Strength Training
Many years ago I hated spending time off of the wall or rock for strength training. If you are like I was back then, you could be missing a trick!
The old adage of the British trad climber was ‘climb more and you will get better, no need for any of that plastic holds and training stuff!’ To a certain extent that is true as you will get better. However the process will be slow and you will probably stall at the level you are at forever. You certainly won’t reach your full potential. The evidence is all around us. Just watch a video of a Shaun McColl training session or watch Leah Crane on the bar and boards. They didn’t get where they are just by climbing!
The problem is that if you are not careful you end up just practicing and not improving! Try adding specific exercises to the end of your session, such as campus or hang boarding and you will see some major results. Also, at least once per week put in a pure weights, a pure gym or a yoga session.
I am convinced that if you can build a great strength base the rest will follow on. Add in some great movement and technique and you have it made. Try to focus on exercises that are climbing specific by thinking about what you do when climbing.
The obvious things are hanging on holds (hang board), locking off one arm whilst reaching with the other (campus board, weighted pull ups). The not so obvious such as keeping your body into the wall on tiny wide spread holds (prone cross on the rings), mantle moves (tricep press), pushing with legs and dynoing (lunges or squat jumps).
Any strength based exercise should have a short number reps of two or three per set and see you fail by the third set of five. When you can do the five sets simple go to a smaller hold size, add weight, widen the stance or step up the angle!
And don’t forget to work the antagonist muscles (the ones that work in the opposite way to the ones you mainly use) as if these become imbalanced a loss of strength can occur and worse, injury. So an example is to work the biceps with weights to strengthen them against the triceps used in climbing.
Another major addition to your climbing strength training is yoga. Many people underestimate the power of using yoga in strength training as it looks rather simple and easy. It is neither, as a proper yoga session will have you sweating and then aching the next day. But whatever you do attend a yoga teacher that teaches you to master the poses and series rather than just takes your money to copy them!
And if you were wondering. When I added specific, weight, gym and yoga to my training I went from mid F6 to mid F7s routes and from V3 to V6 boulders in 6 months. I stepped back for a while to consolidate my number of routes and boulders pyramid and went again, this time pushing into F8 and V9!
Give it a go and it will work for you, but remember to be specific. If you want some further advice then contact us through the button below to arrange a coaching session.
Please be aware that the above article applies to adults and not youngsters. Also that you must stop immediately if you feel any pain and consult a medical practitioner.
