Feet on Campusing/Fingerboarding

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Luke Owens

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Jan 24, 2012
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I did do a search and found the odd bit of info on this type of PE training but could only find one thread specifically to do with it which had little info.

I've read people have had good PE gains from doing this and I was wondering what peoples workout's are like? The ones I've found are quite different such as:

1. 30 Moves then 2 minutes rest x 5
2. 3 Minutes on 3 Minutes off x 10
3. 1 Minute on 1 Minute rest repeat until failure


What are your opinions on going until failure as opposed to getting pumped stupid and stopping for a rest just before completely burn out?

I know it's all relative to what you want to gain out of it. In my case I'm looking to incorporate this 3 times a week at home. I have a 20mm campus rung under my BM2000. Starting matched on the rung then moving up to the 25's then to the 30mm outside BM slots then back down to the rung, repeat etc.

I've climbed plenty of F7a's, a F7a+ and a F7b. I've only managed these because they've suited me well (not steep) and most have very good rest spots with short hard sections. I know I'd have no chance at a pumpy 6c!

I'm bouldering at 7A now and I know I'm strong enough for the moves up to F7b/+'s it's just the harrowing pump and powering out stopping me progressing.

Interestingly, yesterday my girlfriend and I challenged each other to see who could stay on the longest using the above feet on campus rung fingerboard combo. She managed 1 Minute 50 secs only having to dig deep in the last 10 secs. I managed 1 Minute 10 secs and I was gurning like crazy within the first 40 secs... and she "only" climbs F6a...!

I've chose this method of training due to being able to do it at home and having limited time. Any time I get to go outdoors i'll take rather than doing circuits in a gym for example.

It's an obvious weakness of mine so any advice would be great.

Cheers
 
5 x 40 moves, 2 minutes rest between. 5 sets with 10 minutes rest between, doing this twice a week. Really helped on my last trip and something i'll be continuing to do, I don't find it too boring really. . .


Luke Owens said:
I'm bouldering at 7A now and I know I'm strong enough for the moves up to F7b/+'s it's just the harrowing pump and powering out stopping me progressing.

Apologies if this isn't you but sorting your head might help? I found that teaching myself to climb effectively when pumped was really important, to be able to breathe and not panic becuase the lactic was coming on. I've always been jealous of my mates who 'ride the pump' and love the fight so I'm trying to embrace it. I don't know how you'd go about this on your fingerboard set-up though.
 
GuyVG said:
5 x 40 moves, 2 minutes rest between. 5 sets with 10 minutes rest between, doing this twice a week. Really helped on my last trip and something I'll be continuing to do, I don't find it too boring really. . .

Thanks for the reply, that workout sounds good, as I tried the 3mins on 3 mins off and I could only manage 1 minute 10. Think I'd manage the 40 moves. Sounds good, surprisingly I don't find it boring either, feels quite addictive actually...

Do you complete the whole workout (feeling boxed I imagine) or go until failure?

GuyVG said:
Apologies if this isn't you but sorting your head might help? I found that teaching myself to climb effectively when pumped was really important, to be able to breathe and not panic because the lactic was coming on. I've always been jealous of my mates who 'ride the pump' and love the fight so I'm trying to embrace it. I don't know how you'd go about this on your fingerboard setup though.

I did wonder this and put it to the test when I went out on Sunday, I deliberately got on a pumpy 7a, which starts on steep moves to get the pump going straight away, I was making it to the last bolt and concentrating on fighting the pump to the point where I litrally came off because I couldn't hold on. I think the feet on stuff will be good for mentally fighting the pump too.

I'll focus on climbing efficiently when the lactic is burning too, as I have a tendency to go a bit scrappy with the feet when I'm on the edge!
 
Luke Owens said:
GuyVG said:
5 x 40 moves, 2 minutes rest between. 5 sets with 10 minutes rest between, doing this twice a week. Really helped on my last trip and something I'll be continuing to do, I don't find it too boring really. . .

Thanks for the reply, that workout sounds good, as I tried the 3mins on 3 mins off and I could only manage 1 minute 10. Think I'd manage the 40 moves. Sounds good, surprisingly I don't find it boring either, feels quite addictive actually...

Do you complete the whole workout (feeling boxed I imagine) or go until failure?

I'd be struggling to finish each set, after the 2nd or 3rd, but do finish them which seemed about right. I used to do 1min30 on with 4/5 minutes rest and do this 4 times but I couldn't really complete this at all, also got told the rest was too long.

as I have a tendency to go a bit scrappy with the feet when I'm on the edge!

everyone loves a good gipppin' finish
 
GuyVG said:
I'd be struggling to finish each set, after the 2nd or 3rd, but do finish them which seemed about right. I used to do 1min30 on with 4/5 minutes rest and do this 4 times but I couldn't really complete this at all, also got told the rest was too long.

