A forewarning, this a large post.
Once again I would just like to say thanks to everyone for responding and providing me with a whole bunch of good ideas and reminding me about some things I had forgotten about (the modified gymnasts routine for example). All of these things will greatly help me in sorting out a training program.
Coach Davies asked about what exercises/sets/reps I am using so I thought I would write down what I am thinking of doing and then maybe I could get some feedback about how it could be improved. However I do have a couple of things to address first.
Firstly, Flexibility. Unfortunately I really don’t know much at all about this area. So if anyone can point me in the right direction, or has got any good ideas I would much appreciate it. Presently I am only doing 10 minutes worth of range of motion drills before I begin training. I would like to do more work in this area however in my new program.
Secondly, abdominal training. I use a variety of things when it comes to abs. For lower reps I prefer to do movements such as the Hanging Circumduction, One Arm Deadlifts, Hanging Pikes and Full Contact Twists. When I am doing higher reps, basically just seeing how many reps I can do (in total or for a particular time) I rely on bodyweight movements such as Sit-Ups, Sit-Ups with a Twist, Reverse Trunk Twists and Russian Twists. I sometimes do the bodyweight movements in a circuit fashion. I train my abs at least twice a week.
Thirdly, non-conforming object movements. Unfortunately my gym doesn’t have any of these, however I do have a 25 litre keg at home (I did a workout with it just the other week) and I am sure I can dig up or get a hold of some other objects.
Now on to my training plan. Since most of the discussion has been around the weight room, or at least lifting, I’ll just detail what I am thinking of doing for that component of my plan. Just to provide an outline of the whole program though, I’ll be training 5 days a week (in addition to my Saturday climb for fun), and I’ll lift in the gym on three of those days for approximately 1 hour. This then means that I’ll spend 2 days a week working exclusively on training my climbing on the wall/campus board/fingerboard, and about an hour on the days when I lift weights. I have 2 questions here though. 1) Should I lift weights before or after I have done my climbing training? 2) On the days when I do not lift in the gym should I spend some of that time lifting non-conforming objects at home?
Additionally, I am thinking of doing some bodyweight exercises (as per FFB’s recommendation) and GPP first thing in the morning when I get up. This would only be for half an hour (or maybe longer), but would include things such as push ups, finger tip pull ups, burpees and the like. I was thinking of doing what Coach Davies mentioned in another post about GPP and doing 30 seconds of each movement and then going straight to the next.
And finally my planned routine. I was thinking of doing 3 different full body workouts each day I lift during the week. Within each workout I would make my first movement a pull up or a variation on a pull up. My 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc movements would all also be pull up variations, or grip work or abdominal movements. For my 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc movements I would do other functional movements, but ones such as standing press, overhead squat, zercher deadlift, clean and bench press. My reasoning for doing this is that I would be fresher for each of my movements if I did a totally different movement in between similar movements.
Now my set and rep scheme would also follow a similar pattern. For one workout my 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc movements I would use low reps, in the range of 1-6 (and on occasion make use of things such as Poliquin’s 1-6 technique and wave loading), and utilise longer rests. For my 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc movements I would use higher reps, around the 15 rep mark, and use a shorter rest period. For these movements I would make use of the modified gymnasts routine, or try to get 50 reps with my 15RM in as shorter time as possible. For the next workout I would then swap the reps over so I was doing higher reps for my 1st, 3rd, etc movements and lower reps for my 2nd, 4th, etc movements.
Now this is something that I just thought up since reading all the posts in this thread. Feel free to be as critical as you like or suggest something entirely different – like doing a pull workout, a push workout etc. If you would like me to post anymore details or go into greater detail on anything (lifting or climbing) please let know. Thanks once again.