Anderson Brothers, please help me program my training!

JLP wrote: Why are you and Mike spending numerous hours per week on the Treadwall? Is not the point of this to condition yourself below your anaerobic threshold? Are you not therefore spending by far the vast majority of your "on the wall time" training below the anaerobic threshold? Running helps this even more, IMO. It's not sport specific and too much will definitely be a waste of time and bring you negative results - but it definitely helps.

running isn't going to do much for your forearm aerobic performance, unless maybe you are pinch gripping a moderately light weight and swinging your arms excessively like a middle aged woman on her morning walk.

Mike, thanks so much for your response. There is a lot for me to think about here.

Mike Anderson wrote:In climbing, the goal is to NOT fail..

Generally yes, however not necessarily. Especially with bouldering, goals can vary. Perhaps the goal is only to complete a single move which might take dozens of tries of multiple sessions. But I understand, the fingerboard is systematic exercise to failure over multiple grips in a controlled environment, obviously different than falling off one move repeatedly, with associated benefits and drawbacks.

Mike Anderson wrote:That said, of all the climbing activities, bouldering has the best training benefit IMO...assuming you have access to a wide variety of bouldering. Along those lines...where are you bouldering?..

Bishop, CA

Mike Anderson wrote:So, the question comes down to your strengths and weaknesses. What needs more improvement for you? Technique or finger strength?

I believe strength needs more improvement, in my core as well as my fingers. BUT... I know that unless I climb regularly, I won't be psyched. Thus I want to train AND climb, perhaps even in equal amounts, but not MORE training than climbing.

Mike Anderson wrote:lack of access to good/varied climbing is also a problem.

Not a problem here.

Mike Anderson wrote:I think one fingerboard workout per week is better than nothing, but would be hard to make gains. Maybe you could do 2 workouts one week, and one workout the next, alternating so that you did 3 workouts every two weeks.

I like this idea a lot, it sounds very solid. It would work well with my schedule too.

Mike Anderson wrote:Since I have to drive pretty far to go bouldering, I want to make the most of it, so the second day on, I'll do easier ARC-like bouldering.

I know ARC has been a staple of your program, but I am not sure how specific it is to goals of simply bouldering hard. Is there a big disadvantage to eliminating this, especially if say you get plenty of time climbing outside at a higher intensity? Also, can this type of climbing be integrated into the warmup and cooldown instead of devoting a separate day for it?

Mike, what do you think of a schedule like this?

day 1 boulder hard
day 2 rest
day 3 hangboard/pull muscles/antagonists
day 4 rest
day 5 boulder hard
day 6 rest
day 7 rest

day 8 hangboard/pull muscles/antagonists
day 9 rest
day 10 boulder hard
day 11 rest
day 12 hangboard/pull muscles/antagonists
day 13 rest
day 14 rest

Also, how much can you add other activities on your rest days, like things that are not intense on the upper body. IE, snowboarding, or a mellow hike or run, or yoga..?

JLP wrote: Why are you and Mike spending numerous hours per week on the Treadwall? Is not the point of this to condition yourself below your anaerobic threshold?

Aerobic Treadwall training increases vascularization of the muscles in the forearms. Running increases vascularization of the muscles in the legs.

JLP wrote: Running helps this even more, IMO. It's not sport specific and too much will definitely be a waste of time and bring you negative results - but it definitely helps.

This is simply not true on a basic physiological level.

Well, I have access to running but no access to treadwall, therefore for me this question is irrelevant. I lack the patience to do proper ARC anyway. I have only real rock to train on, and endless circumnavigation of the same boulder kills my psyche. Besides, isn't there research to show that training the same muscles for endurance and strength concurrently is detrimental to your gains in strength?

For the OP: You might try doing dedicated hangboard phases during times of the year when the weather is usually sub-optimal.

I schedule mine so there is one late Dec-late Jan, one in Apr, one in Aug. For me it would be hard to progress and even to get the load/weights correct for the workout if I were trying to mix it with other things.

The ARC workouts are not necessary, and some times I skip them, but if I were to skip one, I would replace it with nothing (ie rest). This is what my brother does. I squeeze the ARC in there because I think it has value for the climbing I like to do and because it doesn't detract from the more important hang board work. A significant benefit of ARC training is the opportunity to focus on technique training, even for someone like me who's technique is 110% perfect :). Despite what you may have read on Joe Radboy's blog, It is very difficult to work on technique while doing hard climbing. This is a well known fact in almost every sport but ours; new skills need to be acquired in a low stress environment and practiced/reinforced until ready for prime time.

As for the strength vs technique question...

For the most part I think people mostly know what is holding them back, they just ignore it because they dont want to do what it takes to get better. Take our OP for example. He believes finger strength is a limiting factor, but doesn't want to give up climbing outside, and I can't say I blame him. If I lived in Bishop I might make the same choice (especially in the winter...see earlier post). We often talk about strength and technique training as being mutually exclusive, but they're not. The irony here is that the best way to learn technique is with ARC training, which multiple people in this thread have already suggested skipping. You can do your technique-less hang board training one day, and work technique the next day, rest the third and repeat.

