Periodization

Beginning the HIT strips as well as several injuries have taught me the importance of varying the intensity of training. Basically, all serious athletes do it if they have a clue about how their body works. When I do the weighted HIT strips more than 5 times in a row (~2 weeks when the mandatory 48-72 hour recovery is included), my fingers begin to feel a little tweaked and my weights begin to decrease slightly. This is known to some as cumulative fatigue.

It's then time to take an extra day off and then climb without weight for a while in sets that are long enough that they make you want to whimper over how bad your muscles are burning (called power endurance training). I usually do this for about 2 weeks as well.

After the power endurance, it's time to take a few weeks to climb some endurance (the fun climbing on easy routes that allows one to work on coordination and never be in much pain).

After the endurance weeks, it's time to take a week off and then hit the really intense strength training again, starting the cycle over.

This periodization principle, is one of the keys to increasing injury resistance and to avoid plateaus. Plus, the varying intensity can be synchronized with another sport (running in my case), and during the less intense phase in one sport, you can schedule the high intensity time in the other. This is one of the things that is allowing me to train for an ultramarathon while still not seeing a crash in my climbing strength. It also keeps me from growing to passionately hate one of the sports.