UKC

Does anybody have any good/ great/ awesome or obscure endurance (or any) training tips for off the wall?
After climbing a long 5+ tonight, I realized that my fitness is not all that great, the holds were nice and juggy with a few pinches and smearing nothing too harsh, but but the end I was cream crackered, espesh ma hands. I need to get on top of this so I can climb more in one shesh!
SO! to sum up I'm looking to find some new exercises (that can be done in the home environment) that are just that little more exciting than pushups and situps.
(plus it would be great to have a for just for sharing our home exercise routine)

much Love, Peace and rice!

In reply to lifeofphild:

See if anyone comes up with anything, but I reckon to get better at climbing you need to go climbing. While you're not climbing, eat and sleep well. All the time you spend "training" that isn't climbing isn't going to help your climbing much, it's going to make you better at that thing (be that sit-ups, pull-ups, running, yoga, whatever). Just being realistic!

In reply to lifeofphild:

What grading system is 5+ measured in? How long was long?
(I have nothing helpful to add, just curious.)

In reply to lifeofphild:

I think at that level the best thing you can do is get to the wall more often and get some mileage under your belt, simple as that really. The best trainig for climbing really is climbing.

The only other thing I can suggest is to get a fingerboard or chin up bar and try to do some (assisted) chin-up sets on the easier holds, it's not exactly exciting but it should do the job.

In reply to lifeofphild:

Climbing endurance is pretty specific to the forearms and specific to the way you use your hands when climbing. Home exercises will not help much. Best way to improve climbing endurance is to spend more time climbing. At the 5+ level you're likely to see rapid improvement if you start climbing a bit more frequently. Also, pay attention to technique - keep your hips in to the wall, push with your legs and stay taut through the core instead of just pulling with your arms etc. This will make the climb less tiring without any extra fitness needed.

Try sessions where you do as many easy boulders as you can, one after the other without resting. Or pick easier routes and do them twice in a row without stopping.

I think this will be more useful than training endurance. I know I'm making assumptions about your climbing here, but in my experience, it's easy to mistake inefficient technique for lack of endurance.

I know this isn't really answering your question, but you can see it as a good thing: you probably don't have to do any 'training' or 'get fitter' to climb that route. On the other hand, better technique isn't gained by magic. Best bet (for the specific route, but also in general) would be to get somebody more experienced (i.e. finds the route really easy) to do it. Watch them carefully, including where they put their feet, how they twist their body, etc. and then try to implement that. Works better if they're similar in height.

To express it in very broad terms, train endurance by staying on the wall for longer; train strength/power by doing harder moves; train technique by engaging the brain before the arms!

In reply to lifeofphild:

The exercise plan here (at the bottom of the article):
http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=3804
Gives a basic endurance workout, in 3 sessions per week.

In reply to lifeofphild:

If you can't get out to the crag/wall more, build a board at home of you can - although that might be entirely unrealistic.

In reply to lifeofphild:
Climb down as well as up! If I'm doing an ARC session on an auto belay I climb the same route 3 times up and down (may have to rainbow for feet on the way down) followed by 3 up and lower off (repeat for 15-20 minutes). Climbing down is definitely where I feel the pain! - of course this might be due to climbing for longer (say 8 minutes continuous as opposed to 2)

Assuming you know what your arms feel like when they're pumped solid (fingers uncurling, nothing left in the tank etc) call that 100%. For endurance training you should be operating at <50% pump, but for an extended period. this needs to determine the grade of route you're doing laps on, usually a good few below your onsight grade. eventually you should be aiming to do 20 minutes climbing, 10 minutes rest x 3 in a session.

Good news is as your forearm muscles are small they recover quick so it is possible to do a high volume of this kind of climbing provided you don't exceed the 50% pumpage guide, so 4 or 5 sessions a week are doable, if you have the time.

As others have said pay attention to climbing style - and make yourself pay attention to your climbing as you do it - silent feet on rep 1, hips in on rep 2, keeping the core engaged on rep 3 (you get the picture)

The endurance phase should take 4-5 weeks during which time you can read all about training for power, power endurance and probably injury prevention.

HTH

Andy

In reply to lifeofphild:

At Ratho last year they had a competition for how many laps people could run on an F5 route on the auto-belay. Some of the competition climbing kids were getting 30 or 40 laps and quitting when their session was up rather than because they couldn't do any more. They are fit kids but the reason they could climb that grade pretty much indefinitely, just like walking, is that their weight was on their feet rather than their arms for almost the entire route.

The best way to climb 5+ without getting tired is not to train strength but to train technique. Specifically, go down a grade and climb very slowly and carefully focusing on absolutely silent feet and concentrating on whether your feet are carrying your weight. Every time you feel like pulling hard with your arms try and find a way to push yourself up with your legs instead.

sometimes people over grip holds due to fear when they are starting out leading. This leads to you getting pumped on routes well within your limit on top rope. you learn to relax overtime and not grip as hard.

Also make sure you are not clipping off bent arms when possible or clipping above your head. this wastes energy and makes a big difference.

In reply to lifeofphild:

more info on the rout: It was a 5+ lead climb up and across a stalagmite roof very 'monkeybars' at a few points. I fell off it first attempt the week before after losing grip, but in my defence I had just climbed a 6b and 6b+ just five minutes before starting and couldn't feel my hands by the time i was halfway up. but got there in the end.

And I agree with alot of the responses, only way to get better at climbing is to climb, im just more on about the fitness side of things.

thanks for all the response

love and cheese

In reply to Nick Russell:



Some good advice here. Generally agree that "the best training for climbing is climbing" is a good rule of thumb for most of us mortals, but I think there is a big difference between climbing to get better at climbing and "just climbing".

