[foth]

foth on March 25, 2020 at 1:52 am #39821

hi all,

I’ve read with great interest Training for the new Alpinism and Training for the Uphill Athlete. Thanks for these great works!

In those books, the authors adopt as it seems the ‘traditional’ take on periodization, which has resulted of course in many very good results over the years for many athletes. Recently I’ve read about a more recent approach to periodization, namely ‘block periodization’.

In block periodization, there are multiple shorter blocks with a very specific focus, which is based on the idea that concurrent training focus leads to suboptimal adaptation. Also, it makes it easier to train for multiple events over the year.

I was just wondering, what is your view on block periodization? And, has anyone had any experiences with it?

Thanks!

[Thrusthamster]

Thrusthamster on October 26, 2016 at 9:34 am #3277

I don’t have a lot of time to train cardio and would have to give some thing up in order to pull off a 2 hour session. It’s because I also train for and compete in powerlifting, so I already do about 7-8 hours of strength training a week.

In addition to that I do one 2+ hour climbing session, one 1 hour bouldering session (ice climbing soon also). Using the guidelines in Training for the New Alpinism I also do 30 minutes of zone 2, some sprints using the progression in the book, and 3 hours of zone 1. To fit all this together I do the strength session quickly with supersetting etc, and then do cardio after for maximum of 1 hour. I don’t have much more time than 2.5 hours a day for training (I go 5x a week, 6 if you count climbing).

Would this work at all or will I be spinning my wheels? I was thinking I could fix it by periodization, by slowly moving my zone 1 workouts into larger blocks and then cutting back on strength as I close up on a big alpine project.