[Andrew Bollard]

Hi everyone,

I’m 14 weeks out from an alpine climbing trip and have just started ME for the lower body this week (gym-based progression). My alpine goals are in the AD – D grades. For context, the most technically difficult route I have in mind is the Frendo Spur. My climbing skills are far from being in peak shape at the moment as I don’t have easy access to rock, so I’ve probably only averaged one climbing session a month in the past 5 months of based training. However, I’ve climbed alpine routes with cruxes up to 5b in the past, and I plan on doing 2×2 hour cragging sessions a week for my specific period, so I’m confident that my technical skills will be sharp enough come June.

My question is, is it advisable to run an upper and lower body ME block concurrently, given my goals? It seems like it’d be extremely difficult to manage, even though the fatigue from each session would theoretically be localised and not have so much of an impact on the opposite area. E.g. doing lower body ME on Tuesday, upper body ME on Friday. What concerns me is that combining both an upper and lower body ME block would lead to a very high total global fatigue cost from week to week, which would impact my ability to climb well during my cragging sessions.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this specific subject addressed at Evoke or previously at UA, but I’d be happy to be corrected.

 

[Seth Keena]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for writing in.

With 14weeks you have a lot of time and options for your ME work.

I don’t suggest 14weeks of continuous upper body ME workouts. You may try 2weeks of ME, then 2weeks Max, with a rest week between and after. After this, you could consider going into the ME block of training.

Concurrent upper and lower ME is very hard to manage from a fatigue perspective. Often, I suggest 3-4 workouts with both upper and lower ME in a workout in the 2weeks leading up to the objective; these are ‘simulation’ workouts and are tiring. Around them the load is otherwise relatively light. This is a good time to climb lot of 5c granite with a  heavy pack and the intended footwear, as a specific workout idea.

Blocking off upper and lower ME in 1-2week chunks works well. While you’re doing upper ME, for example, you could do a short max lower workout, like half-dose of hill sprints. Same for the lower ME period.

Hope this helps!

-Seth

[Andrew Bollard]

Hi Seth,

Apologies for taking so long to get back to you! Thanks for the advice, I’ve been implementing the 1-2 week mini-block idea and so far I’ve had good results. There’s definitely scope for an full article about this subject! For the simulation workouts, I interpret that as long multi pitch routes with a heavy pack and alpine boots (I don’t have access to snow and ice in my country so next best thing). I also don’t have easy access to granite; my local crags where I climb midweek are limestone. However I can mitigate this somewhat by getting onto granite in the weekends leading up to the trip.

Andrew

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