By Steve Bechtel
Dan John once quipped, “The goal of aging should be to make the same mistakes over and over again less often.”
Although we are in the throes of redpoint season across much of North America and Europe, many of us are already assessing what we’re going to do to get better over the winter and are formulating our training plans. I’ll tie this into another quote, this one from Dave MacLeod, “Know your enemy - your tastes.”
What we gravitate toward will not necessarily make us better at the sport. Training, then, is addressing the things we don’t love. Good planning is all about building a system to get ourselves to do the things we need to do, even when we don’t feel like it.
Today, we’re going to talk about a simple framework for making ourselves a little bit better than we were last year. Look—if you just keep getting better each season and are simply enjoying the ride, you’re not even going to read my stuff.
Step One: Collect
The first part of planning a training cycle is to look at what you’ve done to end up here. How much did you train? How much did you climb? What did you focus on last year? It is essential in the collection period to look at actual data, rather than looking at what you had planned to do. This means the training log is essential and the planning calendar from last year useless.
If you didn’t keep a detailed log, go back to any records you might have. Even if it is as limited as jotting your climbing and gym days down, we need the most information we can gather.
You want to look at how much climbing you did. Look at the frequency of your training and the approximate durations and intensities of those days. The goal here is to know how much you might be able to handle in the coming season.
Step Two: Assess
What things do you see when you look at the logs? For me it’s often that I did a little less than I had planned, saw injuries coming (and often ignored the signs), and generally performed better later than expected.
In comparing the plan to my actual execution, I often avoided all the stretching I planned to do and I tended to default to doing more medium boulders on a day that I had planned as “hard.”
Looking at finer details, we need to look at what loads we used, whether we did a lot or not very much work in our goal areas, and whether we saw a training effect (i.e. improvement) from the work that we did.
Then, it’s time to get out paper and pencil.
Step Three: Plan (Conservatively)
The very best training plan ever is built based on what you actually did last year. So, let’s look at the days and times that you tended to train last time. How long were your sessions? What time of day? Which days of the week?
Build out a calendar for a week (most people’s weeks are pretty repetitive), and fill in the times and days you can train. Don’t worry about specifics at first, just hold the sessions open for training.
Next, look at what you did in your training sessions. Which exercises bore fruit? Which ones still show promise? What can be switched up for something better?
For example, most people who hangboard regularly have probably milked out 90% of the gains they’ll see. Their best move forward will be to do different positions / arm angles / pull styles in the next season’s training.
When it comes to session number, exercises, and such, we’re going to try to go just 3% better this year. This means no super-motivated “This is the year!” thinking… it means we look at the sessions you did last November, and build out 3% more. I know…it seems too little, but adding one more problem, a few more reps, and a little load, consistently, over the entire winter season will be remarkable.
The one exception I’d make to this guideline is a climber who has less than two years in the sport. If you have a low “training age” and relatively little experience in the sport, bigger jumps in volume and difficulty are appropriate. But again, if this were the case, you wouldn’t read my stuff.
Step Four: Practice (Week One)
Your sessions should be all lined up, and you’re going to start out with just a little more volume. Loads might still be behind where they were at the end of last season, but they should be near or a bit above where they were this time last year. Again, I want you to do so little changing that it doesn’t seem like it will matter. Line out the week, run though the first week of the season’s plan, and then go back and make necessary changes.
One of the big hangups people run into is gym flow, available tools, and even just scheduling. This is the week to iron these things out. For example, in my own training, I have been doing triples of three exercises in the weight room. During my Friday morning workouts, I could just bop around the gym and do whatever I like—it’s usually just me and my friend Jeremy at that time of day. But on my Tuesdays, it’s a bit harder…more people tend to be in the gym when I train that day. The solution? I had to build each triplet to stay in a small area, so now I can hold just one small space for that 15-20 minutes, then move on to the next triplet.
Step Five: Solidify The Plan
Week 2 should be a great “second draft” and week 3 even better. Eliminate all the friction points you can, and if need be, allocate more time to critical aspects of your training by getting creative: for example, my wife likes for us to watch TV together a few nights a week. I take this time and stretch during the shows, so I can put my gym time into more climbing.
Step Six: Execute and Review Regularly
With each week, you’ll be able to refine the training. You’ll find that you improve the session flow, address things that you ignored last season, and tend to do better on sessions that you really tanked on last year.
Not all of your sessions will be better than the previous year’s, but overall your numbers will be up. Keep adjusting for fatigue, work around injury, and keep aiming for 3% more. By the time you are 4 or 6 weeks in, you’re rolling. Even if you change training foci mid-season, the same principles will apply.
The true key to good training is repetition, overload, and feedback. By monitoring your training year after year, you can’t help but see where you can go one better next year. This fall and winter is an opportunity to get it right like none other you’ve ever seen. Get after it.
Hold Fast,
Steve
ABOUT STEVE BECHTEL
Steve is the founder of Climb Strong, and is proud to be the worst coach on the Climb Strong team. A climber for nearly 40 years, he has traveled the globe bouldering, sport climbing, and doing first ascents of some of the world's biggest walls.
He is co-owner of Elemental Performance + Fitness, and is the author of several books on training for climbing. He lives in Lander, Wyoming, with his wife Ellen and children Sam and Anabel. He includes low-intensity training in almost everything he does these days...since it feels pretty tough.