Condensing power and power endurance phase?

[Sander]

Hi! I have to reschedule a short trip (weekend) to a route I'd like to climb. The trip will be a few weeks earlier and that leaves me with a training dilemma.

Situation: I've just finished a strength phase and I've done two power trainings. Before the trip I can squeeze in 7 more trainings at most.

The route: starts with a very steep, powerful boulder problem (±V8) followed by easier, but equally steep and pumpy 5.12- climbing. Power for the start will be the most important thing, but some PE to finish is required.

So how to train? I'm considering continuing training power and progressively including power endurance laps after the power training. So throughout the 7 remaining trainings I'd gradually reduce the volume spent on power and increase the volume spent on PE. Has anyone experience with this approach?

Alternatively, I could just do say 3 more power trainings and then do 4 PE training. I'm not sure which approach is wiser… Hope to hear your thoughts, thanks!

[MarkAnderson]

Sept 25, 2015 10:20:43 GMT -7 Sander said:

 I'm considering continuing training power and progressively including power endurance laps after the power training. So throughout the 7 remaining trainings I'd gradually reduce the volume spent on power and increase the volume spent on PE. Has anyone experience with this approach?

Yes, do this.  I've had really good success with combining Power and PE into a single workout.  See more details here.

[Lundy]

Fair warning, Sander. I just did my first combined power and PE workout as per Mark's link above, and holy shazaam it throttled me. Hoping it pays off in a couple weeks, though!

[Sander]

Thanks Mark! Just the confirmation I needed: just like Lundy I found out how punishing such a combined workout is, resulting in some doubt about the effectiveness of the approach. This should help I'll stick with it and see how it works for me! Will share the experience of course.

[Sander]

A little update on the results so far! I've done 5 combined trainings every other day now and I progressed on both power and power endurance. Interestingly, the progress on power seems to be about half as fast as it would have been in a dedicated power phase, but power endurance progressed just as fast as it did on previous dedicated power endurance phases.

The volume of these trainings is high though, and doing PE circuits with skin that hurts from limit bouldering and campus training is tough! Having done 5 of them with just 48 hours of rest was pretty brutal and I feel an onset of neurological fatigue. So with one week to go before the performance weekend, I'll step back a little and do just one dedicated power training and one dedicated PE training, both with a modest volume. I hope it's enough to crush next week!

[MarkAnderson]

Awesome, thanks for the update. Skin can definitely be a limiting factor, so it helps if your PE circuit is fairly skin friendly. Fortunately campusing is about as skin-friendly as it gets, so if I feel my skin suffering I will favor campusing over limit bouldering.