dinsdag 28 april 2015

New season!

I still don't really know why I didn't write a decent wrap up for the last season, because in the end it wasn't really that bad. Although I didn't get outdoors nearly as much as I had wanted to, I climbed enough to discover that the disciplined training I've put myself through this winter is paying off and I am getting stronger again. Honestly, that's quite a relief after the absolute lack of results since April last year. After the initial (and undeniable) gains of installing my woody I got stuck in doing the same bouldering routine over and over again, which turned out to be equally effective as flogging a dead horse. Totally unnecessarily though, because essentially I have a luxury version (it has a window) of the dark and damp training dungeons that got British pioneers like Ben Moon and Jerry Moffatt to the top of their game 20 years ago. It feels like only now I'm learning to use it properly with the help of some fancy training books offering the latest insights in climbing training. Somehow it seems though that said heroes like Moon and Moffatt were doing awkwardly similar things long before these books were written...


Ode to old school! Released in 1996, 'The Real Thing' was the first ever real bouldering movie.
Don't forget to watch parts 2 and 3!

Anyway, let's talk about me. I still haven't bragged about the last Teuto session halfway March and it's already a while ago since I shared how far my ego drifted off during the preceding session. It's baffling how little is needed to feed it! During the last session, my confidence got another boost. By failing. Now that's a rare thing. Usually failure frustrates me beyond reason, but this time I had no expectations whatsoever and got surprised by falling on the last hard move of my intended summer project. Twice! Reality check: the last move is a real bitch. It's a very powerful, technical deadpoint that requires accuracy. Although I can do it consistently when rested, it's horribly hard to do when fatigued and it's right at the end of a 16 move power endurance sequence. There can be a really long way between falling on the last move and doing the last move here… Nevertheless it's right on top of my goal list for the next season!

Fast forward to today: as I am writing this, over a month of the second training cycle has past already. The mentally draining strength phase is done and I've started working on power already. I carefully logged my trainings again and the results are quite insightful. I've described the training before, so I'll go straight to the results. Below are the graphs displaying the data from both season 1 and 2.

Time under tension (T.U.T., i.e. total time spent hanging) and Volume (integral of total load over time).
Added load per grip position (negative load implies weight was substracted). Grip positions are listed in chronological training order. The 'front 2' grip position (middle and index finger) has been added to the routine in season 2. The plateau on the 'Big Sloper' position is deliberate as the purpose is to warm up the elbows and shoulders (and not injure them).
Total load equals body weight plus added load and is used to calculate training volume.
Boring details (skip to Summary for the conclusions):
Having to build on a previous season brings the difficult choice of the starting loads of the first training. In the nearly three months between strength cycle 1 and strength cycle 2 detraining occurs: some strength is lost and it's unrealistic to expect to pick up right where I stopped. The aim is to surpass the previous highpoint at the end of the cycle though. Having no real clue what to choose, I varied the drop a bit per grip position: on the '4 finger open' hang I didn't drop weight at all, on 'front 3' I dropped 8 kg, on '4 finger half crimp' 6 kg and on 'mid 2' 4 kg.

To explain the additional drop for the last three after two trainings, I have to admit to making the stupid mistake of neglecting the advice of sticking to a 30 day regime of hangboarding exclusively. I broke the discipline already after the first training by squeezing in an outdoor bouldering session in Avalonia. I climbed six 7's in a day, but payed for it during hangboard trainings 2 and 3. They were terrible and I felt so weak that I decided to drop weight on the mentioned hangs after training 2.

Based on the results, it seems that dropping more weight is better: for the '4 finger half crimp' and 'mid 2' positions the weight drop was small and I only matched the highpoint of season 1. I wonder if I would have surpassed it if I hadn't gone out to Avalonia though… 'Back 3' had a slightly bigger drop (6 kg) and surpassed the previous season by 2 kg, 'front 3' had the biggest drop (8 kg) and the biggest gains (6 kg). The '4 finger open' positions seems to contradict the trend with no drop and a progression of 6 kg as well, but I think this particular grip position did benefit a lot from the campus training I did after the first strength cycle. With that in mind, it's spectacular that the 'front 3' grip has progressed 6 kg as well, especially since I did complete the 'front 3' hang on training 10 and failed to complete the '4 finger open' hang.

Because of the drop in load, a corresponding drop in training volume is expected at the start of a new cycle. It doesn't show up here, because the T.U.T. was increased by adding a new grip position to the routine. On this position ('front 2') I hit a brick wall during the last five trainings and wasn't able to progress anymore. I have no idea why. Next season I'll start with an even lower load and see what that does.

Summary:
The implications now, for those interested in hangboard training themselves and for future me, who should really, really read this before starting the third hangboard season:

  • Stick to the program, don't do anything that interferes with the hangboard trainings. That means no hard climbing: the forearms get two full rest days between trainings. I did an hour of crossfit training for arm, core and shoulder strength and injury prevention on every first rest day, which seemed to work fine.
  • Drop back in load significantly from the end of the previous cycle. Make sure it's high enough to be able to surpass the previous high point at the end of the cycle. Next season I'll try to drop back 10 kg. With a possible progression of 2 kg per training, it should be possible to match the previous highpoint during training 6. That leaves 4 trainings to try and surpass it.