richb
Junior Member
Posts: 55
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Post by richb on May 20, 2020 5:55:10 GMT -7
Anyone else finding it difficult to plan around an uncertain performance season? I know a lot of people are hitting the crags now and salvaging their spring, but I am not planning to be among the first wave. Public health reasons aside, it's not in the cards for me until my wife and I get some child care support (which keeps getting delayed - now looking like late June at the earliest).
So I'm doing what I can to maintain a fitness peak with what I have on hand: a Forge, and a lone boulder in the woods behind my house that has a pretty decent PE traverse. At some point I'll have to throw in the towel and start a new cycle, right? And find a way to mix in some power workouts, such as build a campus board.
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Post by MarkAnderson on May 20, 2020 7:45:37 GMT -7
I can relate. I’ve been HBing since early April, pretty over it. There are lots of people climbing around here, and I could certainly climb if I really wanted to, but it doesn’t seem worth it for me since I don’t have a clear cut goal for this time of year. My training plans revolve around travel which is now up in the air.
Anyway, I haven’t solved the problem yet. However, I believe it’s ok to have a season “off”. I very much look at climbing as a long term/lifetime pursuit, as opposed to a high school or college sports career with a very limited peak performance window, so in the grand scheme what is one spring season (arguably the worst season anyway)?
That said, it has occurred to me we may be quarantined this coming late fall/winter/spring. I definitely don’t want to go a year+ without climbing. At my age I may never fully rebound from that. So I will continue to train regularly regardless whether f my opportunities/desire to climb outside.
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Post by Charlie S on May 20, 2020 10:02:37 GMT -7
I think you can work power with "velocity pulls" pretty safely on a hangboard. This doesn't quite work what we call "contact strength", but it does help with power generation.
I had inconsistent partners through the winter. I trained strength 1 day a week, and power 1 day a week. This kept me in ok form through the winter. When redpoint season started, I started doing power-endurance. I have a hard time holding on the PE fitness, but strength and power seem to stick around for a while.
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bill
New Member
Eating Phase
Posts: 18
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Post by bill on May 21, 2020 14:17:48 GMT -7
I switched to a "temporary" never-ending hangboard phase in late March and it's still going with consistent gains. In the last two weeks I've been adding in a day of limit bouldering per week on my small 50* wall in the basement to try and keep some power, but overall I feel like I'm stronger right now than ever in terms of finger strength. Unfortunately I'm also bogged down with grad school and stuck in the midwest at least 5 hours from the nearest climbing, so COVID hasn't really changed much for me here other than by removing my access to the commercial gym 2 hours away.
I feel like the best thing to do is to adopt a long term mindset of treating COVID like a fitness cocoon. You're inside getting better so that when the time comes to break free you will be at a level of strength you've never experienced before. You can't plan for when it will end, so just keep going with the indefinite and savor the small, incremental gains.
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hangboarderjon
New Member
Sometimes the hard way is the only way.
Posts: 44
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Post by hangboarderjon on May 22, 2020 7:40:04 GMT -7
How long can we continue making gains in a never-ending strength phase?
Mark? Should we down-cycle occasionally?
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Post by Charlie S on May 22, 2020 8:08:46 GMT -7
My experience with hangboarding and other types of lifting is that it's good to take a 1-2 week break on occasion (maybe every 4-6 weeks) from that specific exercise.
Strength gains are incremental and can take a long time to build up. But the good news is that you won't lose it too quickly either.
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Post by MarkAnderson on May 22, 2020 9:44:46 GMT -7
That’s kinda like asking how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.
Anyone? Owl?
Anyway, I just did 14 workouts and hit a hard wall after about 11. I routinely do 12-13 workouts per HB phase these days. For me, the only way I’ve been able to successfully do more workouts was to build up to near limit, then drop down substantially (~30 lb per set per grip) and start ramping back up again. This is effectively the same as what Charlie just said: strength train for 4-6 weeks, take a break or back way off for a while, then start over (presumably from a higher level than you started the first time).
Currently, after stagnating on the HB, I’ve switched to LBing (1st w/o yesterday). From here, I may just go into a typical season with outdoor climbing, or a may go back to HBing in a couple weeks, depending on what I’m psyched to do.
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hangboarderjon
New Member
Sometimes the hard way is the only way.
Posts: 44
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Post by hangboarderjon on May 23, 2020 18:01:36 GMT -7
Ok, so 3 workouts?
When I was on my high school cross country team, we would follow a monthly cycle (the coach was female, afterall) wherein we'd do 3 kinds of workouts every week mixed with recovery runs (speed, distance, endurance-speed) that would build in difficulty and duration every week for 3 weeks, then downcycle for a week before repeating. We'd do this about 3 - 4 months until two weeks before State Championships (assuming we qualified) when we'd cut the workload to rest for the big competition.
In the rockprodigy approach the types of workout are divided into phases, instead of continued throughout the entire season. However, if I were to extend the hangboard phase indefinitely, I might do a 3 week intensity ramp up each month, followed by a high-volume, low-intensity week before starting over.
Honestly I'll probably just stop when I become bored and go get on some rocks. I'm only doing 2 HB workouts a week and am continuing to ramp up the intensity after workout 10. I'm excited about graduating from the biggest crimp on the rail to the next size down!
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Post by MarkAnderson on May 24, 2020 7:31:07 GMT -7
“obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.”
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hangboarderjon
New Member
Sometimes the hard way is the only way.
Posts: 44
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Post by hangboarderjon on Sept 26, 2020 9:21:38 GMT -7
“obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.” I can't say I understood that reference.
Have you experimented with 4-week training cycles? The 4-week cycle we did for my running team was a gradual ramping up in intensity and volume each week for 4 weeks, then drop back down but to a higher level than we started the prior month.
So instead of waiting to plateau after 4 weeks of the same routine, one intentionally incorporates an ever-changing workout load for each week.
Did you research alternative training periodizations -- instead of separate training phases, have separate kinds of workout that get spread through the whole training season -- I can't remember if you discuss this in the book.
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