Integration Experiment

Today I begin experimentation with a 10-day integration program designed to lead to a short performance peak. I’ve spent most of the last couple of months training indoors and need to transition those strength gains into real world application. Of course it has some foundation because I do this sort of thing all the time but it merits recording because I’m experimenting with a type of taper diet as well.

A little over a week ago I began a 6-day diet designed to cut weight during a low volume period of training without sacrificing any fitness gains. It went okay but wasn’t perfect. I lost 8lbs in a week but performance was sacrificed a bit. This week running a similar template, diet-wise, but beefing it up to accommodate harder training with hopes of nailing what went wrong last time. It didn’t really go wrong. It worked very well in some respects. But my goal is to cut weight and sacrifice no performance so I’m attempting the template under more duress (training load) where nutritional parameters are easier to assess and try and figure how to tweak the original idea.

I begin the week 3lb downs from my high point two weeks ago, so I gained 5 of the 8 I lost back meaning the last attempting promoted too much dehydration or I was indulgent this weekend (it’s a bit of both). Goals are to lose weight while increasing performance comfort outside in three disciplines, running, biking, and climbing.

The details

I chose a 10 day period because the ultimate goal is a perfect tapering diet and you generally taper between one and two weeks for an event. This also coincides with a work trip where I’m supposed to shoot some climbing footage for the P90X2 show and I need to be able to climb whatever routes look good to the production crew.

I will be climbing, running, and riding and training everyday (not doing each daily) as well as doing easy yoga and foam rolling. I’ll be doing three full body postactivation potentiation (PAP) workout per week. These are like a combo of P90X2 Upper and Lower and I’ll post that workout tomorrow.

The diet is low carb for days, around 50% protein with very little fat. While doing this I’ll drink 2 gallons of water a day (yep!) and eat a lot of salt. This, btw, is very difficult for someone who is mainly vegetarian (likely impossible for a vegan) so I’m adding a little bit of meat and fish so that I don’t have to live on protein powder and Shakeology. Hardest thing for me is giving up all the nuts, seeds, and legumes that generally make up most of my diet.

Next I drop the water to one gallon, stop adding salt to food, and add low-glycemic carbs back into the diet. Protein consumption stays high and fat stays low. I normally eat a pretty fatty diet (all healthy plant-based fats from the aforementioned nuts and seeds as well as olives and avocados). This flushes sodium from your body but since I’m not cutting sodium completely it should help cell hydration normalize.

That is only the base template I’m working off of. It’s what I did last time and it’s getting tweaked but I see no reason to post my alterations until I know they work.

The target is increased fat mobilization (as stored glycogen is compromised) and hydration homeostasis. These two things will happen for sure but the trick here is how to do this without a loss in performance. There are many theories on this, of course, but until they’ve been applied with a positive outcome there’s no reason to consider them. My goal is to understand all the subtleties so that I can better advise people on how to do this based on their personal parameters.

yesterday's training; spring conditions on stansbury island.

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.