Periodization help

Hey all,
I'm trying to put together a periodization plan. I've done one semi-periodized schedule in the past and want to put something a little more rigorous together. I've been climbing consistently for the past year or so (a little on and off for the prior 5ish years). I'm bouldering inside at around V6-7, and for sport climbing it's tough to say. I periodized for Rumney and ended up at the Red, but based on my guess, I can redpoint ~12a-b.

My biggest weakness currently is endurance. My goal is to get better at sport climbing generally, with a slight preference toward Rumney-esque stuff since it's the closest great sport climbing, but I also want to be fit for the Red b/c it's close to where my parents live. I have access to a 30 ft toproping wall, a 15-20 degree overhanging bouldering wall, a kinda shitty hangboard (I think I'm gonna rig a RPTC to a door mounted pullup bar soon). No campus board, unfortunately.

This is my plan:

6 weeks @ 4 sessions/week -
Two endurance days: easy pyramids (via Kris Hampton's blog) and ARCing on the bouldering wall.
Two strength (Hypertrophy) days. ***This is my first question: I'm planning on using heavy finger rolls (let's not debate their efficacy right now LOL), hang boarding, and bouldering to work strength - my general session is going to be about an hour to warm up and do my HB workout, then some bouldering, then HFRs. The question is related to the bouldering - from what I understand, bouldering for finger strength involves doing static moves on small holds. What I've read on the hypertrophy versus maxR question is that hyp is generally achieved in slightly larger sets than MaxR, so my intuition is that this correlates to roughly 3-5 moves at 60-80%. However, I've also read that bouldering for strength is done in 1-3 moves (limit bouldering). Can anyone clear up this distinction for me?
Schedule: E, rest, S, rest, E, S, rest

6 weeks @ 4 sessions/week -
Two endurance days - same
Two power (Max Recruitment) days: I'm planning on using the Lopez protocol of max weight for the strength phase and minimum edge for the power phase. For power, I'm going to be doing, 1-3 move dynamic bouldering on relatively good holds at 90%. ***What I'm wondering is whether this 1-3 is the right number - do I have it backwards?

4 weeks @ 4 sessions/week -
3 PE days (4x4s; 3x3s) and 1 day of power/strength. I don't want to cut power/strength out completely during Resistance since I'm not trying to perform at a particular stage so much as getting better generally and I think maintaining some strength/power aspect is necessary through this phase.

• **Am I right or wrong about the 1-3 versus 3-5 regimen with regard to the hyp versus maxR question?
• **Is this a decent hangboard workout: 4-6 reps of 5 second hangs with 20 seconds rest - I want to build power/strength, and I've read that the repeaters encroach on power endurance?
• **Is it right to have my max weight hangs in the strength phase and my minimum edge hangs in the power stage given that the bouldering during these phases are essentially the opposite?
• **Does it work to weave my endurance phase into my power and strength phases? I think it could be detrimental to go 6 weeks without strength/power, and I saw Mike Anderson say somewhere that 2/week endurance sessions can produce ARC gains.

Thanks for your help everyone!

A lot to cover, I'll reply back with more later...but my initial take is that 4 training days a week would be too much for someone who's only been climbing/training for a year. Even if you were only doing low intensity ARC'ing you would probably have a hard time recovering completely for each workout. So, my first suggestion would be to drop it down to 2/3 days a week.

josh villeneuve wrote:A lot to cover, I'll reply back with more later...but my initial take is that 4 training days a week would be too much for someone who's only been climbing/training for a year. Even if you were only doing low intensity ARC'ing you would probably have a hard time recovering completely for each workout. So, my first suggestion would be to drop it down to 2/3 days a week.

I'm been doing 4 a week for the past 10 months and it's been fine so far. I'm only 25 and was a high school and college athlete, I should have mentioned

Jon Frisby wrote: I'm been doing 4 a week for the past 10 months and it's been fine so far. I'm only 25, I should have mentioned

You must be aging more gracefully than me hahaha
I'll give you my background, I am 25, Ive been climbing/training for 3 to 4 years. I've done a handful of v10's and punted off a number of v11's.

