China Beach

It all started in August 2005 in Rifle, CO.  I was there for two weeks with my friends Warren and Chad, and the topic came up of lifetime goal redpoints.  Warren's goal was Zulu, Chad's was the 7pm show, both of these in Rifle.  I was enroute to a Ph.D. program in Albany, NY so I knew I wouldn't spend much time traveling so I picked a far fetched route within a reasonable distance: China Beach.  At the time Chad and I were fairly new climbers, we had consolidated mid 12's, and we thought anything was possible.  I left Rifle that summer having sent a handful of 12b's and one 12c.

That fall I spent my first weekends at Rumney.  I did routes like Technosurfing and Whip Tide, and got incredibly shut down on Tsunami, Aquarius, and Suburban.  All of this took place in the shadow of this:

Around this time I began seriously training for climbing.  At first the training had a moderate effect on my climbing.  Finally in the last 8 months or so I feel like I've found the training formula that allows me to climb at my best. 

From that fall until fall 2008 I never thought It would be possible for me to do the route.  I held it in my mind as a carrot during long and unpleasant hours of training, but I was doubtful.  Then in November 2008 I sent Cold War(14a).  I was ecstatic, now my dream was only one letter grade away.  Little did I know that Cold War sits in the bottom of its grade, while China Beach sits at least in the middle of its grade.  That winter I spent training and climbing all alone at a boulder near my house:

                                       

The next spring I had my first serious tries on the route.  It was hard, but it felt possible.  Plagued with a minor finger injury I wasn't able to put as much of myself into the route as I wanted.  I never linked past the halfway point.  I knew once I stuck the move out of the break it was just a matter of time.  While the bottom half of the route was funky and difficult for me, the top half could not be more my style: big moves, good crimpers, and climbing square to the wall.  

I had a detailed plan in my mind for the winter that would maximize the chances of success.  Train only power and strength until a 3 week bouldering trip to my home state of Arkansas.  I would try to send everything I could in Arkansas.

Horshoe Canyon Bouldering 2009 from Maya Alfonso on Vimeo.

After the trip I would take a week off and detrain the perfect amount to start making huge gains(see for yourself in the training charts section).  The plan had me climbing or training 6 days a week 2 session most days until late March, when I would go to Rumney to rework the route.  Then, I would have all of April to take it easier and make serious redpoint attempts. Everything was proceeding as planned until good weather early in March put me trying the route several weeks before expected.  Even without a taper the training had paid off, and I was immediately getting huge high points.  Two weeks later everything came together and I sent!  It was perfect in every way:  the weather, the scene and the cliff that day.  I'm glad I didn't send faster this spring because climbing on it was so enjoyable this year, and I'm glad I didn't take longer because now we can go to the red next week and not worry about losing power.

What's next.  After a little hiatus from serious training I'll start up again.  I've ignored 10 or so 5.13's at Rumney I want to do during this quest, after that is anyones guess.

The Training Week for Bouldering Season

Though I haven't described quite everything I do I think I can fill in the gaps while describing what a typical week is like.  I have added links on the charts page to my rowing times as well as a training log for odds and ends.  Before I continue its worth noting that this level of volume has been built over the last few years.  It breaks most of the rules in popular training books.  I decided that I would train this much as an experiment.  Once I did this I saw quicker gains in my hangboard, campus board, and one arm pull up numbers, as well as stronger climbing in general.  For descriptions of each exercise see previous posts.

Sunday

Morning: 2 sets of finger board repeaters separated by a set of one arm pull ups pyramids plus.  Row 500m.

Afternoon:  Campus board power endurance.  Pick a time (15 seconds or more) and ladder up and down the campus board for that time, rest 2 minutes and repeat 8 times.  I got this from the moonclimbing site.  In their article Rich Simpson suggests 40-60s of campusing.  I found this brutal, and the best I've done is 25s with failing in the last two sets.  I am convinced 60s is 9a climbing fitness.

Monday

Morning:  Row 2000m.  This is the only day of the week I row a full 2000m.  I try for a personal best each time.  I had good improvement until the last 2 weeks where I am stalling around 7:35.  I would like to row sub 7 minutes, but I think that would take too much time from climbing specific training.

Afternoon:  Four rounds for time of (run .25 miles, 5 muscle ups on rings, 10 push ups, and 15 pike ups).

Evening:  Ideally on monday evenings I climb on plastic somewhere other than my attic.  Originally I wanted this to be my local gym(AIR), but the problems don't change nearly enough, I don't have setting privileges, and would rather save my money for road trips and indian food.  Recently I have been climbing at my friend Adam's home wall on mondays, Its great fun.

Tuesday

Morning:  2 sets of finger board maximum repeaters separated by a set of one arm pull up pyramids.

Afternoon:  Cross Training Strength:  Usually involving some assortment of straddle front lever pull ups, assisted crosses on rings, upside down sit ups, and the standing ab wheel. Then: Campus Board maximum efforts and bouldering on the attic wall.  I have a training partner,Ben, on Tuesday afternoons and it is great not to toil alone

Wednesday

Morning:  I attend a yoga class and afterwards row 1000m.  

Evening:  Six rounds for time of (row 250 m, 20 touches of HS wall runs, 10 pike ups), followed by climbing at a friends home wall.  Mostly moderate traverses, taking it easy and getting a little pumped.

Thursday

Morning: 1 set of finger board single hangs followed by some one arm pull ups on holds.

Afternoon:  Same as tuesday.

Friday:  

This is a rest day.  I will usually do an easy run for about 20-30 minutes.  

