Training for Climbing, 2nd: The Definitive Guide to Improving Your Performance (How To Climb Series)

off every few months is all it takes to benefit from this “less is more” effect. Upon returning to the rock, you will feel more relaxed, automatic, and natural as your body remembers (reminisces) the well-learned motor skills. Of course, you will also be more physically and mentally fresh after a week off from training, making this the perfect time to commence a road trip or work a hardest-ever project.
     
    The 3-2-1 Training Cycle: Since the elite climber possesses highly refined technical skills and a voluminous library of schemas, there is much less to be gained during the four-week volume-climbing phase of the 4-3-2-1 Cycle. For these 5.12-and-above climbers, acquiring a higher absolute level of maximum strength, power, and anaerobic endurance is central to achieving the next level of performance. Consequently, it would be best to skip the four weeks of skill and stamina training, and instead engage in a more focused 3-2-1 training mesocycle (figure 8.3). The resultant program would commence with three weeks of maximum strength and power training, followed by two weeks of anaerobic endurance training, ending with four to seven days of rest from climbing-specific training and climbing.

     
    Figure 8.3 The 3-2-1 Training Cycle
     

    Given this intense focus on strength training, however, it’s important to never forget that when you’re climbing at your limit, any tiny technical flaws or lapse in focus or confidence can bring you down in a nanosecond. The bottom line: No climber should ever take on the closed-minded attitude that more strength is the end-all answer to climbing harder—the real answer is to train your limiting constraints (whatever they are), which of course includes factors such as raw strength and power.
MACROCYCLE
     
    The macrocycle is your annual game plan of off-season training, on-season training and climbing, and off-season breaks away from climbing. In traditional sports the macrocycle is planned around the competitive calendar, with the goal of peaking for a major competition. In our sport, however, the idea is to structure a training program to produce a peaking effect for a major road trip, a competition, or the best climbing season in your region.

     
    Figure 8.4 Sample Macrocycle
     

    You can loosely map the macrocycle on a calendar by identifying the months of your on-season road trips or competitions, the months you expect to perform off-season training, and any downtime you plan to take during the year. Note that downtime is vital for recharging your motivation and healing any known (or unknown) injuries that have likely developed during the course of a long climbing season. For many climbers, taking the month of December off makes the most sense and offers the nice reward of holiday parties after a year of dedicated training and tight dietary surveillance.
    Figure 8.4 depicts a typical macrocycle. Note that a couple 4-3-2-1 Training Cycles are fit into the off-season training period, along with another during the midseason. The fall months are targeted as the peaking period, followed by a month off to conclude the year. A blank fifty-two-week macrocycle is contained in appendix B for your use.

Targeting Training on Your Preferred Subdiscipline
     
    In chapter 1 you learned the importance of obeying the SAID Principle (specific adaptation to imposed demands) in optimizing your training for your favorite subdiscipline of climbing. Figure 1.7 depicts how the demands of these subdisciplines vary over a continuum from bouldering to alpine climbing. Maximizing the effectiveness of your training requires targeting your workouts accordingly.
    The vast majority of climbers reading this book participate in the three subdisciplines of bouldering, sport climbing, and multipitch climbing, and this text is obviously focused on helping these climbers improve their performance. Still, big-wall and alpine climbers should be able to glean plenty of useful information. For instance, in accordance with the SAID Principle, a serious alpine climber would benefit much more from high-volume endurance Stair-Master training and trail running than from bouldering on a home wall or hanging on a fingerboard. Of course, the most specific and effective training for big-wall and alpine climbers is simply doing lots of submaximum climbing.
    Conversely, building a home wall or joining an indoor gym is the single biggest advantage that boulder, sport, or multipitch climbers could give themselves. Beyond