I heal quick and take a plethora of supplements. I've climbed 8 days on with limited to no problems...what I've learned over these years of training is that QUALITY REST IS ALWAYS NEEDED. If I don't take 30-48 hours of rest in between INTENSE CLIMBING/TRAINING I will not break previous high points. Those numbers are the bare minimum, I usually need a FULL 72 HOURS!!!! Even ARCing requires about 24 hours of rest for most people and its the least intense form of training you can do.

If you try to keep up with a 4 day a week training plan focused on hypertrophy, strength, and power gains...you're going to have a bad time.

Agree - quality over quantity. Your PE blocks looks brutal....

I think it works to weave Endurance in for me, but I am good at Endurance and low on power.

josh villeneuve wrote: You must be aging more gracefully than me hahaha I'll give you my background, I am 25, Ive been climbing/training for 3 to 4 years. I've done a handful of v10's and punted off a number of v11's. I heal quick and take a plethora of supplements. I've climbed 8 days on with limited to no problems...what I've learned over these years of training is that QUALITY REST IS ALWAYS NEEDED. If I don't take 30-48 hours of rest in between INTENSE CLIMBING/TRAINING I will not break previous high points. Those numbers are the bare minimum, I usually need a FULL 72 HOURS!!!! Even ARCing requires about 24 hours of rest for most people and its the least intense form of training you can do. If you try to keep up with a 4 day a week training plan focused on hypertrophy, strength, and power gains...you're going to have a bad time.

good to know. I've virtually never done more than two days on, and can definitely feel it when I have

I agree, your volume looks pretty high, particularly as you add intensity.

Are you trying to model on a non-linear periodization schedule? Because it doesn't make sense otherwise to me.

I would not assume that because you've been doing 4 days a week of climbing(?) or training(?) that you can always do this, particularly if you manipulate variables. For instance, maybe you were climbing 4 days a week but if you were not doing any specific volume or intensity, then it is hard to generalize out your future recovery abilities once you start factoring in potentially higher overall stresses on those 4 days. So pay attention carefully to your body. The central nervous system is very prone to fatigue and burnout and if you try to create adaptations after that you are seriously creating a risk for overtraining or injury.

Jon Frisby wrote:What I've read on the hypertrophy versus maxR question is that hyp is generally achieved in slightly larger sets than MaxR, so my intuition is that this correlates to roughly 3-5 moves at 60-80%. However, I've also read that bouldering for strength is done in 1-3 moves (limit bouldering). Can anyone clear up this distinction for me?

Hypertrophy is considered the endurance phase in traditional periodization. Therefore it is quite different than MaxR. I see a lot of confusion and misinformation about periodization posted by climbers. I think to some degree they adapt it as needed for their demands and so maybe it doesn't matter too much if the fundamentals are a little fuzzy, but... Just keep in mind that maximum recruitment requires a greater percentage effort than what you've stated here, more like 85-95% max. I know that might be hard to translate into bouldering directly and so you might consider utilizing a non-technique based method of training as well.

While maximal recruitment can be trained in three ways (according to Zatsiorsky, The Science and Practice of Strength Training), maximal effort is the most effective and IS NOT POWER TRAINING. Edited to add: max effort is also the most easily abused and can lead to injury if not integrated properly.

A few other thoughts:

• Does your training schedule match your goals?
• Personally, I am not sure I understand why hangboarding of any kind is considered part of "power". It is not power.
• You should incorporate a week of unloading between phases in order to prep...although I gotta admit that your phases are all over the place, leading me to assume that you are attempting to do some sort of conjugate training or undulating plan instead
• For only climbing consistently 1 year, you seem really focused on conditioning vs training technique. You might do well to focus on improving technique as well and knock down your conditioning a bit.

edited to add: oops, sorry, Jon, I see that you were giving percentages for hypertrophy work, not max recruitment. I would say your % estimates are correct, although that effort level may more applicable to focus on than numbers of moves. But whatever works out for you.

Why don't you go buy the new training book by the Anderson's?

Aerili wrote: While maximal recruitment can be trained in three ways (according to Zatsiorsky, The Science and Practice of Strength Training), maximal effort is the most effective and IS NOT POWER TRAINING. Edited to add: max effort is also the most easily abused and can lead to injury if not integrated properly.

