Episode 40: BONUS EPISODE: Logical Progression: Part II with Steve Bechtel

BONUS EPISODE!  We're giving this one to you guys for free as an example of what you could get as a patron of the podcast.  Starting soon, we'll be creating one or two special "patron only" episodes per month as a bonus for those of you showing your support.  So if you were thinking about becoming a patron, now is the time!

For as little as $1 per month, you'll get more content.  If you aren't stoked on the recurring option, and would rather just contribute a lump sump ($20+ per year), we have that option as well.  

We plan to have tips from the pros we interview, conversations and rants from the crew, and Q & A sessions with our guests.  Really, anything we can dream up is fair game.  

Not interested?  No problem.  We'll still be giving you the same great content you've come to expect, as often as you expect it.  

Special thanks to our Facebook Community Group for the great questions in today's episode!  

As always, you can find Steve Bechtel at: Climb Strong

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Kris Hampton  00:00

Hey everybody, Kris here.First off, this is a part two. So if you haven't listened to Episode 39, you should go back and do that first. Second of all, this is a bonus episode, an example of what you might get if you became a patron to the podcast. We're going to be pretty soon starting patron only episodes once or twice a month, in which you'll get tips from the pros that we interview or short conversations between Nate and I and the rest of the team sometimes. And Q and As much like this one with Steve Bechtel. You can become a patron patreon.com/powercompanypodcast. Or you can click on the podcast tab at powercompanyclimbing.com and should be self explanatory how to sign up. If you don't want to become a patron, no big deal. We're still going to be giving you the same amount of free content that we do now. Likely more in the future. That seems to be how we roll. Enjoy.

Kris Hampton  01:32

We're back. What's up everybody? I'm your host, Kris Hampton. Welcome to the Power CompanyPpodcast brought to you by powercompanyclimbing.com. I am sitting here in the good weather today, though it sucked the last few days, in Lander, Wyoming, with fan favorite and honorary co host, Steve Bechtel. And we just had a conversation about his new book Logical Progression, which all of you should have already gone out and picked up if you have not already. Get online and order it. It's on Amazon. Right, Steve? So okay, you can get it on Amazon. Logical Progression is what it's called, using nonlinear periodization for year round climbing performance. And I posited the question to... I guess I didn't really ask them a specific question, to our Facebook community group and just told them I was going to be talking to Steve today. And you know, for any of them who had read the book, or just had general questions for Steve. They hit me with some some good questions here. So good job community, you guys are thinking out loud. And I love it. So let's just start from the top here, Steve, from Kyle Hindon. He says, and this could be a whole other podcast and probably will be at some point, but why are second tier routes so overlooked? And why are they important? You do mention in the book that, you know, a lot of people spend more time projecting instead of at the second tier, which is an important place for them to be. But it's sort of an aside, away from the main topic of the book. So let's just dig into that a little bit.

Steve Bechtel  03:21

Yeah, that's a, that's a good point. The second tier is overlooked, because it's, I don't think it's as big an ego boost as sending a new hard route

Kris Hampton  03:36

Or sometimes even just saying, I'm working on

Steve Bechtel  03:39

 Right, my draws are, right,

Steve Bechtel  03:41

 Yeah, it's really great, like, you know, to to be on a route or to be seen on a route. But you've always got to remember that your ego is not always your best friend. And there is a time for projecting and I think projecting way above your level is also appropriate at some times. But for the most part, the second tier is useful. And let me just describe second tier here in case somebody doesn't know. First tier would be the the level that you're trying to red point, your hardest send, or maybe the grade above that. And then the second tier would be two and three grades below that. So if I'm projecting a 13c, second tier might be 13a or even 12d. And what's useful about second tier routes, is that you can send them relatively quickly, right? Yet, they're probably not something that you could onsight. So they're giving you enough improvement stimulus that you actually have to be present for them. But like I said, you can do them quickly. Usually people can back off two to three grades and do those routes within two to four tries. And so one of the huge benefits of second tier is when you're peaking and you're redpointing really well and say you're a weekend warrior, you're going to work on your project on Saturday, and, and probably have some good goes on it. But here's how your Saturday looks, you go out and you do two pitches of 5.10, you do one pitch of 12a, and then you get on the project, you give the project, a couple or three burns. And then you pack it in for the day. Because you're, you know, you've worn yourself out. What happens during that time, and Kris and I've talked about it in the past, is that your fitness is actually dropping, because your efficiency is improving. And so you we tend to get more efficient on these routes, and then we try to save ourselves, we aren't pushing outside our red zone. We're not doing you know, extra laps, at the end of the day.  We're not trying other climbs. So when we're in a peaking phase, we drop in fitness. And so where a second tier would come in would be maybe on that Sunday, or on if you get to climb during the the following week, would be to go out and have a whole different climbing day where you're working on 12+/13- routes that are going to still help you keep your fitness up and still help you improve those highly technical skills that you wouldn't get just doing mileage.

Kris Hampton  03:41

 Yeah.

