My endurance training protocol for E11(Rhapsody)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2023
- When I prepared to climb Rhapsody, the first E11 trad route in the world (and also my first 8c+!) my endurance training was really simple. Personal anecdotes from training have their limitations but many of you ask me how I train endurance and in the absence of good science to guide us, I keep it pretty simple based on principles of basic physiology.
My books on training for climbing :
9 out of 10 climbers www.davemacleod.com/shop/9out...
Make or Break www.davemacleod.com/shop/make...
My Patreon: / davemacleod
The fingerboard protocol I mentioned in this video is described in these two videos:
• How I went from 8b to ...
• Hangboard 30min follow... - กีฬา
Many of us bitchin' about how we could never become as good a climber as MacLeod/Ondra/Garnbret/etc, but then Dave brings us behind the scenes where he'd be on the wall for three hours a day, five days a week, sun scorching or rain pouring or wind blasting. That's dedication, man, hats off.
40 minutes on?!? As a boulderer that has got to be my worst nightmare lmao
Haha. Listen to a podcast or something. Quite relaxing actually
I remember in one of his videos about training on his home wall he mentioned doing 5.11 circuits for an hour and it just completely blew my mind. I mostly boulder and should be able to climb a 5.12 sometime soon but the thought of doing a 5.11 for that long is just on a completely different level. Really shows what 20+ years of training can do.
You really don't need years of training to climb 5:11 terrain for an hour at a time. That endurance would come in months, assuming good movement technique.
Learning to not over grip; using excellent technique to minimize energy expenditure; and and being able know how to rest is not only mandatory for high end Trad; but for sport climbing; and highballs; but even for short and difficult boulder problems. Being able to hang on for a second longer because you did not overpull; or got below fifty percent effort; and recovered a bit of power on precrux moves; or don't overpull on moves above a crux: and then fail there. ( That used to be a specialty of mine: cruising low cruxes; and then falling above them. Push; don't just pull was not natural for me)
Yes 40 minutes. Now stop talking cos you still have sets #2 & 3 to go! 😂
Dave, I started climbing at 57, had some health issues get in the way, and have just gotten serious again in my 62nd and 63rd years. I get regular instruction in technique which has been extremely helpful, but I am still learning the training aspect of climbing. Your videos have been a big help, and an inspiration. Thank you!
The quality of your videos Dave and clarity of your message is just awsome. 🙌
Best sports channel on TH-cam bar none. Where else do you get insight this detailed and personalised from an all time great at their craft? Awesome video, as always Dave
What I like about this video is that I've never even considered 40 minutes on for 3 sets. I'm going to try it. Great video. Thanks Dave.
The intersection of high level climbing and the Dumbarton Morrisons. Two things I have never thought about together.
God this was tremendously useful. I would have never imagined this type of training could be beneficial. Im really looking forward to try this
This really really helped me. Thank you.
Absolutely amazing video my friend. Thank you for sharing your expertise as always :)
Always great info Dave 👍
Spot on. Been doing this training a lot since I come from endurance sports from the beginning. Always a great way to get in shape for the summer doing these low-intensity circuits. Thanks for a great episode.
Grateful. Thanks Dave
Love this Dave, brill. I spent much of this winter in the little bouldering wall at AR, doing circuits and pushing myself to develop endurance on harder climbs. Youve broken it down so well how consistency can be implimted to such great success.. im pretty familiar with the back story of e11, but this really illustates how you worked and the approach. Now when folks ask me about it, I can send them to this! top work chief
awesome, helpful and inspiring. thanks!
This couldn’t have come at a better time! Was on the black wall circuit today and I’ll definitely be on it tomorrow…although there might be a queue now!😂…Thanks Dave, Sam👍
Pure Gold! These videos are really fantastic. Your candid and relaxed approach, coupled with long term detailed self and community understanding of topics related to sports and health and nutrition, are top notch. This fits right in with the modern thinking of the professional community and my collogues in the cycling and running world, particularly about avoiding zone 3 activities, particularly in training. Zone 1-2 75% if the time in your sport (climbing and cycling for me), the rest is zone 4 (hills and projects). I just need to do a better job of getting it done, week after week, and up the hours if i can (i am getting up there in age). Maybe i should move, to make it easier. I should probably bounce that off my wife :).
Best climbing videos I've ever found. Nothing comes close.
What I really love about this vid is how Dave is able to extract so much training value from a seemingly unassuming & inconspicuous wall by the trail. He's done so much volume on this wall his dna is literally an organic component of the rock😂 Another valuable take-away is how we should define the meaning of "trying the hardest" in our pursuit to become better athletes. ❤
Hey Dave, this was a really insightful video and really got me inspired to spend more time climbing pure volume at a low intensity as efficiently and confidently as I can. I'd love to see a video about breathing while climbing, because when I'm run out from gear I not only overgrip but I also start to breathe more irregularly. I'm sure this can be improved through mental practice, but I'd love to hear a deeper analysis of it.
