Training different energy systems

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Fultonius said:
I agree with this ^^ also, you could get an inconclusive result and be even more confused than had you not bothered! I've dived into AnCap this year (mainly based on never really having done any focussed training on it). Might try Stu's test at some point and see how I fair. I take it that, given I don't have access to any data to compare against, you just do a best fit curve and see where the peaks and troughs are?

Bit annoyed at the lack of response from Lattice tbh. 2 emails, no reply so far....

If you want to do the tests, I'm happy to analyse the data and send you a brief summary. The easiest way to do this test is probably to devote a full day to it. Warm up well and then do the following:

1) Find your maximum two-arm hang weight on the edge you use. Rest 10+ mins.
2) Do 7:3 repeaters to failure at 50%, 60%, 70% and 80% of your max weight*. Rest 20+ mins between these efforts.
3) Send me the times from each hang and your max weight (incl bodyweight).

*don't forget bodyweight! So if you weigh 70kg and you can add 20kg, your max weight is 90kg. A hang at 70% of 90kg is 63kg, so you'd have to remove 7kg for this set.

From those four hangs I can estimate your critical force and see if any of the efforts above are under predicted by the CF model.

Offer open to anyone who wants to waste an afternoon...
 
Stu Littlefair said:
edit: deleted because whilst mathematical models of physiology are OK, the quote system always beats me

:lol:

You're on. I guess I can maybe just kind of spread it through the day while working, given each test will only be a few minutes?
 
Fultonius said:
You're on. I guess I can maybe just kind of spread it through the day while working, given each test will only be a few minutes?

Seems reasonable, though you'll need to warm up each time if you've had a long rest.
 
spidermonkey09 said:
Good effort to those scientifically minded enough to get stuck in, but on the flip side I do find the increased 'sciencification' of it slightly off putting.

Couldn’t agree more! Very pseudo sports science sounding stuff when what I want is to just get out there and get stuck in. Very difficult for me to do that this year however because of time constraints, hence going over to the dark side and looking properly at training. Figured if that was all I was going to do, I might as well do it well.

MischaHY said:
I'd spent too long misassociating strength with power and aeropow with ancap and only recently cleaned up these definitions - this actually caused a two year plateau whilst I trained the right things at the wrong intensity and got absolutely nowhere.

Me too; I found it all very confusing. I read Alex’s pdf. Understood it okay. Put it down and realised I didn’t really understand it all. So the only way I would understand it was if I took the time to grasp (at a simple level) the science it’s based on. And I spent a large part of Christmas reading and rereading articles about how we generate energy till it made a bit more sense.

Also I don’t like being unable to judge if something I am reading is good or bad and without some scientific understanding that simply isn’t possible.

Those blog links on the first post are excellent for this. Once you get that 3 energy systems are continually in play, interact with each other and have very specific parameters for providing energy the rest ( and irritating terms like aeropow) make perfect sense; they are a statement of the obvious. So props to Alex for publishing that in the first place, especially as a good understanding of energy systems is only really from the last couple of decades.

And I want to avoid falling off :)
 
Stu Littlefair said:
Fultonius said:
I agree with this ^^ also, you could get an inconclusive result and be even more confused than had you not bothered! I've dived into AnCap this year (mainly based on never really having done any focussed training on it). Might try Stu's test at some point and see how I fair. I take it that, given I don't have access to any data to compare against, you just do a best fit curve and see where the peaks and troughs are?

Bit annoyed at the lack of response from Lattice tbh. 2 emails, no reply so far....

If you want to do the tests, I'm happy to analyse the data and send you a brief summary. The easiest way to do this test is probably to devote a full day to it. Warm up well and then do the following:

1) Find your maximum two-arm hang weight on the edge you use. Rest 10+ mins.
2) Do 7:3 repeaters to failure at 50%, 60%, 70% and 80% of your max weight*. Rest 20+ mins between these efforts.
3) Send me the times from each hang and your max weight (incl bodyweight).

*don't forget bodyweight! So if you weigh 70kg and you can add 20kg, your max weight is 90kg. A hang at 70% of 90kg is 63kg, so you'd have to remove 7kg for this set.

From those four hangs I can estimate your critical force and see if any of the efforts above are under predicted by the CF model.

Offer open to anyone who wants to waste an afternoon...

There is an online adaption of the calculations in The Determination of Finger-Flexor Critical Force in Rock Climbers by Giles et al (https://doi.org/10.1123/ijspp.2018-0809) on this link:
https://strengthclimbing.com/critical-force-calculator/

I have not looked into these calculators at all.

