Final Thoughts On The Workout From Hell

I guess it’s time to wrap up The Workout From Hell. I keep amending it and now it’s just a climbing training program, so I see no further reason to evaluate it as the WFH. This confirms, as I surmised from day one, that’s it’s more of an off-season program. Whether or not it’s worth your time is up for discussion, so let’s take a look at my results. I’ll summarize at the end but will start with a review of each phase of the program.

Block One: 30 reps: I found this to be good general conditioning. Perhaps because no other training focuses on high reps to failure it seemed to stimulate a lot of new fitness. In climbing I felt as though I could hang on longer. I definitely feel it’s a benefit and will continue to incorporate 30 rep phases into at least one block of training per year—something I used to always do in the 90s.

Block Two: 15 reps: While it’s technically necessary to transition from 30 reps down to teach the muscles to recruit higher threshold muscle cell motor units I’m not sold this has to be an entire phase. This is consistent with my thoughts from the 90s.

Block Two B: 10 second reps: This was hugely helpful for hypertrophy. For gaining mass with limited means (weight) it’s the ticket. In fact, even with all the weight I could want I would use super slow reps again any time I’m looking to create hypertrophy.

Block Three: 5 reps: Again, important for recruitment but I’m not sure it needs an entire phase to create this, given so much sport specific training is recruitment based.

Block Four: PAP (postactivation potentiation) training: This I think could be a breakthrough but in the constraints of the WFH I could not test it thoroughly. I think that it could evolve into the most efficient way to increase your power base.

Block Five: Climbing training. This is not really a part of the WFH but it’s still the most effective training for climbing, using almost any of the known modalities. Climbing is too specific to jump out of the gym and kick ass, if for no other reason than that your skin needs to be conditioned no matter how strong you get.



Overall impressions on the white mouse: As I guessed earlier I didn’t get the timing right. Most climbing specific training needs to be done prior to your actual season because the specific adaptations you need to climb hard (and a lot) take some time to develop, most notably skin. While I felt that I had the fitness to throw myself at hard routes I simply didn’t have the skin condition on my hands or feet to handle it. I would say that you need at least a solid month to climb yourself into specific shape at the end of the program.

My base fitness, however, is quite good. On 10/10/10 I did 10 routes from 13a down (12d, 12c, etc) which is a very good day for me, and something that I probably haven’t been able to do in some time. However, I think I could have gotten to this point quicker using a more specific training program, or maybe even just climbing. Where the WFH should shine is over time. As my climbing specificity comes around the deep base that I have should, in theory, allow me to push harder and longer.

For this reason I would recommend the WFH as an offseason program only. I would recommend doing it alone, during a break from climbing totally. I don’t see any benefit in concurrently attempting to do both, as I did. Because your climbing must be dampened, to the point where it’s not gaining you any fitness, it is simply a diversion from your actual goals.

As a base program whether it’s better than P90x, Crossfit, or whatever is up for debate. I added a lot of outside elements (yoga, PAP) that definitely made it more effective than the traditional program. What we have outlined here is a well rounded fitness base program for anyone. As I’ve begun getting back into my mountain sports I feel much more stable, and much less apt to get injured. I began this program with a somewhat major injury and I feel I’ve got it licked.

Modification Recommendations

This winter I’m going to flip flop the structure and do this again. Since I’ll be training for climbing, cycling, and running I will be doing this will getting ready for a full endurance sports season. This is a totally different focus than last time, when it began as rehab.

First, I think the hypertrophy phase should be isolated. If you need muscular size gains make them early, as far away from competition as possible.

Next, bring in the PAP training. Power takes the longest to build, as well as to educate(neuromuscular coordination). These should be the main focus in the off season. I think you can build power in one realm while building aerobic base in another. I will be putting this to the test.

I think the muscular endurance (30 rep) phase can be done quite close to your season. The gains made here are somewhat fleeting and seem tangible to climbing. I think you could do a three week cycle where you gain a lot of endurance and lose very little power.

But no matter how you train, for climbing you need to climb. So get outside--or at least into the climbing gym--as much as possible when you’ve got a big project to send.

So that’s it. My six month travail ends with no amazing breakthroughs, though with some new light shed. And that’s always the point; to learn something new with any endeavor.

To see the entire Workout From Hell series click here.

re: what better way to wrap this up than lynnie looking marvelous? maybe the snowbird comp from '88. oh how things have changed.

Doper!

I’m a doper. A cheat. An un-American scallywag who has obviously put winning ahead of the principles of our greatest athletes. You know, folks like Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wait, what?! Um, ok, never mind. Anyway, if I were subject to a drug test right now I would fail because I’ve been taking a legal substance that has recently been added to WADA’s banned list.

But here’s the rub: it does nothing. I mean, it’s complete garbage as an ergogenic aid. WADA claims it has some “anabolic properties” and, thus, they’ve banned something that’s been on the market for decades that has caused no great shakes in the performance world.

Early in the WFH I decided to dust off an old supplement strategy that I’d tried 20 years ago. It hadn’t worked then but I wanted to confirm that. One of these supps, Mesabolin, is actually a plant sterol called ecdysterone. It’s pretty common and shows up in a few plants. Anyway, I hit it hard, first with prescribed dosages and then with double that... and... nothing. Well maybe a little bit of gastric stress but not a tad of performance enhancement.

And now it’s banned, which I don’t care about at all except for the fact that it doesn’t work and I’d prefer it if WADA actually focused on things that are, well, doping and not some nutrient that you can get by eating completely natural plants.

So anyway, here’s the review of my WFH supplement strategies. Nada. I pretty well knew the argentine/pyroglutamate wouldn’t work because tests done on oral argenine have never confirmed what’s been done using injected argenine and I pretty well confirmed that. And now I've confirmed that ecdysterone does nothing, too. That is unless you are a competitive athlete. Then it will get you disgraced, turning you into a bitter scourge of society who’ll be bummed that you didn’t just suck it up and call Michele Ferrari and get on the real stuff so at least you could have gotten banned with some money in the bank.

Size Matters

I recall a conversation while watching an old training video of Ben Moon and Jerry Moffat that went something like this.

PERSON ONE

Makes me feel like training.

PERSON TWO

Makes me feel like not eating.

