[tomar]

Hi,
I am going to Kalymnos in April to complete a project that I started last season. The route in question is over 30m long and essentially split in two distinct sections.
First part is about 15m long F7a/+ on mildly overhanging rock, mainly on good pockets and jugs with a short crux at half way. This ends to a no-hands rest. I find this a bit more pumpy than I'd hope for but I get through it everytime without problems and at each attempt I get to the rest less and less pumped by climbing quickly and efficiently.

The second half is about 18 moves 7b+/c, fairly overhanging (about 35 ot 40 degree). This starts off with 8 easy but long thuggy moves on jugs and positive pockets, followed by a marginal shake on an undercut (feeling a bit pumped at this point and I feel I have to stop and try to recover here for a minute) then a final crux which is 8 moves, involving a couple of long reaches off two finger pockets then a high tension gaston to undercling pocket lock off move to final jug and chains. My best redpoint attempt I've got as far as four moves into the crux before powering out off the long reaches. A short rest on the rope then I can climb to the top clean. Basically, the final few hard moves feel fine with some rest before.
I think what gets me here is that I get into the crux too tired to finish the route. Maybe due to the thuggy juggy moves after the rest.

For the last 4/5 months (since I got back from my trip) this has been my training:
1) Twice a week bouldering (once outside and once inside), concentrating on steep power moves
2) Once a week 10s weighted max deadhangs on a finger board (and feel my fingers have got a bit stronger as I was able to add 3kg to my weights)
3) Some unweighted and weighted pull ups and repeaters
4) Lots of core exercises
5) The remaining of the training time I have spent it doing indoor routes and circuits, mainly 20 to 30 moves projects (usually resulting in 10 to 15 moves links) and 30 to 40 moves at onsight (or just below) limit
5) Once a week for the last three weeks I have been doing endurance work on cicuits, a grade or two lower than my onsight. Three sets of 5 to 8 minutes on and 5 minutes off. This gets me a steady and just manageable pump each work out. I just hope I have not started this kind of training too late in the cycle...

I was just wondering, what should I concentrate on for the next 6 weeks to stand a chance to beat the route in question?
My feeling is to start hammering with PE style pumpy 30 moves circuits and routes for three times a week and keep one power bouldering session and one strenght session a week. Some people seem to advise on keeping the bouldering and power work up for most of the time and for the rest of the time do pure endurance sessions a couple of times a week, ditching the power endurance altogether. Any thoughts?
 

[ghisino]

how many attempts did you initially give it?

from what you describe just getting a better flow on the first two parts might do a lot.
See if you have any gym routes where you can focus on this: being quick and dynamic yet "light on the holds" on big moves between ok holds.
 And try skipping that marginal undercling shake - just chalk up and go.


that said, i am no periodisation expert and what i do if i can is to approach it from two extremes (strenght and low intensity volume) in the beginning, progressively getting into the specific kind of pump/lenght as i get closer to my trip.

i'd be as specific as possible in the last 4 weeks with only 1 pure strenght/bouldering session each week or even each 10 days.

Your 4th week to go should be the hardest in terms of the cumulated effect of intensity and number of routes climbed.

In the 3rd, start to drop the number of routes a little, but make them even harder.

2 weeks to go, keep your intensity but drop the number of routes even more. go down to 3 or 4 hard attemps per session at the end of the week.

last week. keep your number of sessions per week but make them very brief. warm up, one lap at a hard route, long rest, another lap, a couple of really easy ones if you really want, stop.   Do a couple of very brief strenght sessions during this week as well.

try to get light and healty in the last 15 days: eat less than usual and with higher fiber/veggie/fruit and protein content, then when you get to kaly and close to your project switch to low fiber (this fiber switch will make you lose about 1kg of...poop, takes 24/48 hrs and does not last forever)

[mrjonathanr]

A really simple training alternative for PE would be 4x4s 2 or 3x a week for 5 weeks, a little bit of other training but not much, take a week off before going out.

[ghisino]

take a week off before going out.

i disagree, unless his trip is more than 1 week long.

i've had much better results in terms of shape when proper tapering than when taking 1 off as you say.

the only drawback being that when tapering as described above i feel "ready to perform" right from the first or second day.
Therefore i end up giving it all on relatively quick (but sometimes very satisfying and near-my-limit) sends, and then start a rollercoaster of good and bad days, where i usually overshoot my projects (usually it goes like this: i check out something on a good day, make sure i have good beta, maybe give it a lazy burn or climb it in two halves, as i'm expecting to come back stronger the following days...and when i go back i'm either just as good, or weaker)

when not playing with intensity and volume in the last 4 weeks and taking the last one almost completely off, as i did some years ago, i would feel really weak and ackward on the first days which naturally led to more easy mileage and then would get better and better as the trip went on...
This would usually end up in a dramatic last day siege or something like that.  It was very enjoyable for long trips, but i later found that as long as holiday redpointing is the goal, it's not really effective for shorter 4 to 6 days missions: on the first days i would be too weak to properly hangdog and beta-inspect a good last day project.