Saturday:  

This is the day for climbing outside.  What I do depends on where I am.  At a new area with lots of problems I'll usually try to make some good flashes and climb everything I can in a few trys.  At a new area with a few problems I'll try to make a one day ascent of something that is hard for me.  At an area I frequent I usually try 1 or 2 medium/long term projects and then try to repeat everything I can.

How do I find the time:  At the moment I am a math grad student.  I teach one class and I'm currently writing my thesis.  This gives me a good deal of flexibility.

Why do I find the time:  Short answer: China Beach.  Medium Answer:  I am convinced that ordinary people can climb at a pretty high level if they put the work in.  I consider myself to be more average than mutant and so this is a grand experiment to see how hard I can climb.  Long Answer:  Maybe later.

Possible Gaps in the program:  A later post.

One Arm Pull-ups

As usual the charts from when I do the following workouts can be found on the charts page of the blog.

This is the most controversial element of my training.  Does it help climbing, is it a waste of time?  Who knows.  I find it a fun distraction that has no danger of popping an A2 pulley.  Its taken me years to get a solid one arm pull up(OAP), but I never spend more than 15 minutes 2 or 3 days a week on them.  Also my methods have evolved to what seems to be a much more efficient system then I originally used.

Weighted Pull-ups


I've used weighted pull-ups in the past but now I don't do any pull-up(apart from front lever pull ups and muscle ups) with 2 arms.  These could be important for someone who doesn't have the necessary strength to perform a OAP without significant assistance.  Each of the following workouts could easily be scaled to use weighted 2 arm pull-ups instead of OAP's.


Tools


Unless you are incredibly strong you are going to need a system for assisted one arm pull-ups.  I use the following pulley system.

Here is Ben with the pulley system in action.

Obviously you need something to do the pull ups like a bar or a hangboard.

Pyramids


I got the basic idea for these from the beastmaker website, though doing pyramids for an exercise is not all that original.  This workout consists of 9 sets separated by a 2 minute rest.  The sets have the following structure:

1. reps: 1, weight: base
2. reps: 2, weight: base-5
3. reps: 3, weight: base-10
4. reps: 4, weight: base-15
5. reps: 5, weight: base-20
6. reps: 4, weight: base-15
7. reps: 3, weight: base-10
8. reps: 2, weight: base-5
9. reps: 1, weight: base

 Now you need to decide your "base weight".  Originally I just picked the amount fairly randomly and let the amount of assistance drop as I got stronger.  Now I've noticed that I do the first and last set with ~7 pounds less resistance than my one rep max.  For example if your one rep max is a OAP with 3 additional pounds then -4 pounds is a good base weight.

Its worth noting that -10 pounds means 10 pounds in the pulley system but +3 pounds is a one armer with 3 pounds in the free hand.  I usually increase resistance(1 pound at a time) in this workout when I am able to finish the last set strong.

Pyramids Plus


This is a version of the above workout tailored to building the ability to perform multiple repetitions of one arm pull ups.  There are 5 sets separated by 3 minute rests with the following structure

1. reps:2, weight: base
2. reps:4, weight: base-10
3. reps:6, weight: base-20
4. reps:4, weight: base-10
5. reps:2, weight: base-20 

The base weight used here is 3 pounds less than the weight used for the 2 rep set in the "pyramid" workout.  

Pull up on Holds


This is only mainly useful for climbers.  If you are not a climber I'll offer a suggestion for the 3rd workout.

I pick 5 different holds on my hangboard.  For the beastmaker 2000 I currently pick the mouth jug, the big edges, the middle edge, the big 2 finger pocket, and the 15 degree sloper.  For each hold I'll do 2 singles with as little assistance as possible, resting as much as needed between sets.

Maximum Singles


If your not a climber/do not have a hangboard a good workout to balance against the other two is as follows.  Perform 10 single OAP's where the assistance is as follows for each set

1. one rep max -4
2. one rep max-4
3. one rep max-2
4. one rep max-2
5. one rep max
6. one rep max
7. one rep max-2
8. one rep max-2
9. one rep max-4
10. one rep max-4

Training Week

I perform each of these workouts once a week.  This gives me a hard day(pyramids plus), a medium day(pyramids), and an easy day(pull ups on holds).  Every so often I test myself:

Scaling for the Fingerboard

Before I get started, if your interested check out the charts of my fingerboard workouts by clicking above.

The last post was about the fingerboard workouts I do at the moment.  These have developed over the last several years.  I believe the workout can be done by only scaling size of hold and weight added down to a level of about V6 or mid 5.12 climbing.  If you take out the front 2 and back 2 hangs and replace them with front 3 hangs I think it scales down to V4 and low end 5.12.  Any climbing level below that and the fingerboard probably is not the best use of climbing time.

Its also worth noting that each workout has a totally different perceived difficulty.  The repeaters are by far the most painful of the three.  Because of all of the rest built into the single hang workout it feels like your not doing much work at all.  The maximum repeaters fall somewhere in between.

I do one workout of each every week.  This gives me one hard, one medium, and one easy day of fingerboarding each week.  Of course this can be scaled to your need.  Another good choice would be a three week cycle.  On the first week 2 days of repeaters, in the second week 2 days of maximum repeaters, and in the third week 2 days of single hangs.  This could be worked up to a 6 week or 12 week cycle as needed.  During the climbing season one day of maximum repeaters are probably sufficient to maintain finger strength.

The fingerboard may be less important for others than it is for me.  Whenever I'm on climbing trips I get progressively weaker throughout the trip.  I think some of this is due to missing training, but this will be the subject of an upcoming post.