Kris Hampton  06:39

Yeah, and I think I think something that's important to note is that you have to be completely honest with yourself about what those second tier routes are. Because I've seen a lot of people who are very project averse, and they, they don't like projecting and part of the reason for that is because they don't quite understand it. So what they deem to be their second tier route might not be their actual second tier routes. You know, you said something important that it should be a couple numbers below your hardest red points or your project. But you shouldn't be able to onsight it. And I talk to so many people who are onsighting at their top level, because they don't understand how to project or, or just don't like it or whatever. But if you're onsighting it, that's not your second tier.

Steve Bechtel  07:33

Right. And a lot of people don't believe in their ability to climb hard. And so you've seen that on my onsight is 11d and my hardest redpoint is 12a

Kris Hampton  07:41

Right.

Steve Bechtel  07:41

That I did second go.

Kris Hampton  07:43

Yep. 

Steve Bechtel  07:44

There's a really great you know, 8a.nu is a really cool tool, if you go in and look at the top climbers in the world. Yeah, because you can see their onsights and the redpoints. And and one of the one of the big rules of thumb in climbing is that most climbers that are that are successful, can go four grades or one full US number grade harder on their redpoint than they can on their onsight.

Kris Hampton  08:08

 Yep

Steve Bechtel  08:09

There's a little bit of variability there. But but for the most part, if you're not there, you're probably lacking in one or the other. And so then the second tier falls somewhere in between those. 

Kris Hampton  08:19

Yep.

Steve Bechtel  08:20

 The other thing I'll say about second tier is, it's your opportunity to get better at climbing. Your first tier almost always defaults to something that you've you'd like. It's endurance-oriented, because I'm an endurance climber. You know, if I'm going to break into the new, the next higher grade, it's going to be a kind of route that suits me.

Kris Hampton  08:41

 Right. 

Steve Bechtel  08:42

The second tier is my opportunity to bring up all those skills that I've been lacking, you know, so if if we're still at that, you know, 5.13 as a 13a as a second tier, you should be doing 13a slabs or finger cracks or whatever you're not good at. 

Kris Hampton  08:59

Yeah, totally. 

Steve Bechtel  09:00

And, and that's it. That is your opportunity for growth.

Kris Hampton  09:05

Yeah. All right. Let's look at the next one. Pablo Fernandez says in Steve's strength book, he recommends the get-up as the single best exercise and with the popularity of the deadlift, including your own book,  is that still the case and why?

Steve Bechtel  09:24

I think if you could only do one exercise the get-up would be best because there's more total body involvement. 

Kris Hampton  09:32

Right

Steve Bechtel  09:32

 There's a lot of mobility and stability in the shoulder with the getup, 

Kris Hampton  09:36

Right

Steve Bechtel  09:36

And the core involvement is very similar to to climbing. And so I still think that's the single best exercise. The deadlift is the best hip hinge exercise and the best for creating that tension in the posterior chain and there's really not a situation where you should have to choose between one or the other.

Kris Hampton  09:40

Right.

Steve Bechtel  09:41

But I do, I do believe you should do the minimum possible of each one of those, because, again, they fall into that supporting stuff. And we we want to keep in mind that, you know, like the climbing is the thing.

Kris Hampton  10:18

 Yep. 

Steve Bechtel  10:19

Deadlifting, I probably pull once every 10 days now. And I'll do maybe three sets of two, and I can still maintain my strength from last December. So we're talking in May. So five months of very low volume, very infrequent, deadlifting and I can maintain the same strength. I just need to be strong enough to climb. I don't need to set a deadlift record. And so the same thing with the get-up. The get-up is nice as a warm up. It's nice as a, you know, strength session in between bouldering days. And it's much less neurologically damaging than the deadlift. When you're pulling heavy on those, they can set you back a few days.

Kris Hampton  11:08

Yeah, and I think the get-up is a really great awareness tool as well, because you can really break it down like a really hard boulder problem and focus in on a lot of the tiny little things that are going on to make a dead..er...to make a get-up really good.

Steve Bechtel  11:25

Yeah. And it's, it's doesn't take much. Like one of the one of the workouts we'll prescribe for our athletes is out of a book by Pavel Tsatsouline called Simple and Sinister and it's five sets of 10 swings, and five sets of one get-up on each side. And it's it's pretty simple to get through and it gives you a whole lot. And then you know, again, we've got this strength covered. Move on into your skill based bouldering.

Kris Hampton  11:56

Yeah, I started almost every strength workout I do with with three get-ups on each side and three sets of 10 swings.

Steve Bechtel  12:05

Yeah, it's a very good place to start.

Kris Hampton  12:07

Yeah. Okay. Brendan Quinn, who we mentioned in the last episode, has a big overarching question here on how would you like to see the principles and philosophy outlined in Logical Progression impact the future of climbing training?

Steve Bechtel  12:27

I, what I'd like is for all climbers to have all the options, you know, to have all the tools that that that are at their fingertips, so they can look at it and say, okay, maybe I should try this instead. What I would like to see is people that think they're too busy to train, or they just can't stick with the organization of it, find out that they can still progress. 

Kris Hampton  12:58

Right.

Steve Bechtel  12:58

 And, and the underlying thing that I try to put forth with all of my athletes is that there is a way forward and it doesn't matter how old you are, or how injured you are, or

Kris Hampton  13:12

How little time you have

Steve Bechtel  13:13

Yeah, you you can get better. I mean, we have, I'll give you a good example. There's we have this really well known Alpine climber and rock climber that lives here in Lander, his name is Mike Lilygren. And he did his hardest...

