[jwi]

Stefano Ghisolfi doing doubles, selling a gizmo, and answering questions on enurance training for climbing, Ignore the click baity title.

[Stu Littlefair]

Very interesting that he seems to do no really low level base - what lattice call aerocap.

His doubles are probably taking ~10 minutes and each rep looks near his limit. Be interesting to know how long his rests are.

[PeteHukb]

Be interesting to know how long his rests are.

After the first set he says he rests 15mins. Not sure if that's fixed or just happens to be his work:rest ratio for that set.

[jwi]

Very interesting that he seems to do no really low level base - what lattice call aerocap.

His doubles are probably taking ~10 minutes and each rep looks near his limit. Be interesting to know how long his rests are.

Towards the end of the video he shows that his session was 2 hours and that he did 4 doubles of about 160 m of climbing taking around 30 min. Not counting the 3 routes (about 60 m) he did for warmup, so I guess the session took around 2h30 min in total.

I suspect low level base endurance is a waste of time for competition climbers with a long history of training. But also, Ghisolfi is pretty shit at onsighting on rock compared to most of his peers.

[User deactivated.]

I don't know very much about endurance training but looking at what elite professional climbers do is usually not helpful. They're most likely genetic freaks who can get away with enough volume at high intensity to get the work capacity benefits. Mortals would break with a equivalent level of volume and intensity so very low intensity climbing is done at high volume instead?

[mr chaz]

But also, Ghisolfi is pretty shit at onsighting on rock

yay, something in common!

[jwi]

I don't know very much about endurance training but looking at what elite professional climbers do is usually not helpful. They're most likely genetic freaks who can get away with enough volume at high intensity to get the work capacity benefits. Mortals would break with a equivalent level of volume and intensity so very low intensity climbing is done at high volume instead?

I suspect Ghisolfi has already payed his dues when it comes to endurance climbing over the years.

Obviously training has to be individualised, this is the law.

[Fultonius]

I don't know very much about endurance training but looking at what elite professional climbers do is usually not helpful. They're most likely genetic freaks who can get away with enough volume at high intensity to get the work capacity benefits. Mortals would break with a equivalent level of volume and intensity so very low intensity climbing is done at high volume instead?

I suspect Ghisolfi has already payed his dues when it comes to endurance climbing over the years.

Obviously training has to be individualised, this is the law.

If memory serves, he already has an insanely high critical force. Maybe once gained it doesn't need much top up? Especially when 7c is probably Arcing...

[Stu Littlefair]

He spends two days a week doing this form of training so he’s spending a fair amount of time topping up his critical force.

You can roughly (very roughly) break down endurance training into four groups:

1) arc / active rest
Not getting pumped at all.

2) Low intensity
Durations 15 mins+++ or
Reps of 5-10 mins with short rest
Get moderately pumped.

3) Mid intensity
Durations 5-10 mins
Rest 10+ mins
Come close to failure in each rep.

4) high intensity
Hard onsight attempts.
Long rest

It’s interesting because extrapolating from endurance sports what works best is a roughly 80/20 split between (2) and (3)/(4). This is for both the elite and punters.

We still don’t (as far as I know) have an agreed explanation for WHY that works best.

A lot of current perceived wisdom for climbing training comes from taking those practices and translating to climbing.

But it’s not clear if climbing requires different adaptations for endurance and therefore different training.

It’s interesting to look at what the best athletes are doing for two reasons:

a) they’ve become the best so are maybe doing something right.
b) they are usually quite invested in their training and will not stick with something if they perceive it to “not work”.

Of course, their genetics are different to ours and they may not always get it right but if all the pro climbers are ditching their base endurance, I’d pay attention.

[Stu Littlefair]

I suspect low level base endurance is a waste of time for competition climbers with a long history of training. But also, Ghisolfi is pretty shit at onsighting on rock compared to most of his peers.

I’m sure there’s an element of this. Do you know what the best outdoor French climbers tend to do in this regard?