Thank you!
You’re admirable good sir
Cheers Dave. 👍
Very well produced and clearly explained as usual, thanks! I think your explanation of how this kind of training helps with bold trad climbing is quite clear, I'd be interested if you know how this regimen differs with other elite sport climbers who are not climbing under such bold/dangerous conditions.
thx Dave!
Dave. Have all your books. But would love you to do a Climbing Bible book. An amalgamation of all the knowledge you have gained over the years on physical training, injury prevention, diet, mental training etc. in a lovely big colourful book. Please do it before you die- don’t go with taking all that fantastic wisdom to the grave with you. All the best 👍
Hey Dave, thank you for putting the same level of attention into your videos as you do for your climbing. Time and again there is so much to learn from them!
I had a question about skin management. After doing hundreds and thousands of moves every week, doesn't skin quality become a problem? (I started implementing this on my gym's circuit board - of course nowhere near 40min on - and it occurred to me that outdoors skin might quickly become an issue)
Just because I've spotted this doesn't have a reply: my anecdotal experience from being a climber who started indoors and would burn through 3-4 hour sessions 3-4 times a week in a gym, and then having moved to the Peak district where I now mostly climb outdoors = my skin was worse indoors. Some ideas as to why:
a) the gym environment (a feeling of wanting to get your money's worth or time's worth by going hard) - encouraged in me the kind of high intensity Dave warned about rather than the low intensity approach he was describing in this video.
b) the gym setting style & material. Plastic is actually pretty rough - but more importantly - its roughness really starts to matter if you're encouraged to rinse and repeat a lot, or do a lot more 'comp style' big moves that involve a lot of slapping, dragging, and generally punishing your tips. If you're on wood holds on the circuit board - perhaps this isn't an issue. But I found that regardless of rock type (we have very rough grit and sometimes very soft limestone here) I just wasn't doing so much repetitive scraping on training days (projecting being a different thing).
c) exception that proves the rule: it is definitely easier to mash up other parts of your fingers/hand outdoors - cuts on sharp bits, don't even ask about crack climbing outdoors - etc. but when people talk about 'skin management' - it's usually tips and the above described problems of friction that they're talking about.
Conclusion: Your skin adapts over a medium-long time to the environment you're training on (consistency, again); so if your climbing technique gets good on a rock type or style, and you're training - rather than going ham at your limit, then my own experience suggests that skin quality for a large volume of training will eventually still depend on the quality of the training, precise gripping and movement, and not the hold material.
Hi Dave that was another great video. Can you talk about your feeling on ARC sessions (do you/ have you trained this way) in a future video ? As well as structuring an ARC session. From what I understand it's not about low intensity at all, rather resistance training but it would be really interesting to have your opinion about it.
What he is doing here is essentially ARC training
Dave, Your "How to Optimize Your Home Wall" vid helped guide my "COVID wall" build. Now I'm planning a bigger wall. QUESTION: For aerobic endurance, thoughts on pros & cons of (1) 15ish degree wall for circuits vs (2) Treadwall? Thank You!
Dope!
Hi Dave, thank you so much for being so clear.
Speaking of forearms: if hangboarding is to develop max strength and this endurance protocol to be able to sustain it in time, what's the role of the bouldery pumpy sessions in the polarized model?
Steve said you used to shake out on that jug. That seemed crazy, but makes a lot more now.
This is all incredibly interesting, but how do you make your tea Dave?
Thanks Dave, really interesting as always! Funnily enough I’ve started doing sessions like this 2-3 times a week at the gym for the last month or so. I tend to vary the intensity like intervals over about a 30min period, doing easier traverses then picking some harder one’s in-between rests on the wall, do you think this is a good method or should I try to keep to one or the other?
I haven’t really had a good chance to see any improvements outdoors yet, but as I’ve never really incorporated this training consistently, I’m hoping it will help with the pump and staying calmer on rests over the coming season.
I do this on the autobelay the day after a strenght session usually and it works wonders for me. Two sets of an hour just gives me alot of endurance and capacity to relax on the rock. Also it helps to rest on route. This is my favourite way to train for long tufa rutes with lots of rests. For me it is important that there is some overhang so that I get some weight on my hands ... (good for recovery too)
You mention that you didn't immediately climb v11 or 8c, do you remember roughly what grades you could climb in your first 1, 2, or 5 years of climbing?
