Compressing a period?

[Jerimiah Gentry]

Hello fellow Andersonites:

I have perused the forums and did not see an answer to this question so forgive me for any redundancy.

I've been reading the RCTM for about a week. I have a month off in six weeks from now and am wondering how I should adjust the RCTM 18 week meso cycle to provide the best performance. Prior to reading the book, I have been climbing about 2x a week and fingerboarding and bouldering x2 week in the gym. A little ARC but no where near the Rx'ed volume. should I jump right in to strength? Do an abbreviated base phase?  I have an excellent work schedule for the 3 peak a year model as I am a travel nurse working 3 months on 1 month off, so after that month off I'll be able to fall in line with the prescribed program.

I am just entering the fold. I attempted "cyclical periodization" back in the day when it was described in the classic [cue the flying V electric guitar] "PERFORMANCE ROCK CLIMBING". I fell off the wagon, preferring to follow my whimsy and drinking schedule, but am now ready to crush.

Thank you and good night,

Jerimiah Gentry

[MarkAnderson]

Where are you going to spend your month off?

If it were me, I would do a full Strength Phase, then two weeks of Power, then my trip (to somewhere power-oriented at first). If you wanted to go somewhere very PE-oriented (like the Red), then you might want to do something different (maybe 1 wk BF, 3 wks Strength, 2 wks Power+PE).

[Charlie S]

Climbing god has spoken.

I will add that if I was in some weird parallel universe where I could only do ONE type of climbing training, it would be the hangboard. This is for both strength and injury prevention.

[jerimiahgentry]

Wow Mark. Good to meet you. Thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure where we're going. We're in Vegas now and off April 4th. Given the priority of power first, we were thinking Moe's, then Zion then IC / Castle Valley.

This gives me a good starting point as well as some homework on nailing down objectives.

Thank you!