Training different energy systems

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“ Do most of your endurance training by climbing”

I don’t disagree but finding a route that are sustained enough without shakeouts or easy sections or bloc moves can be difficult.
 
Steve Crowe said:
“ Do most of your endurance training by climbing”

I don’t disagree but finding a route that are sustained enough without shakeouts or easy sections or bloc moves can be difficult.

I assume climbing on a circuit board was included.
 
Steve Crowe said:
“ Do most of your endurance training by climbing”

I don’t disagree but finding a route that are sustained enough without shakeouts or easy sections or bloc moves can be difficult.

If you don't have a circuit board then a great way to get around this issue is to find a route that's about the right level but with the inconvenient rest or whatever and just use a hold from another route instead - or choose to use the good hold with less fingers etc.
 
Steve Crowe said:
“ Do most of your endurance training by climbing”

I don’t disagree but finding a route that are sustained enough without shakeouts or easy sections or bloc moves can be difficult.

I usually just choose a route a bit on the easy side, skip the rests and force myself to climb quickly through easier bits.

Of course indoors, I think climbing walls should be obliged to put up a few sustained route at every grade. Wall operators around where I live clearly thinks otherwise, which is why I do not patronise them.
 
This may be of interest.

https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/224/13/jeb234567/270788/Determinants-of-climbing-energetic-costs-in-humans
 
sheavi said:
This may be of interest.

https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/224/13/jeb234567/270788/Determinants-of-climbing-energetic-costs-in-humans
I got as far as this quote before making the assumption that it would be totally useless to anyone trying to get better at rock climbing (apart from Simon ;)). Let me know if there's an interesting bit to it!
Mass-specific cost of transport was negatively correlated with climbing velocity. Increased route difficulty was associated with slower climbing velocities and thus higher costs, but there was no statistically significant effect of route difficulty on energy expenditure independent of velocity.
 
abarro81 said:
sheavi said:
This may be of interest.

https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/224/13/jeb234567/270788/Determinants-of-climbing-energetic-costs-in-humans
I got as far as this quote before making the assumption that it would be totally useless to anyone trying to get better at rock climbing (apart from Simon ;)). Let me know if there's an interesting bit to it!
Mass-specific cost of transport was negatively correlated with climbing velocity. Increased route difficulty was associated with slower climbing velocities and thus higher costs, but there was no statistically significant effect of route difficulty on energy expenditure independent of velocity.

This was an interesting conclusion considering that couple of the test subjects could not finish the most difficult climb (5.10, the others being 5.6 and 5.8 ) due to fatigue. Can't be bothered to go back and find the quote.
 
I love threads like these - as a very time poor climbing dad I am always looking for the most efficient ways to train even if I sometimes struggle to adopt them.

As motivation: can anyone who has adopted energy systems training over multiple seasons explain how it helped progression? Mischa gave a great example of a sort of 'magic bullet' approach, but how has this worked for people over a number of years? Did you get a boost to your onsight/redpoint grade immediately and then each year building on the past efforts, or did it take a bit of time to work out how to make it work for you? Did it rely on having a clear peaking period where you were able to climb loads or can you make it work as a weekend warrior?
 
As an N=1 example, as a result of testing on myself I decided that I could entirely ditch anaerobic training, as it was well developed. Eventually (and unsurprisingly) it came back into balance with my aerobic ability (as determined by testing), so I put the ancap back in. Like Mischa, I probably didn't need the testing to know this, but it helped me be sure I wasn't making a mistake.

Case studies can never show if something worked or not, but I did go on an on sighting holiday to Greece with Barrows in the physical shape of my life. I was consistently burning Alex off at the Foundry before we went. Once out there, Alex onsighted multiple 8b's and flashed 8b+. I climbed very badly and didn't onsight anything harder than 8a.

If only there was some underlying moral that could be extracted from this story.
 
Well, I was going for the fact that onsight climbing depends on a lot more than physical fitness, but sure, let's aim for getting taller instead.
 
Rocksteady said:
I love threads like these - as a very time poor climbing dad I am always looking for the most efficient ways to train even if I sometimes struggle to adopt them.

My last year in Sheffield was the last time I managed to devote sufficient time to follow something well that was energy systems based. Working at a (fantastic) wall massively helped with this (use of the facilities at quiet times) especially when Barrows and Stu were kicking around for me to pester when I didn't understand what I was doing. I got myself in pretty damn good shape and had a good trip abroad even if the route I was hoping for was totally out of condition (baking). The next season that followed I had a great year getting loads done that I thought would take me several years. This may or may not be as a result of the training/frothing at being so close to my favourite crag.

I think if you're very time poor then you might struggle to commit sufficient time. Watching people that choose to train this way, especially those following a commercial plan, it's often apparent that the sheer volume of training has increased markedly.
 
