I have to figure out how to train in mini cycles

[Cody]

So I have had two amazing, full seasons so far. Im a beginner at training as well as lead climbing. In these two seasons, my climbing has improved dramatically. I have already achieved some long term goals. I am currently climbing in the 5.10 trad range. I have improved steadily over the last 8 or 9 months. 

Recently some major changes have come my way with work--forcing me to split my life between two cities for the next three to six months or so. I don't think I will be in one place consistently enough to use a full season training plan, which I am absolutely devastated about  I don't want to stunt my climbing progress, if possible. I would really love to figure out a way to keep training hard, even though I can't use the full season beginner template I have been using. It looks like I will be able to resume training back to normal by July (I hope). But in the meantime, I don't know what to do. I fear that if I do nothing but climb I will digress, and I certainly don't want that.

I read over the section in the book about building a shorter (weekly or bi-weekly) schedule. However, I don't think my fingers could take that much hard training. I am basically starting from the beginning of a season--I haven't climbed much in the last 30 days.  I would probably benefit from a bunch of BF.  Furthermore, I can barely handle the campus board for the three sessions I use it during a normal, beginner season--and that's after building up to it. I'm wondering what a better plan might be for a beginner like me. I would be happy if I could maintain at least some of my strength and endurance, and keep working on my lead head. If possible I would love to get stronger and start sport climbing more. But honestly, I just don't know where to begin again.

Here are the basics about my schedule: I will be in my home town (Las Vegas) usually over the weekend, Saturday to Monday. This is where I have access to a good gym where I can do efficient ARCing as well as hang boarding at my house. For the three or four days in between I will be in a strange city (Phoenix), climbing in gyms that may or may not provide a good ARC environment but probably do have decent boulder problems. (So far I have visited only one gym in Phoenix and it wasn't exactly a good place to train--but there are others to check out).

I can probably climb outdoors at least one full day per week, and I would love to include some OAE during this period as well.

I appreciate all of your ideas. So far taking your advice has worked far better than anything I could come up with on my own.

Thanks a million.

[daustin]

Hi Cody,

One of the strengths of systematic training like in the RCTM is the long-term outlook. If your situation isn't going to be conducive to consistent training for the next 3-6 months, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It sounds like you'll still be able to get a good amount of climbing in, so maybe try to roughly model your climbing sessions after the various phases of a normal training season.

At this stage, the bigger "risk" is probably not progressing/improving as quickly/efficiently as you would if you could completely adhere to a systematic training regimen, as opposed to actually regressing. In other words, as long as you keep climbing somewhat regularly during this (hopefully temporary) interruption in your long-term training schedule, you'll be fine. At least. those are my unqualified two cents.

Best,
Dan

[MarkAnderson]

Apr 11, 2015 13:35:37 GMT -7 Cody said:

I fear that if I do nothing but climb I will digress, and I certainly don't want that.

Have no fear!  You won't digress. When you start full on training again you may struggle a bit during the first week or so, but over the course of the cycle it will make no difference.

Considering the time of year, and the weather where you will be splitting your time, I wouldn't worry too much about getting into tip top shape.  I would probably just go bouldering indoors when I was in PHX and climb outside on the weekends.  Work on your lead head while you're outside, and work on climbing gymnastically when you're inside.  Use this time to replenish your psych for structured training in July.

If you don't like that advice, you could probably come up with some type of NLP that involves ARCing or hangboarding on the weekends and Limit Bouldering during the week.

[jonfrisby]

My recommendation was basically Mark's last throwaway sentence but with the caveat that it can be pretty grating doing that extra long training without much climbing at a high level.

[Cody]

All of this is music to my ears!

Thanks