As for utilizing my weekends...again, it depends where you live and what climbing you like to do. Right now, I'm in a place where I have to drive very far to get to decent rock, and I want to climb as hard a possible, so I'm not psyched to drive along way to climb sub-maximally. I just save up that psych for when I'm firing on all cylinders and repeatedly make drives that would kill the average man :). When I lived in UT and CO I rarely trained on the weekend, but I didn't climb as well either...

And another thing, systemic aerobic capacity has little or nothing to do with rock climbing. Only local endurance matters. Tread wall training can be aerobic or anaerobic, and the purpose of ARC training is to increase your anaerobic threshold, so the goal is to climb right at the threshold, not aerobically. If what you say about the sensei's heart rate is true, then he is morbidly out of shape. I would believe 130 or 140, but 180? No way!

JLP wrote: It also improves heart pumping volume, blood circulation through the entire body, lactic acid buffering, waste removal, energy transport and production - and a whole big lot of other stuff, too.

So what you are saying is true in a systemic sense, the problem with your analysis is that climbing endurance is not a systemic issue, it's a local muscular endurance issue. "heart pumping volume" and "blood circulation" are not taxed to failure in rock climbing, so increasing them will not translate to improved climbing performance. The other factors you mention are important but are local processes occurring within the forearm during climbing. There is no evidence I'm aware of that running (or other whole body aerobic activities) improves these critical processes within the forearm. In fact, all the evidence points to adaptations occurring only in the prime movers (legs). In short, the only way to improve local forearm endurance is through forearm-specific training.

Mike Anderson wrote: Despite what you may have read on Joe Radboy's blog, It is very difficult to work on technique while doing hard climbing. This is a well known fact in almost every sport but ours; new skills need to be acquired in a low stress environment and practiced/reinforced until ready for prime time.

Amen. I can't tell you how many bewildered looks I have gotten for suggesting to folks that the best time to work on technique is during the warm-up phase of their gym workout. Trying to work funky core tension while you are climbing at or near your limit just isn't going to happen.

I appreciate all of the feedback

Mike Anderson wrote: A significant benefit of ARC training is the opportunity to focus on technique training, even for someone like me who's technique is 110% perfect :).

Can this not be effectively placed within the warmup of a project session?

Mike Anderson wrote:The ARC workouts are not necessary, and some times I skip them, but if I were to skip one, I would replace it with nothing (ie rest). This is what my brother does. I squeeze the ARC in there because I think it has value for the climbing I like to do and because it doesn't detract from the more important hang board work.

So the way I understand what you are saying is: It requires 72 hours rest between hangboard workouts or maximal bouldering sessions, so you might as well do some submaximal climbing there because it has technique benefit (for all climbing) and physiological benefit (for route climbing) and because it doesn't inhibit your recovery too much. Is this right?

Tavis Ricksecker wrote:Besides, isn't there research to show that training the same muscles for endurance and strength concurrently is detrimental to your gains in strength?

Not strength, but recruitment and endurance

Monomaniac wrote:Here's why I love hypertrophy: There are two things that make you "strong", 1) muscle fiber size, and 2) muscle fiber recruitment. For example, let's say a particular mucle has 100 fibers. For a given movement, your neurons only command 60 of those fibers to contract. "recruitment" training teaches your neurons to command 80, 90 or more fibers to contract during the movement. Is that a good thing? Depends on your goal. If your goal is to do one sick hard move, you want all 100 fibers firing. If your goal is 60 5.11 moves in a row with no rest, firing all 100 fibers will lead to a really fast pump. This is why muscular power and endurance are mutually exclusive, from a recruitment perspective. This is why some of those crazy V11 gym mutants can't climb 5.12 sport routes (I have no explanation for Sharma/Graham)...Back to why hypertrophy kicks ass. Increasing the muscle fiber size increases endurance and power at the same time. If your fibers are 50% larger, now only 40 fibers need to be "recruited" to execute the same move that used to take 60. When doing an endurance route, your command center will alternate firing different fibers, so your muscles can recover while they are being used. And when recruiting 60 fibers, your 50% more powerful than you used to be.

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/training_forum/smart_hangboards_and_campusing/106315910__2

Here's what I do:
day 1: eat potatos
day 2: 1,000,276 pushups
day 5: 23 windsprints
day 0: drink beer
day 5: do 2.4 x 10^26 weighted pullups
day 23: send 5.13c

Tavis Ricksecker wrote: So the way I understand what you are saying is: It requires 72 hours rest between hangboard workouts or maximal bouldering sessions, so you might as well do some submaximal climbing there because it has technique benefit (for all climbing) and physiological benefit (for route climbing) and because it doesn't inhibit your recovery too much. Is this right?

