Climbing and TrainingPeaks

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October 11, 2018 at 5:22 pm #13923

Alan Russell
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Hi, I really liked this article (https://uphillathlete.com/making-the-most-of-your-uphill-athlete-training-plan/) and found that it summarised and clarified several points that had been discussed on this forum previously. I have a question though regarding how to allocated TSS for climbing appropriately. I remember this was discussed here: https://uphillathlete.com/forums/topic/ctltrainingpeaks-and-tfna/, however that talked about allocating TSS per climbing time and while this may be ok for longer duration climbs e.g. routes / ARCing, I’m not sure that it works so well for shorter duration climbing, e.g. hard bouldering / 4x4s, as a hard bouldering session may get a really low TSS due to the short climbing time and long rests compared to e.g. an ARC session.

Cheers,

A
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Posted In: Climbing

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Anonymous on October 12, 2018 at 9:12 am #13928

Alan:

For those hard climbing sessions, consider them like strength training sessions. The way I like to allocate TSS for strength/hard climbing sessions is based on how long it takes to recover. As typical hard strength session is going to need 48-72 hours to recovery from and I usually give these 80TSS/hr. A hard ME strength session or anaerobic endurance climbing session I call 100-200 depending on recovery time.

Just be consistent on how you track it.

Scott

Participant

Alan Russell on October 12, 2018 at 5:31 pm #13942

Thanks Scott,

Is it right that those TSS are per hour e.g. 1 hour ARC would be a TSS of 50 if its intensity was 50 TSS/h, whereas 6 hard boulder problems at 3 min’s of climbing each would be a TSS of 24 if their TSS intensity were 80 TSS/h, or should they be based on how long it takes to recover, e.g. 24 h recovery from general/ARC/max/bouldering/hangboard strength gives a TSS of 50, 48 hours recovery gives a TSS of 75-80 (https://uphillathlete.com/forums/topic/ctl-stagnation-16-weeks-training-plan-aconcagua/); with higher scores for ME or anaerobic endurance climbing/hangboard of 100 for a 2 day recovery and 150 for a 3 day recovery?

Alan

Inactive

Anonymous on October 13, 2018 at 1:11 pm #13954

Alan:

Yes, these are TSS/hr. But remember that these are arbitrary numbers I (we at UA) typically assign. There is nothing magic, exact or scientific about these. TSS was designed for endurance training and does not translate well to strength training. These numbers we toss around are our attempt to make it possible to compare apples to oranges. I offer these guidelines such as recovery times to help you make an educated guess. As I say, base this on your personal recovery times and be consistent. A mega hard ME session that leaves you weak for 3 days is definitely worth more than an arcing session that you can do daily.

I hope you can see that this as as much art as it is science. We are using a tool designed to measure endurance training stress to measure something else altogether.

Scott

Participant

Alan Russell on October 13, 2018 at 5:25 pm #13958

That’s excellent Scott, thanks. I guess the thing to do might be to start with the TSS/hr figures as a basis, and adjust based on recovery time.

Alan

Participant

trygve.veslum on June 30, 2019 at 1:32 pm #24258

Hi, I see that the suggested TSS value for rock climbing is defined as 80 TSS/hr on the rock. Does that value include for belaying (like when sports climbing), or do you only count the time/duration that you`re climbing?

Thanks.

Best regards,
Trygve

Keymaster

Steve House on July 1, 2019 at 9:45 pm #24352

@trygve.veslum
For climbing time. So if I got out and do 6 pitches and each pitch takes me 10 minutes (but I’m at the crag for 3 hours) then I give it about an 80. BUT if I’m trying a really hard (for me) project I might only be on the rock for 40 minutes total but still give it an 80 because i will need 3 days to fully recover from that session.

Participant

trygve.veslum on July 3, 2019 at 3:09 pm #24436

Steve, thank you very much for the response. Just received the TftNA book btw. Already have the UA book, but this suits my mountaineering pursuits even better. Thanks to you and Scott for sharing so much useful information.

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