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Feet on Campus Ladders for Power Endurance?

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 Paul Sagar 02 Mar 2023

Having recently sent my winter boulder projects I’m now switching attention to route climbing for the rest of the year. I leave for Kalymnos in 4 weeks (but have been training endurance since Christmas albeit alongside more of a focus on bouldering outside if I could get out), and so have 3 weeks left of full training load, then a taper week.

What do people think/have experience of when it comes to feet-on campus ladders to train route endurance?

Potential pros

- absolutely blasts the forearms in a super targeted way, getting maximum pump into the part of the arms most likely to be a weak link on limit endurance climbs 

- I am prone to over-training and this is a high intensity but low volume (see below) exercise as compared to my usual default of 4 x 60-70 move circuit board laps at 20degree angle

- I once saw a Ste Mac interview where he said when he had kids to look after he often just did feet on repeaters and said it was a game changer 

Possible cons:

- no skill improvement (not so important as don’t get much skill refinement from a dialled circuit?)

- neglects other muscles groups that will be relevant for climbing real routes, especially long Kalymnos ones

- the Kalymnos trip is to level up before switching to trad focus for rest of the year; is this kind of brutal forearm blasting overkill and insufficiently trad relevant

Thoughts?

Two sessions completed this week, roughly as follows 

set 1 - 2mins 20 secs

set 2 - 2mins

set 3 - 1min 40 secs

set 4 - 1 min

set 5 - 1 min

set 6 - 50 seconds

2 minute rest between each set  

 spidermonkey09 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

Foot on campusing is boring but works. I would either go to failure, rest 10 mins and then go to failure again or go minute on, minute off x8, 10 mins rest and repeat. Aim for a move a second. There is a good UKB thread on the topic. 

It's very transferable to trad climbing so no problems on that score. I would do 2 sessions a week, anymore and you won't recover. 

 AJM 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

Always had good results from doing it. Possibly good to mix it up with some harder circuiting - particularly with tufa in mind theres a difference in whole body tension between what you do pulling straight down foot on campusing pushing straight down on footholds versus being on two tufa pipe pinches with feet smearing on the sides of tufa pipes. Another longer term pro is that it's a very compact training setup to have at home as these things go. I would agree with spider monkey about pacing, try not to do it at a speed which is unrealistic or too variable (accelerating too much in particular, it is already a fast pace of movement given the simplicity of what you are doing)

Post edited at 07:54
 DaveHK 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

The Crimpd app does these with the rest period equalling the set period so if you're on for 1min 45s to failure that's your rest period before the next set.

 Climber_Bill 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

As others have mentioned, it is a very good training routine for PE. Mentally very hard work as well as physically, but that is good as it helps train / prepare for the mental effort of trying hard on routes.

 ianstevens 03 Mar 2023
In reply to DaveHK:

 This is what I've been doing for the past month or so in prep for a sport climbing trip in a couple of weeks. I do it 1/2 times per week (so maybe 6 sessions total in this block) and it seems to working - at least in the sense I'm getting better at the exercise itself. In the past I've also seen good rewards from this - so to the OP: it's a great session (especially if you only have access to a boulder wall, otherwise I'd use route 4x4s), just watch your pacing as others have said and keep at it.

 JLS 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

>"set 1 - 2mins 20 secs"

Too long.  I think for the energy system you are trying to stimulate, you want to be working in the 30 to 90 seconds range. If you can last 2m20s then it's not hard enough and you need smaller rungs. I'd be looking for an exercise that I can manage for 30 to 45s and over time expand that towards 90s in 5s increments.

5
 abarro81 03 Mar 2023
In reply to JLS:

Depends on what you want to train, how you want to train, how long you're resting, and what else you're training etc... It's not necessarily too long, depending on the above. Given his 2 min rests, doing 30s sets would be more like an cap than the aero pow you'd want in Euro stam land. Personally I'd never use something where I maxed out at 45s as an exercise to train aero pow because it would almost certainly be too hard (it's just a long boulder problem) and you wouldn't get pumped and wouldn't get any volume in. 

Post edited at 10:16
OP Paul Sagar 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

Thanks all, this is helpful.

I've been trying to make it a bit more 'realistic' by moving my feet up and down the kickboard as I go, so that I'm pausing more significantly between moves and simulating body position changes as per on a route. Agree pacing is important - no point going really fast in a way I never will outside. Also finding that I can get some shake outs in, which I think is quite a good thing to do as it again simulates partial recovery on marginal holds. The campus board I use has small and very small rungs, so alternating between those to make it tougher helps.

I think I will switch to the Lattice protocol of only resting for the same amount of time as the previous rep - didn't do that this week as it just seemed too initially demanding, but seems a sensible thing to do and hopefully will address JLS's concern about calibrating intensity.

