ARC & the middle-aged-comeback!

[weej]

Hello RCTM Forum!

Since this is my first post I want to start with a THANK YOU to Mike and Mark for writing and publishing this great book. Finding a loaner copy at the bouldering gym that opened relatively close to my apartment is the best thing that's happened since...a bouldering gym opened relatively close to my apartment! I'm psyched for my own copy to arrive and to follow the program as best as I am able.

My quick backstory: got into climbing as a teenager in the late 1980s (THANK YOU here to John Bercaw and Syl Mathis!!!), never got great at it but never totally abandoned it either, was top-roping 5.11d at MISSION CLIFFS gym in San Francisco in 1999 before moving to New York City. INSERT HERE: Graduate school, marriage, career, 2 kids = roughly 210 pounds of 42-year-old male. I never completely stopped working out though, so I can still do 10+ pull-ups and frequently on-sight through V3 at the new gym, with some successes at V4s and V5s working them over multiple visits.

My goal is to use the Rock Prodigy method to return to Sportclimbing so I can 1.) climb with my kids, 2.) tick off two old routes at the NRG that captured my imagination as a teenager - before I die - and 3.) escape NYC on the occasional short road trip to enjoy low-end Sport routes in a spectacular setting.

SO I started ARC in earnest this week (and a diet of course) as the first part of my seasonal training plan and here's what I've found: this gym is terrible for it. I can only guarantee 1 visit a week during off-peak hours. It's tiny and crowded otherwise, with the lack-of-footholds problem so accurately described in RCTM.

What I CAN do is climb up and down everything from V0-V2 over and over again in roughly 3-minute increments, moving between whatever vacant problems are available.

Does this count as ARC if I keep the resting between problems to a minimum? And since I can't do much else, how should I modify my training plan to accommodate this reality?  Should the ARC phase be longer?

thanks in advance for any feedback!

[MarkAnderson]

Apr 25, 2015 4:41:34 GMT -7 weej said:

Hello RCTM Forum!

Since this is my first post I want to start with a THANK YOU to Mike and Mark for writing and publishing this great book.

You're welcome!

Apr 25, 2015 4:41:34 GMT -7 weej said:

What I CAN do is climb up and down everything from V0-V2 over and over again in roughly 3-minute increments, moving between whatever vacant problems are available.

Does this count as ARC if I keep the resting between problems to a minimum? And since I can't do much else, how should I modify my training plan to accommodate this reality?  Should the ARC phase be longer?

I call this "volume bouldering." I think it's a pretty good substitute for ARC training. It's not ideal for various reasons, but if you just plain can't ARC, it's better to do the best you can than nothing at all. To get the best training effect, minimize the amount of rest between problems. Ideally you would climb a problem, climb down, then immediately get on the next problem, with the only rest being the time it takes to briskly walk from one problem to the next. To pull that off the intensity needs to be quite low, and you will probably find there aren't enough easy problems to actually do that. So instead, you will probably need to build in some rest time (to allow you to climb some harder problems), but try to keep it short. If you have to use harder problems, follow them up with easy problems so you can practice recovering on the wall. You will probably end up climbing the easiest problems multiple times. That's fine, just try to climb them more efficiently each time you repeat them.

Regarding phase length, I would see how it goes, but if anything make the phase shorter. At a bare minimum do at least one week, but preferrably two or more if your sanity can handle it. If your gym doesn't turn over problems very fast it could be tough to stick with this for several weeks.

Good luck,
Mark

[weej]

Thanks Mark for the reply, actually I have no problem following the "volume bouldering" approach for the full month that is outlined as the BASE phase for novices in RCTM: I like stress-proofing moves and will occasionally get the chance to ARC if I'm lucky and the gym is dead. I also need a month to find a way to set up a hangboard where I can use it consistently.

But here's what I don't understand: is volume bouldering & ARC ALL I am supposed to do during this phase if I am only climbing 3x week at a gym? It's really hard for me to totally give up working on projects that are at my limit when I am in the gym - should I just do that at the end of an ARC/vb workout?

Thanks again!

[MarkAnderson]

Ideally you would also do Supplemental Exercises, and on the weekends or other off days it's a good idea to do Outdoor Mileage climbing on real rock.

But yes, on a gym ARC day, the idea is too only ARC, as far as climbing is concerned. FWIW, if you are ARCing properly, there is no way you could effectively work projects "at [your] limit" afterward. 

[weej]

Thanks again for the feedback, I'm about halfway through my ARC phase and I took a day off from it recently to work on a V4 that was stumping me. I got the V4, returned to ARCing on the next visit, tried to do the V4 at the end of the session, and it was hopeless.

I think one of the huge challenges I face in this training is that I have so little time in the gym (a week with 3 x 45minute visits is good for me, a single 90 minute session is rare - hopefully to change in the summer)