Mileage versus Power Training
Hey Steph, how are you?
I was looking through some old Climbing and Rock & Ice mags I found at the laundromat here in Squamish and there were some beautiful photos of you when you were 30 years old (I only know this cause it said so) in Yosemite. The picture in particular is one by Jimmy Chin and you are climbing a 12.b overhanging thin-hands crack called… shoot… I forget the name! But it looks amazing! Love me some hand jams… anyway.I have a quick question:
How do you balance, and/or what do you give priority to:
getting mileage (i.e. long multi-pitches on manageable grades) OR,
focusing on harder projects (climbs at or above your ability).And what is your projecting algorithm?
Many thanks Steph. You are a big inspiration of mine.
Love from,
Freya
Hi Freya,
Good eye: this picture is on Tales of Power in Yosemite 🙂
When I know I’ll be in one place for some time, I usually climb lots of routes that aren’t projects until I get interested in something harder. Then I’ll project that climb–the difficulty I choose totally depends on what my time frame is in the area, because I like to try to pick something I think I can do before leaving. So typically I’ll pick hard routes at a place I’m living or planning to spend a lot of time. When I’m traveling around, I usually like to enjoy doing lots of climbing, so I’ll stay within a climbable grade and do lots of routes.
If I’m at home and not focusing on a particular project, I’ll just go out and climb a lot and work on training after climbing at home, on the hangboard to warmup and then linking sets of boulder problems on my wall afterward and doing core workouts. This way I can make sure I keep the fingers and core strong even while doing mileage.
I’ve noticed that endurance training definitely builds endurance. But I’ve also noticed that if I focus on power and harder moves, endurance also comes easier because none of the moves take as much energy when you’re more powerful, if that makes sense. So if I had to pick one over the other, I’d probably focus on power and difficulty training and expect the endurance to come along with it. But since I really love climbing, I like to go out and climb lots of routes at an easier grade even when I’m focusing on power, and I think that helps as well.
I’m not sure what a projecting algorithm is, so I’m assuming I don’t have one 🙂 But maybe I should….
Hope that helps!
Steph