Kris Hampton  13:30

Dancer

Steve Bechtel  13:31

Yeah. And a dancer, right. He did his hardest climbing maybe in the mid 1990s. And he's getting close to 50 now, and he's now surpassing that level from the mid 90s.

Kris Hampton  13:44

I just saw he's back in your training, right? 

Steve Bechtel  13:45

Yeah. Yeah, he's, he's doing a lot and he's, you know, he's super focused. He's had to, you know, he's had to, instead of being just go out to the crag and climb guy. He has to be pretty planned in what he does at the crag. But this guy is going to climb 5.13 which will be the hardest he's ever redpointed. And, and it'll probably be in the next five to six months. And that's, that's the value of, of all of these plans is like find a plan that works for the guy and turn them loose on it.

Kris Hampton  14:18

Yeah. Awesome. All right, next is from Mark Siegrist, who is our, our resident deep thinker.He always dumps these big thoughts on our community page and and I hate him for it because I get sucked into them and have to read them even if I don't have time to read them. So his question is, what are your thoughts on linear versus nonlinear for climbers in different regions and situations like the long Southern Chattanooga, which is where Mark lives, off season where going outside is heinously pointless, you know, because it's 100 degrees and tons of humidity. What do you do you see pros and cons of either.

Steve Bechtel  15:07

Yeah, the especially going back to if you've got the time for it, long, long cycle training is is appropriate. But I still I still hate linear...

Kris Hampton  15:18

 Still not a linear progression, 

Steve Bechtel  15:19

I still hate it in general for every everybody. And so that's where we get into that block style periodization. And block periodization is, let's call it a hybrid of the two. And it's, I think, I think in every respect, the most appropriate training programming for climbing and basically what that is, is we'll say, for this six weeks, we're focusing on strength, but we're gonna simmer our power and our endurance and all those sorts of things, right. And then you'd move to a power block and simmer all the other ones. And so you'd you do just enough to maintain those. It's like the the deadlifting, we talked about this a couple questions ago. I, I'm not focusing on getting stronger on that. But I want to maintain that.

Kris Hampton  16:07

Right.

Steve Bechtel  16:07

 So we do as little of those other things as possible. And so I think that, that somewhere in between, this is what he's looking for.

Kris Hampton  16:15

Yep. And I think that's more of the style, I generally defaulted to when I was training for climbing in the Red. 

Steve Bechtel  16:22

Yep, 

Kris Hampton  16:22

You know, and the people that I worked with, as we kept things on the backburner and had them they're maintaining while focusing on something else.

Steve Bechtel  16:32

Yeah, you should figure out how strong your fingers are and then never give any, any on that. Like, you should maintain that finger strength for as long as you can, and then try to improve on it. But if you can, on a dynamometer, close 180 pounds, like you should never, in no season, should let that go away. But you should also, when you're training up your endurance, training up your your energy system work, you should do that as little as possible. And maybe it's once every six days once maybe it's maybe every eight days. And that's where training logging is critical. And, and planning is really critical. You know, like, I would say, spread your hangboard sessions out as far as you can possibly can. 

Kris Hampton  17:17

Right. 

Steve Bechtel  17:18

And, and then, you know, maybe you can get away with it once every 12 days.

Kris Hampton  17:22

Right. And I think it's a, an easy jump for people to make when they are really good at something to do it more often.

Steve Bechtel  17:29

 Right. 

Kris Hampton  17:30

You know, I think that's pretty natural. Well, and, and maybe the opposite of what they should be doing.

Steve Bechtel  17:35

Yeah. And, and I love Dave MacLeod. That's some point says, you know, the enemy is your tastes.

Kris Hampton  17:44

 Yeah. 

Steve Bechtel  17:45

And, and I think that that's the that's the interesting thing, too. And this is sort of divergent...

Kris Hampton  17:50

For training purposes. 

Steve Bechtel  17:52

Right, right. But yeah, you're like, Oh, I'm good at dynos. I'm gonna do more dynos. 

Kris Hampton  17:57

Right. 

Steve Bechtel  17:57

And, and I think that one of the things that people tend to do is if if a little bit of a training is good, their their natural step is to do more of that, you know, like, Oh, I really like campusing. Campusing is improved my, my finger power, whatever, 

Kris Hampton  18:20

Right, let's keep it going. 

Steve Bechtel  18:21

I'm gonna double it. I'm gonna go go twice as much. And you know, we, that's, that's disaster time.

Kris Hampton  18:28

Yeah, totally. Yeah. So I think what what's important to recognize about Mark's question is that you can still fit nonlinear periodization into a longer form climbing cycle or longer training cycle.

Steve Bechtel  18:47

Um, I, I think, and, you know, I haven't talked to Mark about this, Mark Anderson. But one of the things that he's been implementing is normal strength and power cycles through the winter and then when it comes time to be in a peaking cycle, going to a nonlinear style of training where by by bringing in all of those things, he can then maintain longer peaks. And and I don't know the exact details on it, but that's really common. And we see that with our athletes. And it's, it's a lot of what I've done for myself is like, gosh, I have a whole month and I'm definitely not going to be the crag let's let's put all of our energy into getting stronger. Let's really work this stuff. And then then we can go into a nonlinear when we when we're feeling a little more fit.

