UKC

Week 4: Power Endurance.

Will this give me muscles like Maddie Cope? 

Ha! Err.... depends

Hi Tom,

I'd appreciate some guidance on how to effectively build up and regularly refine a training plan using the resources provided in the Crimpd App.

Being an 'Old Dog', for me, warming up is waving your arms about for 10 seconds before leaving the ground, and training is generally going to the wall 2-3 times a week and doing ground-up routes with mates interspersed with chatting. I've started doing Yoga 18 months ago for mobility/conditioning, but I'd like to put this time to better use over the winter. If I boulder I generally strain something.

Another complexity is that my goals are always shifting - I've just returned from a successful hot rock trip (my first ever 6c+ & 7a onsights!), but am now planning Euro Ice for Jan followed by Scottish Ice/Mixed in March, but I don't want to loose rock climbing strength for another hot rock trip in April... mixed skills ,mixed targets, mixed training needs.

Using this approach I've largely plateaued (see profile for grades), and see getting back to the same grades each season, whilst being another year older as 'success' - but I want more!

It seems to me that to build a training plan you need to identify specific weaknesses, but self analysis at the wall generally resolves to "I just can't make that move" or "that's never 6b+!"

Any ideas?

Cheers, Paul

Hi Paul, without wanting to sound too much like I'm "selling you" exactly what I do (which I'm about to do! ...) I would like to point you in the direction of our Lattice Lite plans on our website. They're based off an assessment you do yourself, your goals, your training/climbing history and it's all fitted to your time schedule & trips etc.  See: https://latticetraining.com/plans/

The key thing for an effective training plan (whether you make it yourself, I was to do it, or another coach!) is that you're making the structure and loading appropriate to YOU. What many people find is that they're either trying out their first steps in training by going too hard, too soon and just not using enough consistency to see lasting benefits. I do see a lot of people get very hung up on specific training protocols, but that becomes a little more important further down the road... Getting that volume, intensity, rest, appropriate loading and session types is way more important to start

There's certainly quite a few elements to your question and it'd make sense in my opinion to go and have a chat with someone you trust. 

Tom do you agree with the Bechtel 80:20 rule: that as climbing is a skill sport, that 80% of training and climbing time should be spent with your shoes on actually climbing, and 20% for everything else? 

It's a sound rule to apply if you're looking for a fairly safe bet generic answer! I'd say I would strongly disagree with some individuals (they could easily go 60:40) and go as far as to say other people should be spending 95% of the time with their shoes on! Like always, in training, you're looking to identify the weakest link that is limiting performance (or physical gain) and then work out a strategy to make changes safely, effectively and at a reasonable rate  

How much do mobility and conditioning training vary depending on goals, eg how would preparing for a Spanish limestone trip compare to preparing for granite crack climbing? Or at the basic, non-sport specific level of training should it all be pretty samey?

Hi Sean, in the most basic sense you want to look at:

Mobility - what kinds of ROM of movement are you going to require that are specific to your sport trip or granite crack trip? For example, I know that when I head to Spain I end up doing a lot of big, deep drop knees and I need to work on the internal rotation of my hip joint for a couple of months before hand. I've failed to do this on a couple of occasions and then ended up straining my knee as I couldn't find the correct positions. An example for crack climbing would be making sure you've got plenty of ROM in the wrists. 

Conditioning - for your trips, you want to think about terrain angle as one particularly important factor. If you're climbing really steep, overhanging routes, then it's going to be a solid idea to really stress the upper body and core (don't forget to make it more sport specific as you approach your trip) but if it's vertical to slabby, then your split of conditioning may be much closer to 50:50 for upper and lower body...

CAVEAT: You can throw most of the above about of the window if some of these elements are not close to being limiting factors in your performance! I'll give you the example of a chap who's able to do 50 pull ups, 100 push ups, endless front levers, 20kg bicep curls, heavy weighted pulls and he's done this for the last 5 yrs. He is NOT going to best spend his time preparing for his sport trip doing S&C work!  

Hope that helps...

Tom - what is your opinion on deadlifting? Waste of time, or useful exercise for those flaccid of core ?

Thanks, very useful!

Hi Ally, yeah we certainly use it in our programs with the right individuals. There's certainly a danger of it being overused by some people (I won't name names!), but IF you can learn correct form, use it at the appropriate time of year AND it's something that's relevant to your physical profile then go for it. Give Ollie a shout if you need a specific 1:1 on it. 

Hi Tom

Any advice for building sessions? A lot of the sessions on the app are quite short eg the aero cap hangboard session is 20mins ish. I assume with a warm up and some mobility this could be an hour but for those that can only do say 3 sessions a week rather than 1 hr twice a day is it possible to combine sessions?

I’m thinking as an example warm up - AnCap hangboard session followed by Aerocap hangboard session followed by mobility. This would then be a good sized session for doing st home if I couldn’t get to the wall.

I guess it’s individual but any general rules?

Okay, I've got to ask --

Conditioning for offwidths. Tell me your secrets.

F*ckin deadlifing

It's not done anything for my climbing, but has fixed my recurrent lower back problems (which probably stem from adolescent mountain biking and weak glutes & hamstrings)

Hi Tim, the principal thing to look at is the "stacking" of intensity within your session. So you're looking at starting with the most intense and finish with the least intense (all preceded by a warm up of course). I did a podcast on this recently with Ollie on the TrainingBeta website. 

https://www.trainingbeta.com/media/lattice-time-hacks/

That should help you with some session design

The Training Beta podcast was good... but what does a 15min warm up look like? I find it takes about twice that time but I’m sure I could be more efficient.