After a summer full of very little training and no climbing I can safely say that my finger is finally better. This has been the worst finger injury I've had, and the first that has forced me to take significant time away from climbing. I was able to maintain some of my strength through supplementary exercises and thus climbed much better on an end of the summer two week trip to Rumney than I expected. We didn't catch any sends on video but here are some edited ascents from the trip:
Serious training will begin tomorrow at which point my training charts and logs will finally be updated live again. It should be interesting to see the relationship of my "training numbers" with the success of this "comeback".
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Special Home Improvement Post
There has not been much climbing this summer for the robot. This is mostly due to my fingjury(thanks for the term beastermaker.co.uk), which was the worst I've ever had. For the lower elevation areas of the northern hemisphere summer does not lend itself to difficult climbing. A climber has a few choices around this:
1. Travel(hopefully we'll do that next summer)
2. Climb sub-maximally(I don't really enjoy this)
3. Explore other facets of life.
This summer has been devoted to the third. There were three main projects this summer, the kitchen tile back-splash, the floor, and the garden. I was nervous about installing tile on the walls of the kitchen, but it turned out being a very reasonable project I would recommend to anyone. Here are some before and after pictures.
Next up was the tile floor. After our new found skills we decided to shoot for the stars by laying it down in an off-set diagonal pattern. I highly suggest against this if the space is small complex(ie our old house). Here are some before, during, and after pictures. Note how much open space is left after all of the full sized tiles are down.
An ongoing project for the summer has been the garden. We have a garden in our front yard and Murph has a plot at the community garden. I haven't talked any about diet related to climbing performance, mostly because I have a somewhat unorthodox diet(vegan) for an athlete. I used to think that my diet hindered my performance, but now I think it helps me. Here are some photos of out front yard garden:
Now climbing has begun again, and I'm already thinking of good posts. Like the relationship of hangboard numbers to climbing performance.
1. Travel(hopefully we'll do that next summer)
2. Climb sub-maximally(I don't really enjoy this)
3. Explore other facets of life.
This summer has been devoted to the third. There were three main projects this summer, the kitchen tile back-splash, the floor, and the garden. I was nervous about installing tile on the walls of the kitchen, but it turned out being a very reasonable project I would recommend to anyone. Here are some before and after pictures.
Next up was the tile floor. After our new found skills we decided to shoot for the stars by laying it down in an off-set diagonal pattern. I highly suggest against this if the space is small complex(ie our old house). Here are some before, during, and after pictures. Note how much open space is left after all of the full sized tiles are down.
An ongoing project for the summer has been the garden. We have a garden in our front yard and Murph has a plot at the community garden. I haven't talked any about diet related to climbing performance, mostly because I have a somewhat unorthodox diet(vegan) for an athlete. I used to think that my diet hindered my performance, but now I think it helps me. Here are some photos of out front yard garden:
Now climbing has begun again, and I'm already thinking of good posts. Like the relationship of hangboard numbers to climbing performance.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Summer 2010 Goals and Schedule
I'm on a rest day in the Red River Gorge right now, staying here. I've decided to take it easy for our two week trip to give my body some down time and hopefully finish healing my finger. This is slightly frustrating but not too bad seeing as the conditions are not great.
I'm working on a post on periodization but until it's ready I thought I'd share my training plans and goals for the summer.
1. Active rest(May 1 - May 22): I would have rather done this some other time but my finger conspired against me. The first of these weeks I played around with some of the exercises which will become my goals for the summer. The second two are spent climbing at the red. The intention is to climb 2 or more number grades below my hardest redpoint.
2. Rock Climbing and Cross Training(May 22 - June 24): I should emphasize during this portion I plan to climb on actual rocks. I consider this to be not as effective for training versus climbing on plastic, but the idea is to ease my finger into functionality. Assuming the weather cooperates this gives me 10 days at Rumney to do some climbs I have been ignoring and four days bouldering. Here is the schedule
Monday: rest(maybe easy bike ride or run)
Tuesday: Rumney
Wednesday: Rumney
Thursday: AM: Fingerboard(maximum repeaters), one arm pull up pyramids, strength.