In his trad climbing tutorials I'm fairly certain he said while he was sport climbing around 8a in a few years, he was only trad climbing at around severe alongside that. But then once he was comfortable with gear he was able to go from HVS to E3 in one day.
I wonder what makes hard TRAD so attractive to you. Do you consider yourself an adrenaline junkie?
I mean, surely the danger factor must play a big factor on why you do it. But, I've never heard the likes of Honnold talking about "adrenaline rush" as one of the motives on why they solo (I consider hard trad as just soloing with extra steps)
Also, you talk on the video itself that you need to be composed at all times, and adrenaline rushes would just probably make you overgrip, and unable to relax...
This is quite fascinating to me, myself being an adrenaline junkie to the core. I love doing highballs, but I do it for the adrenaline rush and, as I have a big fear of heights, vertigo, etc, I also do it to feel that I conquered that side of me which I cannot control.
From outside it seems your motivations are different, and I would love to hear about them!!
I think you have sort of answered your own question there. The steps involved in doing dangerous climbs safely in a composed manner is its own reward but 'adrenaline junkie' doesn't really fit the nature of that reward. I'm writing a whole book just now on why I climb bold routes.
Excellent video, appreciate the insight. For me, limiting factor with this much volume is my skin. It starts to get raw and painful after about 30 mins of wall time. Is this something that I can just "climb through" and will eventually adapt to? Do you follow a specific skin care routine when training like this?
Yes I definitely follow a skincare routine to mimimise this problem. First and foremost, train at windy crags in the shade in the hot months. If you must go indoors, get the biggest fan possible and train on wood.
Hi Dave, do you have any tips for climbers at a more beginner/intermediate level? I find it hard to find either circuits in gyms/outside that are at a sufficiently low level that I could stay on for extended periods. For context I lead outdoors at 6c/E1. Any advice greatly appreciated :))
Yes. Build up your basic level of finger and body strength. So many beginner/intermediates are just not strong enough to stay on the wall for extended periods even on good holds. Hangboard + fingery bouldering several times a week. After a few hundred sessions you won't have this problem anymore.
Great video, thanks Dave! Can you speak about periodization with such a routine? This much work would be almost everything I'd be able to do in a week. I'm currently in a strength-building phase (hangboard, kilter, and weighted pullups along with 1-2 full-body lifting routines a week). I'm seeing progress but I'm also worried that endurance is fading. I've seen numerous videos on periodization but frankly my takeaway is just do ~5-6 weeks of one and then the other. How did you balance maintaining strength with building endurance, or.... building both?
You can train them concurrently if the total work is not too tiring. The sessions described in this video are so easy they are not tiring at all and you may finish them feeling as fresh as when you started. So its not necessary to drop strength work. I did 6 sessions per week hang board while doing this. Going to bed early will help.
@@climbermacleod thanks again Dave, I'll give it a go in the next phase. At least I'm an early sleeper.
🙏
Have you seen Emil Abrahamsson's 2 times a day hangboarding program? If so, do you have any opinion on it? I've tried it for about 2 weeks, and i'm experiencing less pain in my fingers.
Yes. It is similar to protocols climbers were doing in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A video on this coming in a month or so.
Fascinating. What's the thought process that led you to thinking that low intensity was one of the keys to Rhapsody/hard climbing? In a way it feels counter-intuitive, so what tipped it for you? Did you get advice from older climbers, or was it just your own thinking?
I had a masters degree in exercise science and ten years of experience in experimenting with my own training.
@@climbermacleod I had a phd in literature, and I can attest it doesn't help with climbing. Did something wrong on the way 😂
oh man! that hair! And what a cool place to get to train!
Do you believe this would be beneficial for technical development as well? As someone you'd describe as a beefcake and was already quite strong when I started climbing, I think it would be beneficial because of the amount of moves you do and the ease of the terrain so you can really focus on certain cues like, "leading the movement with your hips" or "switching feet with perfect precision". Do you agree with my idea or am I way off? Keep up the amazing videos and loved both your books!
I instruct movement patterns in clients the way I used to teach students which is this process of basic learning about the thing, then opportunities to try out the thing, situations to be successful, and then challenges where this must be used to be successful.
This would be akin to those situations to be successful, which is great, but make sure you attend to the practice during and head into the practice knowing what you should be doing technically.
@@zacharylaschober Thanks for the reply!
I always hope for some magical short cut to improve on endurance but I always come to the conclusion that I probably have to invest the necessary time and work 😢😅
Do you worry about mixing energy systems in one session / one day (i.e. long low intensity aerobic training like this followed by a finger board sesion) or do you try to spread them out with longer rest periods in between so you get the recovery gains for one seshion before moving onto the next?
