Skipping Power Phase

[mclay]

I'm halfway through my 3rd Strength Phase and I'm contemplating skipping the upcoming Power Phase and going straight to PE-Performance prep.

There are several reasons I'm considering this, but I need some experienced advice:

I'm still relatively new to climbing; started climbing in 2012, but didn't climb consistently until about 8 months ago.

My "goal routes" at this point do not seem to have much of a powerful component. I'm hoping to break into the 5.11 range of climbs by end of this year.

I'm 1.87 metres tall (over 6 feet) and have really long arms (ape index of +7) so long/powerful moves aren't as big as they would be for shorter climbers maybe? When I was able to boulder in a commercial gym I flashed a 6C+ simply because what was a huge dyno to a angled sloper for 90% of the gym climbers was a small hop for me 

I don't have a campus board and my only training area now is my small home gym; I suck at setting realistic problems so I'm not sure how profitable trying to Limit Boulder will be. My plan is to boulder outside a lot for future Power phases.

Lastly, cutting out two weeks of Power in this cycle would enable the following full training cycle to align for end of the year holidays.

[ericg]

If you have the power to do your goal routes then I think it is okay to skip it. Just make sure you actually have enough power, sometimes it is easy to confuse getting pumped and falling with thinking we need more endurance, but really being more powerful would actually make the route go quicker.

More importantly, small home gyms are by far the best place to limit boulder. So I think you should invest the time to learn how to set realistic limit boulders. Invite other climbers over if you need help at first.

[tedwelser]

I would be tempted to make sure to include something powerful and deadpointy, similar to doing 2 moves on a standard campus ladder. You could set problems like these, where you pull onto bad holds on an overhang and deadpoint to safe-to-latch but challenging open hand or semi crimp edges.

You gain both finger power (contact strength) and movement familiarity. I can think of plenty of 10+/11- routes where the crux boils down to a couple powerful and committing moves. If you set such problems at home you can make versions with the same hands, but with increasingly worse footholds, that make the moves more deadpointy and powerful. You will be surprised how much you can progress at such things in a short time, and how often it pays off to be well prepared for those "moments of truth".

[Thor83]

I think you have misunderstood the concept of power. It is not only about doing big moves, it is more how fast you can generate your maximum strength. High power is needed to do hard moves with bad holds (both foot and hand). The holds does not necessarily have to be spaced far apart for it to be a hard move.

[mclay]

That could well be the case. I don't really climb that hard, so I assume that I won't be doing the same type of movements you train on a campus board when I'm trying to redpoint a project in a few weeks.

Is there a basic test of power for beginning climbers? Dynamic pull-ups as a good indicator?

How much of a factor is the type of climbs on my goal route tick list?

[tedwelser]

Jul 27, 2016 10:28:25 GMT -7 mclay said:

That could well be the case. I don't really climb that hard, so I assume that I won't be doing the same type of movements you train on a campus board when I'm trying to redpoint a project in a few weeks.

Is there a basic test of power for beginning climbers? Dynamic pull-ups as a good indicator?

How much of a factor is the type of climbs on my goal route tick list?

The basic movement on a standard ladder is fundamental to all climbing in the following sense:  one hand is high, one hand is a bit lower, and you simply pull down on the upper hold and reach past a short ways to a higher hold.  However, the holds are challenging enough that when you pull there is uncertainty about hitting the upper hold, and of actually latching it.  These two things, when trained, allow the climber to generate the contact strength necessary to latch the upper hold, and the confidence to try the uncertain feeling move.

If the finger power or "contact strength" is neglected then the climber will fail on limiting moves by hitting a hold in a deadpoint situation but not being able to instantly generate enough of their full strength.  This is, in fact, the limiting factor on the upper crux of AWOL, a classic 10a at the RRG.  I don't know what routes are on your tick list, but finger power is not something that only occurs on harder routes, and it certainly happens on all sorts of 10's and 11's that I have been on.   
  
Dynamic pullups would be more relevant for the type of power that is trained with max ladders, or doing hard problems on a moonboard.  I would say that type of power becomes crucial on steep, bouldery 5.12s and harder.   It is pretty easy to climb up to that grade without investing too much in that sort of power.  I speak from the experience of doing exactly that due to having to work around existing injuries.  

[Lundy]

I agree with what others are saying.  Don't skip power.  You don't need to worry about campusing yet, I wouldn't think, at your grades, but you should be doing some limit bouldering.  Don't worry about trying to set great problems on your wall yet, either.  Just scatter shot a ton of holds on the wall and find interesting / challenging movements.  I've had a home wall for a couple years now and have found that I can never really "set" good problems, but when I sit on the mat and look at holds and try to find something interesting to do, I can come up with really great, fun limit boulder problems.