In gravity sports weight is key and there’s no way to beat around the bush about it. Sure, there’s an occasional mutant who climbs hard without a totally lithe frame (see most of the WFH pics as examples) but it’s far from the norm. Gravity ensures that no amount of muscle strength can offset the power and endurance increases that you make when you lose weight. We see a more telling example in linear sports such as cycling where technique is not as varied. When roads are flat heavier riders rule. But as they turn upward weight becomes more and more of an issue to the point where the fastest times up mountains are from men who often resemble elves. There’s a simple reason why no one wins the Tour weighing more than about 150 pounds and it’s the same as why no one could keep up with Legolas on a three day run: size matters.

In any training program for climbing weight should come into play at some point. Like cyclists, runners, boxers, and wrestlers, most of us don’t walk around at fighting weight. And it’s not just because we like to drink beer and eat ribs in the offseason. These sports require us, at our best, to weigh less than our bodies naturally would.

The strategy for how to lose this weight is tricky. When doing high volume training it’s easy to lose weight but, if you are trying to increase muscle mass at all, it’s impractical to under eat because you risk not recovering from exercise and, thus, wasting the time you’ve been training. Therefore, I always target weight loss while I’m power training.

Overview note: this is only if you are already at your natural weight. If you have excessive weight to lose it should be done during all phases of your program, as far away from your actual competition dates as possible. This type of weight loss should be slow, steady, and accomplished by eating clean and exercising. Today’s example is how to get down to fighting weight only.



Anyways, so why during the power phase? Because power training is lower volume and higher intensity than any other phase. This means that you aren’t as hungry as when your body is altering its amount of muscle mass. Thus carbohydrate consumption can drop without your brain going into full revolt (your brain functions primarily on glycogen). In short, the power phase is the best time to streamline your diet to recover from exercise and feel good.

I began the WFH at 173. After the hypertrophy phase I’d creeped up to 178. After three weeks of power I’m at 165. I accomplished this without a lot of suffering or going into nutrient bonk. My technique is a combination of the Shakeology Cleanse, zig zag dieting, and an old trick we used to call the egg diet.

The egg diet was a ridiculous Atkins-stage-one-type of thing where we’d eat a ton of eggs (for protein) and little else to boost our metabolisms. My current plan used only used one aspect: eggs for breakfast (3 eggs with some diced veggies). My next meals are Shakeology, sometimes with some added fruit. Shakeology shines here because it’s so nutrient dense, or high in nutrients while low in calories. Dinner, also a-la the Shakeology cleanse is a salad or something similar, like a veggie dish. I allow any healthy additives: nuts, seeds (always chia for me), legumes, more eggs, balsamic/olive oil (no meat). Overall calories for me on these days is low. I don’t count but they’re in the 1000-1500 range.



Finally, I enact zig zag principles, eating one to three days per above (three to four days per week total) and normal on the other days. This way I stay strong and energized and can continue this diet for as long as it takes to get to where I want to be. Each week I tweak it slightly, based on the prior week’s success, until I’m ready to rumble.

vids: another option for weight loss is to simply watch vision quest, exercise like a madman, and not eat. “why do you want to get smaller and wrestle a small guy?”

WFH: Back On The Board

Moving into the final phases of the Workout From Hell consists of, finally, doing a lot of climbing. No matter how you train for climbing it’s never going to be effective without doing a lot of climbing. It’s such a subtle sport that nothing prepares you for it like doing it, and doing it a lot. Because without climbing regularly not only does you kinesthetic movement suffer but more simple factors, like having ample skin thickness for hanging sharp holds and pain tolerance and wearing tight boots will keep you from applying the strength gains you’ve made.

On Saturday I warmed up at a cliff then came home and got on the board (home boulder wall) for the first time since last winter. I went through my training circuits and easily did each problem. Then did some of my harder problems, most of which went fairly easily. I stopped prior pushing myself too hard as my skin and fingers aren’t up to intense movements yet.

Two things were clear: one that my base fitness is stronger than it’s been in years and the other is that I feel so awkward that I may have left this final phase a little late. It takes a while to transfer fitness onto the rock and my schedule is hectic right now, meaning I get out less than normal so I can’t spend whole days climbing and the transition will be a bit slower than normal. This isn’t a huge deal as I can always push the season a little longer. When our weather gets bad there are generally climbable windows well into December.

Here’s the overview plan to put the WTH to use in the climbing season:

Part I is two to three (or even four if it’s going well) weeks of climbing hard three days per week. For me this means trying to onsight and redpoint at my limit so that I finish each day tired. If climbing two days on, like on a weekend, I like to work routes at or above my limit on day one and then do mileage on day two.

One full body (but not climbing specific) PAP workout per week (probably on Monday). This is cross training to keep preparing for next year’s agenda (more on this specifically later).

The mid week climbing day will also have some training around it. I’m experimenting with PAP as a part of actual climbing performance and will post what this consists of if I find that it works.

One or two days of running, riding, adventuring each week. Two if they are shorter days, maybe only one if it’s a long outing. This is moderate exercise that serves a threefold purpose: prepare for next year, help lose weight for climbing, have fun (since this stuff is kind of what I live for).

A few yoga sessions per week.

During this period I’ll pick a few projects that seem doable this fall. Part II will then be to concoct a short training cycle (similar to this one) and finish my season by trying them.

pic: peter croft ropeless on the rostrum. he calls is mileage, more call it adventure, most call it madness.

Postactivation Potentiation For Climbing

File this post under purely experimental but, for those of you looking for an edge and willing to take some risk, here ya go. This is what I’m doing currently on my climbing specific days. If you stumbled upon this post randomly you’d best read the backstory first. In fact, you should probably read the entire Workout From Hell.

Warm-up must be thorough, just as it would be for any campusing workout. Mine varies from a slow dynamic warm-up, to bouldering in the garage, to actually going climbing. I follow this with some light band work for all the upper body muscles. The point is that you’re beyond just warmed up before hitting the boards; you want to have put your muscles through some duress.

Complex I

4 sets. About 1 minute between sets. Move to the next exercise as quickly as you are ready.

Hang, two arms small edge w/weight to failure (3 to 8 sec tops—if you make 8 add weight next set), campus board ladders (1,3 5, 7, 9 - ideally harder moves done here but it’s about all I can handle at the moment--sad), lock-off kips (see Patxi’s vid) 8. Wall Clock.

Complex II – take a short break, maybe 2-5 minutes

4 sets.

Hang, two arms big ball pinch (Kehl board) to failure w/weight (a lot of weight in this case). Campus—touches, 4 each side (1-4-1 is one) or to failure, Ab swings (this is on a steep wall, one foot on extended, cut feet swing out, replace other foot, alternate) 10, Wall Angels 1 minute (holding each up position for a slow six count).

