Start Too Easy

...To Make Big Improvements

One of the most essential components of training is consistency combined with overload. Almost as if a magic potion, you start to see real improvements if you can get these two things to work together in concert. If you’re reading these words, it’s pretty likely that you do some kind of training and you may have some amount of consistency. The thing that comes up time and time again in coaching is that the overload athletes put on themselves during this consistent training can vary wildly.

Consistent progression over a training cycle is hard to get right. The key is in starting at the right intensity level, which is not super simple to determine. The challenge is that most of us go into the gym or out to the crag and we go as hard as we possibly can that day. The next time we repeat this workout, we might or might not be able to go one harder. As we continue through the training cycle, we cease to see progress after even just a few sessions and instead see a leveling curve of improvement that looks very much like a plateau in the second, third, fourth, and fifth weeks.

One of my favorite stories about this trap is one where I recommended a workout called “Route 4x4s” to a pair of climbers. In this workout, a climber will lead a pitch, clip the anchors at the top, and lower quickly to the bottom. They then immediately top rope the route three more times for a total of four laps. The athlete is then asked to rest for a duration equal to the time they had just spent climbing. If two climbers are working together on this workout, it’s pretty simple to just take turns doing blocks of four climbs at a time. As indicated in the name, this would be repeated four times for a total of 16 pitches. This is a big workout for almost anyone.

The two climbers in question are capable of climbing 5.14, but that is for a single pitch at a time. Since I’ve seen a lot of people try to work through this particular session, I recommended that they start at the bottom end of the 5.10 grade. For anyone familiar with these grades, it might seem that 510 is way too modest a level, but with the volume of the training, it certainly isn’t.

It just so happened I arrived at the crag when these climbers had decided to start this workout. Instead of starting at 5.10, however, they decided that a more fatiguing and respectable 5.11c pitch would be appropriate to start. Climber one led the pitch with no problem, lowered down to the ground, and then started up his second lap. By the time he had reached the top of that route, he was breathing hard and trying to fight off a pump in his forearms. He was unable to complete the third lap. If the two were going to continue this workout, it would have been a really long day. Needless to say, he stopped after pitch three and let his partner try the same, with similar results.

To my knowledge, they never tried this session again and probably thought that my recommendations were off.

Start Too Easy

Any time we start with a new overload, new exercises, or a new loading pattern, it is helpful to be a bit conservative at the first part of the training phase. Our tendency to “go hard or go home” can derail long-term progress. With this in mind, my recommendation is always to start with two to three sessions that feel way too easy and maybe even ineffective to the athlete. About the fourth session, we get to a level that feels right to the athlete and lets them think that they are making appropriate progress.

For the next few sessions, we add load or duration in slow, steady increments. At the eighth or ninth session, the loading or duration progresses and it’s usually to a level that the athlete feels uncomfortable with. Often the athlete will talk about how the sessions are getting “too hard.”

We stay with this intensity for a couple of more sessions before switching the training cycle to another focus, and starting in again. By forcing the athlete to do a bit of training that feels under the appropriate level and a bit of training that feels over the appropriate level, we get an important cycle of changes in loading that keep the athlete from going stale.

Depending on the particular adaptation we are looking for, these cycles can range from around 10 training sessions all the way up to 25 before substantial adjustments need to be made.

The athletes that I have coached who have come to me and lamented their “permanent plateau” state are too numerous to list. With athletes who have been stuck at the same level for way too long, simply varying the intensity from too light to too hard unlocks progress nine times out of ten.

I don’t believe in hard plateaus. I believe athletes lack creativity and self-confidence.