training without going Full Rockprodigy?

I agree Dave. I think that the biggest mistake most people make is trying to perform while in the middle of training. We all have a hard time separating performance from training.

If you are in the middle of a training phase, you should not expect to climb at your best because you will always be either training or recovering. It is at the end of the training phase that you should be trying to send, but most of us aren't that patient.

Similarly, it can be really difficult to go into the gym and not try to send the new set. Even though you know you have a plan that doesn't involve working that new problem, you want to do it because it just looks so fun! Most people give in and either get injured trying to do both, or at least don't get enough benefit out of the session because they spend too much time trying to send the blue V6.

Ryan Williams wrote: ... Campusing, system board, hangboard, etc should all be done after climbing for the day is finished. You are more likley to strain and push too hard during climbing, making injury more probable.

i don't agree with this at all, unless you are talking only about warmup climbing. if you do anything more than some warmup climbing, you simply won't have the juice to do these other things effectively. at best you will get nothing out of it. at worst, you will dig yourself a big hole to recover from, or get injured.

Have you considered using a high/low training structure? It seems like an interesting method, that still requires some additional planning but seems reasonable to work in the outside climbing, though you have to resist the urges to do hard bits on "low" days and/or get roped into pitching laps on the moderates with the buddies on "high" days.

the power company blog has some more about this, and is a much better resource for info/insight than I am.

Thanks guys! This is all really helpful.

So, is the general take-away:

1. Do the hardest thing first?
2. If you're going to boulder near hang boarding, it's alright, though perhaps not optimal, as long as you're not cranking hard and pushing to your max?

This is very useful advice to me - I definitely naturally have a *bang on that project constantly until you're ground into dust*, and every time my climbing partners have pushed me away from it, I've done better.

But I think there's plenty of things that have the mental effect of focussed climbing without being fingery-maxed out.

SMR: my goals are mostly bouldering-related, with some dabbling in sport. I've been stuck at the V4/V5 level for about a year. I'm apparently relatively good on slab and technical, and relatively weak at pulling down hard. So say my climbing partners, anyway. I am told by others that I have footwork of somebody climbing grades higher than me, and laughably pathetic finger-strength and lock-off strength.

Oh, and I was sick all yesterday and, of course, just googled away at this topic.

That Bechdel video was great. I was digging around on his site, and in one of his programs, he does the following, which is I think another version of what a lot of y'all are suggesting.

Day 1: Warm up, boulder on overhung problems with good, non-gingery holds, emphasizing work on body power. Then hangboard.
Day 2: "Economy training" - do many laps on moderate problems, working on repeating problems for perfection and control.

And Eva Lopez (is she the only person who's written a PhD on training finger strength in climbers?) wrote about this question directly:

en-eva-lopez.blogspot.com.e…

Basically she says the most important thing is to separate the max-strength finger training sessions by 48-72 hours. She thinks it's OK to boulder the day before hang boarding, as long as you don't come close to maxing out., but even better to boulder the day after, so you can hangboard with absolute freshness.

I think all these things squares with much of what y'all say about mileage days and not sending and such.

But her routines are, as far as I can tell, way less in volume than the Anderson brothers. Like 3 sets of 10 second hangs, with 3 minutes rest in between. (But the load might be higher)...