Physio ball complex (pike, side crunch, rollout, extension) 2 sets of 10 each

PNF stretching session (self using a yoga strap)

This workout should be treated as a template where you add/subract things based on your personal needs. For sure it could be a bit more involved but it’s power training, where short and focused is almost always superior to long and compromised. Hopefully further understanding of postactivation potentiation will lead to revelations over the winter.

pic: dano always preferred his complex movements with some circumstance. “I think what they really need is a hint of death.” – henry chinowski

PAP Smeared

My climbing specific postactivation potentiation training is finally coming into focus. The downside is that with October around the corner I only have another week or so to test it before I’m climbing 100%. The upside is that I see winter training going very well indeed.

But we’ll get to that during winter. For now, the goal is to integrate the Workout From Hell into climbing (i.e. convert the big dumb muscles I created into explosive and efficient machines). Since the WFH isn’t climbing specific the PAP workouts should not be either. So I’m splitting each week into lower body, upper body, and climbing specific (trunk/core done differently each day) with the rational that if the entire body was trained in the base phases all the new muscle must be coverted to enact higher threshold muscle cell motor units. Today we will look at a sample upper body routine.

I am 100% convinced that the best climbing training is specific, and this is not. The WFH is offseason conditioning only. In the on season there should be a peak where all you do is climb, perhaps with a day per week doing a maintenance workout.

There is also a question as to whether or not legs and trunk should be trained much for climbing. Certainly weight gained in this area is a bad idea and no amount of muscle strength will offset gravity. Trunk of course is vital but legs trained effectively can become efficient without gaining any mass. I feel it’s helpful, especially if any muscular imbalances exist (and they likely do) and you do any sort of approaches during your climbing season.

I’m only doing each workout one day per week, then climbing outside (still pretty easy) two days and doing one long easy day of something (hiking, riding, climbing long easy trad routes). Ideally I would do two per week but given there is a lot of trial and error and I want to peak soon not overtraining is a priority.


in my backyard blurring the line between recovery and breakdown, climbing and hiking, and offwidthing and standing on gert's ridge, mt. olympus

The Workouts

An example leg workout was given in the last post. Keep in mind these are only samples and are based on what my weaknesses are. They are generic enough that you should be able to experiment with them youself.

For upper body

The warm-up is dynamic. After some easy mobility movements (reachers, huggers, other 90X stuff) I do 3 sets of 10 reps of 4 different exercises with the bands: flys, one-arm rows, military presses, bus drivers (band version is pulling the bands to each side). These sets are light. I follow this some dynamic medicine ball movements to activate fast-twitch muscle fiber, followed by foam rolling my upper body muscles: 3 sets.

First complex is 4 rounds of:

Curl to Press (done slow with max weight) 5 reps, Clap push-ups (exploding as high as possible) 6, Inverted Rows (upside down push-up or pull-up with feet high so body is horizontal) 10, bus drivers (heavy band this time) 20 seconds.

Second complex is 3 or 4 rounds (depending on how I feel) of:

Towel pull-ups (holding onto towels for forearms) 5, Push Press 10, Low to High Wood Chop w/heavy weight 5, Wall Clock 8 pumps each side (sort of like this).

Core Work is two sets of 2 minutes of plank on elbows and 1 min or supermans.

Rice bucket.

Stretch out.

When I look at these workouts on paper they don’t look so bad but they absolutely destroy me. I think it’s because I’ve so little power work and so much endurance work over the last decade. Then again, at P3 I see a bunch of folks who do power sports for a living struggling as well, so maybe it will always be like this.

pic: isabella dans l’extreme, at least in her fashion sense, in another amazing cover of alpi rando, certainly the only magazine ever dedicated to edgy women’s climbing fashion.

WFH: Integration

Today let’s get back to the Workout From Hell, which has now moved way beyond Largo’s vision. I’m still working with PAP training, and will post my actual workouts when I feel as though they are good. Currently it’s a lot of trial and error. I call this phase of training Integration since it takes the base fitness gained during the program and integrates it into sports specific strength.

As usual, I put too much verve and too little caution into my first trial with PAP, which forced me into a recovery phase to avoid injury. So I’ve taken nearly two weeks off of intense upper body work. My recovery has included some intense lower body PAP workouts that are addressing some hip instability. After 12 weeks without a break a recovery block was in order anyway. I should have scheduled it prior to needing it.

These PAP workouts are structured as thus: a lengthy ballistic warm-up, followed by two rounds of complexing. The first round is usually four exercises: a slow heavy muscle contraction movements done 8-10 reps, followed by an explosive movement that targets a similar area for 4-6 reps, followed by two more movements of 30 seconds (each side is it’s unilateral) for a targeted weakness for something in the chain that supports the above. A sample would be:

Bulgarian Squats, Split Jump Squats, Side Bridge, Wall Slide

I move through each complex steady, not resting but also not hurrying. The key is that each movement should be hard and done at 100%, which perfect form. I then do another complex series of three movements, and then cool down with some mobility workout that features a lot of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching.

I realize the above sample is not very climbing specific. That’s because I’m unsure how to best accomplish a climbing-specifc complex series. I’ve been experimenting with the usual suspects: campus board, hangboard, systems wall. I think I’m on the right track but still searching for the “a-ha” moment when I know I’ve stumbled on that perfect sequence.

So far I’ve done no bouldering. I’ve been steadily climbing but it’s all been static and controlled in an attempt not to cross over the slow and controlled movements of the WFH. As integration progresses I’ll introduce dynamic climbing back into the equation.

A lot of people are afraid of dynamic training. But when you are involved in a dynamic sport—as climbing is if you’re actually trying—your body should be able to handle force under controlled situations (like campusing) if it’s going to withstand force in an uncontrolled situation (dyno for an unknown hold). Otherwise it’s not a matter of if you’ll get injured but when. The trick is controlling the training loads so that you don’t get injured. This is a lot harder than it sounds as climbing training tends to get competitive, which very often ends badly. For example, here is me being silly (wrist and ankle weights along with a weight vest) and getting injured:

pic: the legendary ron kauk integrating his strength onto the rock. chi is also a form of integration, hence the karate pants for added power.

Why Train?

Climbing is easy. Training is hard.-Patxi Usobiaga


I’ve been training now for 10 weeks and looking at my stats, not much has changed. I weigh about the same. According to my scale my body fat is about the same. I currently feel tired, beat up, and yesterday I fell off a route that I do easily when I’m not training. Most importantly, since I began this program to rehab my back and it’s hurting as I type this, so you might think I’m a fool for doing all this work in the first place. If my back isn’t better, I’m not climbing better, and I can’t even oil myself up and pose anyone down then why, pray tell, am I bothering to train at all?