I'm working on a post on periodization but until it's ready I thought I'd share my training plans and goals for the summer.
1. Active rest(May 1 - May 22): I would have rather done this some other time but my finger conspired against me. The first of these weeks I played around with some of the exercises which will become my goals for the summer. The second two are spent climbing at the red. The intention is to climb 2 or more number grades below my hardest redpoint.
2. Rock Climbing and Cross Training(May 22 - June 24): I should emphasize during this portion I plan to climb on actual rocks. I consider this to be not as effective for training versus climbing on plastic, but the idea is to ease my finger into functionality. Assuming the weather cooperates this gives me 10 days at Rumney to do some climbs I have been ignoring and four days bouldering. Here is the schedule
Monday: rest(maybe easy bike ride or run)
Tuesday: Rumney
Wednesday: Rumney
Thursday: AM: Fingerboard(maximum repeaters), one arm pull up pyramids, strength.
PM: Metcon
Friday: AM: 8x500m rowing intervals
PM: 4x1/2 mile run.
Saturday: Bouldering, weighted one arm pull up pyramid.
Sunday: AM: Fingerboard(maximum hangs), one arm pull ups on holds, strength.
Strength: iron cross
Saturday: Bouldering, weighted one arm pull up pyramid.
Sunday: AM: Fingerboard(maximum hangs), one arm pull ups on holds, strength.
PM: 2000m row and 1 mile run. Metcon.
All of the finger board work will be open handed(not even 1/2 crimp) focusing on one arm hangs on bigger holds.
3. Adaptation to Serious Training(June 25-July 5) This is a transition from training for my non-climbing goals to a more serious training for climbing. I'll test my current level by doing a couple of finger board sets as listed here, and revisit the campus board and my bouldering wall.
4. Training(July 6 - August 10) This is the hottest part of the year and thus best for focusing on training and not actual climbing. I plan to follow this approximate schedule:
PM: Campus board power endurance.
Tuesday: AM: Metcon
PM: Timed climbing intervals.
PM: Campus board maximum efforts, bouldering.
PM: Metcon
Friday: rest or easy bike ride/run.
Saturday: Rumney
Sunday: Rumney
5. Rifle, CO(August 11-August 27) Earlier this year 6 weeks the above training program gave me the fitness to send China Beach so if everything goes well I should have pretty good fitness for this trip.
Goals:
Here is a list of my non-climbing related goals for the summer.
Rowing: 2000m: under 7:00(best so far 7:24)
1000m: under 3:20(best so far 3:29)
500m: under 1:30(best so far 1:37)
Running: mile: under 6:00
800m: under 2:30
400m: under 1:00
Strength: iron cross
front lever pull up(I can do this straddled now)
one arm standing ab wheel
one arm pull up +20lbs(I've done one +10lbs).
Monday, May 3, 2010
The n-tuple Training Notation
In the last post I introduced a new notation for organizing training distribution. Here I would like to expand on this idea. First we need a few definitions.
Definition 1: An n-tuple is an order collection of n numbers. Ex: (1,3,5,2) is a 4-tuple.
Definition 2: A positive rational partition of 1 into n parts is an n-tuple whose sum of entries is 1. Ex (1/2,3/4,0,1/4) is a partition of 1 into 4 parts.
Definition 3: A training n-tuple is a partition of 1 into n parts in which each entry represents the portion of training time spent on a single type of training.
Examples of Training n-tuples:
There are training n-tuples of size 0 and 1 that aren't that useful so we'll start with larger sizes. A training tuple of size 2 (or ordered pair) could have entries representing strength/power and endurance(including "resistance" as discussed before).
Example 1: (1,0) represents only training strength and power
(1/2,1/2) represents equal time spent on strength and endurance.
There are a few useful examples of training 3-tuples(triples). A climbing only training triple would involve (strength, power endurance(resistance), endurance). A triple could also include cross training: (strength, endurance, cross training).
Example 2: (1/4,1/2,1/4) represents one quarter of training time spent on strength and endurance and one half of the time spend on resistance(for the triple of type 1).
(2/5,1/2,1/10) represents 2/5 on strength, 1/2 on endurance, and 1/10 on cross training.