Based on the video analysis I have done of uncut ascents, I simply do not believe that 7:3 s repeaters are very similar to climbing, but I would love to be wrong.
 
spidermonkey09 said:
I like to think I'm fairly clued up about training in a reasonable amount of ways but these threads make my brain explode! :blink:

Good effort to those scientifically minded enough to get stuck in, but on the flip side I do find the increased 'sciencification' of it slightly off putting. I think its partly due to my irritation with that aspect of it that I've been much more freestyle with my approach to training the last few years out of a desire not to overcomplicate things unnecessarily.

If you care:
[nsfw]
I think it's fairly straightforward to grasp if you look at cycling and if you read the below interchanging CF or even just thinking of a grade it should be fairly clear.

Borrowing from Trainerroad:
Functional Threshold Power (FTP) is — quite simply — a measure of fitness.

FTP represents the power (measured in watts) that you could theoretically maintain for about an hour, and it's the single metric we use to scale each of your workouts in our shared quest to keep your fitness growing.

With regards to what's taking place within your body and the muscles themselves, riding at your FTP pushes you right up to that limit where pushing any harder will drastically limit the duration of your ride.

But as long as you stay just below that acidic tipping point where your muscles light up and uncomfortably tolerable minutes become barely tolerable seconds, your muscles are in balance with the workload - for about an hour, anyway.

Imagine being able to take a measure (this being your FTP) and applying % reductions/increases to accurately determine which energy system you're training. The curves Stu speak of are a little more complex but ultimately they're just suggesting that the % determined based on a single FTP measure don't accurately reflect the physiology of everyone i.e. those who might naturally tend towards being good in a strength setting vs. those that might be best in an endurance setting.

Now consider that in cycling (unlike climbing) you can measure your power output (in Watts) when on a bike (be it a static bike at home or the one you're riding). That measurement removes any climatic effects (the impact of a headwind for instance) and any other factors that might make you feel you're trying harder/less hard than your workout might required (i.e. being tired, caffeine etc.). Thus, it's better than other indicators such as perceived effort or heart rate.

Take it another step and you can buy devices for not that much cash that you can literally select a workout plan (Lattice stylee but free) and as long as you show up and sit on the damn thing, you can't fail to perform within 5% or so of the workout's target (ERG mode). Before starting you do your test (or tests depending on how you've approached it) and the whole thing will scale automatically. If you re-test mid season, again, everything will automatically scale to keep your workouts correct. The slightly more expensive devices also have the ability to tell you if your pedaling technique is shit.

This has also been looked at in a normalised form and there's a famous table basically telling you the W/kg you need to output to be at a given standard.

For climbing, you can measure CF and as Stu suggests you can get some kind of a curve (although I'd imagine for the majority of people this will tell you something that's blindingly obvious) but in my opinion due to the technique aspect of climbing and the inability to measure (and ensure) a given output, CF is limited in offering 'snapshots' of your various energy systems and its application becomes a bit niche (useful for coaches and the ultra-committed in its current form). I think there's a lot of 'perfect' getting in the way of 'good enough' on FB groups on this subject. However, that's just my opinion.

I also can't personally visualise something with a sufficient technique element such as a circuit board, being able to measure force output. However, I've never struggled to find someone near a circuit board to tell me my technique is a bit shit so at least that's covered.
[/nsfw]
 
jwi said:
Based on the video analysis I have done of uncut ascents, I simply do not believe that 7:3 s repeaters are very similar to climbing, but I would love to be wrong.

What sort of hanging parameters would you suggest?
 
At a guess, a work:rest ratio of 8:1, unless someone can convince me that 7:3 is a better predictor of performance on sections of sustained hard climbing. ‍♂️
 
jwi said:
At a guess, a work:rest ratio of 8:1, unless someone can convince me that 7:3 is a better predictor of performance on sections of sustained hard climbing. ‍♂️
I'm guessing that testing would be increasing percentages of max (also 8s?) for time?

Training 8:1 seems like and unreasonable acid bath or the intensity would have to be super low?

Have you trained in these parameters or just musing upon observations?
 
I have done some fingerboarding at a 4.5:0.5 ratio. I liked it better than 7:3, but n=1 and a million uncontrolled variables, ymmv
 
Stu Littlefair said:
[
From those four hangs I can estimate your critical force and see if any of the efforts above are under predicted by the CF model.

Offer open to anyone who wants to waste an afternoon...

Warning Stupid question:
What is critical force?
How does it relate to climbing. (Sport climbing I assume).
 
