Paul - I get all of that (do you sense a 'but'). But (there you go) what you've just described is 'merely' the change in mindset and physical ability that comes when someone first gets into structured training; it isn't a mindset/physical reaction specific to any model.
I do have doubts about its usefulness for the vast majority of people operating in the 7th and low 8th grades. From what I can tell from posts on ukb and talking to people at the crag, getting the exercises right for ancap/pow/aerepow appears to confuse as many people as it helps. I don't think you need to focus on fine-tuning your energy systems that much to climb up to 8a/8b.
I also wonder how much of this is led by fashion/personality.
Guy - someone who sells things and usually drives an Audi.
Pete - I agree totally with you about the lack of clarity in the an/aero/cap/pow description of training. Too many people keep asking "what is aeropow" for anyone to disagree. I quite like the way you break down your training but what your model lacks is the base/quality distinction. To take your power endurance training as an example. Your description doesn't tell me if I should be completing all reps (as I would during ancap, or base training early in my cycle) or going balls out and giving max efforts on every rep (anpow, or quality work). Historically, people have mostly done the latter. This works, but is non-optimal. This big advance of the an/aero/cap/pow model is realising that the base work is really useful; it's just that I don't think the language used to describe it is as clear as a base/quality description.
The worrying thing is that you were pumped at the first bolt
...and Stu, that's just as baffling as a regime!
Ah..... just read through this thread and what I need to do is damn well sit down and write something out for everyone to use as a resource to get these training intensities. Crap! Ok.... For my help, could a few people describe what you're wanting and I'll put something together. Is it the intensities and feelings of the trainings? The amount of moves you'd want to do for each in total work blocks? Which one you'd want to work for lengths of routes/boulders?I'll do my best to create something that's simple, brief and compliments the good work done by Alex so far.
Pete; it sounds to me like you confuse "base" work with stamina work. The point is to decouple the concept of base/quality phases from the actual skill being trained.
So.. possibly scale down cycling energy systems to something 'climbing scale' for the typical demands of an 15-25m 8b route.. or whatever. Suggests to me that a good deal of typical climbing doesn't require a great amount of base work to be done in training.
Instead, and since we have Tom here and contributing; I'd be interested in whether he thinks the failure rate is a useful metric for setting the level for all these exercises. I'm thinking particular about circuits or laps on boulders. For example, consider the following scenarios:"This is an aerocap exercise, so I'd better not get so pumped i fall off""This is an ancap exercise. I should succeed on most, but perhaps not all, efforts.""This is an/aero pow exercise. I'd better be prepared to fail on most or all of my efforts and my eyes are going to be on stalks".
3. AeroPow - pumped and powered out. You're asking the muscle to operate at max % of aerobic capacity for longer (generally). Don't stress the duration or the intensity = poor/no adaptation.
Do too much at event distance (i.e. your 25m circuit) then you're again not that efficiently stressing the system.
1. AeroCap - no pump to pretty darn pumped. The key is "aerobic" and therefore if your rate of demand of energy (ATP) is too high on the climbing, then guess what.... you ain't working aerobically! Keep it light-to-moderate and break into sets however you want. 2. AnCap - power out. The key here is you're stressing the "anaerobic system" to produce as much lactate as possible. Not enough intensity = aerobic. Thus no stress of anaerobic system. Stress the anaerobic and don't give it any recovery time = get pumped, can't recover = subsequent sets have to be performed at lower intensity = going back to stress aerobic system. 3. AeroPow - pumped and powered out. You're asking the muscle to operate at max % of aerobic capacity for longer (generally). Don't stress the duration or the intensity = poor/no adaptation. Do too much at event distance (i.e. your 25m circuit) then you're again not that efficiently stressing the system. Do too much = more recovery time needed and can't focus on concurrently working strength/power/recruitment4. AnPow - pumped and more powered out. You're asking the muscle to operate at max % of anaerobic capacity for longer (generally). If the intensity is too low = stressing aerobic system = poor adaptation. If rests are too short or work isn't put into workable blocks = high level of pump = climber has to lower intensity. Highly anaerobic work can only be carried out for a limited time... thus if your training session on this can go on for too long, you ain't working hard enough!
This is the best/most useful explanation of these four terms I've read. Excellent.