One can create arbitrary training n-tuples by ordering the entries from the least to most number of moves, then adding cross training at the end. A version of the training 5-tuple was discussed last time. The largest useful training n-tuple I can imagine would be the training 8-tuple:
Definition 1: An n-tuple is an order collection of n numbers. Ex: (1,3,5,2) is a 4-tuple.
Definition 2: A positive rational partition of 1 into n parts is an n-tuple whose sum of entries is 1. Ex (1/2,3/4,0,1/4) is a partition of 1 into 4 parts.
Definition 3: A training n-tuple is a partition of 1 into n parts in which each entry represents the portion of training time spent on a single type of training.
Examples of Training n-tuples:
There are training n-tuples of size 0 and 1 that aren't that useful so we'll start with larger sizes. A training tuple of size 2 (or ordered pair) could have entries representing strength/power and endurance(including "resistance" as discussed before).
Example 1: (1,0) represents only training strength and power
(1/2,1/2) represents equal time spent on strength and endurance.
There are a few useful examples of training 3-tuples(triples). A climbing only training triple would involve (strength, power endurance(resistance), endurance). A triple could also include cross training: (strength, endurance, cross training).
Example 2: (1/4,1/2,1/4) represents one quarter of training time spent on strength and endurance and one half of the time spend on resistance(for the triple of type 1).
(2/5,1/2,1/10) represents 2/5 on strength, 1/2 on endurance, and 1/10 on cross training.
One can create arbitrary training n-tuples by ordering the entries from the least to most number of moves, then adding cross training at the end. A version of the training 5-tuple was discussed last time. The largest useful training n-tuple I can imagine would be the training 8-tuple:
(c1,c2,c3,c4,c5,x1,x2,x3)
c1: Short power
c2: Long Power
c3: Short Resistance
c4: Long Resistance
c5: Endurance
x1: Cross Training: Strength
x2: Cross Training: Metabolic Conditioning
x3: Cross Training: Endurance
Creation of smaller training n-tuples from this 8-tuple can be done by combining some of the above types of training or leaving them out all together. If I were teaching a course in climbing training I would assign you, the reader, to create 5 different training n-tuples(leave them in the comments if you like).
Why?
Some of this is for sure overkill, but if there is anything I've learned from studying math is to take an idea and extend it to its logical conclusion. Later we will explore a periodized training schedule taking advantage of training n-tuples.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Charts
There was some confusion about the chart from the last post. I'll split it up into several charts here and discuss.
So as seen above training short power(1-4 move boulder problems) has a little carryover into resistance and decreases endurance. Long power(4-12 move boulder problems) is widely helpful.
Short resistance(12-30 moves) has good carryover into all climbing strengths, while long resistance(30-60 moves) does little to help power of any kind.
As seen above training endurance is a real killer. There are cases that could be made for training endurance as active recovery, or for building one's "base" fitness.
Discussion
The charts above come from my personal experience with training each of the facets of climbing. The interplay of climbing strengths is probably fairly unique for each individual. Depending on the time of the year or my projects I will train different mixes of power, resistance, and endurance. This can be broken into a 5-tuple with the sum of the entries 100. So (20, 20, 20, 20, 20) would mean an even split between training short power, long power, short resistance, long resistance and endurance(20% of training time for each). Now that we have notation, I'll list a few scenarios below.
Bouldering: For bouldering around the northeast, where problems tend to be short I find training (60,30,10,0,0) to be useful. For bouldering elsewhere and as a general prep for sport climbing I find (40,40,20,0,0) to be a good mix.
Sport Climbing: For climbing at Rumney (33,33,33,0,0) seems good. Any other sport climbing location needs a shift toward the endurance end: (10,20,30,30,10) for onsite climbing, and (10,20,40,30,0) for redpointing.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Types of Training
By far the best book on climbing training I have "read" is Planificacion del Entrenamiento en Escalada Deportiva by David Macia. I say "read" because I don't speak Spanish but I was able to sift through the book pretty well. Macia has trained some very successful climbers such as Ramon Julian, Yuji Hirayama, and Edu Marin. Throughout the book the word resistance is used for power endurance and he has a good way of organizing the different facets of physical training for climbing.