It’s a fair question and I have a very reasonable answer; it’s my job. I need to experiment if just to get a better idea about what works and doesn’t. That way when we film a program to sell we have a better understanding of why it works the way it does. Theory is great and all, but when it comes to training programs practicality is all that matters. We run our prospective programs through test groups and use those who succeed to market our products. But before we test a product on the masses we test it on me, and I use my experience to decide if it’s ready to test on a larger audience or if it needs to change.

But that isn’t the real answer. I trained like this when it wasn’t my job . It’s my passion, and has been so since I was a little kid. I like to see how training affects the body and I’m always looking for the next great secret. And even though some of my experimental training programs have worked and others have not it’s pretty safe to say that training as an overall lifestyle works pretty well. As I approach 50 I can look back and say that I’ve put my body through the wringer and it still works better than most. I’ve had a countless number of minor injuries but I’ve avoided major injury and never had a surgery. And while pushing my limits has resulted in overtraining, minor breakdown, mistiming a peak and countless other setbacks my body’s ability to perform, according to the Jack LaLanne age test , still pegs me at 29, the peak age for a human.

Countless hours are frittered away discussing training theory; what works, what doesn’t; is Insanity better than P90X?, Crossfit better than HIIT?, Mentzer’s “Heavy Duty” or Arnold’s “Encyclopedia”?, yadda, yadda, yadda.... You know what works? Exercise. Do enough of it and you’ll be fit. The rest is nitpicking.

But that’s not to discount the importance of training scientifically or even the merits of my modern version of the Workout From Hell. If you want to maximize your body’s ability to perform than you need to train it specifically. During the years I was climbing hard and training I improved systematically every year. Many of my friends, who didn’t train and only climbed, never improved. Their performance would vary slightly at times but, basically, they remained the same over the years. My performance would dip wildly throughout the year as I’d be training for a specific peak. The casual observer would see the non-training group climbing better most of the time. But during peak phases, the only thing that really matters to an athlete, my performance would improve more than theirs each year like clockwork. In a year or two it was hard to tell the difference but after 5 years of solid training my peak periods started to improve to the point where those guys didn’t want me getting near their projects. Training works, but you need to be regimented and patient.

Which brings me back to the WFH. I was fit to begin with, only injured, so I wasn’t looking for a lot of change in the mirror or on the scale. Intensity has increased as my workouts have become more movement oriented, causing new adaptation to occur and, hence, my feeling beat up. I strained a different muscle in my back but it’s minor and my actual injury seems fine. I was horrible climbing yesterday because I went straight after my workout to see how it would affect me. That it did means that my training is working. My upper body muscles are larger so my body fat scale is probably wrong (they are almost always wrong anyway). Power is always a challenge for me. I knew this final phase was going to create problems. But I’m both positive and psyched. I think it’s working. Sadly, I still can’t pose anyone down .

pics n’ vids: patxi, ‘my talent is being a masochist’ from the film progression and the posing master, ed corney.

Defining Strength vs Power

As I move into block III of the Workout From Hell the program is starting to divert from the original format. My goal at the beginning was to modernize an 80s program and the final round, 5 reps of old school weight lifting, doesn’t make a ton of sense with what we now know about training. So I’m combining the 5 rep strength phase with some dynamic power work. Before I go into what I’m doing I’d better begin with an explanation of the difference between power and strength.

Many text book s would define these as synonymous and to the average person they are. Power equals absolute strength, which is the maximum amount of force that your body can create. But in a training sense they are different. Strength is the force that you can create statically. Power is the force you can create dynamically. When it comes to sports performance these are different animals.

The traditional 5 rep to failure sets in the WFH would help with static strength. For some sports applications it might make sense to focus on this alone for a block but for climbing purposes it feels like wasting time. Using the principles of PAP training, I can use the strength training to begin my power phase, by finishing each of the sets with a power movement.

Power training, especially for climbing where you are stressing smaller upper body muscles dynamically, is very intense and dangerous (meaning easy to get injured). Using PAP principles I can use this next block of training to ease into my dynamic (integration) block by following my weight training sets with large muscle dynamic movements.

The only climbing specific dynamic movement commonly used is campus boarding, which is dangerous, so I’ve added a few twists to this. These are moves that I’ve either seen in other applications or made up myself. Therefore I’m experimenting with my exact workouts and I’m not going to post them now because I think I’ll tweak them so they’ll be more efficient over the coming weeks.

In general, however, here is what I’m doing:

I’ve changed the days so that I do pushing motions one day and pulling the next, followed by stabilizer and mobility work. I’m doing far fewer exercises and doing my compound movements. My push days include chest, shoulder, tris and pull days include back and bis. I do three ab/core sessions a week, an A, B, and a C.

Hangboard work is now 4 sets of three different grips. Each set is 5 second one-arm hang (the other arm holds a scale so that I can tell how much weight I’m taking off and how much I improve—or decline—each workout). I rest for 2 minutes between sets. I’m following some of my sets with a low-impact dynamic set on the campus board, but more this later as I experiment.



I’m continuing my rice bucket forearm sessions after any day that I train my fingers and I’m climbing, but not maximally, 2 days per week.

What started as an old school program has reverted to modern trial and error. I guess this is a homage to the 80s and early 90s as well, as that’s exactly what I was doing back then. We’re getting into the sink or swim of the program. Will I end up stronger or injured? Is this a lesson in what to do or what not to do?

pic: above: more wolfie and kurt; what's power to most is strength to them. we really don't know how long the held their one-arms, it could have been endurance. below we see gullich clearly in power mode on action direct, which for ages was the hardest route in the world. he's also defining the unwritten rule that singlets may only be worn by those who can do one finger campus moves.

Capacity For Strength

Super slow training is excellent for gaining mass. I gained four pounds in the last three weeks. But big muscle is not necessarily strong muscle. To get a positive net effect from these gains I’m going to need to teach these bigger muscles how to perform.

Society has a misconception about mass, thinking it automatically means athletic. But many big guys aren’t strong, at least in an efficient way. Hypertrophy training makes muscles grow but it doesn’t force recruitment of high threshold muscle cell motor units. So while a larger muscle has more capacity for strength, it needs to be trained differently in order to become strong.

