Here is a guest blog post from my buddy, Phil. He is extremely knowledgable and I often go to him for suggestions on gear, technique, and especially training. I'm very grateful that he was willing to help me out by writing this post. Here it is:
Training for Climbing: Thoughts
The skies have been mostly blue and warm for the past month
– Rock season is back in Ogden! This time of year I usually come up with some
sort of tick list that I’d like to squeeze into my fairly busy schedule of
life, work, marriage, and most recently fatherhood. This process takes a long time
as I carefully and deliberately consider the technical grades, the logistics of
scheduling and equipment necessary, and finding willing partners. After this
calculating, precise effort I end up with a list of climbs that most of my
climbing partners compliment me on with comments like: “Whoa! I don’t think
that’s possible,” “So you think you
are going to climb 5.13 by July?!” and “This list is longer than Alex Lowe’s
climbing resume.” So if you are at all like me and currently have chalk-crusted
mitts on such a list of your own making, you’d better be training.
Everyone knows that you have to train to get better at
climbing, but I think few realize just how important a well thought out and
structured training plan can be. Most climbers “train” by climbing every other
day or whenever time permits. This really isn’t training and shouldn’t be
confused as such. Most
climbing-specific training regimens have some sort of periodization routine
focusing on Aerobic first, then
Hypertophy, Max Recruitment, Power Endurance, and finally Rest, all with
differing amounts of prescribed time.
Aerobic Period
The aerobic
block mentioned actually focuses on climbing aerobically and raising your
anaerobic threshold. So for those new to climbing or for those who gained a
little too much over the darker months, additional aerobic exercise will be
necessary to improve climbing gains for the year. This additional exercise can
be done before a climbing regimen or concurrently with one. The main goal is to
lose weight. Climbing at a high level requires a high strength to weight ratio
(thus the need for strength training) and the quickest way to raise that ratio
is to decrease the denominator! Put another way; it is easier to lose 5lbs of
fat than to gain the strength needed to pull that extra 5lbs up a climb. This
isn’t an exact analogy (there are other factors involved) but doing either
would roughly have the same effect on your strength to weight ratio.
There are all
sorts of ways to lose weight; the best among them for climbers is
high-intensity interval training. Long, low-intensity runs are one of the least
effective as far as losing weight and getting in shape quick for those long
approaches. Long endurance runs can have a place in your training program, but
I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that running too much for your aerobic exercise
can lead to sewing-machine leg en route because of the way the muscles are
trained.
Interval
training sucks for those like me that hate running, but it shortens up workout
times compared to pounding out a 6-10 mile run. The best way that I’ve found to
optimize this type of workout is warm-up 5-10min, do 10 sets of 30sec sprints
resting 30-60sec between each set, once your heart rate calms to 120bpm rest
5min, then do low intensity running for 15-20min. This set-up will release
catecholamines into your bloodstream which induce the release of free fatty
acids (including release of fat from hard to train “problem areas”) then you
burn those molecules during the light aerobic at the end. Far better than just
burning the FFA’s that are already in your bloodstream, which is all you do
with low/med intensity endurance runs. This should be done 1-2 times per week
paying attention to your body for injury indicators.
The Aerobic period for climbing is basically increasing your
ability to fend off pump. The premise is to do some sustained climbing just
below your anaerobic threshold for a long period of time. You can have your
anaerobic threshold measured for you at a sports performance lab, or you can go
for an all out run for 30min and determine the average HR for the last 20min,
or you can be a lazy climber and look up some online charts and guess where
yours is. Find a crag or gym or boulder field where you can climb with your
heart-rate monitor for 30min staying below this HR threshold. 2-3 sets of 30min
with 10min rest in between (that means total rest - No climbing). Another way
to bump up your anaerobic threshold is to climb a route at the end of a day of rock climbing that is about a 6 or 7 in difficulty on a scale of 10. Get on
this route and climb with no rests, lower and jump right back on for 2-3 burns.
Make sure to pay attention to climbing form especially when you’re totally
boxed. This period of training can
be skipped by those who aren’t starting from scratch for the season and can
already climb moderate routes till their belayer turns blue in the face. This
period takes 4-6 weeks depending on your level of current fitness and should be
incorporated into and the prime goal of your climbing schedule every week.
