The Key to Power Training? Take it Off the Wall (Part 2)

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Felipe Camargo performs during the video recording of Se Prepara in Bauru, Brazil on March 21, 2019 // Marcelo Maragni / Red Bull Content Pool // SI201904120383 // Usage for editorial use only // Photo: Marcelo Maragni / Red Bull Content Pool

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This is part II of a series about power training. To get up to speed, you may want to read part 1 first.

If you’ve ever heard the adage, strength before speed, or have ever been told that strength training automatically makes you powerful—well, it’s true for the most part. Strength training increases power by producing recruitment gains for athletes with less training experience, particularly youth athletes. But thoroughly trained or more advanced athletes generally need a more nuanced approach with distinct training phases.

When moving from a strength training to power-training phase, use the same exercises you’ve been using but change their intention. In general that means decreasing intensity (weight), increasing range of motion (you can flex and extend further without that extra weight), increasing the velocity or speed of the contraction part of the exercise, and focusing on coordination. While strength training, you can modify each exercise over the course of the phase to help maximize adaptation; but in the power phase isometric exercises—ones that use partial ranges of motion— should be eliminated. The full range of motion will be more insightful and trackable, especially when measuring movement velocity.

Use a full range of motion: The body, bar, and handle must travel a certain distance to track power output. (I use a vitruvefit power meter.) Coordination loss is also more detectable with a full range of motion.

Lower the intensity: Keep the intensity in the 40-60% of max effort range for the exercise. (I personally tend to make it easy for myself and just go with 50%.) A quick example: my pull-up strength is twice my body weight. That means I can do a 1-arm pull-up, and my body weight is 50% of my max with two arms. For most adult climbers I’ve tested, their body weight is in the 50-70% intensity range.

Reduce fatigue: Fatigue is the biggest limiter for power output. If you train power when tired, the velocity will be off, and the rep-to-rep quality will reduce. This is why you tend to feel slow and heavy when you’re tired from climbing multiple days in a row. By tracking the velocity of every rep, we can easily see when the power drops. If you don’t have the option to track velocity, pay attention to the speed and coordination of every rep, knowing that every set will have a rep or two less than the previous set.

Build capacity: If we have a fixed load (50%), the right intention (i.e. movement velocity), and keep the fatigue low, we can sit back and let the body adapt over 6-10 sessions. Remember, building better power output (i.e. capacity) is the goal of non-climbing power training. It’s designed to target a movement pattern we use in our sport. The goal is to build the capacity for more powerful climbing practice.

Pushing: Barbell bench press or push-ups. Note in the video how power decreases as fatigue increases? We’ll talk more about that below.

Pulling: Pull-ups or inverted rows.

Triple extension: Deadlifts, kettlebell swings (if you know the skill), or box jumps.

Fingers: powerful climbing movement practice—i.e. training on a board.

Choose three exercises and progress the volume over time. Two to three times per week is a good target for most athletes, though twice per week for a month should be plenty of time to gain a power adaptation. Once familiar with the stimulus, you could train power off the wall before every season or climbing trip, generally after a dedicated strength training phase. If done on the same day as climbing, it should be 4-6 hours later. If you’re new to training, do it on a non-climbing day because you’ll be sore at first.

Duration: 2-3 times per week for 3-4 weeks. All three movements per session.

4-5 sets of 4-10 reps/set at 50% intensity for 4 weeks. I propose a broad set and repetition range to give you the ability to adjust as you adapt to the exercises. In the first session, do five reps per set, rest two minutes between sets, and try to hit the same velocity each rep. Aim for rep consistency, ensuring that you can get within one rep of your previous set’s rep count. This method keeps the power high and the fatigue low.

Do not try to complete a predetermined rep number, and don’t evaluate the quality of your workout based on the number of reps you can complete. Remember, you’re trying to maintain your power output. As you get tired,which is inevitable, you will lose power, which means that you will do fewer reps as you do more sets. That’s normal. Eliminating junk reps (here defined as slow, wobbly ones) is the intention. If you come into each session recovered, adequately fueled, and remember that your intention is to move powerfully, you will naturally do more volume.

Here is an example of a power progression with four sets at three weekly sessions. A sport climber might do this at 40% intensity, while boulderers will be better off adopting a twice weekly schedule at 60% intensity.

Session 1 reps per set 5, 5, 4, 3 = 17 reps

Session 2 reps per set: 5, 5, 4, 4 = 18 reps

Session 3 reps per set: 6, 5, 5, 4 = 20 reps

Session 4 reps per set: 6, 6, 5, 4 = 21 reps

Session 5 reps per set: 6, 6, 5, 5 = 22 reps

Session 6 reps per set:6, 6, 5, 5 = 23 reps

Session 7 reps per set: 7, 6, 6, 6 = 25 reps

Session 8 reps per set: 7, 7, 6, 6= 26 reps

Session 9 reps per set: 8, 7, 7, 6 = 28 reps

Session 10 reps per set:9, 7, 7, 6 = 29 reps

Session 11 reps per set: 9, 8, 7, 6 = 30 reps

Session 12 reps per set: 10, 8, 7, 7 = 32 reps

As you can see, even though the intra-set volume decreases each session, the total powerful repetition number (capacity) slowly increases over weeks. When athletes use a power meter, we see that each set has the same approximate peak power, but the average power goes down over the course of each session. This methodology is power training at its finest and can be applied to any exercise, including on-the-wall climbing training, which we will cover in another article.

In the next article series, we will discuss fatigue types and how they influence our strength and power adaptations.

If you’re interested in measuring and tracking power output with your exercise check out vitruvefit here. Use the code:C4HP10 at checkout for a discount.

For more information on Dr. Tyler, follow him on Instagram @c4hp or check out his website for online or in-person courses (link). In addition to the certification course listed above, he works remotely, diagnosing and prescribing rehabilitation (link) for injured climbers.