Maximal recruitment isn't power? What would be a better description of "power" and how could we better cultivate it then?

Thanks, this is really helpful. I was trying to meld the concepts from high/low (Power Company Climbing) with Rockprodigy periodization. The big reason for this is that I'm not looking to peak at any particular time, since a) I don't get outside much, and b) it's pretty all over the place as far as when I do get outside, and c) I need variety to stick to a plan. I know that if I do one thing to the exclusion of others for a while, it will be pretty demotivational.

Couple things:
1) My proposed training is very consistent with effort levels I've used in the last few months, it's just more structured than what I was doing in the past (basically going to the gym saying: "OK, power day," or, OK, "endurance day" - so I think that my body can probably handle it, and if not, I can turn one of my endurance days (Friday, so that I have no consecutive days on) into an active rest day, either doing something non-climbing or doing extremely light climbing for technique only.

2) I probably should have said hypertrophy and MaxR only, rather than saying power and strength. I'm not sure if that clarifies things at all. I may still be too "all over the place."
2.1) I meant to say that 60-80% is hypertrophy, and 90% for MaxR. I forgot to add that second part. As far as bouldering goes, am I right in attributing 3-5 moves at 75% as hyp and 1-3 moves at 90% as maxR?

3) I'm using my endurance days to work technique a lot. Like I mentioned, I have some prior climbing experience, so my base level technique wasn't nil, but yeah, I definitely still need a lot of work on technique training.

• *To answer your questions:

Yeah, this matches my goals (I think). I want to get consistently better at a sport climbing as goal 1a), goal 1b) being that my predominant form of climbing is "bouldering on a rope." Hangboarding is so featured b/c 1) I have no access to a campus board, so I can't work that into my second phase. otherwise I would completely switch that out. Once I get to a better gym, this will change. and 2) My self-assessment is that my greatest weakness is finger strength compared to body strength/power and technique.

I think I may have missed one of your questions, but you're right, this definitely needs a bit of refinement.

SMR wrote:Why don't you go buy the new training book by the Anderson's?

planning on it. I've read probably every one of Mark's blog posts

josh villeneuve wrote: Maximal recruitment isn't power? What would be a better description of "power" and how could we better cultivate it then?

Maximal recruitment doesn't refer to anything other than maximal recruitment of motor units, i.e. increasing force output by increasing the number of units fired at once, particularly type II. It states nothing inherently about the required load or speed of movement.

Power training is definitely a method of improving maximal recruitment but it rarely is the best at creating maxR because it focuses on speed over load. Lower load typically means less force which means less required recruitment.

Zatsiorsky's "maximal effort" term does not refer to power training. He calls power training "dynamic effort". They all contribute to increasing maxR and should all be considered tools in the toolkit, but they are not necessarily all equal at doing the same thing.

Since I like to have peak performance more than 1-2 times a year. I train on a monthly block cycle alternating between power/strength focus and capacity/volume. See Bechtel's site- climbstrong.com.
So I try to get outside most weekends and then train Tuesday and Thursday. In a power phase I do a lot of threshold bouldering and hangboard and in a volume month I change it up and have more linked bouldering days and volume days at the crag with lots of pitches . I also lift and this corresponds in a strength block reps around 1-5 and in a volume month I up reps to 8-10.

It definitely sounds like you should look more into block/undulating training cycles then. If you want to continually get better without having any sort of peak. I've actually been looking into and planning around this approach lately.

Take my suggestions with a grain of salt because I am primarily interested in max strength and max recruitment for bouldering.

My current plans look something like this:

Mon- max crimp 6 sec hang 5-10min rest 2-3 sets

Wed- same

Fri- same

Repeat next week: So I do two weeks of a "non-undulating block"

Then Week three to four I change it up

Mon- max crimp 10sec hang 5-10min rest 2-3 sets

Wed- max crimp 2-3 sec hang 5-10min rest 2-3 sets

Fri- max crimp 6 sec hang 5-10min rest 2-3 sets

Repeat next week with different order

So after 4 weeks of grip training I switch it up to shoulder strength training which looks pretty similar

If I felt all of my different attributes were in sync with each other, I.E no glaring weaknesses I would try to do an undulating program that incorporates multiple things

Mon- hang

Wed- hang

Fri- campus

Mon- campus

Wed- hang

Fri- shoulders

Mon- campus

Aerili wrote: Power training is definitely a method of improving maximal recruitment but it rarely is the best at creating maxR because it focuses on speed over load.

