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Post by Joe on Jun 16, 2015 10:41:36 GMT -7
Hello everyone,
This past year, due to life circumstances, I've spent most of the year developing strength and power and raised my boulder grade from V5 to V7, which I am very happy about! However, the byproduct is that my endurance is now awful. I'm pumped at around 30-40 feet, which won't be good for the Red this fall. I plan to begin my 12 week plan for fall August 1st, with the hope of a peak the last week of October through the first few weeks of November. My fall 12 week plan will closely follow the Rock Prodigy plan with 2 weeks of capacity training, 4 weeks of strength, 3 weeks of power and 3 weeks of PE.
Most of my peak season will be in the Red River Gorge. The Red is my "home" crag and I have been climbing there for several years. I'm very familiar with the terrain and need for endurance. I've sent several of the areas harder 12's and a few 13a's. So I don't really need any advice/info about climbing the steep routes there, but would like feedback/suggestions on where to focus my time over the next 6 weeks prior to beginning my fall plan. Should I do a mini-strength/power cycle and then begin my periodized plan? Or should I try to regain some of the endurance that I have lost over the last year over the next six weeks, before beginning my 12 week plan?
My head tells me to keep building strength and power and the PE will return through the normal cycle and I'll be fine for the enduro Red routes. My gut says, you need to get your endurance back if you want any chance of not pumping out this fall!
My goal routes are 8 ball and Paradise Lost.
Thanks.
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Post by jonfrisby on Jun 16, 2015 11:17:19 GMT -7
Make sure not to skip the optional capacity work throughout the season. Also, From what I hear, P Lost is an atypical RRG route in that it's less enduro than the norm. Work on recovery on steep jugs during your arc phase and focus on longer-form PE during that 3 weeks. You should be OK
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Post by Joe on Jun 16, 2015 12:45:27 GMT -7
I've been on Paradise Lost, and it is a little bit atypical for the Red, in that the business is only about 30 feet, but the last few crux moves are very PE oriented. They aren't too bad off the hang, but HARD on the RP burn (at least for me). It's also one of the reason's why I've spent more time building up strength and power, hopefully the moves will feel easier this year. 8-ball is similar in that you have a great rest, followed by about 40 feet of hard climbing before the jugs at the top.
My bigger question is really where to focus my energy over the next 6 weeks. Once I get into the 12 week training phase, I'm pretty comfortable with my plan. I'm just not sure if I should try to come into that plan with a bit of endurance built up or as much strength and power as possible.
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Post by Chris W on Jun 16, 2015 21:03:47 GMT -7
Joe, I'm afraid I can't offer any helpful advise, but I CAN tell you that I'm using my summer to go through a mini strength and power phase to prepare for my fall season. I did this to get through the bitter days of mid winter here as well came out strong and had my best spring season ever.
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Post by tedwelser on Jun 18, 2015 13:04:44 GMT -7
Hi Joe- The Red and New are also my 'home' crags and I am familiar with the sort of endurance that is needed, partly because I used to have plenty of that endurance, but now I am working to get it back in my second climbing career and using RCTM methods. I think the two things that were missing from my standard RCTM approach were spending the volume of time match/resting on steep routes, and using a hangboard grip with sufficient depth to engage the lowest knuckles in the hand while hanging with a relaxed grip. After reminders from some friends (Rene and Margarita) I built a Maxipull board. Which is basically a 4 inch pvc pipe with grip tape on it. Anyways, I added workouts on it into the end of my PE workouts, and I got in a few workouts with it before my season ended. The big difference that I noticed is that I was able again to rest my way through a steep route. I feel as though I can make much more progress on this, and in so doing will open up a bunch more routes. I am currently taking my rest break, and plan to spend July climbing for fun at Summersville, bouldering at Grayson highlands and putting in workouts on the maxipull. Then rest briefly before starting a new RCTM season in August. The basic workout for the maxipull is to hang for 45 seconds, rest for 15, repeat for as many reps as possible with a goal of 7-10 reps in a set. Where 10 rep sets prepare you well for madness cave level endurance. In a single rep, my hand starts in the position of the lefthand photo, and at failure has slipped to the right hand view. This really engages and exhausts the flexors in the wrist and the first joint in the knuckle/hand. These are what I use to hold onto deep, open hand rest holds. Currently my plan is to aim for getting to 7 full hangs. When I fail to reach the 45 second goal I record my # of seconds and keep the 15 second rest cycle until I complete 7 reps. Anyways, I hope that helps. I know that the RCTM approach has really helped advance my finger strength and general climbing fitness, but that it is especially in the last 6 weeks that I have started to feel that I can really rest again. I hope to see even further progress this fall.
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Post by MarkAnderson on Jun 18, 2015 13:11:08 GMT -7
I'm in a similar position. I plan to start my next training cycle in early August, but my last cycle started ~ March 10th. I'm still climbing, but I'm way past my peak at the this point, and I still have close to two months to "kill".
Deciding how to spend that time is pretty personal and will depend on your goals. I'm at a point where I've been going hard for many years, and I'm more than happy to take a break. The conditions around here generally suck in the summer, so I plan to focus on other things, like riding my bike, camping with the family, house projects, scoping and perhaps developing new routes/crags. I plan to continue climbing, but nowhere near my limit and I won't be doing all of the little things that may be tedious but help optimize performance (like, dieting, waking up early, etc). I tend to do this every summer and it doesn't seem to affect my performance when I start back up again. YMMV.
Now, if I were super psyched, I would do what Chris is doing, and perhaps tack on a performance phase if I could find a worthy project with reasonable conditions.
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