 MischaHY 03 Mar 2023
In reply to JLS:

I'd disagree. In this context we're talking about aerobic power endurance which has a longer TUT. This is the endurance training that should most closely replicate the efforts you intend to put in on rock meaning the timeframes should be broadly similar. I'd recommend 30s being the bottom line where you should plateau at or ideally somewhat above otherwise the intensity is too high to get the kind of adaptation Paul is looking for. 

@Paul this is a good additional intervention but limit it to once per week combined with a circuit session and maintaining a moderate amount of boulder volume. If you completely drop off the bouldering you'll find your strength will dip quite a bit. 

Remember to listen to the fatigue and if you tend to overtrain then be very careful with foot-on campusing as it feels like 'low-volume' training but actually has a very high impact on soft tissues and can be an easy way to get injured due to the repetitive load. 

Post edited at 10:16
OP Paul Sagar 03 Mar 2023
In reply to MischaHY:

Thanks Mischa

Should have said: I'm also doing 1 session of anaerobic capacity training per week as well, recently been using the Lattice app protocols of either '6 in 6' or 'boulder triples'. As I understand it, this should help me punch through powerful boulder cruxes. The campus repeaters + circuits should enable me to keep going over easier but more sustained terrain.

OP Paul Sagar 03 Mar 2023
In reply to MischaHY:

My original plan was indeed to do 1 circuit session and 1 campus board repeater session per week. I switched it up to 2 campus this week because I felt fatigued from weekend bouldering plus big session on Monday and Wednesday and having to train Thursday instead of Friday this week. But fully take your point regarding soft tissue etc. Luckily my fingers are the strongest they've ever been (and I'm the lightest I've ever been) so hopefully stacking the deck favourably in that regard.

 MischaHY 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

Mm personally I'd drop the triples in favour of lower volume max boulders. You won't see significant ancap adaptation within this timeframe anyway and you'd be better placed using that session to pull hard and keep recruitment/movement topped up. 

If you feel fatigued, rest. This is the build up to a peak period and less is more - especially when it comes to power endurance. The last thing you want to do is dig a really deep fatigue hole where your taper period won't be long enough. Keep your boulder volume more moderate to avoid affecting your other sessions and focus on quality. If you want to do more then do mobility and some moderate conditioning. 

 ChrisBrooke 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

Unrelated, but just saw your logbook comments on Gorilla Warfare and had a good laugh. Good stuff

OP Paul Sagar 03 Mar 2023
In reply to MischaHY:

Good advice. Yeah was thinking the Lattice protocols were a decent base training but time to up the ante to hit that energy system properly 

 jezb1 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

To echo Mischa, careful with this session if you’re maxing out efforts, it’s intense.

Im very good at being sensible and staying injury free but I was silly in one session doing this and got a long lasting injury from it. I use this as a bench marking session so gave it everything.

 steveriley 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

Nothing particularly to add but this is useful to read. I've convinced myself that (slightly unstructured) feet on campusing is a proxy for endurance - I mostly use a bouldering wall and want to keep some kind of route fitness for those rare occasions. Will add some structure based on the above!

OP Paul Sagar 03 Mar 2023
In reply to jezb1:

Cheers! 

 jack_44 03 Mar 2023
In reply to Paul Sagar:

I'd just like echo some of the caution for this. I personally think it's a brilliant training tool but I got undone by it a couple of years ago.

I did maybe 3 week's worth of twice a week (foolishly at the same time as I was started to redpoint a project). I followed the workout plan on Lattice's app and what a work out! But 3 weeks or so down the line I was struggling with what I can only describe as shin splints in my forearms. This was really sore and subsequently wrote off the rest of that Autumn season and took a good few months to full go. (I've wondered if it was periosteal bruising from the repeated, terminal pump).

My take home was to just use the maximal first repetition as a benchmark. Then for training not go to fatigue for the reps, so I would work out a time to get, for example, to 75% terminal fatigue then have a nice long rest in between repetitions. Haven't used it much since, but I do think it can be very useful, especially for power endurance crimpy climbing. Just reduce intensity and don't try to climb hard alongside! And plenty of rest between reps and sessions.

OP Paul Sagar 03 Mar 2023
In reply to jack_44:

That sounds like very good advice! I’ll aim to only do one session a week, keeping the 2min rest between sets protocol. 

 MischaHY 04 Mar 2023
In reply to jack_44:

An easy way to moderate this is to force yourself to use a half crimp. Once you can't hold a half crimp on the holds anymore, end the set. This has a double benefit as it conditions you to climb sustained terrain with a crimped position but also buffers your total capacity by some degree whilst having a similar training effect. 

That being said, personally I spend a lot of time in chisel (open crimp) on routes and so have simply learnt to not try quite as hard. Using a more relaxed form and not going for the snatching, lip-biting few reps seems to be enough to avoid issues. 


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