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

crux moves. In training, the ATP-CP system is the primary fuel source for brief, intense exercise lasting less than fifteen seconds—for example, campus training or doing a one-arm pull-up. ATP and CP are high-energy phosphate compounds resident in all muscle cells in small amounts; intense exercise, however, will exhaust the supply in a matter of seconds.
LACTIC ACID
     
    Consistent, moderate- to high-intensity exercise lasting between ten seconds and about three minutes calls the lactic acid energy system into play. This is the primary energy system that fuels your climbing up a long boulder problem or a sustained crux section of route. Carbohydrates, in the form of glycogen, fuel the lactic acid system, which can operate in either the presence or absence of oxygen.
    • Anaerobic: High-intensity exercise forces the muscles to create energy in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic) and at the expense of lactic acid production. The resulting accumulation of lactic acid leads to fatigue, muscular pain, and, eventually, muscular failure. This limitation of anaerobic energy production helps explain why sustained climbing on maximally difficult moves is limited to about three minutes or less (if there are no rests). Consequently, climbing as quickly as possible from rest to rest is the best strategy on hard, sustained routes.
    The anaerobic threshold is defined as the workload or oxygen consumption level at which lactate production by the working muscle exceeds the body’s ability to remove lactate. Therefore, once you cross this threshold level, the net amount of lactic acid increases, and muscular failure soon follows (see figure 5.3). Depending on your level of conditioning, the anaerobic threshold may be crossed at an exercise intensity of anywhere between 50 percent and 80 percent of maximum. Becoming winded (oxygen debt) and burning muscles are two signs you have crossed the anaerobic threshold.

     
    Figure 5.3 Supercompensation Cycle
     

    The above knowledge underscores the importance of using an interval approach to high-intensity climbing. In sending a hard route, you want to avoid crossing the anaerobic threshold for as long as possible and, once you do cross it, climb as quickly as possible to a rest or easier terrain. Only then will you get back down below the anaerobic threshold and allow your body to begin lowering blood lactate concentration. Depending on the amount of lactic acid in your system, it could take twenty minutes or more to return to a baseline level of blood lactate (Watts 1996).
     
    • Aerobic: Muscular action lasting longer than three minutes demands use of oxygen to produce energy. With ATP-CP reserves depleted and high muscle and blood lactate levels (from anaerobic energy production), exercise can continue only if the intensity of movement is reduced (see figure 5.4). Anaerobic energy production is limited to an amount proportionate to the liver’s ability to remove lactic acid (and convert back to glucose) from the blood. Therefore, aerobic energy production takes over and powers most of the muscle action by means of a breakdown of carbohydrates, fats, and (if exercise continues long enough) protein in the presence of oxygen. Since aerobic energy production does not produce lactic acid, low-intensity movements may continue for several hours without cessation (as in hiking or climbing over easy terrain).
     
    Figure 5.4 Supercompensation Cycle
     

Training Principles
     
    Possessing a basic understanding of relevant training principles empowers you to make the most of your time investment in training. Without getting too deeply into sports science, let’s examine the important principles of specificity, individualization, progressive overload, variation, rest, and detraining.

Specificity
     
    The principle of specificity of training may be the most important of all. It simply states that the more specific a training activity is to a given sport—in velocity of movement, pattern of movement, body posture, range of motion, and type of contraction—the more it will contribute to increasing performance in that sport. Therefore, for an exercise to be effective at producing usable strength gains for climbing (such as grip strength, lock-off strength, or lunging power), it must be markedly similar to climbing in many ways. The more specific the training activity or exercise, the greater the benefit to your climbing performance. Let’s look at a few examples of how this rule applies to