UKC

Just started bouldering more regularly at my local wall (Oxford), but am limited to regular, but short, lunch break sessions.

I am wondering whether anyone has advice or wisdom on using these short windows to best affect in progressing with fitness and technique.

I can go up to five times a week, for a maximum of 35 minutes per session, although try to break it up with a run per week. Generally looking at four sessions a week.

Currently, I am doing a lot of traversing on increasingly steep gradients to build up my strength, endurance and footwork. I then try and work a few problems, focussing on areas I feel I am weak (e.g., slopers or overhangs).

Realistically, is there much else I can do? I feel that I make small gains every time I go, but am keen not to plateau by doing the same thing every time.

Would appreciate any pointers or things that have helped others with limited time (per session, but not necessarily frequency).

In reply to Si Cox:

you need time to warm up, probably longer than 35mins! Can you run/cycle there to get your hr up and then carefully and slowly increase the intensity? Pulling hard especially indoors without thoroughly warming up has only left me frustrated and injured in the past. IMO even an hour is pushing your luck... Sorry!

In reply to Si Cox:

I'd agree with alooker in that it really does take time to warm up and get into it, and 35 minutes is really limited. I guess if you're looking for a quality session, I'd suggest focusing on the technical aspects. Strength training can be milked at home. Find technical ways to make hard problems possible, I tend to get lost in the problem solving side of bouldering and set an alarm if I'm on a time limit. Best of luck!

In reply to Si Cox:

disagree with the above comments about warming up. Assuming your relatively young (i.e. not ancient) and fit (which you sound like if you're contemplating running(!)) you just need to be stretched in the areas that matter and that takes 2-5 mins.

I also do the majority of my climbing at lunch times (don't warm up and have never been injured) and tend to just climb as normal. Admittedly, i have closer to an hour or more to climb. Tend to start on easy routes to warm up and then hit the hard stuff. If you're going pretty much every day you'll have the chance to really make a project of something - choose something dead hard and after you've stretched and gotten into it, spend upwards of fifteen mins at the end of your session making repeated attempts on you Project. Don't get discouraged if you suck at first, just keep pounding away at it, by the end of the week you'll have made noticable improvements in your climbing.

Just sayin....

In reply to KingStapo:


Perhaps there's truth in that. I'm 22 and when I think back, yes I often jump on hard stuff after a couple minutes. Equally if my muscles are generally whacked and tight from a previous session or I'm cold (winter bouldering... shudder) then it takes longer to really get into the swing.

In reply to KingStapo:

Agree, actually I suspect a lot of people compromise their climbing with too much and not intelligent warming up, excessive warming up seems unique with climbers although I have witnessed other non intelligent warming up in many sports

In reply to Si Cox:




I've found that lots of short sessions in a week can be really worthwhile - you don't have time to get completely trashed, so you'll be well recovered by the next session. If you look at the whole week then you end up with almost two and a half hours of high quality training time, compared to one long session where you take your time warming up, waste time and eventually get tired.

When I've done "little and often" I haven't tried to do too much per session - it's easiest to concentrate on short (3 or 4 move) problems to work max strength/power as it takes less planning and organisation: you just turn up, warm up for 10 minutes then have a few goes on hard things. It's possible to do more endurance stuff, but it takes more planning. You can spend a couple of sessions preparing - working out a longer circuit, getting the moves wired, experimenting with rest positions - then the final couple of sessions in the week can be used to do pyramids of repeats of the circuit without wasting time thinking about what you're going to do.

I don't think you can really train for full stamina in 35 minute sessions, they're just too short to do a large enough volume of easier climbing, but if you can arrange fewer but longer wall visits every few weeks then it can be fitted in.

Technique/footwork can be trained during the endurance/stamina weeks by concentrating on climbing as well as possible, even (especially) when completely boxed.

So in summary I'd say that you could make better use of the time by seperating out power/endurance/stamina and concentrating on one area.

In reply to Si Cox:

Hi all, thanks for the helpful replies.

Re. warm-up: I have roughly a five minute bike ride to the wall, so that helps to get the heart rate up before warming up on the wall itself. A bit of stretching and incrementally overhanging traversing also helps to avoid blowing the muscles and tendons.

For me, I think the rest periods really help, as I am usually fresh each time, so for me, at least, 'a little and often' seems to pay off. However, from what I'm hearing, I need to be more organised about training to make further progress.

In reality, I'm probably doing more power/strength stuff than endurance given the short sessions.

Anyway, that's given me some things to ponder and implement, and I'm glad that I've avoided any injuries so far with the warm-up routine.

Cheers, all.

In reply to Si Cox:

I find warming up crucial. I don't spend the entire period stretching (I do very few static stretches to warm up anyway), the most effective method for me is to do different problems I know I can do and get my body recruiting. When I jump on hard problems straight away I can definitively say that I perform nowhere near my best. It's not about just preventing injury at all.

If you're happy pottering around aimlessly doing random easy problems then it's likely you'll be able to get away without injury for a good while. When stuff starts to get hard, which with many indoor bouldering routes means steep, small holds and dynamic movements, you are pushing your body hard. These problems are designed to stress the body beyond it's limits and force it to adapt after all.

I guess it all depends on what rate of improvement you're happy with. It's daft to not warm up if you're pushing yourself. Beware.

In reply to alooker:

I hear what you're saying about not just preventing injury, and maximising productivity on harder problems.

At the moment, I am simply not strong enough to tackle overhanging problems on small holds, so am focussing on both overhanging traverses and problems with big holds. That way at least I am working the core muscles and getting my head around steep ground technique.

Suppose it's a balance at the end of the day with the lack of time, and I need to know my own body and limits.

Appreciate the warning and the input though.

In reply to Si Cox:

Might be worth using one of those hand exercisers (gripmaster or similar) to play with at your desk in the morning to get your fingers warmed up. Not ideal but better than nothing.

In reply to shark:

Good point. I had a look at the Gripmasters online. There seem to be a lot of gauges of spring - do you recommend a particular one to start with?