Thank you for articulating this so wonderfully for me, it's been nagging at me for a while but I hadn't quite put it together yet.

Jon, Out of curiosity, what's your average boulder gade outdoors? V5 on plastic is very different from real rock, you might being overly ambitious.

Aerili wrote:Power training is definitely a method of improving maximal recruitment but it rarely is the best at creating maxR because it focuses on speed over load.

That said, climbers should be primarily interested in Power, not Max R. Max R seeks to produce a large force independent of time. Climbers need to produce large force quickly, that is power. That is why it is critical to perform dynamic movements during power training. And that is why, as Aerili alluded to earlier, a Hangboard is a poor choice for power training.

EDIT TO ADD: Aerili, I know you know this, I'm writing this for everyone else :)

Jon Frisby wrote:I've read that the repeaters encroach on power endurance?

This is not correct. It's unfortunate that this myth has become so widespread among climbers, and now it gets repeated over and over. It's also interesting that climbers seem to be the only athletic community fixated on this misconception.

Anyway, its vital to create 'high metabolic stress' to stimulate hypertrophy in the muscles. Multiple reps with minimal rest are required to create high metabolic stress. High metabolic stress is essentially a pump, but there are different kinds of pumps; you can get pumped from climbing at a low level for a long time, or a high level for a short time. For Strength Training, you want the latter. Its not the same kind of pump that you typically experience while climbing. Its not debilitating but you can tell that your forearms are getting worked.

That said, you can use a hagnboard for Max R training, performing fewer reps. But as discussed above, you should really only do so as a last resort, because dead hangs neglect the time/speed element that is vital to cultivating power.

Monomaniac wrote: This is not correct. It's unfortunate that this myth has become so widespread among climbers, and now it gets repeated over and over. It's also interesting that climbers seem to be the only athletic community fixated on this misconception. Anyway, its vital to create 'high metabolic stress' to stimulate hypertrophy in the muscles. Multiple reps with minimal rest are required to create high metabolic stress. High metabolic stress is essentially a pump, but there are different kinds of pumps; you can get pumped from climbing at a low level for a long time, or a high level for a short time. For Strength Training, you want the latter. Its not the same kind of pump that you typically experience while climbing. Its not debilitating but you can tell that your forearms are getting worked. That said, you can use a hagnboard for Max R training, performing fewer reps. But as discussed above, you should really only do so as a last resort, because dead hangs neglect the time/speed element that is vital to cultivating power.

Yeah, there's so much out there that conflicts with everything else. I did a hangboard workout today with 5 seconds on, 15 off, and I have a hunch that it wasn't as effective as when I did repeaters last cycle. I really like the feeling of being "worked," and when you're taking less rest (as in a 7 on 3 off or 5 on 5 off), you can obviously get the workout done much more efficiently.
Thanks for the input. I'll just switch back to repeaters

Monomaniac wrote: This is not correct. It's unfortunate that this myth has become so widespread among climbers, and now it gets repeated over and over. It's also interesting that climbers seem to be the only athletic community fixated on this misconception. Anyway, its vital to create 'high metabolic stress' to stimulate hypertrophy in the muscles. Multiple reps with minimal rest are required to create high metabolic stress. High metabolic stress is essentially a pump, but there are different kinds of pumps; you can get pumped from climbing at a low level for a long time, or a high level for a short time. For Strength Training, you want the latter. Its not the same kind of pump that you typically experience while climbing. Its not debilitating but you can tell that your forearms are getting worked. That said, you can use a hagnboard for Max R training, performing fewer reps. But as discussed above, you should really only do so as a last resort, because dead hangs neglect the time/speed element that is vital to cultivating power.

Perhaps this could be a good article topic for your blog, Mono?

when i look back at my climbing career, one of my top 3 failures has been not fully understanding the difference between strength, recruitment, and power. in particular, not fully seeking to build more power has been my single biggest training related failure. no doubt about it. once you start really training for power correctly, and learning how to apply it correctly, it really opens some doors.