[JacobJacob]

You’ll be able to increase the mitochondrial density in fast twitch muscle fibres by doing high intensity, low volume work and in type I (slow twitch) fibres, you work at low to medium intensities at high volumes. You should be aware that the balance of this training is dictated by your fast/slow twitch make up and maximum efficiency will be gained by working with your genetic make up and not against it!

Does this mean that if one naturally has more slow-twitch muscle fibres it makes more sense (for endurance) to spend a higher proportion of time training at a lower intensity at higher volume and vice-versa? This seems to contradict the usual wisdom of "train your weaknesses to achieve maximum benefits"...

[r-man]

Some studies suggest it's possible for muscle fibres to switch from one type to another. Any thoughts on that?

Some links part way down this page (just the first google hit, there may be better sources). http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/anatomyandphysiology/a/MuscleFiberType.htm

[Tommy]

Does this mean that if one naturally has more slow-twitch muscle fibres it makes more sense (for endurance) to spend a higher proportion of time training at a lower intensity at higher volume and vice-versa? This seems to contradict the usual wisdom of "train your weaknesses to achieve maximum benefits"...

It would make sense to change the ratios of how you train your aerobic capacity, if you have some awareness of your make up. But don't go mad! I've certainly used this quite a bit now with my coaching and the assessments I do on my lattice board, and I'm really happy with the results from jigging things around a bit. In my experience, it makes little difference to a lot of people, but is absolutely essential for a small portion of the population (or perhaps read, people I work with) in their training direction.

There's no concrete evidence to say this is the case though, and I'm just remarking on my experiences with this. It's a good idea with everyone out there to keep adapting what they do and keep and open mind. I remember reading some of Eva Lopez's stuff in the very early days and being quite skeptical, but I'm less so now.

R-man: yup you're absolutely correct, although I'm afraid I don't have any experience or new knowledge to give you! It'd probably be the place of someone who's operating that area of science to speculate fully on.

[Three Nine]

With regard to increasing capillary density:

 '1. Adaptation occurs at high intensities of training

2. Adaptation does not occur at low intensities of training'.

This is pretty vague! This subject is pretty important to me as I have spent (perhaps wasted?) a lot of my life traversing below any sort of pump, under the influence of that arch-berk abarro81. The sort of rationale i've had in my head is that in doing this you promote blood flow, and don't impede this at all by occlusion. You can also do it at the end of a session and improve recovery rather than getting yourself more tired for the next session.

Presumably you don't mean that hard bouldering increases capillary density? Or do you? What do you mean by high intensity and low intensity in the context of capilarization? How much stimulus do you need to promote it, and over what duration? I'm so confused.

[Doylo]

With regard to increasing capillary density:

 '1. Adaptation occurs at high intensities of training

2. Adaptation does not occur at low intensities of training'.

This is pretty vague! This subject is pretty important to me as I have spent (perhaps wasted?) a lot of my life traversing below any sort of pump, under the influence of that arch-berk abarro81. The sort of rationale i've had in my head is that in doing this you promote blood flow, and don't impede this at all by occlusion. You can also do it at the end of a session and improve recovery rather than getting yourself more tired for the next session.

Presumably you don't mean that hard bouldering increases capillary density? Or do you? What do you mean by high intensity and low intensity in the context of capilarization? How much stimulus do you need to promote it, and over what duration? I'm so confused.

Sparky - just keep climbing on jugs. It suits you...

[Tommy]

With regard to increasing capillary density:

This is pretty vague! This subject is pretty important to me as I have spent (perhaps wasted?) a lot of my life traversing below any sort of pump, under the influence of that arch-berk abarro81. The sort of rationale i've had in my head is that in doing this you promote blood flow, and don't impede this at all by occlusion. You can also do it at the end of a session and improve recovery rather than getting yourself more tired for the next session.

Presumably you don't mean that hard bouldering increases capillary density? Or do you? What do you mean by high intensity and low intensity in the context of capilarization? How much stimulus do you need to promote it, and over what duration? I'm so confused.

Hey, you've only got yourself to blame for listening to Barrows. Seriously though, he knows his stuff and you can't go too wrong listening to him, even if he does have the whitest teeth in town.

Occlusion. Ok so yes, you'll occlude blood flow to the forearm, but for how long? Only the effort of pull. As soon as you're not holding the hold with that arm, then blood is pumping around. You're promoting blood flow whether you climb easy, medium or hard. It's unrealistic to think that by climbing hard you're totally occluding any blood flow to the forearm during that session - if you were you'd fall off in about 45secs and never do another thing for the rest of the session. If blood's not flowing, you ain't climbing..... and since you do continue climbing for your session (well, I presume you don't flake out after 45 secs!) then you know there's blood going to your forearms.