All athletes need to do some sort of power training in order to maximize their physiology for sport. Even endurance athletes and those who don’t need to perform, like bodybuilders. These latter groups won’t target power because their goals lie in other realms but it needs to be a component in their training because muscular efficiency (power) increases its ability to be trained toward other goals. For example, distance runners who take a cycle to train power always see more improvement than those who train the same way all of the time. Ditto for bodybuilders who only care about size and not muscular performance. They will still benefit from some power training because it increases the capacity for more hypertrophy.

Power athletes are the easiest example to use to explain this because their sports are all about getting as close to 100% muscular efficiency as possible. What sets two powerlifters with the same size muscles apart? Technique and mindset, sure, but what about when these are equal? It comes down to muscular efficiency; the ability to fire every cell of every muscle. And the only way to train for this is to use explosive movements. At P3 last week Marcus said, “We don’t do any slow training whatsoever.” This is because it has no application for power sports, which is what they work with.

Here is a very simple example to understand. A friend of mine was an All American football player as a junior in high school. In order to “get better” he went on the juice and gained a lot of mass over the summer. He was huge and looked like a monster. But because he did not understand the importance of power training, and just assumed his large muscles would be stronger, he ended up getting slower. He lost a step in the 40 and went from All American to 2nd team All League and, hence, from a D1 scholarship to a D2 walk-on player. He did, however, look more impressive on the beach.

So now that I’ve spent a few months getting larger muscles, all I’ve effectively done is increased my capacity for strength. If I can effectively train these larger muscles to be as efficient as my smaller muscles were I’ll see performance improvement. Otherwise I’m just, to borrow Jack LaLanne’s term, a muscle bound charlatan.

pic: sometimes big is enough. wfh author largo puts his size to the test, hoping it's enough to intimidate a tribe of headhunters.

Don’t Wanna’ Look Small

I can’t wait to get back to playing outside but I’ve got to admit I’m enjoying my journey back into old school weight lifting. To me, it’s very hard to beat a day out in the mountains but being kept away from the things I love is adding to my psyche. However, working out to Pumping Iron everyday (not many weight lifting videos in my quiver) could be brainwashing me. My wife says she’s a little worried when she hears me screams from the gym like “I’m not satisfied… I’m gonna beat him!” and other iconic lines from that film like, “don’t wanna look small.”

I know, full well, that the Workout From Hell is not the most efficient way to train for climbing. Chris Sharma’s probably never lifted a weight in his life. But it’s the hand I was dealt, given my injury, and my plan is the make the most out of it. But just because it’s not the most effective plan does not mean it isn’t a good one. I’m quite certain that I am improving many weak points. Concurrently I’m losing some strong ones but that’s how training always works. The strong areas come back quick. The hope in all these shenanigans is that when those areas are brought back to speed I’ll be better than ever.

My plan with this WFH is to address as many weak points as I can fit into the schedule. So I’ve decided to prolong my 5 rep phase to include an extra 2 plus weeks of super-slow workouts. I’m still doing 5 reps (per the original plan) but each rep is 5 seconds in one direction and 5 seconds in the other. For a 5 rep set that’s 50 seconds, which is hypertrophy—even glycolytic—and not anything like power.

These super slow reps stimulate the body’s production of IGF-1 (insulin growth factor 1). Because you’re contracting the muscle for the entire set its stressful training so the number of exercise sets I’m doing is much reduced. I’m doing six sets for the large muscle groups and 3 for the small. The weight I’m using is about the same as what I was using to do 15 reps. My warm-up is longer and more thorough (because set intensity is higher) and the time between sets is longer, now around 2 minutes and more focused on when I’m ready for a hard set than a set amount of time. The goal is to treat each individual set as if it’s your entire workout, then worry about the next one.

I’m doing this for two reasons. First is that I’m cool with a little hypertrophy. After two phases I’d lost a total of two pounds. And since I’m gaining a little muscle mass it’s probably from a leg atrophy as much as from fat loss. This will be good for climbing but I know that once I start riding and running again the legs will come back, so I’m fine with having a bit more upper body mass to help haul those legs around. This will hurt racing up hill but at 170 + pounds that’s never going to be my forte anyway. Also, since climbing movements are often slow—especially as you’re about to fall off—I think it’s important to train slow as well as fast. You need to be able to perform in both areas to climb your best: from nailing dynos to eeking out precarious balance movements. Also, adding this phase works with my work/travel schedule better because these workouts are easier to do in random gyms—no small matter.

pics: even if Jerry Moffatt did the hardest routes during the 80s most guys would rather have Wolfgang Gullich and Kurt Albert’s arms, and they weren’t too far behind.

Transition Phases

There aren’t transition phases built into the Workout From Hell. That’s not a mistake though, to be sure, periodizational training wasn’t as common in the 80s as it is today. When each phase of a program follows a straightforward progressive overload principle transition phases aren’t as necessary. Let’s take a brief overview as why you sometimes want to transition between phases and other times you don’t.

In its simplest sense it depends on the total intensity of the program you’re doing. In P90x, for example, you’re simultaneously training across various energy systems to your maximum. Your body is stressed in many various ways so that there is a pretty short window of opportunity for improvement before hits a plateau from simply overstressing itself. Another modern program, Turbo Fire, combines HIIT (high intensity) training with more traditional cardio (low intensity) and bases its transitions (recovery phases) on the overall intensity of the phases so the amount of time between transitions varies throughout the program.

Because the WFH only targets one energy system in each phase, which changes every three weeks, you don’t need a week of doing something different in between to adjust (like 90x). You will find, however, that your body can’t react right away and this provides you with a self-induced transition phase. When you drop your repetitions the first workout or two are a learning experience. Your body has become accustomed to doing a higher number of reps (time) and there is an adjustment period as it tries to recruit higher threshold muscle cell motor units (intensity).

To aid your body’s transition I recommend beginning the first few workouts in a phase with exaggeratedly slow movements. In the WFH you shouldn’t be moving fast anyway but, in almost any program, when you begin a new phase you should concentrate on technique first. Only when technique is mastered do you want to begin to push intensity (weight, speed, etc).

Keep in mind that intensity doesn’t equal hard in your mind. Intensity is defined by how stressful an individual exercise is on your body, not how hard it feels. Low intensity workouts can be very hard and painful. Try riding your bike for 8 hours, or doing one of Debbie Siebers’ Slim Series workouts. There are no hard movements it still hurts. Conversely the most intense exercises might not hurt much at all (unless you get injured). A box jump wearing a 40lb weight vest won’t tire you out but it will put incredible stresses on your body. This is why there are times, especially in a complex program like P90X, where your recovery weeks can feel harder than the rest of your program.

pic: for your retro viewing pleasure, more catherine destivelle

Supplement Strategies

I’ve been asked to blog more about supplements so I’ll start with a post on what I take and why. As many of you know, I’m referred to as Beachbody’s white mouse; meaning everything we make gets tested on me first. But I don’t just test what we make. A lot of what I test ends up on the cutting room (or is it bathroom?) floor.