Does your workout take about 2 hours? Each set about 15 minutes x 5 plus the 10 minutes rest x 5. Sounds killer!
 
it's never felt that long but yeah it should be that time, blimey :blink: times flies down t'wall.
 
OK so I'm attempting to get some structure to my endurance training and at the same time trying my best to understand the energy systems.

I have a plan for working all the systems in different sessions it's just how to order these over an 8 week (to long to short?) period.

Please correct me if these are incorrect:

AeroCap - Low intensity - 20 - 30 minutes moving hangs resting on jugs to keep intensity low.

AnCap - 30 moves 2 mins rest x 3 - Rest 10 minutes complete 5 sets.

AeroPower - 20 moves, 20 sec rest x 3 - rest 20 secs complete 3 sets.

AnPower - 10 moves, 10 sec rest x 4 - 10 sec rest complete 4 sets.

Am I in the right direction with these?

I'm wondering how to fit these into a cycle. I was thinking:

Week 1 - 4 - AeroCap x 2/3, AnCap x 2 (per week)
Week 4 - 8 - AeroCap x 1, AnCap x 1, AeroPower x 1, Anpower x 1 (per week)

All these will be in addition to actual outdoor climbing twice a week. I'm hoping I can figure out something to train the above using the feet on fingerboarding technique in my previous posts.

I've no idea if the above makes sense, but I hope I'm in the right direction. Any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers
 
I find it quite hard putting this stuff together too.

But what I remember from Binney's paper (on the wiki)

Aerocap needs 2 months for adaptions to take effect
Ancap takes 4 months to take effect
Aeropow takes around 1-2 months and Anpow takes a similar amount.

So Ancap is something to be trained long term, Aerocap is a base on which to build a 2 month programme of aeropow, anpow.
 
Hi Luke

I started doing this about 3 weeks ago leading on from the two month endurance thread. I started pretty much where you are, (sets of about 1.30-1.40 and totally blasted). I changed my target to 2 mins on 3 mins off, after about a week and a half I achieved a full set of 3 x 2 mins, then have been adding 15 seconds as I have got fitter and am now doing sets of 3 x 2.30 on 3 mins rest. The transfer to outside has been the amazing and I have found it has given me the extra bit to finish things off, rather than powerout and fall off the last hard move.

I have found the exercise gets more painful as you get fitter, as you can push further and further into the pump and it also gets more boring as you are on the campus board for longer. I have started to experiment with doing more of a routine to make it a bit more interesting and more like climbing, which has been good but you get pumped quicker again so may save that until I reach 3x3mins
 
This look pretty good to me.

You have a fitness period which will help build and base followed by a higher intensity period.

I'm a believer that what you are training needs to be strongly aligned with your goals, otherwise you may loose direction/motivation. I say this because you are trying to train everything at once in the second 4 weeks when perhaps you could be more focused towards a goal?

Your sessions add up to 6 a week. this is a lot. Rest is important and 1 day a week doesn't seem a lot. Aerocap can be done at the end of a session giving you more rest days.

The adaptation times that racksteady quotes seem very long. I would say 4 weeks of laddering on a campus 3 times a week and you see a significant improvement.

go to it!
 
Thanks for the responses guys!

jstrongman said:
Hi Luke

I started doing this about 3 weeks ago leading on from the two month endurance thread. I started pretty much where you are, (sets of about 1.30-1.40 and totally blasted). I changed my target to 2 mins on 3 mins off, after about a week and a half I achieved a full set of 3 x 2 mins, then have been adding 15 seconds as I have got fitter and am now doing sets of 3 x 2.30 on 3 mins rest. The transfer to outside has been the amazing and I have found it has given me the extra bit to finish things off, rather than powerout and fall off the last hard move.

That's great to hear you've made good gains so quickly! It's got me psyched as I've only started with the AeroCap and AnCap this week.

highrepute said:
This look pretty good to me.

You have a fitness period which will help build and base followed by a higher intensity period.

I'm a believer that what you are training needs to be strongly aligned with your goals, otherwise you may loose direction/motivation. I say this because you are trying to train everything at once in the second 4 weeks when perhaps you could be more focused towards a goal?

Your sessions add up to 6 a week. this is a lot. Rest is important and 1 day a week doesn't seem a lot. Aerocap can be done at the end of a session giving you more rest days.

