[Rocksteady]

FROM 8a.nu "Training regime a la Schubert 
 
Jakob Schubert who has made a record by winning seven straight WC's in 2011 gives some insight from his training.

"If I train for Lead I start in the beginning of January with power training. I go 15 times over seven weeks in the fitness gym. Beside that I also climb and do a special training on crimps, slopers and pinches. In March I train maximum power, so mostly routes where I need a lot of breaks and bouldering.

In May I begin the endurance training. Two days a week I climb twice a day (morning bouldering and evening endurance, 70 move boulders). Two days I only do routes and one day only bouldering. So five days a week, in total about 23 hours.

Jakob tries to combine this with outdoors and three days ago, as an example, he bouldered in Zillertal where he did four 8A's and four 7C+'s, including two flashes. (c) Ferdinand EliAs Holzkencht"
 

Obviously this works wonders for Schubert. And it seems logical to me to build strength then increase fitness.

But as I understand it the received wisdom on periodisation is to lay the foundations with aerobic endurance, then peak with power at the end?

Thoughts from the training illuminati? Would he have seen even better results from training power last? Or is it me whose got my periodised training thoughts all backwards?

[iwasmexican]

Thoughts from the training illuminati?

dunno about that part but it always seemed to make more sense to get strong enough to do hard moves on their before trying to do lots of them in a row... 

[Tommy]

An interesting bit of writing and one that I'm sure will provoke some interest from people out there. It's difficult to comment on in some ways as there's a huge amount of detail that's missing, so we may have only half the story.

My main thoughts would be:

He begins endurance training in May - but his rep contents are of around 70 moves. This to me, represents the long end of power endurance or aerobic power that most comp climbers train during this part of the season.

What consistitutes power training? What's translation like - is he referring to "power training" as someone from Sheffield would understand it or is he training "anaerobic power training" as someone from Spain might see it? Does he actually mean strength training?

Rocksteady - you're right - must people would train power at the end of a cycle. However, maybe Jakob has come across something interesting here?

Difficult to know for sure though! Unless you ruthlessly experiment on yourself 

[Rocksteady]

Hi Tommy,

I thought it was quite interesting. It's a good point that I've noticed on here and on t'other channel that people talk about the same things under different labels and cause confusion.

It could well be that a lot is lost in translation here - difficult to know without seeing his actual routine I guess. Certainly the end results are impressive.

To me, the logical progression would sort of mimic Schubert's method moving as below:
- Hypertrophy (to build muscle fibre and increase the potential for maximum contraction/strength potential)
- Recruitment (to develop the strength of the new muscle fibre i.e. fulfil the new potential you've built)
- Then a mix of aerobic to anaerobic endurance (to build the ability to sustain contractions over time/to be able to apply varying levels of sub-maximal strength repeatedly).

However, while this may seem a logical progression to me, the standard periodised systems seem to work around the body's adaption times to different types of training stimuli, so you focus early on energy systems that need more time to adapt. This is where science trumps 'logic'. 

Like you say, I guess the only way to find out is to spend a year or two doing it one way then a year or two trying the other! 

[Tommy]

You're right - self experimentation is a great tool. Think big and beast yourself. Let us all know the results of course..... 

In 2010 I used in my own weird (read Wide) training:

Base: 1 x Strength, 4 x stamina, 1 x P/E
Peak: 1 x Strength, 1 x stamina and 3 x P/E

That gave me 8b, but I got shut down on cruxy stuff.

In 2011 I did

Base: 3 x Strength, 3 x stamina
Peak: 1 x Power, 3 x Stamina, 2 x P/E

That gave me 8c comfortably and I didn't feel as bad on powerful stuff (although still not as I good as I wanted).
 

[Rocksteady]

I'll let you know at the end of 2012!

[Paul B]

You're right - self experimentation is a great tool. Think big and beast yourself. Let us all know the results of course..... 

Surely you can't tell a lot/anything from self-testing?

[Tommy]

[/quote]

Surely you can't tell a lot/anything from self-testing?
[/quote]

I've found out quite a few interesting things over the years with self-testing. It's certainly not conclusive though.... (but might be concussive!).

[Percy B]

I'm disappointed Jakob fails to mention in his 8a article that he is regularly spotted running laps on the 9a route at the Tivoli wall in Innsbruck with a weight belt on. I'm not sure what training category this type of beastly-ness falls into, but the guy is obviously a complete monster! Then there are the thousands of pull-ups he does every week.....
My elbows hurt just thinking about it!

[Tommy]

I think it's Hypergravity Aerobic Monster Power Training 

I saw him doing plenty of campussing at Tivoli as well....

[ghisino]

But as I understand it the received wisdom on periodisation is to lay the foundations with aerobic endurance, then peak with power at the end?

disclaimer: sorry for the improper use of some technical terms.

having read a lot of resources on periodisation in several spots earlier this year, the golden rule seems to be that if the specialty requires anaerobic lactic qualities, these need to be trained last.
If i have understood correctly the first reason is that once you start training lactic acid tolerance and related qualities, your body becomes so relatively efficient at that energy system that it wants to use it all the time : result, you can't go back to training "pure" aerobic or strenght qualities efficiently (you need to lose your lactic adaptations first).
The second reason is that the potential for anaerobic-lactic adaptations is relatively small and you can fully exploit it in a few weeks, so it makes more sense to dedicate most of the year to qualities that offer more margin for improvement.

So for instance in some running distances, depending on the runner's profile, the training might start with aerobic work, or with speed/strenght, or with a mix of the two, and then anaerobic lactic work is done on top of the base that has been built.