PE quesitions (first PE phase!)

[alexandra]

Hi climbers!
I have not been on the blog for a long time, but I am still training (and improving slowly!!). Since I only ever boulder, I have consistently ignored the endurance and PE phase in the past, and focused on Hangboarding and Campus Board along with some hard bouldering. This has gotten me up to climbing a bunch of V6 and some V7's outdoors the last year. My new projects are a V8 and V9 in Boulder (Turning point and The Infinite). I have done all the moves at Turning Point a few times but I get too tired to put it together. I am convinced now that what will really help my climbing is doing some PE, so I started my PE phase yesterday. I selected 4 problems (around 30 total moves) to repeat 4 times, with down climbing from one to another if possible or quickly dropping down and moving on to the next). The problems were way below my onsight grade, which I also had done before with no problem (probably nothing more than V3/V4 - but I climb at the spot so they were between 4+ and 4- spots for those of you who clmb there), and yet I consistently failed to complete more than 2 problems in a row during my sets!!! 
I need some help figuring out what to do. The book mentions picking problems that have powerful moves, but I seem to be unable to even do "not so powerful moves" after about a minute of climbing... Should I choose easier problems? or stick with those until my endurance improves? I am afraid that if I choose anything easier, I will be training pure endurance and not PE... Thanks a lot!

[erick]

First of all see about reworking the order of your problems. Are you doing the hardest first or easiest first? Do your problems have incredibly complex power sequences that are low percentage? You likely just need to learn to keep composure while fatigued.

Beyond that I ask what are the needs of your current climbing goals. If your still planning on primarily bouldering then I would start by seeing how long it will take to climb your goal boulders and working from there. For example...

If Turning Point on the send will take you 45 seconds (I don't know anything about this problem so I could be way off) you would not really need to train your PE for much longer than 1 minute. Eric Horst did several podcasts specifically about training energy systems and one of the main take away points if I understood what he was saying is that the time duration's for each energy system are relatively static. The tank can be enlarged to some extent but for PE we can max those adaptations quickly and the biggest gains come from working the other two energy systems. Here is which Eric describes as the time spans we can tap each energy system.

Maximum strength and power (anaerobic alactic) or crux moves can be sustained for about 15 seconds then PE takes over
PE (anaerobic lactic) or several sub maximal moves with a noticeable drop in maximum power can be maintained consistently for 30 seconds to 1 minute then the aerobic system takes over
Aerobic continues 1 minute onward but with a dramatic reduction in strength output

I could be completely wrong but that seems to fit what you describe with a dramatic power drop at the one minute mark. If turning point will take longer to climb then 1 minute then you will likely be using your aerobic system to some degree. We are always using all three systems at any one time and even the brief period between holds were using the aerobic system to recover. So it would not be a bad idea to add in some limited aerobic work and for your PE maybe turning the intensity up higher and maybe limiting your PE intervals to 1:30 to 2 minutes in length.

[scojo]

I haven't done it yet (it's on the list), but Turning Point shouldn't take more than 30s if you dial the moves. So if you're lacking short-end power endurance, it will certainly help to improve that, but also try to dial the moves so that you can do them more efficiently/faster.

I think it can be really tricky to select good problems for a PE circuit at a commercial gym (especially a gym like The Spot). If you're focussed on making improvements that will help you send certain projects, you should select boulder problems that imitate that style or emphasize the physical attributes that you'll need for your projects. So if your fingers are failing on Turning Point, pick fingery problems, but if it's your upper body power that's failing, then pick problems that emphasize that.

I've also had a hard time making LBCs with the right amount of difficulty. If I picked something too hard, then I would tweak it (add holds, switch the order, replace a problem, etc.) until I can complete the LBC. Then if it's too easy after dialing it in more, I'll modify it until it's the right difficulty.