More on 3:2
The Surprisingly Effective Diminishing Interval
If you have been training for climbing very long, you’ve probably come across the idea of doing some kind of interval work in order to help improve your endurance. Even a person that is totally focused on bouldering is going to need to tap into their ability to endure longer durations of power output over a given period of time. Occasionally, we fall into the trap of thinking that bouldering is only about power and strength development. One of the most difficult things for a boulderer to do is to understand that the demands that we are addressing on a spray wall or fixed board are different than the demands that we actually will face outside on the rock.
When we are training for strength or power, we seek out only higher outputs. When we are training for endurance, we too often seek out fatigue.
“If doing 30 seconds of climbing followed by 90 seconds of rest is difficult, then it can only be better training if I decide to only rest 60 seconds. And logically, dropping my rest to 30 seconds will be even more difficult, resulting in even better climbing training.”
Just because it is difficult does not make it good training. Does it not seem ironic that we seek out the highest amount of fatigue possible in the least amount of time while training in the gym, only to turn around and carefully avoid fatigue at all costs, when we are performing at the crag or boulders?
In 2020, my coaches started experimenting with a diminishing interval program. Rather than sticking with a fixed schedule, such as 60 seconds of work followed by two minutes of rest for several rounds, we looked at research that indicated athletes could continue to maintain intensity by dropping the duration of work intervals as the session progressed. What research is finding is that maintaining high levels of intensity is as important, if not more important, then high levels of volume in an interval workout.
In my original article, which was cleverly titled “3:2 Diminishing Intervals,” I outlined a simple session structure. In it, a climber would start with three minutes of continuous climbing, followed by two minutes of recovery. We would then reduce the next work interval to two minutes, followed by one minute and 20 seconds of recovery, following the 3 to 2 ratio, the next set, we would move to one minute of activity, followed by 40 seconds recovery, then to 30 seconds of activity, with just 20 seconds of recovery. This last interval would then be repeated until failure to complete the full 30 seconds of activity. It looked like this:
