used. Not very specific, but practical in this situation.

The plan will be:
1 Month: Hypertrophy. Dynamic work. Least specific but hopefully some hypertrophy work will be useful for the later phases.
2 Month: Hypertrophy. Hangboard. Should be obvious enough.
3 Month: Power/Strength. Lower volume, higher intensity. Campus or hangboard.
4-8: Learn how to move on rock again, lose weight acquired by being stuck on a boat.

Im excited and terrified by this. Let me know if anyone has been in similar situations and have some tips for how i should make it as productive as possible.  

And sorry if some of the sentences are incomprehensible. English is not my first language. 

[aikibujin]

I was kind of stuck in a boat (my house) for three months earlier this year when my second child was born, so I have some experience training on just a hangboard. First, training power on a hangboard is very difficult. Power is the ability to apply force (strength) quickly. If you can somehow get a campus board set up, then you can train power on the campus board. The act of pulling up explosively and then latching a hold is the expression of power, and it happens in split seconds, which is very difficult to replicate on a hangboard. The only way I can think of to mimic this on a hangboard is to hop up from the ground and latch a hold on the hangboard. I never tried this because my old hangboard frame was not stable enough to handle this, also it sounds like a good way to injure myself. So if you decide to try this, be very careful.

What kind of climbing will you be doing in the five months after the boat ride? If you’re only bouldering, then I’d just spend the three months focus on finger strength and general strength, and get my power back by bouldering. If you’re climbing routes, then I will spend the last month training forearm endurance and general endurance. Training endurance on a hangboard is very boring, but it works. You’ll still need to get your movement skills back once you get back on rock, but at least you won’t be as pumped.

[RobF]

Am jealous- such purity of training. Every day just aim to be a little better than the day before. You'll be crushing some big numbers once you get some time off...

[Chris W]

Robin, Mike Anderson has a post somewhere on the blog about his training while he was stationed in Afghanistan. He did a lot of training on his hangboard and somehow rigged up a campus board that he could set up on a pull up bar. That post may be helpful.

[robin]

Dec 21, 2017 11:04:37 GMT -7 aikibujin said:

What kind of climbing will you be doing in the five months after the boat ride? If you’re only bouldering, then I’d just spend the three months focus on finger strength and general strength, and get my power back by bouldering. If you’re climbing routes, then I will spend the last month training forearm endurance and general endurance. Training endurance on a hangboard is very boring, but it works. You’ll still need to get your movement skills back once you get back on rock, but at least you won’t be as pumped.

I do both sport and bouldering. So i will have to adjust the training for the current goals. Endurance on a hangboard sounds extremely boring, but better than nothing i guess.

[robin]

Dec 22, 2017 16:17:34 GMT -7 Chris W said:

Robin, Mike Anderson has a post somewhere on the blog about his training while he was stationed in Afghanistan. He did a lot of training on his hangboard and somehow rigged up a campus board that he could set up on a pull up bar. That post may be helpful.

Yeah that's the design I'm going copy. I might have to see if i can make it even more portable. I still have some months before the first trip so i have some time to play around with the design.

[robin]

Dec 22, 2017 15:35:29 GMT -7 RobF said:

Am jealous- such purity of training. Every day just aim to be a little better than the day before. You'll be crushing some big numbers once you get some time off...

Thanks! That's the plan.