Yes, that is precisely what I am saying (although I wouldn't say that hard bouldering sessions always require 72 hours...depends, but definitely 72 for hang board for me). For your boulder-only goals, you may want to skip the ARC. Also, recovery time varies by individual, duration and intensity of the workout, and age. You may ned to experiment to figure out what works for you.

Tavis Ricksecker wrote:I appreciate all of the feedback Can this not be effectively placed within the warmup of a project session?

Theoretically, but easier said than done. When warming up, youre usually thinking about warming up, not focusing on driving your toes into the holds or keeping hips close to the rock, etc.

quick comment about training technique during ARC workouts. i'm not really sure that this is the best time to work on technique. couple reasons - 1) it takes an enormous amount of concentration to not just zone out during the ARC workouts, and to actually pay attention to technique. 2) for an ARC workout, on a treadwall in particular, usually the holds (particularly feet) are too big and it is probably more likely that you will develop sloppy footwork. 3) with the treadwall you are basically doing the same 8-10 moves over and over, so you can get kind of pigeon-holed (and regress into sloppy technique pretty easily).

when i do the ARC workout on a treadwall (rarely anymore), i try to just focus on climbing as relaxed as possible. for technique training, i think the CIR workouts are the best time to focus on this area.

great thread - and willS, i applaude your ability to focus on a hangboard routine during the holiday season. that takes a lot of discipline to make it work with all of the distractions. oh yeah, just ordered an etch motherboard, can't wait to jump on it January 2nd!

You dont need to ARC on a tread wall, if given the option, I prefer to ARC on a lead wall in a gym, which is a good time to rehearse and stress proof new techniques. You also shouldn't be doing the same 8-10 moves on aT wall. If you need suggestions for how to set for a tread wall, lets start a thread about that...I'm sure I could learn a thing or two.

curious to see what you ARC at, i'm thinking low to mid 11 or so? if that is the case, i think working technique during your ARC sessions could be a good time to do so. most folks climbng in the low to upper 12 range are going to ARC in the low to upper 10 range. unfortunately, gym routes in that range will almost hurt your technique than help it. the holds are just too big, particularly the feet, and it gets you 'addiceted' to them.

mike, do you have a treadwall?

I just got a treadwall over the summer and have only been using it one season.

Route setting is an issue at every level, but only a robot would constrain himself to the taped holds. Youre not a robot! Don't step on the big footholds, ARC on a variety of terrain. Also, every move in an ARC session doesn't have to be equal in difficulty. You can do a few hard moves, then do some easier ones to recover (you could alternate between short stints of little footholds and bigger ones, if the walls at your gym are too steep). This works well for working on specific moves that are a little hard for you (but not too hard).

Tavis Ricksecker wrote:And opposition training? I've been playing with other bodyweight progressions: handstands, press handstands, handstand pushups, pushups, dips, planche.. Also rotator cuff exercise and shoulder stabilization and mobilization exercises. How many times a week to integrate this routine? I'm still brainstorming, so sorry if this is a bit scattered. Thanks for any input!

If your shoulders, elbows and whatnot are healthy so far, once a week may be enough. If things start bothering you at some point, twice a week at least. Best trained on either off days or after your climbing/training for climbing/whatever you want to call it. A fatigued rotator cuff/shoulder girdle is not a good idea when trying to pull down hard later.

Tavis Ricksecker wrote:Also, how much can you add other activities on your rest days, like things that are not intense on the upper body. IE, snowboarding, or a mellow hike or run, or yoga..?

Probably as much as you want. If you notice drawbacks, adjust accordingly.

Willa wrote:When you are anaerobic you are not actually fighting 'lactic acid' (which promptly breaks down into lactate plus H+), you are fighting the buildup of H+ that is making the system more acidic and compromising the contractile mechanisms of the muscle fiber.

While certainly the body attempts to clear the excess hydrogen ions from the blood during heavy exercise (i.e. heavy breathing among other things), there's not a whole of evidence (if any) that acidity causes fatigue. In fact, I believe that most physiologists do not even give it credit any more. It's part of that whole 'lactic acid causes fatigue thing'. Anyway, back on topic....

Let's clear up a huge misunderstanding about heart rate:

It varies EXTREMELY by the person. For example: in testing olympic marathoners, it was found that some were maintaining 190 bpm, whereas others, EQUALLY FAST, were maintaining 155 bpm. It isn't the bpm that is pertinent, it is the volume of blood, which of course depends on the stroke volume. Other pertinent factors include your ability to clear and re-use lactate as fuel. The bottom line is your wattage at lactate threshold, not your bpm.
The bpm you maintain while redlining can be increased by training, yes, and non-climbing aerobic work can help that some, however it is pointless to compare one person's (read Sjong's) bpm numbers to yours.
If you could know his wattage at lactate threshold, that would be a significant number to compare.

Also to be clear: higher bpm is not 'better', just different. This is not said to be politically correct, it is simply a fact that equally aerobically fit people can be operating at vastly different bpms.