One interesting observation - among the people I climb with fairly regularly are at least a few older guys who are probably marginally weaker than me when it comes to powering up crimpy overhanging boulder problems at the wall but climb about four grades harder than me outdoors, and something that I've noticed about watching them lead indoors is how crafty they are: they'll be finding sneaky hands-off rests where I took obvious poor rests and spotting half rests where I powered through and got pumped and clipping fluidly at waist height off straight arms where I hung around getting tired and fumbling.

Been following the general opinion of climb more and upped my climbing gym sections two three a week.
the repeating boulder routes without touching the floor was a good tip! thanks!

another quick Question:
Got a Blood Blister today on my index finger near the top (for all you science boffs, its on the distal interphalangeal) and I want to climb again tomorrow. To pop? or not to pop? for that is the question.

thanks guys

p.s interphalangeal is a real word! no sh*t!

In reply to lifeofphild:

If you think putting it on a hold and squeezing the hold would pop it, then pop it in advance so you don't make the holds any more horrible...

If you thread a clean needle and thread through it that will soak up the liquid and leave it flush to the skin, then you can put finger tape over and should be able to carry on climbing..

In reply to lifeofphild:

Hey since I last posted on this form I found this: youtube.com/watch?v=POdzasJklxw& tee major fitness video. some crazy exercises in this vid! worth checking out! all bodyweight exercises!

In reply to lifeofphild:

The classic exercise at home is to get a broadsheet newspaper, then lay it out flat, pick up a single sheet at a time using one hand, scrunch it up into a ball as tight as you can, then repeat with the other hand. Keep going until you've done the whole paper. Helps if you have an open fire to chuck the balls in after.

Otherwise, at the end of every session at the wall just try and traverse the whole way around the bottom of the wall. some buildings lend themselves better to this than others, but basically, try and do a nice long 15/20/30 min easy traverse. recovering in a bridge rest is cheating!!!

In reply to dr_botnik:


well i never....

In reply to lifeofphild:

At this point what I think will benefit from is technique. Study this video and master all of these techniques (maybe practice on a bouldering wall) and then move onto the leading wall.

youtube.com/watch?v=Usee0F_Ya98& (even better, buy the whole DVD and study all the techniques Neil Gresham covers).


Also, concentrate on breathing - absolutely crucial. I remember it was a revalation for me on my first 6c lead attempts when I conscientiously decided to focus on breathing - suddenly I was arriving at the crux moves simply not pumped because blood was allowing to flow.

Make every move perfect - get the perfect body position, grip angle, move feet steadily and place them precisely first time. Also if you're feeling anxious about falling, take practice lobs onto the bolts and your grip will naturally become more relaxed.

It's extremely likely that if you focus on these, within a few weeks you could be doing this route twice in a row or more with no effort! :p

To be honest, the first time I felt I had to do specific endurance training was for something in the 7s and I and I am not sure if just trying the route over and over again would not have had a similar result rather than doing circuits.

In reply to Dandan:


Isn't this a bit of an old fashioned view? After all, you wouldn't say this about any other sport.

It sounds like what you want to do is raise your anaerobic threshold, that is, the level at which you begin to feel a 'pump'. I'm not sure there's any realistic way to do this at home. What you really want is about 30-45 mins continuous climbing or boulder traversing at an easy level.

In reply to lifeofphild:

To those who are saying that technique is more important than endurance, while I would normally be saying the same, I have some interesting recent experience of this. I spent the last year bouldering for various reasons, with only a couple of trips to rope climb, however have trained fairly hard and improved my technique and strength quite considerably. However in the last week I've gotten back into route climbing and have been shocked at how badly it has gone. Some of it may be down to a slight change in technique, that favors the more explosive, face on style of the boulder gym I climb at, but a huge amount is down to pure endurance. None of the moves feel hard individually, but by the top of the wall I just can’t hold on any more.
To the OP I can’t recommended doing 4 by 4’s highly enough for gaining endurance; I did my first session of them yesterday to start to gain some endurance back and hopefully use my improved strength to improve my route grade.

In reply to lifeofphild:

I don't know if it's been said but when at the climbing wall, downclimb everything rather than being lowered off. It's knackering after a few routes.

In reply to fraserbarrett:


4x4s are designed to develop 'anaerobic' endurance, though. It sounds like the OP should probably focus on aerobic endurance. That is, raise the number of moves you can complete before ever feeling pumped (aerobic), rather than the number of moves you can complete while pumped (anaerobic).

In reply to fraserbarrett:

Surely the easier you find a move, the less tiring it is and the more of it you can do. If you go by this logic though bouldering would be the best endurance training because it is going to improve your technique and endurance the most.

In reply to lifeofphild:

Like with all training, what is the specific goal?

increase endurance...for what? To climb 5+ at the wall indefinitely? To climb a specific sport route? For a trip? To increase your trad grade on grit? Or maybe welsh mountain routes?

Work out the goal....the tailor your training for that. All of the above will be different i'd say.

I recall a good plan someone posted on here a while back...it was something like. 10 moves on a (none steep) bouldering wall, 10 seconds rest, 20 moves then 20 seconds rest. Repeat 6or7 times. A bit harder than just lapping 5+ routes but less boring! easier to measure and you can it yourself. The aim is to be slightly pumped but not jibbering. Good training for big Spanish sport routes outside that have lots of rest between pumpy sections.

Fwiw, not a fan of traversing for ages, unless you want to be better at traversing of course.

In reply to planetmarshall:


Surely that depends on how and where you do the 4x4's? On a lead wall at a low to moderate level of pump they are definitely training aerobic endurance. I agree that on a boulder wall at a high level of pump they are training anaerobic endurance, but they are a much more versatile tool than being limited to that.
For instance in this article they are described as purely endurance training

https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=3924

Fraser