Rocksteady said:
Mischa gave a great example of a sort of 'magic bullet' approach
First thing I'd say is that magic bullets are a rare thing, so don't go into any kind of training expecting one.

Rocksteady said:
can anyone who has adopted energy systems training over multiple seasons explain how it helped progression? [...]Did you get a boost to your onsight/redpoint grade immediately and then each year building on the past efforts, or did it take a bit of time to work out how to make it work for you?
Anecdotally, my answer depends on what you call "energy systems training", since anything where you get pumped kind of counts, and it's a spectrum from totally unplanned and unstructured to highly regimented, rather than a discrete thing.

I did some kind of PE work at the wall on circuits from back when I started going climbing (6th form) because that's what people seemed to do to get good for routes. No stopwatch or anything though and no "plan" in terms of periodisation or anything. So in that sense I've done it forever and gone steadily through the grades - though obviously rather faster as an 18 yr old newbie than a 30-something guy with a job who's been at it for years and is chronically injured.

Through uni it was a question of gradually learning more, refining and adding structure. I started traving around the wall for 30min to ARC at the end of the session in maybe my first year at uni based on some Gresh articles on planet fear. Then added more structure to circuits sessions; then realised I shouldn't be just getting pumped all the time 2x per week so started to play a bit more with some kind of periodisation/focus etc.. Though that also happened naturally with seasonal focus (more bouldering in the winter). During the course of uni I went from 7c max RP to 8b, then went climbing for a year and did an 8c (6 week siege).

The next year (2012/13) I got lots of info from Tom, started doing An Cap (which was new to me, whereas strength/PE/ARC was all what I already did). I also started structuring and planning my training a notch more, mapping out periods of time between trips and what I would focus on in more detail. That year I made huge gains, did a few 8cs in ok time and did my first 8c+, then wrote that pdf thinking I had it fuckin' sussed.

2013-2017 I improved at a slower pace, but was probably getting steadily better still. I realised I didn't have it as sussed as I thought and that a lot of the early gains were just from trying that approach for the first time in combination with having just had a year off to climb full time. (I've taken an extended period out to climb on 2 occasions - in both instances when I came back and started training again I had 6-12 months where I saw big gains.) Over this period I probably refined what works for me quite a bit but no major changes in approach/philosophy.

Since 2017 I don't really feel like I've improved significantly. If there is improvement it's very slow! I partly blame this on having a job, being more stressed with other "life" stuff etc. Also I guess I'm now just at the stage where you're looking to eek out a 1% gain and not just to jump a level. I take a similar approach to training as before but have to modify a lot around injury and the fact that my body can't do what it could 5-10 years ago because I'm broken and old. I can't do high volume, I can't do pull ups, can't use crimps etc... but I'm surprised how much you can work around these issues. Now it's more like cycling in and out of form and trying to time it right for trips or dry periods!

Rocksteady said:
Did it rely on having a clear peaking period where you were able to climb loads or can you make it work as a weekend warrior?
I think it works most neatly with trips but it's fine with a block where your preferred crag might be in season (just harder to guess timing), and you could apply the principles broadly without even trying to peak that much too.

I think this approach can be done with limited time - some people seem to manage - but perhaps not if you also value down time! It's a lot harder to fit in than just getting strong, and may depend on what "limited time" means to you too! Works with a full time job but might be hard with full time job and kids? At the least you'll need a decent set of ways to train at home.
 
My experiences of training and periodising in a very structured way have been mixed. I tried it for the first time to try to climb my first 8b and it worked a treat - I did a 16 week block over one winter/spring of nothing except indoor training following a plan, and hit a peak and did the Oak in around 10 visits with it feeling easy on the day.

I thought I'd do the same the next year and do Mecca as my first 8b+, grade chasing mode fully on. Like the first time, I sacrificed a winter/early spring of loads of other climbing possibilities and invested 16 weeks into a block of training, thinking I'd feel in great shape when I exited the other side of it. But it never happened, and it ended up turning into a terrible couple of years climbing-wise which I look back on and feel were wasted and that the effort I'd invested wasn't worth the reward of getting to hang out at the tor 2-3 times a week working what was in the big picture a 2-star route, in sub-par connies for 1 out of 3 visits. After a second winter of training and then coming out and failing again, I lost motivation with it all. That was all purely my choice of course - I could have planned the training to peak for a trip to somewhere nice instead!

Mecca held some allure for its PE style and history as it does for many other climbers but in hindsight it was a poor choice. I should have stayed closer to home to make the process more bearable, or lowered the grade aspiration and gone on holiday and used the fitness somewhere brilliant.

That second experience put me off sacrificing time to training and I haven't tried training in long blocks since then. I think I went too far the other way and have coasted along way below my potential best for the last 4-5 years. One thing that focussing on training defo taught me was my weaknesses - typical strong fingers and decent power but shit aerobic fitness sums it up. So whenever I let myself get lazy it's fairly easy and quick to improve my level by training my aerobic weakness for a few weeks. Without those wasted months indoors I might not have developed as keen an awareness.