Over the years I’ve tried hundreds, if not thousands, of supplements. My impression is that supplements are over-hyped and most are a waste of money. There are, however, cornerstones that I use as part of my daily diet and an occasional supplement I find vital for max performance in a given situation. The problem with supplements is that we hype them the same way we do drugs. They are not drugs. The upside to this is that it’s VERY hard to hurt yourself with supplements. The down side is that our expectations tend to be too high.

Supplements are food, or condensed food. Most can be consumed in their natural state and, if we ate well, many would be unnecessary. While this means they tend to be safe it also means we don’t “need” them. However, using proper supplementation strategy can help us live healthier and perform better, especially when we train hard and even more importantly when we’re dieting and exercising.

I break my supplements into basics and situational. Basic supplements are things I take pretty much all the time. Situational are those I use depending on what I’m doing. Let’s look at these first. In the same way that your diet should reflect what you are doing, so should the supplements you take.

For example, two of the most proven supplements in history are creatine monohydrate and 4 parts carb to one part protein recovery formulations. Neither are daily tonics. They are for given situations. Creatine is useful when you’re training hard and trying to build muscle or anaerobic strength. If those are not your goals it’s not only a waste but can interfere with your diet by encouraging your body to retain water to increase cell volume. Recovery formulations are only for when your glycogen stores are extinguished which takes hard exercise or starvation. No one eating well and exercising 30 minutes a day or less would ever need a recovery formulation. In fact, it would be terrible for you. However, when your training hard, eating lean, and using up your body’s limited glycogen stores the stuff is more valuable than gold.

Basics are things you should take everyday, like food. Since it came out Shakeology is on the top of my list. It’s like a healthy insurance policy in a glass.

I begin every morning with three Joint Support Formula capsules, one Core Cal Mag, two Omegas, and an Activit tablet. At night I take another Cal/Mag tablet and a vitamin with my Shake. I look at this group of supplements as part of my diet and nothing more.

Besides situational supplements that I know work I’m often playing my white mouse role by experimenting with something new or different. Currently it’s this protocol, and the jury is still out on what I think of it. My next block of training (experimenting with The Workout From Hell) is going to include something different, which I’ll report on if it’s effective. I’m also playing around with coconut oil and chia seeds. The latter is just a food but hasn’t become a staple yet. I think it will become so. I’m not yet as sure about coconut oil’s status as medium chain triglyceride. As fall rolls around and I begin to care more about my performance I’ll stop experimenting and revert back to proven supplements that work for whatever my goals are.

Cortisol & Your Exercise Program

Since I just finished another pump-inducing WFH workout it seemed like a good time to post on cortisol. Back in the 80s it wasn’t a big topic. Well, it actually was a big topic but marketers had yet to catch wind of it so no one talked about it. But, if you’ll recall the no-fat phase that ran from the late 80s to early 90s, cortisol was a big reason behind what was going on.

First off I should explain what cortisol is. But I’m not going to. Denis Faye of The Real Fitness Nerd has done a perfectly good job in an article archived at Beachbody. Click on this paragraph if you’d like to know more about it and what you can do about it.

Cortisol has various tasks. It's instrumental in controlling blood pressure, and it also supplies emergency energy to the body. It does this by decreasing insulin sensitivity and stimulating something called gluconeogenesis, the creation of new glucose from amino acids. Unfortunately, these amino acids come from the breakdown of body proteins through a process known as catabolism. In other words, during times of stress, cortisol aids in breaking down muscle mass for use as energy.

Most of you have only heard of cortisol due to marketing hype, which Faye also covers,

A few years ago, a wave of supplements hit the market vilifying the stress hormone cortisol, claiming that it caused an accumulation of excess fat. While this "fact" helped companies like CortiSlim® sell plenty "cortisol blockers," there was a tiny problem. It's complete hogwash. So let's set the record straight, shall we?

What I’m going to discuss today, which the article doesn’t go into, is the bird’s eye view of cortisol and how it affects your workouts and your results. I mentioned it in a 80s post because one of the no-fat era’s poster ailments was anorexia. Most of you know what it is, I’m sure, and cortisol is a big part of it because when you don’t eat your body releases excessive cortisol in an emergency response to lack of calories. When this happens regularly you get into a vicious circle of chronic cortisol release, which keeps catabolizing your muscle tissue, not to mention throwing your body’s hormonal cycles off which can lead to major illness over time.

But cortisol issues don’t just happen to anorexics. Everybody beginning a new training program goes through a period where they produce excessive cortisol. One of the things that happens with excess cortisol is released is water retention. When we retain water we feel bloated and this bloated feeling can lead us into another Catch-22 situation where we either stop eating or stop training hard. It’s vital that you do neither.

Cortisol is somewhat of an emergency hormone. You are supposed to get more of it when you’re under stress because it enhances your performance (it’s a banned PED in sports). When you are training you release more in the adaptive phase of a program. As long as you stick to your diet and exercise program (assuming it’s of sound design) your body will adjust. You’ll stop retaining water and your performance will increase as will your results.

What often happens is that we react to this temporary weight gain and exacerbate the problem. Women often mistake this as building muscle mass and quit pushing their weight workouts or quit the program they’re on. This always infuriates men who only wish muscle could be gained in a matter of days! Men, however, especially fit men trying to gain some mass, sabotage their programs by getting scared about losing their ripped abs and stop eating at a time when your body needs more calories than normal.

So I guess the whole point of this post is to tell you to see your program through to its end. By cutting it off early you don’t give it a chance to work as it’s designed. It’s also an excuse to post a pic of some more great 80s fashion.

Life Without A Shirt

“When you haven’t been laid in three months there are more important things than climbing. This spring I'm wearing tank tops to school everyday.” – semi-famous climber to me (loudly) while doing curls and eyeing a hot girl in a gym



My workouts in the WFH aren’t 100% about climbing. I’m also a cyclist and runner and, though injured, I’m not willing to let the muscle groups that support these activities slide much in order to climb harder. I once made this sacrifice. I’ll go into depth on how during the power phase of this program. Today I’m just going to address what I’m doing that doesn’t facilitate my climbing endeavors, mainly because I’ve been asked about leg work during the program.