Climbing nearly always mixes energy systems. I do usually make a cup of tea between doing a hang board and endurance session though.
@@climbermacleod Nuf said! Thanks Dave! 😄
Hi Dave, for someone who boulders 90%+ of the time, would you say it's beneficial to cycle in long endurance sessions like this?
I suppose it depends what your goal is for the 10%. You might get more out of it from a technical point of view than anything else, if you only care about bouldering.
I don't have a base so don't have a local wall/crag but I do have a fingerboard in the van. I struggle with the daily consistency but I'm sure I could get a daily finger board session going. Do you think I could get similar endurance training in while on the road?
If you drive to a crag, yes. I suppose the question is why not base your van at the crag? The age old climber's training strategy!
@@climbermacleod thank you, guess I need to just get used to the idea that I can have multiple local crags. Just need to explore a bit more
How would you approach this if you are basically unable to continually do the easiest circuit in the gym (jugs and foot chips for feet) continuously? I've tried climbing for 1 minute on 2 minutes off but I still reach say 7/10 pumped after 10 reps. Would you increase the rest whenever needed and try to make the sessions as long as possible to get milage without reaching over 4-5/10 pump?
Discussed elsewhere in the comments already. You need to increase your finger and upper body strength by a large amount (or strength/weight ratio) such that moving on large holds for long periods is not difficult. There is no way around this. Start on the fingerboard and don't stop th-cam.com/video/PebF3NyEGPc/w-d-xo.html
@@climbermacleod Thanks! I am for sure, but I have maybe a more short term problem being of significantly outlasted by people with much weaker fingers on very easy sport climbing terrain (7b vs 6a on the kilter board etc)
In all that time of climbing at Dumbarton rock, were you never set upon by yobs?
The only place I have ever been set upon by youths was Bearsden (bricked in the face, lost a tooth).
What are the pro/cons of training endurance building pump until failure compared with the low intensity circuits ?
These are not really things to be compared except to determine how much time to allocate to them. You need both.
@@climbermacleod Thanks for the answer
Do you still do arc training ? or did you found this developed all the base you needed ?
I need to find 3 for my 6b ;)
Rock climbers training manual basically!
so i think doing it on a spray wall is also an option? less wind and rain 😂
Hi Dave, thank for the video, do you think that this protocol can be introduce progressively ? Like first monthes 3x20minutes and then 3x30minutes and after let say 6month of this 3x40minutes ? Thanks a lot
Yes of course.
@@climbermacleod thanks for your answer very appreciated
Incredible! I doubt that I will have the chance to climb for 2+ hours a day during the week but this is certainly great advice: training hard doesn't have to look like total fatigue, sore muscles, fading energy levels. Hard training can be as simple as being disciplined enough to NOT push yourself that hard all the time. I think a more realistic approach for regular folks would be hitting a spray wall on every non-climbing session or doing some very light sport climbing. I suppose this type of workout can also be seen as a sort of active recovery? Great video!
How long does one need to do such a protocol consistently to have effect? How many weeks did you train this way before leading Rhapsody?
If you've not been doing endurance work lately you'd see an effect after the first week. But aerobic progress is measured in months and years. Start yesterday, don't stop.
@@climbermacleod Do you mean if someone got ongoing projects which demands it, you would do this protocol all year long every year ?
@@victorblondel1902 Kind of. Perhaps one wouldn't need to go as far as all year long, but as you say it depends on what the goal demands. But yes, endurance athletes across sport spend large amounts of time moving on a near-daily basis in their chosen sport.
2:34 the oyster catcher approves
just wondering if you did this as a separate block or also incorporated fingerboarding on the same days.
Same days
If you factor in the rest time in between sets that's about 2.5 hours of climbing at 5 days a week. Not realistic for most people so I would be curious to hear what a more realistic approach would be for the average fella which would have to be a lower voume for times sake I imagine.
Would it be 2 hours of climbing every second day or 1 hour each day?
Having a high standard of discipline and focus to train well DOES come naturally to you, though....
Good eloquent video as usual.
Yes I suppose that is the subtext of the video. But I would add that the relationship of discipline, focus and setting up your life to make the training happen is bidirectional. It didn’t take much discipline when you move to a place with very low cost of living, right next to a free, perma-dry crag. Hard not to get into a focused routine when all the hurdles are removed.
Did you have a job at the time you were climbing these circuits 5/6 days a week, 3x 40 min sessions, plus all the finger boarding?
Yes, several.
🤍
Cool so all it takes to improve endurance is 3 hours a day, 5 times a week 😂
That was my thought too. And that was a major act of faith in achieving the outcome when he did this.