This thread's like an alcoholics thread.
 
mrjonathanr said:
^^that is what i would suggest.

devonshirepiemuncher said:
I thought i was working on power endurance as the rests were so short but i am probably wrong, certainly was brilliant when needing to power through sport cruxes when pumped

Sounds like a very effective way to build a pump Devonshire; I am glad it worked for you. I don't see how it can be anaerobic capacity because the rests are short; they would need to be fairly long, to deal with the lactate produced and reboot the anaerobic system. To me it sounds like you were digging deep into aerobic systems and boosting your capacity to work with lactate levels. Very important, but not anaerobic.

I'm being super lazy here mrJR, but went off to the boulder tonight, thinking about this thread.

My thoughts, and answer to your post here, echoes Pete's post.

I think the mistake people make - if I can put it that way, is that it's assumed that the energy system you're reliant on at the point of failure, is what you need to train and develop to perform better.

The principle of working your base line aerobic system, is that you can rely on this far more, before having to dip into anaerobic systems.

Thinking about your first post, the words that stood out for me were "when gripped".

I've found that, on good, slightly harder trad routes, having better aerobic capacity allowed me to feel far less stressed/tense, and I could maintain better breathing too. In short, I felt under less pressure.

As an experiment tonight, I started with x 4 single circuits of 16 moves, with quite short rest in between. Working like this, it's surprising how well you can recover between reps without achieving much appreciable training effect on your aerobic system.

After a slightly longer rest, I then did two sets of 2 x 16 moves - double length reps - with slightly longer rest between.
I'm not very fit at the moment, and it shows. However, this anaerobic capacity isn't something that would normally be the deciding factor on harder trad.
Four x single reps to finish.

One of my go to sessions involved traversing at Rubicon (maybe 6b+) between poor rests, recovering enough to do a 7 move problem (~6C) up/down before traversing back to a poor rest. I found it really targeted my capacity for recovery between slightly harder sections.

I also found that it helped me judge how well I was recovering.
 
Decided after 10 days in Amsterdam with 4 good indoor bouldering sessions, maybe it was time for a re-test of max hangs plus some of the CF test.

Max hangs have gone up a little to 26.9kg so my total has gone up to 105kg from 101kg (1kg extra added & 3kg extra BW since last test, 1kg less using strict HC vs chisel).

Just did my 50% repeaters to failure, but kind of *failed* the protocol instead of muscle failure - I dialled in 25 reps to my timer and ran out of reps! After a mad dash to reset (so maybe 8 secs rest) I pushed out another 3 reps. I suspect 28 would have been my failure point without the extra rest, 27 worst case. I'll put it down as 27 for now.

Update: 60%: 18 reps. Brutal.

Busy resting up now and will do the next test later. I'll finish off tomorrow I think...
 
DAVETHOMAS90 said:
I think the mistake people make - if I can put it that way, is that it's assumed that the energy system you're reliant on at the point of failure, is what you need to train and develop to perform better.

The principle of working your base line aerobic system, is that you can rely on this far more, before having to dip into anaerobic systems.

Thinking about your first post, the words that stood out for me were "when gripped".

I've found that, on good, slightly harder trad routes, having better aerobic capacity allowed me to feel far less stressed/tense, and I could maintain better breathing too. In short, I felt under less pressure.
....

I'm not very fit at the moment, and it shows. However, this anaerobic capacity isn't something that would normally be the deciding factor on harder trad.

Hi Dave, thanks for your reply. I do understand the primacy of the aerobic system and your point about it creating the threshold for the glycolytic system kicking in, no argument there. Obviously, you have a lot of direct experience, so your contribution is very welcome. My point is that not fading when there are a lot of moves which feel difficult is supported by the glycolytic system, which needs to be trained over a longer period than pure aerobic capacity. I want both; just anaerobic is the trickier to train, hence the thread.
 
The slightly longer - i.e. double circuits of 15-30 moves seem to hit it quite well. It can be pretty hard/stressful.
However, although we're talking about different energy systems, they aren't independent, as I think a lot of people assume, and oxygen is required for ATP production during more intense efforts as well. Our ability to work purely anaerobically is really short.

The key is how far/well supported we can be by the aerobic, before having to dip into the anaerobic.

What tends to happen, is that due to lower than ideal aerobic capacity, we're dipping into the anaerobic battery far more/sooner than we want. Trad routes have to be pretty darned hard before we're faced with sequences that are hard enough to require a full on anaerobic tussle.*

In other words, when we're failing anaerobically, it's more often than not because the contribution from the aerobic system isn't as good as it could be.

*I can't think of one ;)
 


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