[Rocksteady]

For the last 4/5 months (since I got back from my trip) this has been my training:
1) Twice a week bouldering (once outside and once inside), concentrating on steep power moves
2) Once a week 10s weighted max deadhangs on a finger board (and feel my fingers have got a bit stronger as I was able to add 3kg to my weights)
3) Some unweighted and weighted pull ups and repeaters
4) Lots of core exercises
5) The remaining of the training time I have spent it doing indoor routes and circuits, mainly 20 to 30 moves projects (usually resulting in 10 to 15 moves links) and 30 to 40 moves at onsight (or just below) limit
5) Once a week for the last three weeks I have been doing endurance work on cicuits, a grade or two lower than my onsight. Three sets of 5 to 8 minutes on and 5 minutes off. This gets me a steady and just manageable pump each work out. I just hope I have not started this kind of training too late in the cycle...

I was just wondering, what should I concentrate on for the next 6 weeks to stand a chance to beat the route in question?
My feeling is to start hammering with PE style pumpy 30 moves circuits and routes for three times a week and keep one power bouldering session and one strenght session a week. Some people seem to advise on keeping the bouldering and power work up for most of the time and for the rest of the time do pure endurance sessions a couple of times a week, ditching the power endurance altogether. Any thoughts?

You really need Barrows on this one. My 2p from reading various stuff on this including Rock Climbers Training Manual...

I've seen programmes that focus the PE until about 2 weeks before an intended 'peak' then drop it in favour of one-two power sessions in the preceding weeks. I've also seen ones that drop strength/power sessions 4-6 weeks before the intended peak then just max out on PE.

These days I'm wary about dropping strength/power training at any time as for me it rapidly drops off. On the other hand, it's difficult in my experience to improve strength/power at the same time as improving PE - just too much training for the body to handle.

If I was you (and I felt I was already strong enough to do the crux moves on my goal route) I would do one strength session a week for the next two weeks, then one power session a week for the 4 weeks after that building up to your trip. The idea is good maintenance of strength/power rather than making big gains. I'd definitely include a problem that replicates the crux of your route, and over the next 6 weeks aim to work it so that it feels straightforward/part of your warm up.

The gains you most want are in your PE, so you need to focus on improving your aerobic and anaerobic power endurance. I'd do one session a week that focuses on the lower intensity, higher duration circuits (like the 7a+ juggy pumpy bottom half of your project) and 1-2 sessions working intense circuits at around 26 moves with the hardest ones coming at the end - like the later section of your project route. If you can replicate the moves so much the better.

I don't climb well if I have a whole week off before a trip, so I'd do one power session and one circuit session in that last week, with 3-4 days rest before your first climbing day.

I'm guessing that you've improved your aerobic capacity with the easy circuits you've been doing but you might want to keep this going by doing easyish continuous climbing for 10 minute sets as a warm down from your power sessions. Improving aerobic capacity is apparently important if you're improving power endurance. Barrows' excellent paper (see training wiki) explains capacity as a tank and input pipe and power as the output pipe. So if you haven't worked enough on capacity you're just maximising what you've already got rather than improving on it. Also, I'm sure I read somewhere that you also risk getting a debilitating pump if you focus too much on high end power endurance training rather than doing the capacity work too.

[jwi]

From your description I'd decrease the number of 20-30 moves circuit you do. You should be fit enough to climb the juggy first 8 moves easy enough by know. Maybe keep the level up by doing 30 moves circuit once / 10 days or so. Do mostly short boulders. But most important: start doing 4x4s (or something else for anaerobic capability) as mrjonathanr suggests. The ability to do 8 moves near your max when slightly winded from previous climbing does not come for free.

[tomar]

Thanks for all your input guys, much appreciated. I have come up with a plan of action that more or less goes like this: keep strength and power twice a week then drop to once a week the last two weeks with increase in intensity and decrease in volume but mostly I will focus on higher volume of PE work (aerobic and anaerobic) and maintaining low intensity 5 to 10 mins sets of easy circuits about twice a week as warm down. Meanwhile I have managed to replicate almost exactly the crux of the route on a woody board at my local wall and during the last three weeks of the cycle I will be working on linking more and more moves from adjacent circuit board to the crux moves on the woody to replicate the length of the route and the level of tiredness/pumpyness. Let see if that goes to plan.

[mrjonathanr]

A couple of thoughts....feel free to ignore them!

You can do the moves -strength/ power isn't the limiting factor.

You run out of steam -PE is.

Whilst power determines how hard given moves are for you and thus affects your ability to keep doing them hugely, it isn't amenable to improvement in a few weeks.

PE is.

Really complex training patterns are appropriate for those with a really complex understanding of training. Most of us don't have that. I'd keep it simple.

Re losing power while you train PE - That suggests to me that stamina is being trained, not PE: 4x4 moves should be hard and you should be boxed trying to do them.
Personally I think the 4 problems you choose to train on should at first be difficult to get up at all. Session 1 should be a battle trying to tick them once. Session 2 you try to get up them 4 times but fail to complete quite all, and certainly not with 4 minute rest intervals after the second set. After a few weeks, you should be aiming to do each set of 4 with 4 minutes rest intervals but perhaps failing on sets 3 and 4.

You get the principle, don't worry about being exact, progress from:- rock hard-too hard-just manageable - over the course of a month of several times a week.

Whatever approach you adopt, have a good time 😃