Kris Hampton  19:41

Yep. Mark also had a question about progression, regardless of programming style, and how do we measure it and this again, could be a whole podcast to itself, you know, and maybe should be and will be but how do you measure your progression your progress in climbing with when it's a tough thing to measure.

Steve Bechtel  20:04

Right. So there's there's a lot of those things like that's one of the the attractions of weight training or endurance sports.

Kris Hampton  20:11

Exactly. Its so easy to measure. You go I'm faster, I'm I'm stronger, whatever, it's pretty easy on in finger strength, you can use, you can use a dynamometer, which is like a hand gripper with a spring on it that that allows you to get a number on on how much you can close your hand isometrically. And that's, that's a useful tool in several regards, including knowing whether you're ready to train that day, but so and then you should also be able to go with 50 pounds on my waist, I can hold this edge for this long, and the finger strength stuff like isometric hanging, you should be able to have good numbers on. The climbing is a little more difficult. And sometimes you'll have landmark routes, you'll have specific boulder problems that you can do. But there's so much that goes into that including skill, bodyweight, fatigue, mental state, that that it becomes more difficult to say I'm actually stronger.The...

Kris Hampton  21:24

Especially when you're making small gains, instead of just, you know, if you jump from 12a to 13a, then it's fairly clear that you got better. 

Steve Bechtel  21:34

Yep

Kris Hampton  21:35

But sometimes going from 13a to 13b, you can do that without necessarily getting better. 

Steve Bechtel  21:41

Right. And, and there's there's always the like the variability of how hard the problems are at the gym you're in versus outside versus all those things. But over time, you know, a collection of a lot of data starts to tell a story. And so I would say you can look at how many of each grade that you redpoint at any given month and look at them over time. Like I can, in my training logging, I can go back and look at every grade from like maybe 12a up. And I can see how many of each of those I've done in a given month, just because of the it's it's completely accidentally the way I laid it out when I started keeping track, but then you go like, Okay, wow, look, I really redpoint a lot of routes in in March, and in October, and in November. And, and, and over time I've seen those numbers improve, right. And so that kind of stuff. Even though I may know those that style of route better, or I might be improving a specific facet of my fitness. Over time we're seeing those those things, those patterns emerge. And it's hard on like a weekly scale but if you can step back and look at a year worth of data, I think it starts to tell a better story.

Kris Hampton  23:02

Yeah. And I think you're, you know, you definitely talk about the value of thinking about training in terms of putting money in the bank and looking at it over the long term instead of you know, I just trained for six weeks, and I'm not any stronger. So that training plan didn't work, you know.

Steve Bechtel  23:22

 Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  23:24

And I think you should measure your climbing in the same way.

Steve Bechtel  23:26

Yeah. And looking at at the, you know, am I getting better? And that's the thing, like, stronger and better are two different things.

Kris Hampton  23:36

 Right. 

Steve Bechtel  23:36

And you want both? Yeah, um, but better is the goal. Like, I don't want to be that, you know, they have that dyno contest...

Kris Hampton  23:45

You want stronger to support better. 

Steve Bechtel  23:47

You know

Kris Hampton  23:48

Yeah

Steve Bechtel  23:48

And that, you know, it's like the the world's largest dyno. 

Kris Hampton  23:51

Right.

Steve Bechtel  23:51

 Like, that'd be great to win that, but I really care more about redpointing.

Kris Hampton  23:55

Yes

Steve Bechtel  23:56

Yeah, exactly.

Kris Hampton  23:57

 Yeah, I think that's a good answer. Next, we've got two guys had a really similar question, John Roderick and Aaron Back, and their question was for integrated strength training, how do you replace the deadlift if you just don't have access? And what would it look...what would it look like with kettlebells? What kettlebell exercises might work for your integrated strength training?

Steve Bechtel  24:25

Kettlebell deadlifts

Kris Hampton  24:28

Haha really big kettlebells

Steve Bechtel  24:29

Haha yeah you need a bunch, you know, and so, so we like the deadlift because of the hormonal value of heavyweight training,

Kris Hampton  24:39

Right and that's gonna be the trick with kettlebells. 

Steve Bechtel  24:41

Yeah

Kris Hampton  24:42

 Getting something heavy enough for that hormonal response. 

Steve Bechtel  24:44

But that being said, depending what else you do in this session, we're still going to get that hormonal let down if you do like if you have kettlebells you can do heavy rack squats. You know, if you do rack squats at you know say, I don't know, you know, 140 or something, you know, you're getting the same value as as, you know, a 200 pound deadlift or something. And so I would say it's not wrong to do like kettlebell swings. The other thing is glute bridges are really good. The single leg bridges, hip extensions can be useful. We have I think I did an article on integrated strength a couple of months ago, where we had a bodyweight-only version of it, and it is glute bridges, and single leg squats, single arm push ups.

Kris Hampton  25:38

And are you more looking for the time component of it there? Or is it you know, is are you getting the same or, or any hormonal response that you're looking for for the finger strength training?

