Minimum effective dose

Physical Training
1

A climb strong bectel thing. After a month of working on the road and being mostly too battered to train or not having facilities I probably logged 4)5 climbing sessions in the gym that month, maybe a halff dozen pull workouts.

Not much training or climbing at all.

This week I am back in SLC and having short see essio MN a qt SLBP.

First kettlebell protocol in over 6weeka, swings punctuated by ISO, more swings with heavier weight, heavier weight on the ISO and longer duration of sets and more reps, a coupla moves (curls) by a considerable ammount or the next bell up.

Imagine my surprise when I blew past my max hang on a 20mm lattice edge (10secs) for a new PB when I am probably heavier (not weighed m’sen in a month or so). Heavier weighted hang by 3% heavier full stop by 5-6lbs

Recognizing that sometimes max hangs & weight work requires the mind and body to be in sync and that night I was kinda on one it is still a huge surprise .

Couples with this I am climbing fucking well.

Lots to process and figure into the next block of training.

:question::question:Any thoughts on this​:question::question:
Specifically is my experience normal, average, median or left of centre :question: I simply have no baseline for me or anybody.

What, if any, are your experiences with minimum effective dosage when working with weights or bells or max hangs❓

Note: I have become a puller from fixed objects on a frictious climbing handy tool thingy for about two/three months now and have seen gains in hanging and in overall ability to pull and grip hard

Note : last Saturday I pBed my pull from the floor offa jug at 210lbs which is only 28lba shy of my last PB with a max hang .

Nite: my general trend this past six months has been positively upward in pretty much all aspects of climbing. From the head game , the highballin’ the gym work and even the comp shennanigans.

Note: I have been heavily leaning into skills not strength for the past month or so

Appreciated :heart: all any any comments​:grin:

2

The concept of minimum effective dose has been around far longer than Climb Strong, or any of us.

I suspect your experience is abnormal in that most people don’t recognize it for what it is. I’d bet 90% or more of climbers who are engaged in training are doing more than what’s effective, and likely suffering from it.

I’d ask the question - then do you need to do hangs at all? Are you gaining finger strength from climbing still, and from being better rested? I’d push the experiment that direction (and have many times - including right now, which I’m detailing in the patron episodes. For instance, one of my endurance measurements doubled in 6 weeks while doing no endurance work at all, and only two or three 60-90 minute sessions each week).

3

The finger pulling protocol indo takes less time than the hanging protocols I do and is less faff. (A sling around some kettlebells or a rogue frame and I am good)

I have seen increases when I do the pulling every climbing session (5/6 times a week) and when doing it 5)6 times a month)

Would you recommend following the latter or the former for the next training block.

I deffo feel that shoulder wise the pulls are less grind on me than the hangs and I have pretty good form (coach assessed).

I suspected as much, Steve is my reference point, I might do more research to find his no predecessors in on this vibe.

I would also note that last week’s comp I climbed well after a month of relatively little.climbing, inside not feel rusty.

Whoever said that the best answer is simply another question needs kneecapping. :thinking::scream::rofl:
Thanks

4

Worth considering this:

Which is a weaker link - fingers or shoulders? If shoulders, I’d definitely hang. If fingers, pulling might be the answer.

5

I did shoulders for best part of two years with lattice. Lots of shrugs and scapula activation.

I should look into seeing how my shoulders are. Although last time I got videos of me reviewed shoulders did not come up

Although I have put my neck out and for this next block I will train finger pulls once a week.
See how this minimal dose works.
Test in a month.

6

Pretty interesting topic to discuss I think.
Because the volume you wanna do lies somehwere between the Minimal effective and the Maximally recoverable volume, right?
As Chris said, most climbers are probably at the upper end or even above and therefore not getting stronger because they are underrecovered so to say.

It would be very nice to get some numbers regarding that. Might it be hours / week, sets / week whatsoever. Although, this will be highly dependend of the athlete individual, I would guess there is not a very huge difference in hangs / hangtime taking intensity into concern.

An example for max hangs would be Hörsts recommendation of 2-5 sets of 5 reps of 10 seconds max hangs, not taking frequency into account. I was just thinking if volume per session and per given time frame (only considering sets and reps here) has to increase enormally with climbing grade or its mostly just the intensity (weight)[would love to hear @Kris observations from the practice regarding that]. I think thats also a concept right, that you try to get adaptions from more intensity but not volume in regards to strength. If you dont get them anymore you raise volume?

As we see, obviously also comes into play with this. Say we have a MEV for a given timeframe. There will also be a minimun effective stimulus per session right? So the hypothesis that i would pose is, that its usually better to split sessions, to have a higher frequenz stimulus = higher frequent adaptations, of course taking appropriate recovery and minimal effective stimulus of a session into account.

I know i maybe came off the path a little bit, but the title triggered me to get this out because I was thinking about it the last weeks. Reason for that is that I am injured right now but can train fingers form the floor (lifting pin) and I now programmed myself 2 finger sessions in a 5 days microcycle (Session A: 5 sets of 10s hangs, session B: 3 sets of open hand and 3 sets of pinch, all same percentage of max)

Let me know what you think.

Thank you for listening!

7

Good read mate😁

I’ll give you my progression roughly.
Lots of hanging = lots of time with a number of 7/3 or whatever protocols

Quit hanging basically cold turkey and went to pulling from the floor (kettlebells used as ballast for an over coming isometric protocol) . One pull session every training session (maybe 10-15 mins)
Increase in max hang on a 20mm edge with weights (of about 5%± increase at the same bw)

My pulls are simple, a variety of hand position and max for 6secs X3 reps a side, 15mm edge, .open hand, half crimp back 3 front 3 12mm edge, pinch, jug (I can pull 210lbs off the floor with either L/r😁

Moved to one pull protocol a week for this block of training.
I am playing around with the minimum effective dose. And I decided one a week is THE next step.
I feel good and strong and maybe a wee bittae less shit than late last year.
I will test max hang in about 6weeks. See what has happened .

I may be stronger🤔

Overall I have parred down my training the past few years, really focusing on not piling on the volume. A lot of sessions I barely break a sweat.

I like the vibe of minimalist training and am enjoying the process .

My focus is more qualitative than anything else previously.
I have also been able to free up another evening to not train. :grin:

Being my own coach is aheadfuckery. :grin:Pure experimentation.

1 Like