Hypertrophy Period
Next, the Hypertrophy period. Hypertrophy focuses on
enlarging/strengthening the muscles used for climbing, more specifically your
forearm and hand muscles. This period is basically fingerboard exercises to get
you stronger on the types of holds you’ll be facing on those harder routes you
want to climb. Pick 6-10 grip positions that you want to work, each grip
position will be a set. You’ll want to warm up and stretch out first then start
on the harder holds first working into the easier ones. Starting with the first
set of holds, do 5 reps of 10sec resting 5sec between reps and 2min between
sets. The really hard part is picking the right amount of weight to add or take
away for each grip position, but actually adding or subtracting weight so the 5th rep is hard
to finish is what will produce large gains instead of cruising through or
failing on certain sets. Use a harness and some free weights to add weight, an
eye screw in the bottom of your hang board and some ingenuity will let you take
weight off (using a pulley system works better than using bungee cords). Once
you feel strong here, or are a little more advanced, you can pick 6 grip
positions doing three sets on each position going up in weight between sets for
shorter hangs. For example: Single
knuckle 4 finger crimp - first set 7x 7sec reps resting 3sec between reps, rest
3min, second set 6x 7sec reps again resting 3sec between, finally 5x 7sec reps
with each set going up in weight. Make sure to rest 3min between grip positions
as well. This period should take about 4 weeks and is your new goal in your
climbing schedule (1-3 times per week allowing for rest and recovery). Be wary
of injuries during this period, and stop to recover if needed.
Maximum Recruitment
Maximum Recruitment comes next. If you’ve ever played much
with electric muscle stimulators you know that there are ways to increase the
number of muscle fibers that participate in a given contraction. You can train
your body to recruit more muscle fibers by asking your muscles to produce
greater force over a short period. Campus boards are the prime medium of this period
as you need a lot of dynamic power to quickly lift yourself to the next rung
and also to grab the rung and control your body movement. This short period
where you have to latch the next hold is what helps train your body to use more
fibers in the muscle you’re calling on, equaling… MORE POWER! Of course you
will want to be really warmed up for this type of exercise and if you can’t do
a few ladders to the top you’ll need to work on pull-up strength and more finger
boarding until you are ready to campus. It’s important that during this period you
are focusing on your body’s ability to produce dynamic power so when you are
doing your 6-10 trips up the campus board, rest 5-10min and REALLY rest! Google
campus board workouts and you’ll have a litany of different things you can do
to keep it interesting; however, when beginning you should stick to laddering
up and dropping off the top. As
soon as you can no longer explode off each rung you should stop the whole
workout as you aren’t going to be within the parameters where you’ll see gains
and you are probably risking injury. You’ll only want 1-2 of these workouts a
week. Typically 6 of these puppies over the 4 weeks of this period will be
pretty good.
Power Endurance
Power Endurance can be worked a number of ways. Being a gym
rat of sorts will help you do 4x4’s or similar exercises, but if you’re
creative you can work this outside as well. The main goal is to identify the
number of moves you usually climb or want to climb and manufacture a series of
problems or routes that will give you that amount of moves at a level that is
roughly 2 grades lower than your current max grade. For boulder problems you’ll
want to choose 4-5 that you can climb in a row without resting between them or downclimbing
to the beginning of the next problem. Do 4-5 sets of this circuit resting for
as long as it takes to climb the circuit 1:1 style. This WILL leave you wasted
by the end. Power endurance should take about 2-4 weeks; you’ll see gains really
quick, but they are also lost quickly.
Rest
Rest! This is possibly the most important part of the program.
Not only is it necessary throughout the routine, but this 2-week period of rest
and recovery will allow you to have quite the peak performance period. Greg
mentioned that Peter Croft came to Ogden for the climbing fest. One story he
told will help illustrate my point. He was in the valley and had been training
with John Bachar with the objective of climbing the first single day link up of
EL Cap and Half Dome. They pushed themselves for gains in all the areas we’ve
talked about (though probably not in so structured a way) over a long period of
time. All the while keeping the goal in mind and staying hyped. When they were
feeling strong enough Bachar told Croft that before they went for it they were
going to rest. Croft said that this sounded crazy to him. At the time most
climbers thought you’d get soft by resting too much. No one at the time knew
how powerful proper rest can be. Bachar was a training fool (as in animal, not
idiot), for those who don’t know about him, and he was one of the first to
start paying attention to this principle. He mandated a two day rest and told
Croft to do nothing but sleep and eat as much as possible. So they each went to
their respective tents and did just that. Croft mentioned that being so broke he
couldn’t afford a lot of food but decided to buy a ton of saltine crackers
(cheap and filling). He lay in his tent forcing himself to sleep, and when he
woke he’d take a box down from his wall of saltines he’d built along the tent
wall and eat until he couldn’t anymore. After the two days they ran up the Nose
on El Capitan and the Direct route on Half Dome and their biggest problems were
trying to pass the other parties that were on the wall. He attributes their
success to the period of rest right before.
A few notes
You will want to get more information on developing a
workout system and there is a lot of information out there. This type of phasic
program works well and is highly suggested by the author; however, there are
other ways to go about this and there are other workouts you can utilize in
each of the periods if desired. Outdoor sessions can be focused around the
period you are on and can replace boring home/gym workouts. Try to rest 3 days
between hard workouts (it est: hang board, campus or power endurance) with the
possibility of Aerobic workouts between, making sure it’s a low-enough
intensity to count as a “rest” day. And the Power Endurance phase can, and
should be part of your peak period where you are working some hard projects.
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