Low Intensity - High Volume

The Endurance Focus program is designed to incrementally build a your endurance, teaching the body to efficiently manage fatigue over extended climbing sessions. The approach incorporates a high volume of climbs at a low intensity, allowing you to focus on maintaining consistent performance over duration rather than peak performance on individual problems.

Structure

The session is structured around a 2-3 hour timeframe, accommodating a gradual buildup in climbing volume without you over-stressing:

Warm-up (15-20 minutes): Initiates with general aerobic exercises, strengthening exercises and dynamic stretches, transitioning into easy climbs to get the body fully prepared for the session ahead.

Endurance Sets (90-120 minutes): You tackle 20-30 problems, organized into sets based on the number of problems. Problems are selected to be manageable, focusing on sustainability rather than difficulty.

Cool-down (10-15 minutes): Concludes with gentle stretching and mobility exercises targeted at the major muscle groups used during climbing, alongside a period of reflection to assimilate the session's learnings.

Balancing Attempts and Sets

Attempts: Each problem within the sets is approached with the intention of clean execution, but the focus is on maintaining a steady pace and consistent effort across all attempts. You are encouraged to attempt each problem once, with the option to revisit specific problems if you wish to refine your approach.

Sets: The high volume of problems is divided into manageable sets (e.g., 4 sets of 5-7 problems), with short rests in between problems (2-3 minutes) and slightly longer rests between sets (5 minutes). This division allows you to tackle a large number of problems while managing fatigue and maintaining focus.

The Focus

This program centers on building endurance, with an emphasis on cultivating a your ability to sustain effort and manage fatigue. The selected problems and the pacing are designed to mimic the endurance demands of actual climbing scenarios, where you must maintain performance over extended periods.

Why This Balance

The balance between attempts and sets in this program is deliberately chosen to:

• Enhance Metabolic Efficiency: Repeated climbing with short rests improves metabolic efficiency, teaching the body to recover more quickly and to utilize energy stores more effectively during prolonged climbing sessions.

• Build Stamina: The frequent periods of low intense climbing alternated with short rest intervals effectively condition the body to postpone the onset of fatigue, ultimately boosting both stamina and endurance.

• Promote Consistency: By focusing on maintaining a steady effort across a large number of climbs, you learn to pace yourself and to apply consistent technique, which is vital for longer climbing routes or days.

• Minimize Injury Risk: Despite the high volume, the low intensity and focus on endurance rather than power reduce the risk of overuse injuries, making it a safer way to build climbing capacity.

This structure and balance support gradual endurance building, allowing you to extend your climbing sessions and tackle more challenging routes with confidence. The focus on managing fatigue and maintaining consistent effort prepares you for the demands of both bouldering and sport climbing, enhancing your overall climbing performance.