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SKILLS: Lattice Training Series with Tom Randall - Part 2: Power Endurance

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 UKC Articles 17 Oct 2018
Training alone on an auto belay., 4 kbCrack connoisseur, training guru and director of Lattice Training, Tom Randall, shares some training tips in this 4-part series, complete with live Q&A sessions in the forums from 7-9pm every Wednesday for the next 4 weeks. Ask him anything! (Within reason...!) Download Lattice's new (and free) training app Crimpd to assist with these drills.

Week 2: Power Endurance.



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 Justin Gress 17 Oct 2018

Thanks for the article. What would you advise to be the best way to track Anaerobic Capacity as a boulderer?

My main concern being how to subtract out any gain in finger strength from the equation as that would skew the results to make it look like my AnCap is improving when it's only the knock on effect of improved finger strength.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

Justin

 Rob Laird 17 Oct 2018
In reply to UKC Articles:

I seem to remember comments from several people saying that power endurance is the least trainable. Is that correct, what would the best way to incorporate it into a training schedule, and generally how long would you normally train it for?

Cheers

In reply to UKC Articles:

Hey Tom,

Here's my current predicament...

My strength tends to come and go in fairly significant peaks and troughs. This is accentuated by the fact I tend to do a lot of trad/sport over the spring/summer (thus I get fit and weak) followed by bouldering throughout the autumn/winter (where I get strong and (in theory) powerful).

Clearly there’s a somewhat painful transition phase and my question is based around that: what am I best doing to recruit back the strength I’ve lost? I'm conscious that there's no cutting corners, but have always been amazed how fast you can 'get it back', but I've never actually seen any precise figures regarding the timelines.

Cheers!

 Phil_Brock 17 Oct 2018
In reply to UKC Articles:

Hi Tom,

Two related questions:
1) How quickly does power endurance fade once you stop training it?

2) What's the minimum effort required to maintain power endurance? Would 1 session per week be enough & does redpoint / onsighting at your grade limit count towards this (e.g. climbing outdoors at the weekend)?

Thanks,

Phil

 Andy Reeve 17 Oct 2018
In reply to UKC Articles:

Hi Tom - looks like a busy night so I'm going to get in the queue!

Another question about fitting AnCap into a plan. Whenever I train AnCap I find that my forearms are too tired for any more strength training for at least two days (as in it sometimes takes two rest days to recover).  Is this because am bad at it; unaccustomed to it; or to be expected?

Also, in Barrows' PDF he tentatively suggests that AnCap can adapt for about 16 weeks before plateauing (with caveats that this is a guesstimate). Given your experience, would you plan 16 weeks of AnCap for a generally weak-but-fit trad/sport climber who would like to be less shit?

Really enjoyed reading the questions and answers from last week. Cheers for doing this yo

In reply to Justin Gress:

> Thanks for the article. What would you advise to be the best way to track Anaerobic Capacity as a boulderer?

> My main concern being how to subtract out any gain in finger strength from the equation as that would skew the results to make it look like my AnCap is improving when it's only the knock on effect of improved finger strength.

> Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

> Justin

To keep things really simple then the best way to track your anaerobic output as a boulderer would be to do a repeater exercise to failure (7:3s will work well) at an intensity of 80-85% of your max. It's very simple in terms of set up, non-expensive equipment and also will take into account any changes in underlying strength. 

* Make sure you always use same grip position and same testing edge! Ideally make it a single joint 20mm edge as well. 

 

 

In reply to Rob Laird:

Trainability is fairly individual and unique to the athlete within "normal" guidelines, so it's always difficult to answer exactly without knowing quite a lot of info.... but....

1. Power endurance wants to be used leading up to the "peak" period for a route climber (around 4-8 weeks before) and in the "base" period for boulderers. This is in reference to AeroPow for route climbers and AnCap for boulderers..

2. As a very (very!) rough guideline you're unlikely to be doing any more than 20-30% of your weekly climbing doing this type of training. More would risk over-training most people

3. For most people it takes a year or so to really learn and understand what the "response rate"  is to different training methods. Over the years I'm still surprised how quickly some individuals adapt and how others need months on end to make gains! 

Post edited at 19:42
 Ally Smith 17 Oct 2018
In reply to Tom Randall - Lattice Training:

Evening Tom

By increasing maximum strength, would you expect the greater concurrent increases to aero-pow or an-cap?

 

In reply to Rob Greenwood - UKClimbing:

> Hey Tom,

> Here's my current predicament...

> My strength tends to come and go in fairly significant peaks and troughs. This is accentuated by the fact I tend to do a lot of trad/sport over the spring/summer (thus I get fit and weak) followed by bouldering throughout the autumn/winter (where I get strong and (in theory) powerful).

> Clearly there’s a somewhat painful transition phase and my question is based around that: what am I best doing to recruit back the strength I’ve lost? I'm conscious that there's no cutting corners, but have always been amazed how fast you can 'get it back', but I've never actually seen any precise figures regarding the timelines.

> Cheers!

Ok so this is a very common predicament and also a great question! It comes down to that whole statement of "recruiting back strength I've lost". 

If we're talking about the recruitment element of strength, this it's an "easy come, easy go" scenario because recruitment is relatively quickly to achieve but unfortunately quick to go. Therefore, you really have to be objective and accept this (if you stop training/stimulating it) but you also have to be positive that it's quick to get it back when you do train it! 

