when to train
Happy Friday! I'm back in Chattanooga from the Red River Gorge and have plenty to reflect on from my trip. I had a great time, but I'm definitely happy to be home!
On Monday we talked about how to choose when to peak performance (AKA in-season). So today, we will talk about when to train (AKA offseason). Just as a reminder, here are a few examples of when to peak performance:
a planned climbing trip
a good weather (conditions) season where you live
a competition season
We discussed zooming out to then work backwards for when to train and I want to share with you how I've planned my next 6 months of climbing and training.
Here in Chattanooga, the weather heavily dictates the climbing seasons... and the hot and humid summer is fast approaching. When I finished up my bouldering season last month, I knew I had to figure out what summer would look like for me. Things stay very warm all the way until November here, so I knew that I wouldn't want to seriously start bouldering again for 6+ months... that's a long time!!
(Riley enjoying some creek time last summer, he doesn't mind the heat!) --->
I also knew that it was unrealistic to train hard for 6+ months, both physically and mentally. The chance of burnout would be really high and it's difficult to stay motivated for that long. So I did what many folks in the southeast do... I planned a trip out west!
I decided that I will be going to Colorado mid-August. This trip gives me something to look forward to which will help keep the motivation alive. It also gives me a planned performance peak to work backwards from. Typically when I'm in full training mode, I plan for 8-12 weeks of building. This gives me enough time to see results, without the potential for the mental and physical burnout that can result from longer training periods.
About two months of training puts me back to June. But with my bouldering season finishing at the end of February, this still left March, April, and May as a sort of limbo period. I didn't want to be performing for bouldering, but I also didn't want to start full training. This is where sport climbing came in! Sport climbing allows me to still enjoy climbing outside, challenge myself in a different way, and is a good transitional period where I've begun to start some training without being in full training mode.
I'll be talking more about these transition seasons (preseason and post-season) next week. So again, think about what the next six months looks like for you: when are you going to train?
