UKC

I'm looking into periodisation with regards to training to help my body to recover throughout the year, hopefully allowing my tendons to keep up with muscle growth and technique.

How do you periodise your training throughout the year? Boulder over winter with strength and technique training? More routes and head-game over summer? I'm looking for detailed examples on how this works to keep a good steady balanced improvement throughout the year, including bouldering, trad, sport and anything else that you include.

In reply to Steve Perry (Pezz):

Hi Steve

To a certain extent I think this is a personal thing in that some people can cope with massive volumes of training without getting injured and others not (like me). It also depends on what your emphasis is, ie. onsighting, bouldering etc.

This is what currently do and what is giving me good results.

My personal emphasis currently is on getting stronger and I alternate cycles of PE circuit type training with pure strength/power work and then a short break from intensive training of a few weeks. Both of these are best done in a bouldering wall.
While I'm doing this I always have 1 or 2 ARC sessions a week, this helps keep my climbing fitness levels up.

I don't do more than about 6 weeks of one thing before switching or I get injured. Even within cycles I try and vary the training.

Within a cycle I still do one session a week of the other cycle.

I do fall practice every week for my head. If I come across something that I find unnerving I try to do more of it to get used to it.

I think about and work on technique all the time.

Occasionally I do specific training that mimics a project.

I climb outside as much as I can.

Hope that's of some use.
Iain

In reply to Steve Perry (Pezz): how this works to keep a good steady balanced improvement throughout the year


It doesn't. If balanced improvement is your aim then periodisation isnt for you (or most climbers)as periodisation works towards peak phases of exceptional performance but entails troughs too. A more progressive model is oulined in the Self Coached Climber.

In reply to shark:

Sorry, you're right in that it doesn't provide balanced improvement as you're targeting improvement in specific areas in turn, but isn't the consensus that it provides faster improvement overall?


Doesn't that depend on how intensively it's done? Genuine question, as my experience so far (9 months or so) is that the troughs have not been significant and the gains fairly steady.

In reply to Steve Perry (Pezz): I wouldn't recommend periodisation if you're trying to help your body recover either. I tend to find the bouldering / power / strength phases pretty intense on the elbows and fingers. Would be better to continually mix it up I'd have thought, routes, bouldering, trad, sport, falls, technique, ...

I've tried it and found it pretty hard to get the peaks and troughs at the right times corresponding to trips away or good weather at the crag. So now it's more of a back seat in how I decide what I'm going to train for.

In reply to IainAM:

Averaged out I wouldn't have thought so. The volume of training is still the same, it's just that periodisation allows improvements of the different aspects to coincide.

In reply to douglas:

As am I, that's why I'm looking to balance things out. I've been bouldering quite a lot lately and I'm concerned about my aching joints etc.

In reply to Steve Perry (Pezz):

You could hire an experienced climbing coach to write an annual periodisation programme for you....

In reply to Tom Randall - Lattice Training:

Can you recommend one (that isnt obsessed with offwidths and sit-ups) ?

In reply to douglas:

Mixing it up stopped working for me, periodising my training has broken a 3 year plateau and so far I've been able to manage the elbows and fingers to stop them becoming a problem.


To the OP, I really hope you find something that works for you

In reply to IainAM:

theres your money shot there.

from what i have/am experiencing periodising is a level of training that sit on top of another level of solid, mixed up, circuit-based general training - the training you do so you can start training.
and its not just climbers that do it.

to me periodising is about building up to a specific peak period with specific goals - its kinda the polarity of general training.
you accept there will be a recovery period after (and you train that too).

being a good allrounder year round with good recovery doesnt need periodisation - the two will cancel each other to a degree.

so step #1 would to identify when you want to peak, closely followed by what you want to peak at.

then on top of your exisiting base that takes into account your whole system (which is a big part of what determines your recovery), you build a series of phases focussed around your weaknesses.

by the sound of it you have a good system for the base training.
where it differs significantly is that you dont so much train a particular aspect with a bit of the opposite thrown in to prevent specification (ie, train power with the occasional endurance session) - rather you train complementary aspects for a phase (ie power with a minority of strength).

simply put - training say, endurance and strength (non-complementary) together takes the fullest gains out of both.

periodisation specialists will base an individuals program on their base performance, eg. some people will go into endurance training earlier than others, depending on how it will affect the future phases.
avoiding injury is a high priority obviously.

all this is a good case for the 'climbing only' school of thought - if you have the time to be on quality routes all the time you will 'adapt to specificy'.
for those of us who cant (those with jobs, ice climbers, high altitude climbers etc).
it means including other forms of training as well (gym, stairs, body weight etc).

In reply to ice.solo:

Periodisation suits other sports better where you are building up to a competition with a specific date so are working to an immutable timetable. Clearly for indoor comp climbers periodisation makes great sense.

In climbing the timetable is more haphazard. Obviously there are the seasons but weather/seepage/injury could mean that Peak phase if you periodised could be mainly wasted.

To fit in with the seasons an emphasis on improving strength and power and practising bouldering in the Late Autumn/Winter whilst an emphasis on improving endurance and stamina and practising route climbing in Spring and Summer is normal. If you can then throw in the occasional bit of maintenance of stamina/endurance in the Winter and power/strength in the Summer I think this can form a good general practical plan.

In reply to shark:

That only really describes linear, peaking periodisation, non-linear periodisation doesn't have a peaking phase.
A simple alternating bouldering and routeing periodisation plan (3-4wks bouldering alternating with 34wks routes with one maintenace day a week) should allow for slow gains without much of a dip in either strength or endurance. For bigger gains for someone who's been climbing for a long time then obviously a longer focus is going to be needed on whichever is the hardest trait for them to acquire, this clearly will mean a drop in performance in the neglected activity, this may or may not be worth it - sometimes you're better off maximising your strengths.
The old adage that tendons don't strengthen as quickly as muscles may not be the case:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17596783

In reply to Steve Perry (Pezz):

Thanks for the info guys, looks like this is quite a large topic with many branches.

In reply to shark: Hi Simon, other people I can think of that have adequate coaching and periodisation experience are: Adrian Baxter, drew haigh, Andy Earl and Dave macleod.

It's hard to find people that actually have a lot of experience writing plans as there's not a great deal of work out there doing it!

In reply to Tom Randall - Lattice Training:

Tom, I was pulling your leg. I was going to drop you an email earlier as I am finding it hard to be ruthless in my training as I have a tendency to to try train everything all the time. Also you owe my son 2 hours coaching from the Rab series (a great event).

In reply to Tom Randall - Lattice Training:

Yhm

In reply to shark:


fair call.
but periodizing to peak for a season with specific goals is fairly usual - long distance runners & alpinists (and im sure others) do it regularly.
agreed it cant be as to-the-day specific, but if the goals within the peak period are well defined its totally doable.

id say it has more to do with the goal than anything: if its a certain route, or style of route its doable.
old gullich was a champion of this sort of thing.

all said tho - wouldnt be that fun a way of climbing. incredibly focussed for the peak period.
pro climbing at that level doesnt look that attractive.
but each to theirs.

In reply to shark: Email me and I'll sort that prize out. Those boys are going love the upside down situps and offwidthing we'll be doing in the session; -)

Pez - info coming your way tomorrow (friday)

Tom