Planning supplemental exercises

[Lundy]

Hi all,
I'm curious how people plan their supplemental exercises?  Does everyone do it after your regular workouts as M&M suggest in the good book?  My situation is that (a) I'm really weak in general, so want to have focused SE workouts to build general body strength, and (b) I don't have a ton of time, so don't want to do epically long sessions in the morning before work (i.e. warmup plus campus or HB plus SE).

So, my solution to this is to separate my SE workouts from the climbing workouts.  This works great during the strength phase, as I do a warmup plus HB workout on day 1, a full (roughly 1.5 hour or so) SE workout on day 2, rest on day 3, and repeat.  My challenge in scheduling this comes during the power phase.  I like to do a LB session one day, rest a day, then do a campus session, then two days off.  On my first day off after campusing, I do an SE workout without the pulling exercises, as campus tends to wipe me out.  So my schedule looks like:  day 1 LB, day 2 rest, day 3 campus, day 4 SE (no pulling) and day 5 rest.  The problem with this is that I'm only getting one SE workout in every five days, with no pulling exercises, which is pretty pathetic.  I've tried to add SE days in on day 2 instead of the rest, but it wipes me out for the campus session the next day.

So how are other folks doing this?  Does everyone just do SEs after their workouts, and I should suck it up and start getting up at 4 instead of 5 (I really, honestly, don't think I can go there...)?  Or do other folks split them up as well to get a good, focused SE workout in?  And if so, how do you fit it into your training schedule such that it doesn't impact your climbing/campusing/HB workouts?

Also, one quick point, the book recommends SE workouts that match the protocols for the given phase you're in, so HYP during HB, power during campusing and LB, and strength-endurance during LBCs.  However, that doesn't seem to make a ton of sense to me, as I'm really not interested in building muscle mass in those other muscles.  So my protocol has just been very high weight, low rep SE workouts, to try to get build strength without mass.  Has anyone else thought about this?

Thanks in advance, everyone, for your endlessly thoughtful inputs.

For anyone interested, in case it matters for your response, my typical SE workout is 3 sets each, 5-4-3 reps, of push-ups, pull-ups, shoulder press, rows, dips, and reverse flys, all done on rings except shoulder press.

[Chris W]

I'm still figuring this one out and experimenting as I go. I almost never have time to do any SE's the same day as my climbing training. My SE sessions don't go over 30-45 minutes and don't necessarily follow the same protocol as the RPTM. This, again, is due to time constraints and a personal need/desire to work more than just the muscles and systems recommended (got to keep the lower back strong, the legs and heart healthy, and the body generally fit to rough house with the kids). None of my SE activities seem to adversely effect (spelling?) my climbing performance or add any extra weight (have already experimented with this).

My issue is with GLOBAL fatigue and sleepiness. I'm currently debating whether or not to do any SE's on the day between LB sessions and campus sessions, since I've just entered the power phase. I'm leaning towards resting more for this season and seeing how it goes.

Doesn't directly answer all your questions, but I'm in the same boat. I'll have to try one and see how it goes.

[jessebruni]

I do more or less what you do Lundy and I basically try not to worry about SE's so much during the power phase. If I have some gas left in the tank on day 1 (the LB day) I'll do SE's then, I always rest day 2. If I do end up campusing day 3 (I've been really bad with keeping up with that) then I do the SE's on day 4. This gets me around 2 days per week of SE's which I'm more than happy with. If I'm feeling like I'm wrecked all the time I probably need to be resting more anyway, not figuring out how to add even more work to my schedule.

[MarkAnderson]

Lundy, have you considered/tried doing your SEs in the evening on Day 1? I do that when time is limited and it seems to work.

Also 1.5 hours seems like a really long time for the number of SEs you're doing. I gather you're resting a lot? That might be worthwhile, but you could try going with less rest. I do 3 sets of 6 exercises in about 30 minutes, by using a circuit approach. I do 1 set of each exercise, then I do the second set of each exercise, etc, so I get a get ~10 minutes of rest between sets of the same exercise but only ~1 minute rest between sets (of any exercise). LMK if that is confusing.

[Sander]

Lundy, a similar approach works for me as well.

During the strength phase, I do a circuit style strength training (±50 minutes) for most muscles in my arms, shoulders, chest and core on day 2. I rest on day 3. As on day 1 I only push my forearms to failure, this works for me really well. I often feel wrecked after the hangboard session and have a really hard time committing to doing a full set of SEs. On day 2 I have much more motivation an can push myself harder.

I still experimenting with the power phase. During the first one I did, I didn't do any SEs at all, as I was afraid to interfere with recovery from campus training (it was my first exposure to campus training). During the second season, I did 2 crossfit style upper body trainings for every 3 campus/LB trainings. It didn't seem to interfere with the campus training. Now I'm approaching my third power season and I plan to use a different approach:
1. Campus/LB + a few SE; 2. Rest; 3. Campus/LB; 4. longer SE session; 5. Rest. Repeat. Probably there'll be some outdoor bouldering involved that messes up the entire schedule, but it's a starting point
I'll try a complex training approach to the SEs.

During the PE phase I don't do SE. I find that PE training is quite tough on the entire body and doing extra training interferes with recovery. Without SEs I can do a PE training about every second day. I do try to do some yoga workouts on rest days, it seems to aid recovery and helps increase my flexibility (which is really, really needed).

[Lundy]

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. Sounds like lots of folks are working this out as well...

First (easiest), regarding PE, I also basically drop SEs from that phase (other than quick, simple elbow and shoulder preventative stuff, which I do everyday all season anyway).

Regarding the length of my SEs, Mark, I do each set at 3 minutes, so six exercises, three sets of each at three minutes is 54 minutes of actual workout. The problem is my setup is in my garage, aka stroller and kid riding implements storage, so I add about 10 minutes for setup and cleanup (combined). Then another 15ish minutes for the exercises mentioned above, and you're at 1:20 or so... I like the idea of turning it into a circuit workout, but seems like it would be harder to use a protocol where you're really focusing on CNS adaptations instead of building muscle??

Lastly, it's funny how sometimes someone needs to just point out the obvious. I had written evenings off altogether because, well, I workout in the mornings. I definitely couldn't pull it off often, between family and work, but once every five days seems pretty reasonable, so I think I'm gonna give that a try.

Thanks everyone!