Struggling to make a 17-Week training cycle

[willblack]

I'm a nursing student and I spend about 40 hours a week on school and I work 25 hours a week, night shift in the hospital. Because of this, I have a decent amount of time for training and no time to climb outside while school is in session, and quite a bit of time to get out when I'm not in school. I've been climbing a little over 5 years and training maybe 3, I boulder around V7 and I've sent four 12c's and a bunch of a's and b's. I'd really like to climb 5.12d when I go to the red this winter, and 5.13 before I graduate in Spring 2019. I'm quite tall at 6'5", and my main weakness has always been finger strength. Endurance comes pretty naturally to me though I have a hard time with really steep stuff. I have access to a hangboard and weights as well as a moonboard at my house. There is a gym with good bouldering terrain, decent slightly overhung ARCing terrain, and a campus board. I feel like power endurance always comes quickly enough for me that my real weaknesses are power and finger strength. Fall semester is 17 weeks long and I'd like to make a training plan that encompasses the whole semester. I've identified 3 options and I'm having a hard time deciding which one to use.

Option 1: Standard cycle w/ ARCing

2w Rest

4w ARCing

4w Strength

3.5w Power

3.5w PE


Pros: includes ARCing
Cons: I don't feel like I really have a lot to gain from ARCing at this point in my climbing, and this is more or less the same schedule that has been giving me modest gains for the past few years. I'm kind of leaning towards trying something new

Option 2: Bridge Cycle to Standard
without ARCing
1w Rest

4w Strength

1w Power

1w Rest

4w Strength

3w Power

3w PE


Pros: Lots of hangboarding and power training, which is what I feel like I need
Cons: curious whether I will be likely to gain anything from my second hangboard phase since it only starts 2 weeks after the end of the first one

Option 3: ARCing with Max Hangs

1w Rest

3w ARCing

4w Strength

2w Max Hangs

3.5w Strength

3.5w PE


Pros: Includes ARCing as well as max hangs
Cons: I've never tried max hangs and 6 weeks of hangboarding is a lot.

[aikibujin]

I like Option 2 the best out of the three. But I would probably tweak it a little by doing 3w of strength follow by 2w of power before the 1w rest. I don't think you can gain much by doing just one week of power, and this kind of address your concern that there are only two weeks between your first and second strength phase.

[jcm]

Jul 11, 2017 8:22:53 GMT -7 aikibujin said:

I like Option 2 the best out of the three. But I would probably tweak it a little by doing 3w of strength follow by 2w of power before the 1w rest. I don't think you can gain much by doing just one week of power, and this kind of address your concern that there are only two weeks between your first and second strength phase.

I was going to make the exact same set of suggestions. Do this.

[MarkAnderson]

I concur, option 2, etc.

[willblack]

Well that was easy, Thanks y'all!

[andreas]

willblack i would be interested in what styles your hardest routes have been so far?

How long will you be in the red for?

My experience with the red is that no matter how good your base endurance is for the red I would do an intense PE (longer problems) and endurance phase. Most of the hard climbs i have in mind do require substantial strength while being pumped. I never struggled with doing the moves isolated - strength and power are not the concern - but doing them on top of 30+ pumpy moves was the issue.

Regards,
Andreas

[willblack]

The 4 12c's I have climbed are actually all over the place in terms of style, two were on pockety limestone, one was an endurance climb at Maple, and one was a short power endurance route here in WNC on metamorphic sandstone. I'm not great at super steep stuff but I plan on training endurance primarily with long LBC's on my moodboard, which I think will help with that.

[daveholliday]

Re: option 2 that willblack mentioned as a possibility for his training plan (with tweaks by aikibujin and jcm). this looks quite interesting even though i don't have the same constraints with my schedule as he does. are there any downsides to doing that over a "traditional" 4 week strength and then 4 week power phase during a cycle? can doing "too much" strength or power training make you too tired for the performance phase or is it a matter of adjusting to the loads and knowing what the body can handle? my performance phase is scheduled for late october through the end of the november so i have plenty of time to prepare. my focus for the fall season is eldo, shelf road, turkey rocks, and the desert.

i'm thinking that a tweak that might work for me is 3w strength, 2w power, 1w rest, 3w strength, 3w power, and 2w PE. i usually do eight workouts in a stength phase; they start going to shit on my weakest grips at workout 6 or 7 so shortening the stength phase by a couple of workouts might keep my morale a little higher.

as with anything training-wise, maybe it's worth experimenting and see how it goes for a cycle of two.

[Chris W]

Primarily because of east coast weather, I've been doing "transitional" seasons for summer and winter. These involve full strength phase (9 HB sessions), 2-4 weeks power (in the barn training primarily), 1-2 weeks rest, launch into full fall or spring season. I haven't noticed any downside to this. Everything continues to improve.