Aussiegav said:
Stu Littlefair said:
[
From those four hangs I can estimate your critical force and see if any of the efforts above are under predicted by the CF model.

Offer open to anyone who wants to waste an afternoon...

Warning Stupid question:
What is critical force?
How does it relate to climbing. (Sport climbing I assume).

Critical force is the same as functional threshold power (FTP) that Paul described above, just different terminology. Basically the idea is it's the highest level of force production you can sustain for a long period of time (where long is usually around an hour).

In the literature to date climbing at a given intensity is typically modelled by doing 7:3 repeaters at some percentage of your max. So say you weigh 70 kg and your max 7s hang is +30 kg, for 100 kg total load. Then if you could only just sustain a total load of 40 kg (or bw - 30 kg) for an hour then this would be your critical force.

In practice you'd usually test your max, then at decreasing intensities (e.g. 80%, 70%, 60%, 50% of max) and fit a curve to infer your theoretical critical force because fingerboarding for 15mins+ is awful.
 
Thanks Remus
How long are the rests between the sets of repeaters?
This looks like fun rainy day activity. :badidea:
 
The testing protocol Stu described here is pretty sensible https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,31719.msg653878.html#msg653878 In an ideal world you'd be completely rested before going on to the next set so rests should be long. If you can be bothered it would even make sense to split the testing over a couple of days (e.g. max, 80% and 50% on day 1 then 60% and 70% on day 2).
 
jwi said:
At a guess, a work:rest ratio of 8:1, unless someone can convince me that 7:3 is a better predictor of performance on sections of sustained hard climbing. ‍♂️

I thought about this overnight because I didn't want to give a rushed response. There's a lot to unpack here! I've split my post into two parts....

Part 1

Firstly, no-one is saying performance at 7:3 repeaters is a predictor of performance. We (I) are claiming they can be used to stress the energy systems in a way that reveals useful facts. Critical force/power tests rely on exhausting the energy systems at different intensities. I'm not aware of any evidence that the work/rest ratio of intermittent efforts matters much; though there's very little study (only https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24492634/ ?)

To be sure I put myself through a CF test with 8:1 work:rest ratio and compared to results I get with 7:3 repeaters. Once you correct for the duty cycle (the online calculators and lattice don't) I get statistically consistent answers for CF from both. Only one test subject, but backs up the statement above.

I don't doubt you're right that 7:3 repeaters replicate the work:rest ratio in climbing poorly, but for these tests I don't see that it matters.

Maybe you have a stronger point when it comes to whether 7:3 repeaters should actually be used in training, but even there I'm not sure it matters. After all, fartlek runs don't replicate a 10 000m race very well at all, but I don't think anyone would deny they are a useful training method?
 
Part 2

I find I have a lot of sympathy with Paul's suggestion that these discussions have a "missing the wood for the trees" effect on people trying to learn about training. I love these threads and find them super interesting, but as an example, a discussion of the ideal work:rest ratio for endurance training on fingerboards could lead to someone missing the main point which is:

Do most of your endurance training by climbing

This will get the work:rest ratio right automatically, plus you'll be working on your pacing, your technique and the mental aspect of handling the pump. Much better
 
Stu Littlefair said:
Part 2

I find I have a lot of sympathy with Paul's suggestion that these discussions have a "missing the wood for the trees" effect on people trying to learn about training. I love these threads and find them super interesting, but as an example, a discussion of the ideal work:rest ratio for endurance training on fingerboards could lead to someone missing the main point which is:

Do most of your endurance training by climbing

This will get the work:rest ratio right automatically, plus you'll be working on your pacing, your technique and the mental aspect of handling the pump. Much better

100%

In fact, it could be distilled even further for the vast majority of people to "do endurance training, by climbing, consistently".
 
Stu Littlefair said:
To be sure I put myself through a CF test with 8:1 work:rest ratio and compared to results I get with 7:3 repeaters. Once you correct for the duty cycle (the online calculators and lattice don't) I get statistically consistent answers for CF from both. Only one test subject, but backs up the statement above.

I don't doubt you're right that 7:3 repeaters replicate the work:rest ratio in climbing poorly, but for these tests I don't see that it matters.
Fair enough, thanks for taking a lot of time to consider this! And even doing a pilot study!

One of the reasons I am sceptical, is that when I did an experiment with 7:3 s repeaters on me and my better half (n=2), I discovered that 3s rest is basically complete recovery for her (she has absurd levels of endurance in the forearm flexors, never seen the like in anyone else)
 


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