While they need to be functional, legs are little more than dead weight for a climber. It’s funny that so many climbers are also cyclists because the body type needed for maximum performance in each is 180 degrees opposite. Cyclists have massive strong legs and try and keep their upper body muscle to an absolute minimum. Conversely, climbers build their bodies to resemble apes. Since I want to do both at a reasonably-high level I need to compromise.



My WFH journey mainly started with an injury to my back that didn’t allow me to either run or ride. Now that I can do these a little I’m slowly bringing them back up to speed. Day 2 on the schedule includes legs, which are done at the end of the workouts. And at least two days a week are devoted to some “track” drills for running, usually done as my warm-up for the day’s workout. These are day to day activities. What I do is simply what I can do. Right now it ain’t much.

Because this is climbing-specific journal the details are not important. I just wanted to point out I was doing more exercise than listed. Most of us have some other interests in life. Whether those interests are sports specific, wearing tank tops to school, or looking good naked it’s important to note that this program can still accommodate your interests.



vids: in the 80s, no one exemplified the important aspects beyond the climbing lifestyle like patrick ‘the dream maker’ edlinger. note the subtle differences in the original version and the more straightforward parody. after all, when it comes right down to it, none of us can dispute the importance of german techno music about robots.

WFH: Beefin’

I know, 15 reps is technically endurance but after three weeks of 30, 15 makes you feel like you’re training for Mr. Olympia. Back in the Shed Days, when Phil and I would venture into our iron phases we’d always have the same reaction: “I forgot how everyone at the gym is trying to gain weight.” As climbers all we ever wanted to do was get lighter. Most of our friends, in fact, thought we were high for going to the gym at all. Hence, weight lifting became known to us as “beefin.”

Climbers can’t afford a lot of beef. Gravity is too forceful. Gaining weight will offset any strength gains you can make so it becomes vital to only allow hypertrophy happen in muscles that you need for climbing. Large muscles may look good on the beach but they are anchors when you’re hanging off of one digit. This is why the Workout From Hell is structured the way it is. Most hypertrophy is gained when you fail between 8 and 12 reps, which is why there’s a phase of 15 and another of 5. We're doing our best to avoid gaining mass.

Some hypertrophy will occur. There is no way around it and, frankly, it can be helpful if done right because your muscles need to function in balance. To accomplish this it’s important to both keep your schedule focused on climbing muscles primarily and to make sure you hit 15 reps. The latter is easier said than done as most of us are conditioned to fail in the 8-12 rep range. Eeking out those last three are vital. You should fail on occasion, of course, but don’t get in the habit of always picking up too much weight and failing early.

Largo said the 15 rep phase is for strength. While technically inaccurate—never tell a strength coach you’re doing 15 reps for strength without expecting to be slapped—you are teaching your muscles that got conditioned to endure 30 reps to re-focus on 15. As your engrams engage you are actually getting stronger. So Largo was correct even though you’re not working on muscle cell motor until recruitment.

My schedule is varies somewhat from the 30 rep phase. My reasons for changing are personal. Yours should be too. So instead of just reading this and following along you should assess your strengths and weaknesses and alter the schedule accordingly.

Warm-up

I couldn’t do even easy yoga for a while but now I can. I do Rodney Yee’s Back Care Yoga as a warm-up. This, of course, is very specific to my situation.

Day 1

I’ve described the new hangboard routine. I climb outside once or twice a week but only on easy routes, 12a and under, and I only do short sessions (up to about 6 pitches).

Front pull-downs get moved to day 2. This is interesting and personal. Using bands for 30 reps my rear delts were taking the brunt of this exercise early on because I was out of balance in this area and, using bands, the elastic force created more need for stabilization. Now they are mainly a lat exercise.

In place of these I’m doing forward bend lateral raises at about 30 degrees and have replaced the standing lateral raises to front raises.

I’ve stopped doing the band overhead tri extensions and replaced them with chair dips.

Day 2

I now do five back exercises. The first is band pull-downs which just aren’t that hard so they are like a transition exercise between the warm-up and the workout. I then add front pull-downs for a fifth exercise.

I then subtract a chest exercise. My chest, while not big, is much bigger than it needs to be for climbing. I consider each movement done here to be fairly climbing specific.

Fingertip push-ups
Dips
Close-grip push-ups.

I’m adding more legs and core as I can. Most notably I’ve begun using the Ab Roller in sets of 15.

Day 3

Same.

pic: kauk and gullich beef it with sly to morph into hollywood-approved climbers.

Lab Rat Redux

We have a new supplement guy here at Beachbody. His name is Dr. Bill Wheeler and he’s got a lengthy and impressive resume and will take our game to a new level. We’re working on improving most of our current supplements and adding a ton of new ones, as well as obtaining state-of-the-art certifications for everything we make. But we’ve got to keep our work conversations focused because when we get together we seem to drift off into what the latest research is showing and then theorizing about how this could lead to breakthroughs in diet and supplementation. This is often way beyond the scope of what we’re going to provide our customers in the near future but for me, as a human lab rat, it gets my brain spinning over possibilities.

Currently, however, I’m doing sort of the opposite. Along with the WFH I’ve begun a retro supplementation regime. Over time “de rigueur” supps come and go but, occasionally, things that work well fall off the radar for no good reason. Back in 1990 I was experimenting with a line of supps from the company in the pic. These guys had some fringe stuff and ended up getting closed down when some of their biggest sellers went onto the banned list. I’d become a test pilot for them during a period where I made tremendous fitness gains. I didn’t associate much of this to these supps but I’ve decided, given I’m in the business and all, that I should give these another run around the block.

The only supplement I’d used from these guys that got banned with GhB, which became a popular party drug and ended up killing a few celebrities who OD’d on it. I used it for recovery as well as to help me get to sleep. In 1990 I was trying to revamp me body from one of a lower body power athlete to an upper body endurance athlete. I was simultaneously catabolizing leg muscle while building up climbing muscle (back, shoulders, arms) which meant I was doing some wild training and eating a very low calorie diet. When you’re doing this it’s hard to sleep because you’re amped at night like Louden Swain in the 80s film Vision Quest, but that’s another chapter in the Workout From Hell saga.

Today I’m just announcing that I’m experimenting with Arginine/Pyroglutamate/Lysine and what they called Mesobolin. There's probably a reason they've never gotten popular but I’ll let you know how it goes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some studies to read on the difference between "fast" and "slow" proteinsm something on the fringe I just learned about from Dr. Bill.

