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"MULTI-SLOT"
Obj: Endurance/Sport-Specific Strenth/Power
Warm up: Row 500m
Training:
(1) 5 Rounds
5x Band Front Squat @ bodyweight
3x Muscle Ups
(2) 5 Rounds
5x Romanian Dead Lifts @ bodyweight
10x Ring Push Ups
(3) Hike/Run 1.5 hours at 75% Lactate Threshold Pace,
1,400 foot elevation gain/loss
***** Switch modes to Climbing Gym
Warm up: 15x Frenchies, 1:1 work rest ratio
Training:
(1) Team Workout
T1: 20x Bouldering Problems
T2: Laps on Traverse wall until T1 done
Switch and repeat 3x
(2) 10 Laps on Climbing Wall, 1:1 work/rest ratio
20-30x hand moves each Lap to failure
- Carry 15-45# back packs
Comments:
I received this question from Brad:
Hey Rob,
I've written before but now I'm writing again.
There are tons of approaches to strength and fitness, many of them good. In some ways, I find myself repeating the familiar
refrain, "everything works, but nothing works forever." The pop-culture muscle magazines used to be the
main source of "new" programs, but now you can find new stuff online pretty much everyday. From Pat O'Shea to
Dan John to Christian Thibedeau to Alwyn Cosgrove to Athlete's Performance to Ross Enamait to Greg Glassman to Dan John to
Pavel and beyond.
It's all good stuff. I love your curiosity, your xperimentation, and your candor.
I reduce everything to performance--my sport is boxing (sometimes MMA, but right now...mostly boxing). I remember reading
a story you told about participating in a toughman competition once, and feeling really gassed. This despite probably scoring
well into the 300's on Fight Gone Bad. Which I've done as well.
I knew exactly what you meant--after several months of plowing through FGB and various IWT workouts from O'Shea and lots
of time on the Concept 2, plus hundreds of rounds on the heavy bag, the first time I went in for a hard
sparring session (aka, "a fight without the crowd" at my gym), I was toast. I mean, dude. Wow. I slept the rest
of the weekend away after just four 3-minute rounds.
The loose conclusion I drew was that all the front squats and power cleans and other compound movements had probably strengthened
my abdominals quite nicely. I'm one of the only guys to have taken a full-force body shot from a certain pro there and not
collapse. Couldn't say what the other benefits were.
I didn't stop my hybrid workouts, but I didn't see them in the same light anymore. I discovered quite quickly that the
only way to get into ring shape is to get into the ring. So I spar more. I spend much more time on that heavy bag, at a much
higher intensity. I swing a sledgehammer, sprint, carry a sandbag, clean the sandbag, throw stuff, and do burpees. Most of
my weight training consists of deadlifts (as Rampage Jackson from the UFC says, he generates 1800lbs of force in his punch
by "putting his ass into it"),
cleans, front squats, and push presses. Stuff that works the body and hits the midsection.
But every moment spent doing that stuff is a moment not sparring ordrilling. All the power in the world means nothing
if you can't find the opening and connect! And so my question is this: why not just do sport-specific training ALL the time?
I don't know a single pro boxer or MMA fighter who's up-to-date on his CrossFit total or hard workout time. Maybe they'd be
better fighters if they had a really high CFT, though. Who knows? But I'm pretty sure Muhammad Ali and Tommy Hearns had no
idea what they
could bench press or deadlift.
I know your focus is on climbing mostly, but you have a better grasp of this stuff than I do. It's something I wonder
about, for better or for worse.
Thanks a bunch. I know you get questions like this frequently.
Cheers,
~Brad
ANSWER/RESPONSE:
Brad - you did better than me. I lasted about for two 1-minute rounds and was totally gassed in my redneck "Roughman"
competition ass wuppin'!
So why not just go sport specific?
You are right, there are plenty of elite, successful individual-sport athletes who only train by doing their sport. They
don't do any general strength and conditioning at all.
This is not true of team sport athletes - football, baseball, volleyball, etc. I believe there is a strong, proven tradition
of elite team sport athletes training hard in the gym.
It seems there is a age component here. The younger elite individual sport athletes seem capable of doing sport-specific
only training. The older, more mature athletes seem to turn to general strength and conditioning as their career develops.
Andre Agassi is a good example of this. Tennis seems to be one sport where general fitness really makes a difference and
I remember reading that when Andre made a comeback later in his career a big component of that was his general fitness development.
Golf is another example. Athlete's Performance trains several professional golfers and I know that in golf-heavy regions,
gyms have sprung up with golf-specific s&c programs.
But in skill-heavy individual sports, skill does rule. In a boxing match, if you can't defend yourself, and get knocked
out in the 1st round, your conditioning never had a chance to show itself.
MMA, because of the wrestling component, is different. I can't believe many of the top MMA fighters get by without gym
training and metabolic conditioning. Was it Frank Shamrock who said, "conditioning is my greatest submission tool"?
So I guess it comes down to the individual. If you are a new boxer, you'll get the most bang for your buck working on
your skills. Same if you are a new climber - which may be the reason the majority of the guides who make it into my gym are
the most senior - those whose mountain skills are already bomber. I'm guessing the younger guides are doing their "training"
in the mountains on skill development.
There are exceptions, the three young climbers I sponsor, Andy, Will and Neil do both gym and mountain training, hard
and intense.
Finally, there's this idea of "sport-specific conditioning."
We know that in aerobic sports, max heart rates differ by mode. So my max running heart rate is different than my max
biking heart rate which is different than my max swimming heart rate. Elite triathletes will do heart rate tests for each
mode and tailor their heart-rate based training accordingly. Glassman talks about this idea with far more authority than I.
Brian Harder's ski-mountaineering performance improved greatly when he cut down his gym time significantly land started
doing skinning intervals.
It seems you've got it right. Full on, heavy bag intervals in the boxing gym to develop sport specific conditioning supplemented
with max effort lifting in the gym.
"Everything works. Nothing works forever." - is the old Strength & Conditioning dictum. You could also add,
"Athletes are different. Somethings don't work for some athletes."
Sorry for the meandering response ....
- Rob
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