1. Short Power: This is 1-4 move power. Best trained with short boulder problems, the campus board, and single hangs.
2. Long Power: This is 5-12 move power. Best trained with longer boulder problems, short bouldery sport routes, the campus board, and maximum repeaters.
3. Short Resistance: This is 12-30 move power endurance. Best trained with boulder problem intervals, short sustained sport routes, campus board power endurance, and repeaters.
4. Long Resistance: This is 30-60 move power endurance. Best trained with timed intervals on a climbing wall, longer sport routes, and super repeaters.
5. Endurance: This is 60+ move endurance. This type of endurance is not that useful because rarely are there climbs with more than 60 hard moves in a row. The biggest reason to train this type of endurance is learning how to rest on a jug. Once you know how to rest, "Long Resistance" will get you between the jugs. I have trained this in the past with intervals of 8 minutes of continuous climbing separated by 1/2 mile runs. This type of training is probably good once every week or two if you climb long routes, any more and you will throw out any power you've ever had.
Carryover
There will be carryover from one category to another, but this is probably different for each person. My experience is reflected in the following graph(the numbers don't really mean anything other than scaling):
So if you read the chart you see training endurance gives you a "-50" in power and "+25" in long resistance and etc. In my experience training endurance helps your long term power endurance a little but hurts everything else. This analysis is most applicable to systematic training and falls apart in the case of someone climbing for skill acquisition.
For the early spring Rumney seasonI have had good success training short power, long power, and short resistance and letting carryover take care of the rest. For my upcoming trip to the Red I've been training everything except endurance with less focus on short power than normal.
1. Short Power: This is 1-4 move power. Best trained with short boulder problems, the campus board, and single hangs.
2. Long Power: This is 5-12 move power. Best trained with longer boulder problems, short bouldery sport routes, the campus board, and maximum repeaters.
3. Short Resistance: This is 12-30 move power endurance. Best trained with boulder problem intervals, short sustained sport routes, campus board power endurance, and repeaters.
4. Long Resistance: This is 30-60 move power endurance. Best trained with timed intervals on a climbing wall, longer sport routes, and super repeaters.
5. Endurance: This is 60+ move endurance. This type of endurance is not that useful because rarely are there climbs with more than 60 hard moves in a row. The biggest reason to train this type of endurance is learning how to rest on a jug. Once you know how to rest, "Long Resistance" will get you between the jugs. I have trained this in the past with intervals of 8 minutes of continuous climbing separated by 1/2 mile runs. This type of training is probably good once every week or two if you climb long routes, any more and you will throw out any power you've ever had.
Carryover
There will be carryover from one category to another, but this is probably different for each person. My experience is reflected in the following graph(the numbers don't really mean anything other than scaling):
For the early spring Rumney seasonI have had good success training short power, long power, and short resistance and letting carryover take care of the rest. For my upcoming trip to the Red I've been training everything except endurance with less focus on short power than normal.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Bonus Training
First off, I added a page to the blog containing all of the workouts that have been thus far discussed. The weather around here has been great for climbing when I am busy and lousy when I'm free(Friday and Saturday). Combining this with my injury, which is a lot better, has given me time to experiment with my training protocol a bit, with good results. I'll write it all up later.
The point of this post is to describe how to add unplanned, unstructured exercises to your routine. Bonus training can help your strength, flexibility, or endurance, sometimes it won't really do anything for your fitness other than burn a few extra calories. I'll group bonus training into three main groups, with examples.
Bonus training that serves an another purpose.
1. Riding a bicycle to work/school/for errands.
2. Walking the dog.
3. Doing yard work.
Bonus training that can be done while watching TV or a movie or reading.
1. Floor calisthenics.
2. Stretching.
Bonus training that can be fit between daily activities.
1. Run around the block.
2. Do a few pull ups every time you walk by your pull up bar/hangboard.
Here is a list of some of the bonus training I do:
1. Ride my bicycle to school.
3. Handstand push ups and press handstands
5. Squeeze power putty.
6. Stretching.
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