And no, I don't mean you should do loads of bouldering to increase capillarity. You might however, want to reassess how much traversing around you're doing and why you're doing it. Light easy climbing is of course, excellent for warming down, recovery days and helping to increase recovery rate.

This is only my opinion though - Barrows might be right and you should spend your whole year capillarising 

[tim palmer]

Some studies suggest it's possible for muscle fibres to switch from one type to another. Any thoughts on that?

Some links part way down this page (just the first google hit, there may be better sources). http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/anatomyandphysiology/a/MuscleFiberType.htm

The quality of this evidence is pretty poor, and even if it were better the studies quoted were in sedentary individuals therefore their findings could not reliably be applied to climbers as a whole. 

Without wanting to be accused of being a skeptic, I would warrant that much like physiotherapy and chiropractory (?sp), there is no good evidence to support even what the very best coaches do, it is simply experience and a good dose of luck along with a massive amount of hard work from the beneficiary that provides any improvements. 

[abarro81]

Some views:

1. Tom's read a lot more than me, so trust him more.

2. I have no doubt that aerocap is more effective than arc. It's also a lot more tiring, meaning that there are occasions when you can arc ok but dont want to aerocap. Especially if this area is not your weakness.

3. Mark, its not like you're pressed for time so if 20min arc doesnt add to fatigue there's no reason not to do it (except boredom)

4. I don't think lower body studies on low intensity work are that relevant to forearms. I already spend 5-10hrs a week doing low intensity leg work (walking) so no wonder a study won't find more of it that helpful. Any upper body studies on this stuff tom?

[Three Nine]

I dont know what you mean, i'm a very busy man with a hectic social life.

[Paul B]

massive amount of hard work from the beneficiary that provides any improvements.

I've wondered this too. If you look at individuals following periodised plans (as such), one thing I notice is that the shear volume of climbing they do is much greater than I've witnessed from the same climbers a few years ago (with notable, steady, performance gains too).

Having said that, the intensities and order in which things are done mean that this can be achieved. Without it I'd expect those same climbers to be burnt out and mostly held together with strappal.

Mark - your weakness is weakness (and ice cream it would seem). You've said yourself that you're far too fit for British stuff already so concentrate on getting strong and ignore the guy in lime green shorts.

[abarro81]

and ignore the guy in lime green shorts.

Be like Jerry.

[abarro81]

On Tim's/Paul's point, I have no idea about scientific evidence, but there are a few things where getting new knowledge has - IMO - made a big difference. The biggest one for me being an cap work, which I think has been hugely important in my development over the last 10 months and which I wouldn't have had a clue about if it weren't for 'coach Randall'.

[Tommy]

Some views:

2. I have no doubt that aerocap is more effective than arc. It's also a lot more tiring, meaning that there are occasions when you can arc ok but dont want to aerocap. Especially if this area is not your weakness.

4. I don't think lower body studies on low intensity work are that relevant to forearms. I already spend 5-10hrs a week doing low intensity leg work (walking) so no wonder a study won't find more of it that helpful. Any upper body studies on this stuff tom?

2. It's not that aerocap work is more effective, you should just keep your eyes open as to why you do certain things. As you'll have noticed Alex, I've never recommended that you drop your ARC sessions as I think they do you good - in more ways than one.

4. Personally I think there is relevance between lower and upper body studies - after all, it's the muscle fibres that are being investigated, not the functionality of the limbs per se. The leg muscles are used in almost all studies I've read, bar one where I found they'd looked at the tricep. But I can't find the paper anywhere now. Out there somewhere...

The point made about the difference in upper and lower body and how much you use it in "real life" is a very relevant one though. It's one of the primary reasons why high level swimmers use masses of volume in their training. I'm a keen advocate of high volume training at the right times of the year, but I guess I personally prefer to go with a bit less of this ARC stuff.

If anyone likes their antioxidants and thinks they're amazing for recovery, here's something to add to the party...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3298958/

[John Gillott]

I watched this tonight:

http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/rcxjd/faster-higher-stronger--series-1---3-stories-of-the-olympic-games---1500-metres

Which made we wonder re the issues discussed here: what are Steve Mac, Ondra, Sharma, etc doing? Couldn't we just ask them to post up their lifetime, annual, monthly and weekly schedules, backed up with a supplementary booklet on the underlying ideas? Shark could offer them a T-Shirt or something for their trouble.

[Sasquatch]

To me the biggest challenge in endurance training for climbing is being able to dial in the right intesity levels for both "easy" and "hard" training types.  Cycling uses power meters to dial in the intensity, most runners use either a HR or vDOT scales to dial in the right difficulty.  Climbing seems to be a bit tougher for most people to dial in the right intensity for each type of workout.

