Campus rest interval?

Just dipping my toe in campus training using the Anderson book, really enjoying it in a sick kind of way. :-)

The book (rock climbers training manual) does not specify a rest time in between campus sets. I started with the 3 minutes they use for hangboard sets, but wondering if a longer rest, so I can do a really good effort each time, makes more sense?

Hi Optimistic -

There are several numbers the book throws out - one is a 20:1 ratio used in other sports for power training. That is - if it takes you 5 seconds to do your ladders, rest for 100 seconds.

However, they also note that "explosiveness" is the key attribute and you should rest long enough to maintain that trait. So my take would be rest as long as you need.

Cheers,
Ben

this is a good question, as i am still in the fisher price part of the learning curve when it comes to campusing. the actual time spent doing the moves is literally only a few seconds. i would say each set i do is maybe really only 5 seconds long? i have been resting approximately 2 minutes, and that seems pretty good so far. i need to bring my stop watch so that i can be more consistent - it is easy to get impatient and not rest enough (particularly when you are not successfully completing the set and you want to hurry up and try again).

Keep in mind that the science behind this sort of thing - ("science" as in confirmed repeatable carefully-designed studies on a human population similar to yourself) - is fairly sketchy.

For climbing the "scientfific basis" is usually (selective) extrapolations from other sports (where the original studies might not have been well-designed, and surely were not "double blind").

Anyway climbers normally complicate the extrapolation of the "carefully designed" studies by insisting on continuing to do lots of actual climbing.

And it's likely that (like most other human-physiology/chemistry/neural-contro things) your response to a specific training protocol is fairly different from somebody else's, and different from some "average" response. Especially since most of the exercise studies are done on male college students (whose bodies are significantly more charged on Testosterone and HGH than lots of people reading this forum).

So my thought is: Take the "scientific" basis with a large grain of salt.
Therefore the usual ...
Listen to your body.
Monitor results, find out what really works for you.
Keep training interesting + fun + motiviating for you.
--> Don't get injured training <--

Ken

I like 1-2 min per set, with 4-5 min rest every 10 sets. I emphasise max ladders and training power with 1-3 move sets which are so short that I can normally go "on the minute" and not sacrifice quality. I wouldn't go shorter than a minute, and I think 90 sec to 2 min ought to be plenty. Always better to play it safe in the beginning and start with longer rests. You can feel it out, so if you can't maintain or improve throughout the workout then rest more. There's no harm in resting more, but for the sake of efficiency and keeping focus throughout a 20-30 set session it's nice to cut out rest if it isn't necessary

I rest 2 minutes between sets, but my sets are really brief (3-5 seconds, never more than 3 moves). Actually, I start a stopwatch and perform a set on 2-minute intervals, so my rest is 1:55-1:57 or so. I won't hesitate to extend my rest time here and there if I think I need it.

I used to rest 90 seconds, and then I experimented with 2:00 and I found it helped. YMMV. You should rest however long you need to give your best effort on each set. I would start with 2:00, see how it feels, and then experiment with more or less to find out what works best for you.

Monomaniac wrote:I rest 2 minutes between sets, but my sets are really brief (3-5 seconds, never more than 3 moves). Actually, I start a stopwatch and perform a set on 2-minute intervals, so my rest is 1:55-1:57 or so. I won't hesitate to extend my rest time here and there if I think I need it. I used to rest 90 seconds, and then I experimented with 2:00 and I found it helped. YMMV. You should rest however long you need to give your best effort on each set. I would start with 2:00, see how it feels, and then experiment with more or less to find out what works best for you.

Interesting... I don't know my actual time on the board but it's definitely quite a bit longer than that...this is doing matching ladders on big rungs, and I do seven rungs, guessing it'd be somewhere in the range of 15-20 sec. I did 4 sets of that today and it felt smart to stop at that point. By the last set, I think a 9 or 10 minute rest felt pretty right, allowing me to turn in a good effort on that last set. Is this not a good way to go?

Today was a little confusticated because I went into the campus section of the workout fairly pumped, the "warmup" bouldering session got a little overly enthusiastic and turned into a more sincere "trying hard" session. Probably wouldn't have needed such long rests if I hadn't gone overboard during the warmup.

I was thinking, maybe the 7-rung matches I'm doing are getting into more of an endurance mode and so requiring more recovery? Should I be focusing more on movements that I can do a lot less of? Fewer, bigger reaches on smaller holds?

Optimistic wrote:maybe the 7-rung matches I'm doing are getting into more of an endurance mode and so requiring more recovery? Should I be focusing more on movements that I can do a lot less of?

There's no "should" about it.
The rigorous science relevant to this is sketchy and non-specific.
One of the campusing videos I posted shows a sponsored elite climber doing way more reps than 7 up his campus ladder.

I can think of a respected climbing Training book which says that 7 is just about right for using campusing as a tool for HYPertrophy of finger muscles. But maybe do a shorter ladder to emphasize neural Recruitment training.
(If you're into that more classic paradigm of Hypertrophy -> Recruitment phases for your periodization program).

Ken

P.S. Re the original headline question: There's a new book whose authors have initials "MA" and "MA", which on page 146 includes the words "100 seconds" (? but perhaps misleading unless you read it in context ?)

As long as I need. I don't restrict it on the long end, only the short end. I will force myself to rest at least 3min, but leave it open after that. Some sets I am back on right at 3min, some I rest as long as 5 or 6min.

Virtually all the power training regimes you will see are looking for a "2-3 reps to failure" level of intensity.

Optimistic wrote:I was thinking, maybe the 7-rung matches I'm doing are getting into more of an endurance mode and so requiring more recovery? Should I be focusing more on movements that I can do a lot less of? Fewer, bigger reaches on smaller holds?

I tried out the above, via going for two rungs rather than one and it seemed that I could both get to the point of failure faster (I could do one two rung movement with each hand, but not two) and recover quicker (three minute rests were adequate, as opposed to the 10-minute rests I was needing after matching on 7 single rungs). Two-rung (or three-rung!) movements are a lot more applicable to the stopper moves around here (and probably plenty of other areas as well) anyway, so it's a win-win!