Training Works!

Thanks to those who helped out through my training introduction, especially Mark who answered a million questions for me. I did roughly 2 rounds of the rock prodigy cycle as I finished up grad school and started my new career. After applying the program to real rock I've managed as well as V6 and 12b in pretty short order. Looking forward to a summer full of climbing and yes, some more training :)

It's not all easy, you have to experiment and commit to learning how to apply the new strength but I'll be darned if it's not great to see some progress!

Nice job! I am psyched that you are psyched.

Glad to hear everything worked out. Congrats on the progress. Can you give us a better sense of where you started out and where you were after 1 cycle. What you found most challenging and how many hours a week you trained.

THanks and congrats.

Daniel A Miller wrote:Glad to hear everything worked out. Congrats on the progress. Can you give us a better sense of where you started out and where you were after 1 cycle. What you found most challenging and how many hours a week you trained. THanks and congrats.

I've been climbing about 4 years now, starting with trad and soloing and gradually wanting to climb harder grades.

Before I trained I maxed out at upper 5.10, often getting stopper moved at 11a even on top rope. Then I started bouldering when I had my little boy and slowly progressed to V4 or so with some work by the end of 2011. I plateaued at V4 for a while so I tried some training as grad school necessitated less hours of climbing. After round 1 of training I could send V4 pretty quickly in different venues but still didn't manage V5. I didn't climb on a rope much but I did end up onsighting 11b after 1 round of training.

I haven't been climbing more than ~10 hours a week at all unless I get out for a long outside day or alpine. I'd say 2-3 indoor based workouts per week are ~2 hours long and outdoor sessions are 2-3 hours once a week. Now I'm finally getting more free time so I'm focusing on getting outside much more often. After round 2 of training and more outdoor time I sent my first 12a in 2 goes and my first 12b the first go of my second session. I sent several V5's, a bunch more V4's and V6 also before committing to getting back on a rope.

The hardest part for me is resting. Hard workouts were taking me 72hours rest to be ready for full power again. I also had to learn all the tricks to hangboarding and campusing. When I could just project boulders I had to use my watch to force myself to rest longer in between attempts. I also had to really force myself to make the best of any outside sessions if I had limited time. I would even go so far as to warm up at home and go to the crag mostly ready to try hard instead of climbing a ton of easier lines like I used to do.

I have a hangboard and woody in my garage so I rarely go to the gym, except when I want new projects or need to work on PE on a rope.

Chris Plesko wrote: The hardest part for me is resting. Hard workouts were taking me 72hours rest to be ready for full power again.

This.

This has been the hardest part of training for me. To a training layman like myself, I always had the mentality that the more I climb, the stronger I will get. It's what the pros do right? I figured, train and climb as much as I could without getting hurt, I had to get stronger. This is only part true.

While I certainly got stronger climbing with a high frequency, it wasn't the most efficient use of my time. Trying to train when not fully rested is a waste of time and the discipline required not to climb is the hardest part for me. I've found other things like yoga and running to occupy my time. Interestingly though, serious climbing training requires extensive recovery. Even overdoing the running and yoga can sap into the recovery from climbing training so I have to be conscious not to overdo that.