There's no point doing ARC if it's too easy(aside from the technical mastery component), and if it's too hard, it's not ARC.  That makes it a challenge if you're not sure EXACTLY the right intensity.  The same goes for Aerocap, Ancap, etc. 

Which made we wonder re the issues discussed here: what are Steve Mac, Ondra, Sharma, etc doing? Couldn't we just ask them to post up their lifetime, annual, monthly and weekly schedules, backed up with a supplementary booklet on the underlying ideas? Shark could offer them a T-Shirt or something for their trouble.

That's would be awesome, but not Sharma or Ondra, more from Paxti or Ramonet.  They're training machines.

[shark]

what are Steve Mac, Ondra, Sharma, etc doing? Couldn't we just ask them to post up their lifetime, annual, monthly and weekly schedules, backed up with a supplementary booklet on the underlying ideas? Shark could offer them a T-Shirt or something for their trouble.

  Steady now - we don't just give stuff away to any old punter

[abarro81]

I started talking to Steve about ancap, aerocap and other energy systems stuff once, he didn't have a clue what I was talking about for half of it.

[petejh]

I started talking to Steve about ancap, aerocap and other energy systems stuff once, he didn't have a clue what I was talking about for half of it.

Where do the terms ancap, aerocap, anpower etc. originate from? I've been hearing them used increasingly over the last 12 months, both on here and from some of my partners, due no doubt to various coaches using the terminology. How do they translate across to the terminology I'm familiar with which is: PE (on an intensity spectrum high to low), Endurance, Strength, and Power (not forgetting Movement).
Same thing but with a different grading system?

[Nibile]

I found Sharma's lifetime training schedule. it was a blank paper.

[tim palmer]

If anyone likes their antioxidants and thinks they're amazing for recovery, here's something to add to the party...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3298958/

Again the studies referenced in these papers are horrendously underpowered; the evidence for the use of NAC would appear to be 15 individuals, all the other studies re-the use of NAC are either animal studies or show no benefit from nac use.  It would appear on the strength of this evidence you would be as likely to expect benefit from burying an onion at the bottom of the garden as spending money on supplements which probabaly just make your urine a bit more expensive. 

It is also bearing in mind that these supplements, although not crushingly expensive do cost (£25 for 90 tablets of NAC), I expect if one was to put than money toward better diet rather than an attempt at a quick fix you might see the same benefit.

Lets not dick around if you want to see real benefits from a tablet you can't beat a nice bit of stanozolol, it is slightly more pricey than NAC but there are tangible benefits to be had.

[rodma]

Lets not dick around if you want to see real benefits from a tablet you can't beat a nice bit of stanozolol, it is slightly more pricey than NAC but there are tangible benefits to be had.

 

[SA Chris]

I found Sharma's lifetime training schedule. it was a blank paper.

I heard it had two words "climb harder"

[J_duds]

Chris Sharma's Secret Training Tips
"I just climb a lot"
http://www.bohusbergen.se/pages/Archive/Profiles/sharmatrain.html

[comPiler]

Training to Ride The Wave
12 July 2012, 8:26 pm

Have you ever noticed that when you’ve taken on new forms of training or new methods of training over the years, that you follow a similar pattern of performance? I certainly know I have, and it’s been a long and painful process to try and push myself out of the following bad pathway. My training method for a particular exercise used to take 4 steps:

1. Start with being utterly rubbish (very hard on the ego, but you push on)

2. Get quite good (reward the dented ego)

3. Get even better, but then suffer from ever decreasing returns

4. Get frustrated and obsesses with this certain manner of training and hit your head against the proverbial brick wall until you either give up or get injured.

The core can be trained harder than almost any other muscle group. There is one (amongst others) fairly sound method of staying away from this pathway decreased performance potential, and I’ll call it “Riding the Wave.” The wave principal in training is used to ensure that there is a continuous improvement in bodily conditioning. As we all know, it’s amazing to get the initial gains, but we can stagnate after just a couple of months. Common sports science literature suggests that we change the training load after just 6 weeks of training effort, and importantly, supplement it with periods of regeneration training to promote super-compensation.

So, in essence:

1. Alter your training load (factor of intensity or volume) after approx 6 weeks

2. Don’t forget periods of regeneration training to allow your body to realise its gains. Most people love to forget this part!!

When you’ve done your 6 weeks of a new regime and you’ve passed through the lows of being totally rubbish and moved onto the highs of burning off your mates at said exercise (or your own PB) then reassess and ramp it up! Don’t go too mad for too long though; make sure you drop the load right down at regular intervals during the season, so that if you were to graph the “line of load” then it’d look like a slowly growing wave.



Crack training is no different from any other. Change it up, or lose out.



Source: Tom Randall Climbing

[cheque]

What would 'regeneration training' involve?