Steve Bechtel  25:53

You are yeah. It's it might be on a different level, but the fact that you're doing it at all, because you're using the big muscles, you're overloading those big muscles. And as long as we stay in that zone of, you know, something where five reps is pretty tough. 

Kris Hampton  26:06

Yep.

Steve Bechtel  26:07

 You're gonna do pretty well.

Kris Hampton  26:09

Okay, gotcha.

Steve Bechtel  26:11

And that's just an interesting thing I read. There was a Dan Mirsky wrote a pretty good article about strength training, and I can't remember was like, on some...

Kris Hampton  26:24

Friction Labs. 

Steve Bechtel  26:25

Yeah and he just got lambasted by these people that...

Kris Hampton  26:27

Yeah i saw that

Steve Bechtel  26:29

They they fail to understand the reason that that we do those lifts. 

Kris Hampton  26:33

Right. 

Steve Bechtel  26:34

And I think Dan's got a I don't even know him, but he's got a great understanding of, of training climbers. 

Kris Hampton  26:40

Yeah. 

Steve Bechtel  26:40

And I think that, that that's that classic, like, I don't understand it, so I'm going to criticize it. 

Kris Hampton  26:46

Right. 

Steve Bechtel  26:48

And but it's one of the one of those things like, try it. And if you if it doesn't work for you don't do it anymore. You know, and, and then, but but like, to just come flat out and and argue against it not having been in that zone? I think that's I think that's a sophomoric...

Kris Hampton  27:10

Yeah, I think anytime a response starts with "This is stupid...", then it might be a response just worth skipping over. 

Steve Bechtel  27:17

Right. Yeah. 

Steve Bechtel  27:18

Yeah and I like the integrated strength. And I've been using it a lot with my clients and myself. And I know our guys use it. Paul, our kettlebell guy, has had great results with it using kettlebells. And doing exactly what you're saying front, you know, rack squats, big heavy kettlebell movements, along with his finger strength training, and I don't know the science well enough to say, what the hormonal responses are with different lifts and different weights. But I really like the time saving component of it and that you're not you don't end up in that classic you know, photo of weightlifting gyms with 10 people sitting around on benches.

Steve Bechtel  28:11

 Right 

Kris Hampton  28:11

You know, you've got something going on. So, so I think it helps people feel like they're getting a lot done and it saves them a lot of time, which is important for a lot for most everybody

Steve Bechtel  28:22

Well, and, and hangboarding is almost always diminished by the fact that we get bored.

Kris Hampton  28:29

Right

Steve Bechtel  28:30

 Between like, if we're doing max hangs, and so you're like, okay, I did a max hang, and I really am supposed to rest for however long.

Kris Hampton  28:37

Right

Steve Bechtel  28:37

And then if you go like, oh, I did a max hang and now I'm gonna go do something else. Like that. I don't, you know, I don't care. You don't have to deadlift. The get-up would be a great substitution there, you know,go do get-ups or, you know, do do something. But but a strength exercise. Yeah, I've got athletes that do hangboard, heavy core and mobility as that triplet. And and without that without this the strength component. Yep. You know, just working on on core stuff. And, and that probably has a less hormonal effect, but the fact that you're doing other stuff besides forearms can improve that

Kris Hampton  29:17

Yeah, you're getting things done. 

Steve Bechtel  29:18

Yeah

Kris Hampton  29:18

Cool. Van Doan, who I believe is coming to the seminar...

Steve Bechtel  29:24

Oh, yeah. He's coming to the coaching clinic yeah

Kris Hampton  29:27

He asks, how do we apply Logical Progression to mobility and flexibility?

Steve Bechtel  29:33

Oh, that'll be covered in the seminar.

Kris Hampton  29:36

Hahahaha

Steve Bechtel  29:38

 Yeah, so that the mobility and flexibility should be integrated with it with the sessions. And one of the things I line out in there and the strength session that I recommend is do integrated strength. And so then the mobility and flexibility would be there. Then with the the bouldering component, I would say, take off your shoes and and do your flexibility in between boulder problems. It's, it's a that's a win win with bouldering anyway. 

Kris Hampton  30:04

Yeah.

Steve Bechtel  30:05

 You know, like, if you're really climbing very hard on the boulders at all, you need to be focused on climbing harder rather than more boulders. And so climb a hard boulder, take off your shoes, do a mobility drill. And then then you could do the same with the energy system work. There's a lot of in the energy system workouts lined out in the book. There's a lot of time, like you, you get fatigued and we need to recover. And that's the time to do mobility. You know that Facebook is the enemy of flexibility, because people instantly go to their phones.

Kris Hampton  30:44

 Yeah

Kris Hampton  30:45

 And, and I think that or Instagram or whatever it is that's your current personal preference. And so I think one of the great things that we learned from Lee Brown, who's one of our coaches, is that this is your time. And you put the phone away, come in and train. It's quiet. You know, the second that, you know, Instagram pops up, your phone rings, whatever somebody is taking your attention.

Kris Hampton  31:17

 Right

Steve Bechtel  31:18

 And you're giving your attention away for free. And this one time of the day, you should give that attention to yourself. 

