[julie.morter]

Has anyone else found the continuous climbing intervals in the training program (in my case 8 week intermediate rock) to be extremely easy and/or short? I have just started this program, coming into it from climbing or bouldering 3 days a week and this workout essentially mirrors my typical warm-up, although it would actually recommend even easier grades. 7 minutes on is about 2 laps (up and down) at my gym.

I am wondering if there is something I am missing about how to calibrate this, or about the purpose behind it. I know you work up the time gradually as you go, but it just feels too short and easy and I am actually worried about losing strength and endurance by only doing this much for a couple weeks.

Any advice out there?

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 7, 2020 at 10:01 am #37712

By your description, the intensity for those workouts is exactly correct.

You need the easy days to be easy so that you can make the hard days truly hard. If you train too much at an intensity that’s in-between, then you won’t be able to go hard enough on the hard days.

This type of easy training is the perfect time to do technique drills. In rock climbing, technique is more important than either the easy or the hard days…

[julie.morter]

julie.morter on February 7, 2020 at 11:04 am #37718

Thanks Scott!
I have never done a training program before, so some of this might be just a case of understanding what the purpose of these various sessions are.

With your feedback in mind, are the ‘hard’ days you mentioned the finger board workouts that start in 2 weeks? From what I saw, even the weekend mileage days are focused on technique and drills on easy climbing. My take is that they were focused on getting better, not stronger.
Is that correct, or should there be any focus on physically hard or tiring climbing in those mileage days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 10, 2020 at 11:48 am #37885

Good question. “Hard” is a big range. It’s far bigger than most people imagine, usually because it’s underestimated. As a general rule of thumb, you could use your onsight grade has the lower end of “hard” and four grades below that as the top end of easy. Between the two is a middle-range moderate. Finger boarding would be on the far end of “hard”.

Rock climbing is primarily a skill sport with strength being a distant second priority. For example, a friend of mine has climbed a lot in the past but only once or twice a year for the past six years. Last summer, he methodically started again with a few months of super easy climbing and then only a month or so of “hard” climbing.

Late in the summer, he ended up onsighting and redpointing only two grades below his all-time bests. I think it’s unlikely that he was as climbing fit as he’s been in the past. He was in okay climbing shape, but his climbing skill refreshed a lot faster than his fitness.

Technique in rock climbing is way more important than fitness. And those easy mileage days are the days to focus on it.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.