LIMERICK, IRELAND (Irish Climbing Coaching) – We all know one…. Little Jimmy who does endless laps of the bouldering wall, hogging it for the evening and not stepping off once. He just cruises around on big holds fighting the ‘pump’ for ages at a time, all the while muttering something about ‘trying to get strong’. Though he does have this strange ability to be able to stay in the same spot (usually stuck just below the crux moves on a route) for a short eternity, Little Jimmy never does get any stronger. Why is this? For all the ‘training’ he puts in to ‘get strong’ why isn’t he some well muscled mutant cranking out one-armers every time there’s a female in the room?

Following on in our series on the basic principles of training (see No. 1: Periodisation) we’ll deal with another major factor in making your training successful, Specificity.

Specificity means that a certain type of training is specific to a certain system/muscle group/type of muscle fibre. If you wanted to improve your cycling, you wouldn’t go out and do a load of pull-ups as training would you? This is a very stark example, but the same principle applies to every aspect of training. If you want to develop your finger pocket strength, you don’t train on big slopers, or if you want to develop your power, you don’t try and do a high volume of moves in a really static manner.

So why is Little Jimmy’s training program ineffective? Maybe he wants to ‘get strong’ on big holds… True, he may only want to improve his strength on bigger holds, but the intensity at which he’s climbing (i.e. easy moves and loads of them) is wrong. It’s not specific to what he wants to achieve. His muscles are operating far below their maximum and so are not in the ideal ‘zone’ for developing strength, if he was in this ‘zone’ he’d probably only be able to string 4/5 moves together, never mind the few hundred he does during his usual sessions. Basically, Little Jimmy is working far below his maximum and at too low an intensity. So, what he’s actually training is his longer term endurance, hence his ability to hang below the crux on a route for an eternity – now if only he had the strength to do the harder moves….

This is a very general overview/taster on specificity, it can be as simple as this or considerably more complicated, depending on your goals in mind. Take a step back and have a think about what you’re currently trying to achieve and what way you’re actually going about it. If you find that you’re doing circuits on a bouldering wall, but actually want to improve your one-move lock-off strength, you need a rethink. This will become a bit clearer over the next few weeks as a few more principles are introduced. Don’t think we’re going to give everything away though – and it’s far easier to just get someone else to plan all this for you

Photo: John Harrison gets specific on steep, 2 finger pockets on a Sardinian 7c.

LIMERICK, IRELAND (Irish Climbing Coaching) – Continuing on from our theme on ‘Motivation and Goal Setting’, we’ll move and deal with something that ties the psychological side of climbing and training (i.e. the preparation and mental side of things) with the physiological side (i.e. physical exercise). Though the two are very firmly intertwined in reality, it is far beyond the scope of these articles to go into it (guess you’ll have to come on one of our Coaching Workshops!!) As the step in developing your goals and maintaining your motivation, we are going to deal with the Periodisation. Periodisation is the method of varying your training periodically to prevent ’stagnation’ of the exercises and ensure the body is always having to adjust. It can be used to help maintain motivation levels and stave off boredom by changing things around every now and then. This is achieved by breaking your training into different phases, depending on the goals in mind. There are a number of different periodisation models and though all effectively achieve the same goal, research is conflicting as to which is best at eliciting gains (e.g. Buford, Rossi, Smith & Warren, 2007; Rhea, Ball, Phillips & Burkett, 2002). For the sake of simplicity, here we will deal with the most basic model, a Linear Model of Periodisation.

Macro, Meso and Micro-Cycles
In order to periodise your training, you need to break it down into ‘Blocks’. These blocks or cycles are targeted towards a specific goal and will contain the relevant training / exercises to realise your goal. A macro-cycle is a long cycle which may for example, last an entire season. This will contain a number of meso-cycles, shorter blocks of training which may last a few weeks and will each have a specific focus e.g. endurance, power-endurance, finger strength, slopers etc. Micro-cycles are then the shortest cycles and for this example will last a day/a few days.

Linear Periodisation
In a linear periodisation model, within a full macro-cycle, each meso-cycle builds on the foundations of the previous one. In climbing terms this may start with a 4-6 week stint of general whole-body conditioning, micro-cycles within this may only last one/a few days and may involve running/other cardio. activity or general low-intensity strength work. Each micro-cycle would vary slightly in activity, though still maintain the focus of generally conditioning the body for later training. This is a good time to start correcting any potential sources of injury that may strike later on. The next meso-cycle would then focus on long-term stamina training i.e. for long routes that generally don’t ‘pump’ you out too much. Building on this may be a meso-cycle of arm/shoulder strength whilst maintaining a few sessions to keep the stamina levels ‘topped-up’. So the basic concept is to start out with high-volume, low intensity activities and generally progress to lower-volume, higher intensity exercise. This all depends on the goal you are training for though, so again, must be directed towards your goals!

The Benefits of Periodisation

As well as keeping you ‘interested’ and maintaining your motivation levels, periodising your training keeps you more focused on your goals, makes your training more effective as your body is constantly having to adapt to changes and helps prevent injury and burnout as you’re not working the same thing all the time. This may seem complicated and may take a short time to get your head around it, the easier option is to just get a Climbing Coach to do do it for you…. Also it isn’t just something for elite climbers who train, it is very applicable to climbing itself and all levels of ability.

References:

Buford, T.W., Rossi, S.J., Smith, D.B. & Warren, A.J. (2007). A comparison of periodisation models during nine weeks with equated volume and intensity for strength. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 21(4), 1245 – 50.

Rhea, M.R., Ball, S.D., Phillips, W.T. & Burkett, L.N. (2002). A comparison of daily linear and undulating periodised programs with equated volume and intensity for strength. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 16(2), 250 – 55.