Kris Hampton  31:23

Yeah.

Steve Bechtel  31:24

 And so that's that's the anytime that you're resting between sets, it's time to do mobility.

Kris Hampton  31:28

Yep. Yep. I like having mobility and flexibility worked into a session that way, because I have a really ,even as a former gymnast, I have a really hard time now. Just stretching, you know, or just doing mobility work.

Steve Bechtel  31:43

 Well, isn't that interesting? That's a that's a kind of a tangent. But it's important tangent. We I think one of the reasons people don't like it is because it's hard to quantify.

Kris Hampton  31:53

 Exactly. And, and you see really slow results.

Steve Bechtel  31:56

 Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  31:56

And thats difficult.

Steve Bechtel  31:57

 Like if you go if you could if we have a like a splits percentage measurer, and you were seeing gains there. We we do it a lot, or you know, your turnout, we do the frog a lot as a turnout exercise. And if I could get people that, you know, way to measure that they do it all the time.

Kris Hampton  32:14

 Yeah. But for sure.

Steve Bechtel  32:15

 Yeah.

Kris Hampton  32:16

Yeah, it's tough. And let's see, Darrell Bickle asks, he asked for both of our thoughts on the no hang method of finger strength training. So like the Gripple and, you know, things that you're holding, instead of hanging from for finger strength.

Steve Bechtel  32:39

Um, I, I think that there's, there's a benefit there, in that it puts less traction, stretch, stress on the shoulder. However, traction on the shoulders....

Kris Hampton  32:57

Climbing sorta stresses your shoulders.

Steve Bechtel  32:59

It does, right. And so I understand where they're coming from. It's quantifiable, it's nice to be able to like go I can hang, you know, 285.5 on on you know, this thing, but I don't, I don't feel like that's the the way and the light. We do like it. I've got a guy that's training a lot of ring finger and little finger individual stuff for some specific routes. And I do like, like hanging weight from from those. But I don't think it's, I think it's a tool, but it's not a revolution.

Kris Hampton  33:38

Yeah, I'm, I'm of the same mind that you are that I'm sure it does put less stress on your shoulders and that whole structure, but climbing stresses those structures, and if you're not able to hang from your fingers on an edge without injuring your shoulders, then there's something else you need to be doing other than finger strength training. 

Steve Bechtel  34:05

Yep.

Kris Hampton  34:06

You know, so...

Steve Bechtel  34:07

Well, and I think that there's a there's a real place for those in warm ups. And you know, like, I bet like a grip puller, we got these things called kind of what is it CrimpWerks, they're two edges that are connected by a bungee 

Kris Hampton  34:21

Okay, I've seen those.

Steve Bechtel  34:22

And they're awesome, they're, they're a really cool little tool and wonderful, like if you're traveling but also like, super good warm up, because you can, you can warm up real slow into it. And so instead of like having to do, you know, a counterbalance, or a counterweight pulley system, or whatever, to get your fingers ready for a hangboard session, I think those are those are going to be a really good tool. 

Kris Hampton  34:45

Okay, cool. Yeah. I'll be interested to see those. Van had another question. How do we continue to progress over long climbing trips? And I know that Van just left on what's going to be a long climbing trip,  so I'm sure this is a personally pertinent question to him. But how do you apply Logical Progression if you're on a climbing trip and don't have a super consistent way to train? 

Steve Bechtel  35:13

Well, I think the thing is, is you've got to strip it down to its to its essence, which is, let's work a different energy system, each training session. You say, I'm going to work strength. I'm going to be, you know, working on these on these highly intense things, which which we do lose when we're, when we're traveling. I, one of my athletes is a  traveling nurse, and he, you know, will go to one location for four weeks, and another one, so he lives in his van, right and, and so it doesn't matter where he is. He just got done with a stint in Joshua Tree. And so he bouldered there, and then he worked hangboard at night in the in the van. And so I think what you need to do is say, like, I'm going to do a strength day, whether it means I'm doing a strength workout in the parking lot at Smith or what.

Kris Hampton  36:04

 Right, right.

Steve Bechtel  36:04

 And then I'm going to have a day when I'm working on explosiveness. And I'm going to have a day that I'm working on my energy system stuff. And some of that's going to be easier if you stopped in at a climbing gym. Some of it's going to be easier at the crag. But it is how, how strong can you stay? And these tools like the Flashboard, the and the Awesome Woody's boards and all those traveling hangboards, it makes it possible to keep your fingers strong.

Kris Hampton  36:32

 Yeah, they're great.

Steve Bechtel  36:33

What you're doing, you know, we have these instructors for the National Outdoor Leadership School here that are now taking those hangboards out into the mountains with them, so that they can stay strong. So that you know, but after they're done teaching for a month in the mountains, they can come back and still rock climb. 

Kris Hampton  36:49

Right, and still have finger strength left.

Steve Bechtel  36:50

 Yeah and so I think it is just a matter of, you know, staying organized enough. And understanding that travel isn't going to be when you're going to make your hugest gains, but you can avoid making those huge losses.

Kris Hampton  37:03

Yep. And I think that, you know, beyond just the training and using the available tools that you have, it's also a good time to really focus on the practice of, of climbing, and not letting your sessions, your outdoor sessions devolve into just performance all the time. 