WFH: Zigzagging Into Block 2

With block 1 in the books I finally get to start lifting some weight. Largo says “you'll savor going to the gym because you don't have to crank off 30 reps on every exercise” and I would tend to agree given I’ve been thinking about what 15 reps will feel like over the last week. It’s time to add some weight and actually feel as though I’m getting stronger. It’s also time to get a little more nitpicky about my diet.

After block one I feel good. I’ve lost about a pound and my body fat seems to have dropped a touch, or not much change as expected. The only downside is that an old shoulder injury flaring up, which was expected given that I’m pretty sure something in detached in the joint (which is quite common for athletes). The drop in volume will help this. My back is also getting slowly but steadily better. At this point I’m certain it’s a re-herniation of L5S1 but it ultimately doesn’t matter. I know the drill. If my rehab doesn’t work I’ll require cortisone and/or surgery.

The schedule for block 2 remains the same but many of the movements will change along with the repetitions. Largo emphasized standard lifting movements but, as I said at the beginning, I feel it’s important to focus on exercises that relate at least somewhat to the muscles you need in climbing. Even doing 15 reps, which is technically muscular endurance, will create some hypertrophy and avoiding adding mass that is not responsible to sports specific movement is vital. No strength gains can offset the effects of gravity. I’ll spend the first week experimenting with movements and post them later.

Fingerboard workouts get more focused. For this block I use Mike Anderson’s advanced routine:

Advanced Hangboard Workout:
If you’ve been training for awhile and you believe your body can take the punishment, then this higher volume workout may be better for you. Choose 6 grip positions, then do 3 sets on each grip. The first set I do seven reps each 7 seconds long, with 3 seconds rest. The second set is six reps of seven seconds with 3 seconds rest. The third set is five reps of seven seconds with 3 seconds rest. I take two minutes rest between each set within the grip position, and three minutes rest between each grip.

I also begin to diet. Namely, I’ll begin to zig zag my caloric intake. I’ll begin with 4 days “on” and 3 “off” and transition to 5 and 2. During the on days I’ll limit calories to around 1500. Off days will be closer to 3000. Since the volume of my workouts is down from normal (I do a lot more exercise than most people) I’m not sure where this will settle in. As with all dieting some experimenting is always necessary. One key element is that on my low-cal days I need to get some protein each time I eat. I’ll go into why in a later post but the gist is that when workload is high and calories are low it’s vital that your diet has as much protein as possible and eating small amounts often is the best way to make sure of this.

pic: we didn’t just have a yaniro board back in the day, we still have one. 20 years on and it’s the de facto board at the shed, in santa barbara.

WFH: A Tribute To John Bachar

As I finished up the last workout of the first block of the Workout From Hell I was reminded that John Bachar died one year ago. Bachar was a climbing legend, arguably the best climber in the world in any given period between the late 70s and mid 80s. He was also one of the first climbers who attempted to utilize cutting edge sports science and apply it to rock climbing. No remembrance of climbing training past would be complete without a nod Johnny Rock (click here if you’d like to read my personal obituary).

I’d like to thank eMurdock (whom I don’t know) for posting this image of one of Bachar’s training logs over at mountainproject. Written in ’91, years beyond the time he was establishing cutting edge routes, Bachar was still training like a youngster at the top of his game. In fact, his tick list of solos for this given day was still state-of-the-art for its time.

Bachar was one-of-a-kind. In his wake he still inspires me the same way he did when I was a wide-eyed fledgling in the sport. But mainly what I remember about him was his passion. For those who don’t click on the link to his obit, here’s my favorite Bachar quote:

“Every day I go out and climb, like a dancer who works on his dance. He probably has some goals, some pieces he would like to perform, but his main goal is to work on his dance. This is how he expresses himself. Both he and I are interested in the same thing. It’s the dance that counts.” – John Bachar 1957 – 2009

Milk Is For Babies. I Drink Beer.

Largo wasn’t too descriptive about his Workout From Hell fueling strategy. This matters little to me as I’d likely alter it anyway but it’s funny to read and no problem to post in its entirety:

Good balanced vitals, a basic multi-vitamin, plus a little extra C seems to do the trick. I also tried to drink a couple of light beers an evening for no apparent reason at all!

In block one I’ve altered this very little. Shakeology in place of the vitamins and striking the light from the beer is the extent my diet so far. Beer is worth some discussion at this point because comparing mass produced beer, even light, to microbrews is like comparing Wonderbread to homemade whole 9-grain.

Beer has a long history in fueling climbing performance. Inebriated pub banter has led to some of the boldest ascents of yore. I personally recall a few hazy evenings in Yosemite’s Mountain Room bar followed with my friends goading me to lead a pitch that I had no business trying because I’d boasted, a few pitchers into the previous night, that “it might not be too bad.” I doubt I’m alone when I say that some of my scariest leads came about due to beer.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here. Nutritionally beer can be better than a lot of the junk we eat regularly. Mass produced beer, however, is the junk we eat regularly as it’s made from the same crap ingredients that fill most of what you find at the corner 7 Eleven and the middle isles of your local supermarket. Mass produced beer doesn’t even bother with traditional ingredients and, instead, is often fermented rice mixed with various by products of genetically modified corn and/or soy production. Microbrews (real ones, at least, as the big corporations sell imposters that still contain nothing but junk and are flavored by extracts) actually use various plants (barely, hops, etc) in a combination that has a decent nutritional profile and are loaded with phytonutrients. So when Arnold boasts “Milk is for babies. I drink beer,” in the classic film Pumping Iron, it was only veiled hyperbole. As a performance fuel, handmade beer is nutritionally superior for adults than mass produced pasteurized milk.

Beer aside, I generally don’t diet during the first block of an intense training program. You need to eat in order to fuel recovery and I generally eat fairly well. My goal in any volume phase is to fuel for recovery and not to worry about weight loss or any sort of body composition change. Over the course of the program I will make dietary changes in order to address it. If a program has a power phase, as the WFH does, I’ll generally do it then because power requires more rest, shorter sets, and burns fewer calories. For that I plan to dust off another chapter from the archives but that’s a topic for another time. Today we’re talkin’ about beer. And climbing.



HEMLOCK
If you hauled beer up here you’re crazier than I thought.

BEN BEAUMON
I may be crazy, amigo, but I’m not stupid. I didn’t haul it up here. You did. It’s in your pack.

pic: beer is such an iconic part of climbing that it's used in ads, or at least is was in the pre-photoshop 80s.