Thus to get that recruitment back as quick as possible:

1. Train with recruitment style fingerboard protocols (max hangs, very short, very high intensity with low time under tension for whole session)

2. Boulder at max intensity for shorter sessions than usual. 

3. If you're a high level adult climber, look at doing some campus work

 

In reply to Rob Greenwood - UKClimbing:

> Hey Tom,

> Here's my current predicament...

> My strength tends to come and go in fairly significant peaks and troughs. This is accentuated by the fact I tend to do a lot of trad/sport over the spring/summer (thus I get fit and weak) followed by bouldering throughout the autumn/winter (where I get strong and (in theory) powerful).

> Clearly there’s a somewhat painful transition phase and my question is based around that: what am I best doing to recruit back the strength I’ve lost? I'm conscious that there's no cutting corners, but have always been amazed how fast you can 'get it back', but I've never actually seen any precise figures regarding the timelines.

> Cheers!

Ok so this is a very common predicament and also a great question! It comes down to that whole statement of "recruiting back strength I've lost". 

If we're talking about the recruitment element of strength, this it's an "easy come, easy go" scenario because recruitment is relatively quickly to achieve but unfortunately quick to go. Therefore, you really have to be objective and accept this (if you stop training/stimulating it) but you also have to be positive that it's quick to get it back when you do train it! 

Thus to get that recruitment back as quick as possible:

1. Train with recruitment style fingerboard protocols (max hangs, very short, very high intensity with low time under tension for whole session)

2. Boulder at max intensity for shorter sessions than usual. 

3. If you're a high level adult climber, look at doing some campus work

 

In reply to Ally Smith:

> Evening Tom

> By increasing maximum strength, would you expect the greater concurrent increases to aero-pow or an-cap?

Hi Ally, this is a pretty tricky one to answer! I'll have to say that I need to go away and have a read and think about this. There's quite a few complicating factors and possibly an answer is only possible if we make a very strict hypothetical scenario. I don't want to bluff you a vague or incorrect answer

 

In reply to Andy Reeve:

> Hi Tom - looks like a busy night so I'm going to get in the queue!

> Another question about fitting AnCap into a plan. Whenever I train AnCap I find that my forearms are too tired for any more strength training for at least two days (as in it sometimes takes two rest days to recover).  Is this because am bad at it; unaccustomed to it; or to be expected?

> Also, in Barrows' PDF he tentatively suggests that AnCap can adapt for about 16 weeks before plateauing (with caveats that this is a guesstimate). Given your experience, would you plan 16 weeks of AnCap for a generally weak-but-fit trad/sport climber who would like to be less shit?

> Really enjoyed reading the questions and answers from last week. Cheers for doing this yo

Hey Andy!!

Training recovery: this one is likely to be a function of

1. How hard you push in a session (% intensity of your max)

2. How long you make the training session (and how this compares to previous sessions you might have run in recent times)

3. Your training history 

4. How well you eat and recover and extra stress you plough into your life! 

So....... as you can see it's bit's of a big area! Quite a few factors here that effect things. That said, I can see that you're expecting slightly better recovery rates so my first thought would be to make the sessions slightly less exhaustive and cut the last 2-3 sets out of your session. Also just check that food timing or "life stress" isn't having a big effect. 

Adaptation times: we've found that in reality these theoretical times can be extremely variable depending on the individual! One of the reasons why you can't be too wedded to theory in n=1 scenarios . As a baseline, I've found AnCap work to be very useful for most climbers and I would plan it into big blocks of the year.

Catch ya soon! 

 

 

In reply to Tom Randall - Lattice Training:

Thanks Tom, your answer has neatly led on to next week's question

In the meanwhile I better get training!

 james.slater 18 Oct 2018
In reply to UKC Articles:

Hi Tom,

In a typical training session (2ish hours) how many of these exercises would you envisage doing? Is it a case of doing just one and that is your session, regardless of whether it was 30 mins, or 80 mins. Or would you cram as many into two hours as possible, maybe combining a power endurance exercise with an endurance one.

In reply to james.slater:

> Hi Tom,

> In a typical training session (2ish hours) how many of these exercises would you envisage doing? Is it a case of doing just one and that is your session, regardless of whether it was 30 mins, or 80 mins. Or would you cram as many into two hours as possible, maybe combining a power endurance exercise with an endurance one.

Hi James, it depends on whether you're talking about mixing different types of training (endurance, power endurance, strength) or different types of power endurance sessions themselves. 

 

If the former, then normally 2 is fine (we just did a Training Beta podcast this week on how to use 1hr in a VERY efficient manner!) and the structuring and ordering does get a little complex for a simple forum post. 

https://www.trainingbeta.com/media/lattice-time-hacks/?portfolioCats=72

If the latter, then I'd recommend to just stick to one format for most people. Trying to mix two different protocols for power endurance in a single session seems somewhat unnecessary and also will likely lead to you lacking focus in the session. Just keep it simple, keep the quality really high

CAVEAT: If you're talking about doing a very high intensity aerobic power AND very high intensity aerobic capacity workout in a single session, I'd be very careful. I'm going to say that 90+% of the climbing population isn't capable of do this. It's too much intensity and too much volume.

 

 Andy Reeve 20 Oct 2018
In reply to Tom Randall - Lattice Training:

Nice one, thanks Tom . Lots of food for thought there.

 

See you soon


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