Anaerobic Training Risks

I've read in SCC as well as on this board that there are risks to over training anaerobic endurance. I even stumbled across a post (maybe from Mike Anderson?) stating that he had received an injury or something because of it.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this, could someone explain what risks I've been subjecting myself to for the last several months? I do 4x4s twice a week and have for quite some time. Other than the occasional plateau/diminishing returns I haven't yet found a specific reason not to do them regularly.

Just general overuse injuries. The most common are pulley injuries on the ring finger and tendonitis in the elbows.

Twice a week is probably OK as long as you are getting a rest day or two between each workout. Just make sure you warm up and cool down properly, and listen to your body. Less is more...

Sooner or later it's going to catch up to you. I trained in the gym 5 days a week for about 8 months and never had an issue, and then one day I tweaked my shoulder and now 9 months later I'm still recovering.

Not sure what your questiion is.

Anaerobic vs aerobic - cardio conditioning? Overuse muscle and tendon injuries? Workout frequency/duration, rest & recovery?

Nick Mardirosian wrote:Sooner or later it's going to catch up to you.

Sorry to hear it, I hope it is not everyone's fate. Dave MacCleod talks about training's prophelactic effects in his book '9 out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes.' When you do intelligent, systematic training you slowly increase your body's ability to cope with stress. When you haphazardly boulder around the gym in the winter you could fall prey to testosterone poisoning, fatigue or over competitiveness and end up getting into a mono-dyno contest with the local frat brothers.

POP

As to the original poster, 4x4s are usually the highest move-volume phase so you want to be careful of overuse injuries. Doing anything for a long period sets you up for either plateauing or overuse.

Tipton wrote:I do 4x4s twice a week and have for quite some time.

I doubt it, but you haven't provided enough info for me to be sure.

I guess I was just wondering if there is a specific injury to watch out for other than the usual tendon/pulley stuff. I couldn't really find anything specific in any of the sources I have.

Mono, to be exact I do 6x8s of short boulder problems/traverses on a small wall in my garage. The first 3 are on a 20* wall and the rest on a 45* wall. All are around v3, but I suck at grading.

I never train anything the day after I do 6x8s, except for occasionally light ARC/technique training. I'm just too drained.

My goals are fairly straightforward, I just want to increase my on-sight grade as much as possible. I do not project and since I'm only outside once a month or so, endurance is a big part of my game.

I'm in the South East so I typically climb
Vertical to slightly overhanging trad with a few roofs thrown in
OR
Steep climbing over blocky roofs for sport

I typically on-sight hard 11 sport. If you want me to detail my exact training schedule I will, but I don't do the whole periodization thing (I understand I am sacrificing the top-end of my climbing ability). It just doesn't really jive with my goals or that I only climb once-a-month outside.

I'm open for suggestions for a non-periodized training schedule, or I can lay out what I'm experimenting with if that would be helpful.

Thanks for all the help!

Tipton wrote:I've read in SCC as well as on this board that there are risks to over training anaerobic endurance. I even stumbled across a post (maybe from Mike Anderson?) stating that he had received an injury or something because of it. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this, could someone explain what risks I've been subjecting myself to for the last several months? I do 4x4s twice a week and have for quite some time. Other than the occasional plateau/diminishing returns I haven't yet found a specific reason not to do them regularly.

I've never been injured by 4x4's, as far as I can remember, but I probably said something along the lines of what you are asking about. A couple climbing-specific sources, including McLeod's "9 Out of 10 Climbers..." warn that too much Anaerobic training is harmful. The reasoning usually given is that this type of training increases acidity in the blood which can be toxic to mitochondria in the muscle cells, which are critical to anaerobic metabolism. However, I have researched this before and never found anything in the greater sports-science body of work to confirm this, so I have my doubts.

Based on my own experience, I think a lot of AnE training kills your power, and for the periodized way I train, it hastens the end of my peak phase.

Tipton wrote:I guess I was just wondering if there is a specific injury to watch out for other than the usual tendon/pulley stuff.

Considering the various factors, I wouldn't worry about it.

The decline in power at the end of a season could be a result of the time away from bouldering, however, at this point in the season, I am usually working on hard routes, which is kind of like bouldering.

A possible cause of the declin in power is the change in muscle fiber recruitment. Bouldering and the like train your neuromuscular system to recruit highly, while endurance work will do the opposite.

From a training standpoint, you can only do so much in a given week. If I'm not doing a 4x4 mid-week, I will replace it with bouldering or campusing (while climbing routes on the weekend), so by not doing a 4x4, I'm eliminating a loss of power (the 4x4) and adding a power gain, for a net 2x effect on power. The weekend route climbing gives me the stamina training I need, while I'm using the mid-week workouts to keep my power up. Of course, you have to be careful how you do your route climbing on the weekend.

I'm starting to wonder if all the PE training is just overkill. What length are you guys using for your PE phase now? I haven't taken a break from it for awhile so I'm wondering if I can take that out of my weekly regiment and just hit it hard a week or 2 before I go climbing outside.

I know that when I start doing 6x8s after a long break, I see improvement in as little as 2 sessions. By session 3 or 4 I'm already decreasing the rest interval between sets. I know this is not a technique/muscular gain because I usually use the same problems for quite some time.

I think I could potentially focus my training on Hypertrophy and/or recruitment instead of PE and switch up to PE a couple weeks prior to my trip.

Suggestions?

Tipton wrote:If you want me to detail my exact training schedule I will, but I don't do the whole periodization thing (I understand I am sacrificing the top-end of my climbing ability). It just doesn't really jive with my goals or that I only climb once-a-month outside. I'm open for suggestions for a non-periodized training schedule, . . .

Tipton wrote: I think I could potentially focus my training on Hypertrophy and/or recruitment instead of PE and switch up to PE a couple weeks prior to my trip. Suggestions?

Welcome to a periodized training plan! If you do what you did, you get what you got. Do you like what ya got? If not, change it up.

grayhghost wrote: Welcome to a periodized training plan! If you do what you did, you get what you got. Do you like what ya got? If not, change it up.

Yeah, It dawned on me that the gap between my climbing trips was just big enough that I could fit in a short 2 phase period and potentially still have a good bit of PE built up in time for my next trip.