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QUESTION:
Hi, I'm 25 years old and I've
been climbing for two years now, and have been lifting for
three years. I've been off the climbing crag for about a month,
and just started EDT this week— I wanted to ask you how
can I can mix the EDT with the climbing (giving more importance
to EDT). I usually climb two to three hours, three times a
week. Thanks in advance!
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ANSWER:
Thanks for writing! First, EDT is
a great way to improve muscular endurance for climbing, or any other
sport which requires muscle endurance.
The trick is to develop a schedule
that allows you to lift and climb in a way that helps your performance.
After all, if you can't recover from your workouts, your fitness
levels will decline instead of improve.
In this case, you have two choices:
Either perform EDT on "non-climbing" days, or perform
EDT on climbing days. In the latter case, you have the additional
choice between lifting and climbing in the same workout, or in different
workouts (in the same day).
There are a few different ways to
arrive at the best decision:
1) If climbing is your primary training
concern, and you wish to use EDT mostly to help your
climbing, I'd suggest positioning your workouts in such a way that
you're most recovered prior to climbing sessions, as opposed to
lifting sessions. This can be accomplished by placing your EDT workouts
soon after your climbing sessions, to allow for maximum rest until
your next climbing session. This arrangement poses an obvious problem
however— EDT is difficult enough, without having to do it right
after a climbing workout!
2) If you
wish to give equal importance to climbing and lifting,
I would simply alternate between climbing workouts and EDT workouts,
separating each workout by at least one, but perhaps as many as
three days— whatever is required to facilitate adequate recovery.
There are a few other "tricks" that you might also
consider:
1) Climbing is stressful to the hands and fingers — try to
choose resistance-training exercises that are gentle on your hands,
and/or use lifting straps to reduce the load on these tissues.
2) Skilled climbers rely mostly on
lower body strength, whereas novice climbers tend to over-rely on
their upper body to scale their climbs (many years ago I did some
climbing for a short while, and I was in the latter category!).
In either case, leg training should be emphasized in EDT workouts.
For climbers, I like pistols, step-ups, and lunges.
3) Since climbing is an endurance-oriented
event, target maximal strength in your EDT workouts: Instead of
10RM weights, use 6RM loads and start your PR Zones with sets of
3, working down to doubles and singles as you begin to fatigue.
I hope that helped!
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