Last Friday I played around with an interval style workout for climbing. I made a little circuit where I linked two climbs together and went up and down each and had a rest of about 2 minutes. It felt good and I think it would be a good way to improve my fitness.
My climbing training tends to be pretty unstructured and I mostly just go by feel. The equivalent of going out for a run and running whatever pace and route feels good on the day. It's definitely not a bad way to train. In fact, for most people I think it could be the best way to improve and enjoy something while avoiding injury. It can get you pretty far for a pretty long time. But, I think if you reach a point where you've plateaued (in climbing or running) and want to make some more aggressive changes, then interval workouts can be effective. I also suspect it might be a certain personality type that finds a type of "fun" in doing these workouts. I know I've got it but I can see how it would be miserable for others.
Yesterday I wrote this note out and I'm leaving this here as a starting point for trying to structure a training plan around intervals for climbing. All of this is gleamed from other sources and none of this is new and very well needs adjusting and experimenting. But, it's my first attempt at creating a kind of structured training plan for myself or if I were to directly write the training of someone else.
SAMPLE TRAINING WEEK: POWER ENDURANCE FOCUS (grades based on my current climbing fitness)
Sat & Sun: rest. auxiliary strength training on one day.
Mon: warm-up, do some projecting,
3 sets of 20 min on power endurance climbs. so every 4 to 5 minutes, climb a v4/v5 boulder for 20 minutes then rest for 7 to 10 minutes.
Tues: rest. shoulder strength
Wed: warm-up, try new stuff
4 sets of 15 minutes on endurance climbs. every 1 to 2 minutes, climb a long v2 boulder or multiple easier climbs for 15 then rest 7 to 10 minutes
Thursday: rest, shoulder strength
Friday: repeat of Monday
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You could also throw in some grip strength training before or after the workouts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. probably before for higher quality.
Obviously there's a ton of variability within how to execute these workouts. Who could play with the length of the sets, the rest between climbs, the rest between sets, the difficulty of the climbs. The golden rule for workouts, especially power endurance, is that you want to feel like you could have done one more rep in the set and one more set in the workout. But that doing that one more would've have pushed you to the absolute limit. Another way of saying that is that you were operating at about 80 to 90% of max effort.
The magic isn't in any one workout or the starting point. The magic is in keeping some variables the same while progressing the difficulty of others. So, keeping the same time constraints but increasing the difficulty of the climbs. Or, keeping the climbs the same but giving yourself less rest time between climbs.
If you're training to compete, then knowing which variables to change depends on the nature of your competition. In climbing competitions, it's a messy estimate but depending on your experience category or your age and gender category, you can have a rough idea of the range of V grade of the climbs you'll encounter. Like I know roughly that at the gym I coach at, climbers in the Male Youth A category who consistently climb at the v6/v7 range tend to do well at competitions. Climbers in the Female Youth B category who consistently climb in the v4 range tend to do well at competitions (a top 10 result at a local competition for example). It's a really rough estimate and there's a ton of skill and expertise and knowledge that also comes into play but from a strictly climbing fitness standpoint (to the degree that this can be quantified), these are fairly accurate indicators.
Anyway, if a climber is starting this program, and they are not yet at the V grade that they can expect to compete at, the main priority should be improving the climb difficulty until it meets that range. Then, you would look to add more reps at that range and reduce rest time to improve mastery at that range.
Just like in running, it's not always better to train faster than your race pace if it means you are training for less time.
Alright, that's my that on that. This is mostly just for me to organize the thoughts I had yesterday.
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