Advancing Alactic Training
Progressing Interval Work For The Next Level
This article is not so much an introduction to short interval training, but a “what to do next” article when you’re already implementing alactic intervals. Alactic intervals (technically Alactic Capacity Intervals) are designed to train your highest power system and teach your body to recover quickly from maximal efforts. These sessions also seek to increase the number of hard tries you might have in a training session or in a day of climbing on repeated hard efforts such as trying the crux of a project or competing in bouldering. A quick review of the concept:
Improvements in alactic function are critical to sport performance, but you need to have a fair amount of discipline when it comes time to train, lest you end up seeking fatigue in the lactic “second gear.” Good programming will not only seek to improve your alactic (ATP-CP system) function, but also try to improve the relationship between alactic and aerobic training. This is your “power at the crux” system: you know what trying hard feels like...so train that way.
To increase the utilization or power output of this system (to “go harder”), you want to keep the exercise set length short (3-8 seconds) and the effort very high (close to 90%), with long rests. If this sounds a lot like strength and power training, you’re exactly right. In order to increase the output of this system, we build pure strength or power.
To increase your capacity (ability to do many tries over a day), progress toward longer sessions at close to the high loads above, with efforts at 75% or harder. Longer total work time over a training cycle is key...so don’t shortcut this in favor of easier movement.
Before you jump into some kind of alactic-only training phase, remember that the interplay of training for pure strength and power as well as development of the aerobic capabilities of your muscles is critical. When exploring the ideas that follow on training this system, keep in mind that this will only represent a portion of your training during specific parts of the training year. In general, an athlete should do at least one session of alactic work per week to maintain her ability, and 3 or 4 per week to develop either more power or more capacity.
The Starting Point
In building utilization (strength), we’ve had the most success with doing intervals that are 5-10 seconds of effort, with longer rests of up to 4 minutes. This makes for a long session and it doesn’t feel like hard work. To address capacity, we started pushing different exercises into the sequence and then trying to overload the system by changing the work the body was doing during a shorter cycle. This led to doing work on a rolling 30 or 40 second clock.
The specific starting template is as follows:
0:00 <10 seconds Upper Body Explosive or Edge Hang
0:30 <10 seconds Lower Body / Total Body Explosive
1:00 10 second Edge Hang
1:30 <10 seconds Upper Body Explosive
2:00 <10 seconds Upper Body Strength
2:30 rest full 30 seconds
There is not a lot of time for moving around the gym here. I suggest you grab a couple of tools and set yourself up by the Campus Board. A good specific session is the following (loading is my own):
0:00 Campus Ladder 1-3-5-7-9 (on medium rungs)
0:30 6x Kettlebell Swings (~½ bodyweight bell)
1:00 10 second Edge Hang (bodyweight, 10mm)
1:30 3x Campus Doubles (large edges or jugs)
2:00 2x Power Pull-Up
2:30 rest full 30 seconds
The first sessions are built on doing several rounds of 3 minutes, as described above. A series of rounds will be done back-to-back (usually 3-6 rounds per series), with a long rest between series. It is possible to change a few of the exercises between series, but don’t get carried away with chasing variety. You’ll want to see yourself progress in performance and this is hard to see if you’re changing things too often.