Steve Bechtel  37:24

Right. 

Kris Hampton  37:24

You know, if you can really dig into the tiny aspects of, you know, moving really well, or learning better tactics, and all these things that combine to make you a better climber. I think that's a smart way to look at it, too.

Steve Bechtel  37:40

 Yeah, well, you know, Siegrist is a really great example, Jonathan, he climbs outside all the time, and climbed on lots of different rock. Switches and he's been switching into bouldering, he gets on all kinds of different stone and, and so his, his practice is maximized. And, and, and it's, you know, the proofs in the pudding, you know, he's really able to perform well.

Kris Hampton  38:05

Yep. And he spent time, you know, training in the traditional sense. And I think he's done a good job of realizing, okay, I've, I've maximized this for now. 

Steve Bechtel  38:17

Yeah.

Kris Hampton  38:18

 Let me kind of follow my stoke. And and go this way and dig into this, you know, this aspect of climbing.

Steve Bechtel  38:26

 And and, you know, as far as you know, as far as I can see, he's avoided that, that ego trap of thinking he knows everything.

Kris Hampton  38:34

 Right.

Steve Bechtel  38:34

 Which is really, which is really great. Because I think the next couple of years are going to see some spectacular stuff come from that guy.

Kris Hampton  38:41

 For sure. And then I had a few questions from your, from the book, number one in the program examples, and they are just examples, and I understand that. But you had back to back strength, followed by a bouldering day and never had it the other way around. And I'm just curious what your, if there was a logic behind that? 

Steve Bechtel  39:10

Yeah, the the thing I found is that people will go deep bouldering. But they'll, they'll usually follow the plan on the strength day. 

Kris Hampton  39:20

Gotcha

Steve Bechtel  39:20

And so they won't just like, just get hung up on a project and you know, I'm just going to keep working deadlifts till I get this. 

Kris Hampton  39:27

Haha right. Right. 

Steve Bechtel  39:28

So So usually, people come out of the bouldering day more tired.

Kris Hampton  39:33

Yeah, it's easier to get them to cut off a strength session than it is to cut off a bouldering session.

Steve Bechtel  39:37

Yeah. That being said, though, Kris, one of the things that we do with our athletes is have them train strength after a climbing day. If they like, in season, you know, a couple of our guys will, they'll redpoint on like, Sunday and Wednesday, and then Sunday night and Wednesday night they come into the gym and do strength work.

Kris Hampton  39:59

 Yep.

Steve Bechtel  39:59

Because of the recovery component there. But that's a really elite level. And so for most people, most people strength isn't that intense. And they can probably boulder fine the next day. And so that's that's the main reason I did it. It would probably work okay the other way around. 

Kris Hampton  40:16

Yep. I gotcha. And that makes perfect sense. I hadn't thought about that at all, because I tend toward doing my strength training either immediately after climbing or doing it the following day.

Steve Bechtel  40:26

 Yeah.

Kris Hampton  40:28

 But you're right. A lot of people will follow my, my bouldering session layout, and then add notes like "Oh, added an hour and a half of working on V7s". 

Steve Bechtel  40:39

Yeah. 

Kris Hampton  40:40

So you're right. Yeah, we definitely tend to go deeper.

Steve Bechtel  40:42

Yeah, it's fun. And so that's, that's why I like like, the strength is never like, I shouldn't say never but it's really rare that I find somebody just digs on hangboarding and weight training, you know?

Kris Hampton  40:52

Yeah, totally. And then I also had a question about if a climber has really distinct strengths and weaknesses, should the frequency in your nonlinear periodization plan, should the frequency that they train those aspects of their, their climbing change?

Steve Bechtel  41:14

Yeah, that that's, that's a good place to go. I, I don't, I think it's beyond the scope of, of what I've written to give those specific recommendations. But for example, if your finger strength is really poor, you could do a strength session, then a power session, then another strength session, and then the energy system session.

Kris Hampton  41:34

 Gotcha 

Steve Bechtel  41:35

Rather than just sequencing through those, those three in a normal, 

Kris Hampton  41:38

Right, right, right.

Steve Bechtel  41:40

Or, if they have a specific goal coming up, like they're, you know, they've got a super power endurance route. They could they could put in those with more frequency, but always being aware of what's the result? Am I am I seeing improvements in the sessions? Am I am i doing too many of them? That kind of stuff?

Kris Hampton  42:02

Yeah. And that was my follow up question. If they have a specific trip, you know, if they're, if they live in California, where everything's vertical, and they're taking a Red River trip for a month, you know, should their training plan change to reflect that?

Steve Bechtel  42:19

Yeah. And, and that's kind of if we go back to that four week example, you know, all I'll say, stick with the same sequence on these things for four or eight or even twelve weeks, depending how frequently you can do the sessions. But but yeah, adapt to what you've got coming up. 

Kris Hampton  42:36

Yeah.

Steve Bechtel  42:37

 It's like we talked about with Alex, you know, he's had to do all this work capacity stuff, and everybody else is out bouldering and having fun and here he is like, doing, you know, high volume weight training and laps in the Killer Cave. 