[Stu Littlefair]

By the way if any sports science students want a dissertation idea it would be very interesting to translate the Seiler & Kjerland (2004) paper into rock climbing and send out questionnaires to World Cup lead competitors to see how their training breaks down over a season.

[mrjonathanr]

I don't know very much about endurance training but looking at what elite professional climbers do is usually not helpful. They're most likely genetic freaks who can get away with enough volume at high intensity to get the work capacity benefits. Mortals would break with a equivalent level of volume and intensity so very low intensity climbing is done at high volume instead?

The stimulus for more capillaries to sprout is, I believe, the friction of blood flowing along the blood vessel wall. Directly proportionate to volume of time, not correlated with pressure/ibtensity.

So for mortals, super easy, super long is the way to go. Working hard will just reduce time.

For mutants who can work at high intensities for long time periods, the concept of ARCing (for that reason, rather than active rest) is probably null.

[mrjonathanr]

I suspect low level base endurance is a waste of time for competition climbers with a long history of training. But also, Ghisolfi is pretty shit at onsighting on rock compared to most of his peers.

I’m sure there’s an element of this. Do you know what the best outdoor French climbers tend to do in this regard?

Way back when, I climbed a lot with Yann Ghesquiers and Bruno Clément. Both had extraordinary levels of stamina. I can still hear Bruno shouting “I’m so pumped!” whilst doing yet another lap of an 8b. Awesome too to watch Yann fight through moves onsight, get past a crux move and then just relax, not on good holds, just when the power output dropped a touch. He never looked that strong, he just never fell off.

Neither ever trained or did easy routes (bar the odd 7a warm up). No ARC stuff, ever. Full bore every time.

PS typical rest period was 8 hour days of 7 days on, one off.

[User deactivated.]

It’s interesting to look at what the best athletes are doing for two reasons:

a) they’ve become the best so are maybe doing something right.
b) they are usually quite invested in their training and will not stick with something if they perceive it to “not work”.

Of course, their genetics are different to ours and they may not always get it right but if all the pro climbers are ditching their base endurance, I’d pay attention.

Do you think there could be some survivorship bias in what the best athletes do?

[jwi]

I’m sure there’s an element of this. Do you know what the best outdoor French climbers tend to do in this regard?

Seb does such a brutal amount of volume in the week that even though it mostly looks superhard, it cannot be that bad...

[petejh]

He spends two days a week doing this form of training so he’s spending a fair amount of time topping up his critical force.

You can roughly (very roughly) break down endurance training into four groups:

1) arc / active rest
Not getting pumped at all.

2) Low intensity
Durations 15 mins+++ or
Reps of 5-10 mins with short rest
Get moderately pumped.

3) Mid intensity
Durations 5-10 mins
Rest 10+ mins
Come close to failure in each rep.

4) high intensity
Hard onsight attempts.
Long rest

It’s interesting because extrapolating from endurance sports what works best is a roughly 80/20 split between (2) and (3)/(4). This is for both the elite and punters.

We still don’t (as far as I know) have an agreed explanation for WHY that works best.

A lot of current perceived wisdom for climbing training comes from taking those practices and translating to climbing.

But it’s not clear if climbing requires different adaptations for endurance and therefore different training.

It’s interesting to look at what the best athletes are doing for two reasons:

a) they’ve become the best so are maybe doing something right.
b) they are usually quite invested in their training and will not stick with something if they perceive it to “not work”.

Of course, their genetics are different to ours and they may not always get it right but if all the pro climbers are ditching their base endurance, I’d pay attention.

When I see endurance training like this I wonder about individual differences in ability to clear lactate from muscles, and whether all the top level are naturally blessed with efficient lactate clearance abilities or whether there are some 9b versions of the typical type often found lower down the grades: 'naturally good at power naturally shit at enduro'.

Would be interesting to see some test results on untrained climbers versus trained climbers, at different levels, with a self-reported 'good at power / good at endurance' split. Something along these lines - blood tests on track runners showing 800m athletes clear lactate from muscle to blood more quickly than 100m sprinters:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12669256/