The adaptation times that racksteady quotes seem very long. I would say 4 weeks of laddering on a campus 3 times a week and you see a significant improvement.

go to it!

That's a good idea I think after the 4 weeks I'll adapt the workouts to mirror a specific route goal.

I've planned to do for the first 4 weeks the AnCap on it's own day and the Aerocap after each outdoor session. So 4 days on a week plenty of time for rest then.

Regarding the adaption times, if what Rocksteady has quoted rings true would that mean you would need to consistently train AnCap for 4 months for it to have significant improvement?
 
Luke Owens said:
Regarding the adaption times, if what Rocksteady has quoted rings true would that mean you would need to consistently train AnCap for 4 months for it to have significant improvement?

Everything that i've read says you'll adapt very quickly and plateau in 6-8weeks.

I can't find a reference for this right now.

However, this doesn't mean you reach your max ancap in 8 weeks. it means there's no point training for more than 8 weeks straight. do something else for a bit then come back to it.

Conversley, 4 months route training seems reasonable if you want to improve year-on-year.
 
I am a big fan of foot on campus training.

The repetition of the same movement allows opportunity to study how movement works, and how the same move can be done in many ways.

Try adjusting the amount of force applied from the feet or from the fingers.
Try focusing only on transferring power up from your toes.
Adjust the speed of hand movement and see how this affects your results.

I found that by practising foot on campusing whilst focusing on driving up from my feet, and not pulling harder with my fingers, resulted in better performance.

Always aim to become more efficient and perform each set with less effort.

Maintain awareness of the whole body, and breathe steadily.
 
Thanks for the further replies guys.

So, last night I tried an AnCap workout. It went like this:

2 x (30 moves 2 mins rest x 3 - Rest 5 minutes)
3 x (40 moves 2 mins rest x 3 - Rest 5 minutes)

Took about an hour in total.

I orginally planned for all sets to be 30 moves but I didn't feel it was pushing me enough.

From my experiance with it I did the first 3 sets feeling fine and not being too pumped then by the end of the 5th set it was getting pretty hard and I completed the whole thing feeling drained in the arms but overall not too tired.

Is the aim with an AnCap workout to progressively get more pumped to the point i'm fighting on the last set as above or should I feel pretty boxed after consistantly and fight to complete every set and need possibly more than 5 minutes between sets?

Just to clarify what the point of AnCap is, am I right in saying it's getting the body used to flushing out lactic acid much like interval training in running and other sports?

Cheers
 
highrepute said:
This look pretty good to me.

You have a fitness period which will help build and base followed by a higher intensity period.
...
The adaptation times that racksteady quotes seem very long. I would say 4 weeks of laddering on a campus 3 times a week and you see a significant improvement.

Luke Owens said:
Regarding the adaption times, if what Rocksteady has quoted rings true would that mean you would need to consistently train AnCap for 4 months for it to have significant improvement?

Sure, but campus laddering is only training 'power endurance' - the last 6 weeks of a periodised plan - so anpow or aeropow? This will improve in the timescales everyone's saying but the ancap and aerocap elements are different.

I'm refering to the timescales quoted on page 6 of this
http://ukbouldering.com/media/pdf/principlestraining.pdf

Ancap looks like it takes a long time to develop. It's close to pure strength I guess which takes a long time to build. Aerocap is quoted at 8 weeks adaptation time.

I'm not an expert, just quoting what I understand to be the foundation of most British climbers' understanding of this stuff.
 
Rocksteady said:
I'm not an expert, just quoting what I understand to be the foundation of most British climbers' understanding of this stuff.
Me too.

Luke Owens said:
Just to clarify what the point of AnCap is, am I right in saying it's getting the body used to flushing out lactic acid much like interval training in running and other sports?
That's how I would describe aerocap.

P9 of the pdf gives an example ancap workout, 10-15 reps of a 5-15 move circuit (depending on intensity) and I just can't hold on any more.
Trouble is P8 is also titled anaerobic capacity and gives a totally different number of moves and rest. :wall:
 
iain said:
That's how I would describe aerocap.

Surely during an AeroCap exercise you stay below your threshold so not allowing lactic to build up?

I thought (and i'm probably wrong):

AnCap training get's the body used to flushing and tollerating lactic build up. You get pumped and then completely rest allowing the lactic to build up then flush out.

AeroCap training increases capillery size, delaying the time taken to cross your lactic threshold.

My Dad told me about this stuff years ago so i'm not sure if i've got the wrong end of the stick...
 


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