Kris Hampton  42:50

Yeah, yeah, I saw him out in the Killer Cave, doing a bunch of things the other day so,

Steve Bechtel  42:53

And it's stuff that's relatively easy for him. But it's the kind of work like, you know, you just got to be able to do the work. And so if I'm getting ready to go to the Red, I've got to get on steeper stuff. I got to start crimping, you know, right. So right. And, and you can, and that's the thing, that's the flexibility. The plan, I think the the underlying thing is, it's probably not wrong as long as you're getting regular stimuli, and you're progressing session to session. You know, you want to have some kind of structure there.

Kris Hampton  43:21

And the progressing session to session, I just have a question about that. That we talk a lot about, you want to keep progressing, and if you're not progressing, then, you know, rethink things or make a change. A lot of the people I work with, and I imagine a lot of the people you work with, Emily and I were just talking about this last night, that oftentimes things get in the way and you're, you know, real life pops up. And should those people take that "I didn't progress this session" because I came in, you know, emotionally a wreck from dealing with, you know, family problems, or whatever. Should that count toward their "I didn't progress this session"?

Steve Bechtel  44:13

Yeah, I think that we, we use this thing called the 1-6-3 rule, which is like out of every 10 sessions, one of them's going to feel really great and six of them are going to be okay  and you're just punching the clock, and then three of them are gonna suck and you're gonna feel like you hate the sport and you never want to lift weights again, or whatever it is. 

Kris Hampton  44:34

Right.

Steve Bechtel  44:34

 And so I think when we say progressing session to session there, there's always a way forward, but the sessions also need to happen when you're ready for those sessions. 

Kris Hampton  44:45

Right. 

Steve Bechtel  44:45

Like, just because it's Monday and you've got time to train and you're feeling crappy from yesterday. Maybe Maybe it's time for a rest day. 

Kris Hampton  44:52

Yeah. 

Steve Bechtel  44:53

And to have you know, building that flexibility and giving yourself permission to not train that day. Is as important as as progress, progressing the sessions. Now when I say progressing session to session, we just want to make sure that you're not staying flat. Because people will use the word routine and routine tends to indicate we're doing the same thing over and over and over. And say you're doing like, we'll go back to the get-ups, you know, you do five sets of get-ups, you know, one on each side. And if you've always done them with a 40 pound kettlebell, you know, and you do one set with 44. Well, that's progress to me.

Kris Hampton  45:36

Yep. You know, and I think you can also progress the quality of your, you know, if you're in tune enough to pay attention to those things and understand those things. You know, my, my get-ups right now, because I haven't done them in a while are really rusty. So, so my progress is in quality more than anything else.

Steve Bechtel  45:57

Yeah. And I think that assessment at the end of the, like the hugest take home with with training logs, is to assess at the end of the session, not don't just write down all your shit. I mean, you know, right, you know what you did. But like, I felt good this session, or my power was down this session.

Kris Hampton  46:15

Right.

Steve Bechtel  46:15

Or I can't wait till next Tuesday, those sorts of things like a two sentence assessment, and then either a weekly or monthly overall assessment, this program really works well. I'm happy with it. Because if you if you have a program that works well, and it turned up a bunch of redpoints, like, that's a really good indicator that we want to come back there and that the progress was correct.

Kris Hampton  46:40

Right,

Steve Bechtel  46:41

 You know, and so, again, we want to make sure that we're we're seeing that athlete move forward, rather than just staying flat all the time. I always, like we got a guy that comes in, he's coming in the gym for 10 years, he throws 115 on the benchpress. He does three sets of 10. Right, and then he's out of here, and like for 10 years, like, you know, the greatest gift in the world I could give him would be to sneak another two pounds on there, right? And you're just like, Oh, my God, all of a sudden we're moving forward again. Right. 

Kris Hampton  47:10

Change the numbers on your weights? 

Steve Bechtel  47:12

Yeah, yeah. You know, yeah. But that's, uh, that's the thing that's really interesting is is getting out of that mentality of this is where I am, you know, my fixed mindset. 

Kris Hampton  47:21

Yeah.

Steve Bechtel  47:22

 You know, where? How can I go forward? Yeah.

Kris Hampton  47:25

Okay. I think we just about covered it. So I appreciate you answering these questions. And I'm sure we'll have I'm sure we'll have tons more of these in the future. So

Steve Bechtel  47:35

Yeah, and you know, the ultimate goal of any of these is to one day not have any more questions to answer. All right. Thanks, Kris. 

Kris Hampton  47:46

Yeah, thanks Steve. I have a feeling Steve's never gonna reach that goal, because as long as there are climbers out there, there's always going to be questions about how to get better. And big thanks to our Facebook community group for all the great questions. I appreciate how active you guys are over there. And you know, if you guys have been thinking about becoming a patron, now is the time we've got some great things about to happen over there. It's a once again patreon.com/powercompanypodcast. Or you can go to powercompanyclimbing.com and click on the podcast tab. There are more bonus episodes just like this one coming for the patrons. And for all of you please share us with your friends. Share us on your social medias. You can find us on the Facebooks, the Pinterest, the Instagrams, you cannot find us on the Twitter because we don't tweet, we scream like eagles.