Should I cut some of my PE for more power?

[erick]

I have two weeks left of HB training then I will be jumping into power training. I just visited my buddy in AK who is one of the climbing team coaches up there. He assessed my climbing while I was there and pointed out the for how strong my fingers are and how good my movement was my contact strength SUCKS as does my pull power and that i should spend more time working these weaknesses. My goal route is a long vertical crimpfest at smith and I am considering cutting 1 or more weeks of my PE to get my strength power up. Here are some other reasons why, my gym has NO good terrain for me to work LBCs which will be at all close to simulating my goal route. On my last few trips (Smith, Maple, Wild Iris, Red Rocks) I have always failed on power moves not because of pump, although a slight pump is always a factor and I don't want to loose too much of my PE.

If I cut PE one  or two weeks i was thinking of doing a strength/power hybrid phase. Something like Sun HB, Wed LB, Fri Campus focusing on more on bigger rungs to work big pull muscles as opposed to trying to build contact strength until fully in power phase.

Or since power is my actual weakness should I skip the hybrid approach and just jump into power

What do you think?

[MarkAnderson]

Are we still talking about Darkness at Noon? ...Definitely not a power route.   I don't think it even has any dynos (although there is a fairly quick stab into a mail slot at the very top that most people won't be able to do statically when pumped).

Anyway, how many weeks of Power and PE did you originally have planned? The nice thing about those two is that they're super easy to train concurrently. I would recommend doing a normal Power Phase, but then continue LBing and Campusing as you add PE work in later in the season. I don't think more HBing will help your contact strength, so I wouldn't do the hybrid thing.

Also, big hold campusing won't help you much at Smith. If you really think its a serious weakness for you, a weakness that is limiting you on the rock, I could see doing that, but really big hold campusing is usually more of a gym thing than a rock climbing thing. So again, it could be worthwhile if gym bouldering is important to you, or you want to do those types of rock routes (presumably at other crags) in the future, otherwise I would think that smaller campus moves on smaller holds would be far more specific, and beneficial, to the type of outdoor climbing you have planned in the near future. It's still probably worth working on in the background, and you can do that by including a few campus sets of that style each workout, and adding some bigger hold/bigger moves in LBing, but I wouldn't necessarily emphasize it.

[erick]

Yep still training for darkness. I have been on a few routes at smith that require large (near dynamic) moves on vertical terrain (Heinous Cling full) and I was not sure if that was required on Darkness. It sounds like thats not going to be a problem for this trip but it is still a weakness I run into while traveling to other areas, so I will stick with the standard schedule laid out in the book. Thanks for the help!