UKC

Hi all,

Hoping for some quick, straightforward advice to save me trawling through reams and reams of click-baity training articles that make me want to cry.

Never really bothered with proper training up until the last lockdown. Forced myself to get psyched for it this time round to avoid physical and mental collapse.

I generally find it pretty boring so I've motivated myself by taking bits I've seen elsewhere and adding time constraints to add an element of Pointless Arbitrary Challenge.

So, I've been doing the following, more or less every other day unless I've been out climbing at our local urban traverse wall:

- 6 slow shrug pull-ups every 2 mins (30 seconds on, 90 off) for 20 mins (saw Shauna do something similar, but more and in less time!)

- 12 second hang on bottom edge of Beastmaker 1000, on the minute for 10 mins

- 3x Lattice 6 min core thing. The "Dive Team" one off youtube.

- 10 second hang on top edge, on the minute for 10 mins (recent addition after realising that it was possible #gainz)

The loose thinking behind the time frames, other than PAC, is that I don't want to add weight and risk pulling down my ancient doorframe.

Occasionally been having a 5 min rest at the end and going for a hang to failure on the bottom edge. 25/1/21 managed 26s, 25/2/21 managed 48s.

So, anyone who's into this sort of thing got any thoughts or tweaks to make? Any thoughts appreciated!

You might gat a better response if you articulate what your objectives are. Training is nuanced.

Have you got an app for your Beastmaker?  All the routines are pre planned so you can just click go, easy! Or you can edit them to suit. 

Yeah I've got the Beastmaker app. I do use that occasionally but I find repeaters really dull. Maybe I should just suck it up ad get on with them!

There's some other hangboard apps too (personally I'm not mad keen on the Beastmaker app, though I do use it occasionally). 

Check out Grippy, Crimpd and Hangboard Guru which are all on iOS.  I think there's more if you're android...

Working out what you want to achieve is step one.  There’s less reward for training endurance if you boulder, for instance.

I find the Beastmaker app very poor and outdated.  The Crimpd App is much better - but you still need to identify which training to do and how it will help your climbing.

This is a good advice. If you are not working on your objectives or a weakness, it will impair progress if not plateau.

The flower of psyche is watered by the flow of gainz! When you can see progress from the process, it's easier to stick to the process and trust it.

Ha! love the "flower of psyche" metaphor.

Yeah I suppose I haven't really thought about goals other than "be stronger". Hoping to do Left Wall this year in the Cromlech and I've heard it's fingery, so "small holds for a long time" I guess is the goal.

Crimpd looks good - never seen that before. Thanks for the advice, all

Yes and no - most of the best boulderers I know also have excellent power endurance i.e. they can do quite a few very hard moves in a row. I agree that aerobic base is of limited use to boulderers but still worth doing once a week to as it complements other training. 

I think the Beastmaker repeaters can be easier to get psyched on as it's more like a 'route' to try and train up and complete with different holds and grip types, rather than simple edge hanging. 

That being said I agree Crimpd is far more specific and functional and has a load of structured exercises that could be applied to the traverse wall that Tom has access too.

Firstly it sounds like you're doing great, and good effort summoning some psyche! I know I had to really dig deep into the motivation bucket this winter but it is worth the effort when you feel the strength gains on the rock. 

If you're worried about adding much weight because of the doorframe, it's worth choosing a grip type and edge which is going to be suitably challenging at bodyweight, with assistance or with moderate weight added. This could be 3 finger half crimp (front or back), 3 finger drag, or middle 2/front 2/back 2 depending on what you feel you need to improve in. 

Training front 3 half crimp is usually a solid choice for a lot of climbers and should give you a level of intensity where you don't need to add much weight. The important thing to make sure you're getting the most out of your max hang training is to train at a high percentage of max i.e. 85-95% of your 10 second max effort. You need to test this before hand by adding weight until you can't manage 10s anymore. Hopefully your chosen grip type will leave you only adding 2-10kg so no big stress for the door. For example, on a 20mm crimp with 4 fingers I could add 80kg+ but on front two open I'm only adding 10kg so it's a much more manageable load. 

As I said above though if you're the easily bored type then you'll possibly find more motivation in the Beastmaker repeaters workouts because they're more like a 'route' to complete with lots of variation. The gains are best with a little more structure though - hence if you can summon the psyche then go with the workouts on Crimpd 😀

To the OP, this kind of precision, working with percentages of RM, is crucial to optimise training once climbers have exhausted the scattergun approach of 'noob gains'. 

Thanks so much for the detailed reply. That's really useful. I'll have a go at the testing thing and see how I get on.

Sucking it up and doing the repeaters is probably a good shout too. Need to get some endurance back in. Might try alternating between the two.

Thanks again

Yea you could definitely try a combo of both. You could also identify which grip types you find hardest in the repeater workouts (they use a bit of everything) and then use your max hang sessions to specialise these - could be a really nice combo. 

Ace, will do!

Cheers

Lazy training: don't get hung up in the detail. You've chosen your exercises.

• Stick with them for a cycle of 4-6 weeks, maybe increase reps / decrease rest time (choose one) throughout the cycle.
• Have a week at the end of the cycle where you reduce the volume but maintain intensity of a couple of things.
• Make notes of maximum reps or weights for each exercise at the end of the cycle.
• Then change each exercise slightly or completely for another that does a similar job e.g hangboard chanhe from 12 second hangs on the minute to 10 second hangs on the minute adding weight or on a smaller hold.
• Stick with it for 12 weeks then head to the crag or gym.

You could consider some mobility is r movement work.