[Peanuts]

So, better late than never, you have left the confines of the cellar / wall / fingerboard to embark upon your chosen sport climbing project. You are feeling fit and strong and ready for some big numbers   The project is selected and the initial phases completed, it's impossible,  some good links, overlapping sections etc. Onward to the redpointing :- given that the 'project' is as hard or harder than you have previously climbed and requires a complete 100% effort on each attempt and given that a typical days climbing at this point in the procedure consists of a bit of warming up followed by three or four attempts on 'the' route which may mean less than half an hours real climbing in the day.... (draws breath)  what supplemental training should you do between redpointing days which wont leave you compromised for the next redpoint and is there any way of not losing general fitness whilst redpointing.

Your thoughts and abuse appreciated 

[SA Chris]

Depends on the space of time between redpoint attempts? If you are on it every two or three days you probably won't recover enough to benefit from training much. However if it's weekend to weekend, I reckon you should be able to get a Tuesday and a Wednesday or Thursday session in. This is based upon my own limited experience, and there is no SCIENCE behind it.

[Serpico]

The typical redpointing pattern I see all the time is:
Climber trains for project,
Climber gets on project and starts to work it - moves feel hard and they haven't got the best sequence, so they're effectively bouldering on a rope - training strength.
Climber refines sequences and starts to do links - training endurance.
Climber continues to train midweek for project.
Climber starts to redpoint, efficiency is better on the moves as they're now wired, rests are bigger between redpoints, less climbing is done on a redpoint day and midweek training sessions are reduced in order to be fresh for the weekend, so the training effect on the route is less and the actual volume of climbing done is reduced.
Climber starts to go backwards on the route and wonders why...
My experience from my best years has been to train when you get home from the crag so you don't have to worry about the reduction of training stimulus on crag days, and to not take your foot off the gas when training midweek, during my best year all my hardest redpoints were done after only one rest day when I was still sore from training.

[Stu Littlefair]

Second Serpico's suggestion of doing some training after redpoints on your project.

I often try to throw laps on a hard-ish route if there's a suitable one at the crag...

[Peanuts]

Perhaps I should add that redpointing days usually consist of one weekday evening and one weekend morning - the trials and tribulations of the 'family man'.  The  route seems to fall into the power endurance category and I certainly feel pretty wasted after 3 or 4 redpoint attempts and it takes a couple of days for the soreness to go.

I like the idea of training post redpoint attempts but this is not feasible on an evening as it will be dark ! and even the weekend can be difficult as I have to balance my climbing / training balance with my climbing / family balance - did I say balance enough ? 

I agree with Serpico's point about going 'backward' and this is indeed the point of this posting but equally I dont want to screw up my chances on redpoint being tired from extra training.