UKC

In most of the sports I participate (cycling, running, wrestling) people are always hyping tabata as a training method. Would it beneficial to apply to endurance in climbing?

Something a long the lines of: start climbing a pumpy circuit route, every 20 seconds grab the nearest jug and shake for 10 secs, when rest is up continue clinbing hard circuit? Repeat for 4 mins

In reply to Kemics:

No, it's use is to increase VO2 max, nothing else.

In reply to JayPee630:

Does increase VO2 max correlate directly to aerobic fitness, or are there other factors involved? I.e. Can your VO2 max be high but still be relatively unfit?

In reply to Bob_the_Builder:

Yes, correlates to aerobic fitness. But it's possible to be specifically aerobically 'fit' and not 'fit' in other areas. In my understanding anyway!

In reply to JayPee630:

Good to know. Thanks.

In reply to Kemics:

Yes, it would work. As long as you made it sport-specific like you've described. Applied like that, Tabata's are great for lots of sports.

In reply to Kemics:

It's actually a really useful technique for training "power endurance" for rock climbing, either on circuit boards, foot on campusing, or fingerboards!

In reply to Gus:

You're not really doing Tabata though then, just some sort of 20/10 intervals. Tabata is more than just the 20/10 breakdown.

In reply to JayPee630:


Tabata protocol in most sports is generally more effective at anaerobic capacity rather than aerobic (although it does benefit this too). With climbing it's the same, just using forearm muscles, which is where climbing differs from other sports (the fatigue generated is more local, in the forearms rather than the whole body system)

The key is getting the intensity right, (as in other tabata sports training, rather than just doing random 20/10 intervals)

When you do it's very effective indeed!

In reply to Kemics:

This is almost exactly what Tom Randall suggest in this: http://www.ukclimbing.com/videos/play.php?i=2028 skip to 1:40 to see the exercise you described!

In reply to Kemics:

For those of us who can't be bothered to trawl through endless useless crap on google, can someone post a link to any good articles about Tabata stuff, specifically for trained subjects not fat people? Wikipedia's HIIT article just mentions that HIIT gave anaerobic capacity gains and steady state didn't in one trial by a dude with that name. Well duh.

In reply to abarro81:

Wondered how long it'd be till you showed up

In reply to Ian Bentley:

To take a wideboyz quote "tom is no punter", thanks for the link. I'll definitely check that out, I guess getting that intensity right is the real challenge