UKC

Approaching climbing as training.

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 Stevie989 06 Dec 2014

After bouldering g indoors on and off (more off than on) for a couple if years this year since June I've fully immersed myself in trad with brief trips into the realms of sport (6c) and actual bouldering (6b).

I've progressed over the summer from never leading to onsighting E2 in a halfway decent fashion.

The problem I face now is that my upwards trajectory is now leveling out and as much as I try and approach climbing they way I have to other training in the past (used to powerlift a decent weight) I struggle and just end up fannying about.

I used to have diet wired for weight lifting but eat little at the moment and not in a sport effective way.

I dunno if it's will power or a lack of understanding that's the problem.

I've been thinking about getting the cafe Kraft book but dunno if it's worth it!

I probably need some 1-2-1 stuff on technique as well as the purely diet/training side of things.
Post edited at 16:18
 AJM 06 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

Gimme Kraft is a good book if its content actually helps train your weaknesses. However for most people that probably just isn't the case, especially if your chosen metric is trad leading.
OP Stevie989 06 Dec 2014
In reply to AJM:

I'm drawn to trad climbing and the onsight/ground up approach but I also don't mind a bit of falling upwards and getting a sport route dialled. It's probably to much to aspire to being an all rounder! (Bar any winter nonsense obviously).

 Ciro 06 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

> I probably need some 1-2-1 stuff on technique as well as the purely diet/training side of things.

This sounds back to front - assuming (from your comments about previous sports) that you're in reasonable physical shape and climbing regularly, you probably have enough strength to climb much harder.

Concentrating on technique first, and making diet/training the secondary consideration, will likely yield better results.
 Kevster 06 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

One tried and tested method is to get mates who are better than you at trad. Kind of accelerated learning, and they bring an excellent mind set to boot.

Another is to consolidate at a grade, then push on to the next. Repeat. Takes more time and effort.

Another thought for ground up onsight trad. If you never redpoint or sport climb - not saying this is true of you, but only onsight trad, how do you know what you can do? How do you know what hard for you is (and subsequently what you need to do to get past such a move?)? Self belief is important in trad, well rather a lack of confidence is bad in trad....
To onsight successfully, you need to climb harder than your onsight grade in that style of climb/rock (unless you are unusual in your mental approach to trad onsight and this matches your actual hardest climbing ability).
So, to climb harder trad, you have to get on harder climbs. The safe and easy way of doing this is sport (or top roping - which is out by your preference). At some point you will plateau at sport. Stamina or a crux sequence will be what lets you down. Stamina - climb more! Crux sequences - either climb more (so you can read sequences better, ie experience) or get better at bouldering (as it is a short, but hard sequence) which is either physical strength/technique acquisition.
Which distils that many good trad climbers are also excellent boulderers and sport climbers. It is not too much to aspire to, E2 is already above average joe blogs.
The question is, how far are you willing to push yourself? And how much effort are you willing to put in?
 jsmcfarland 06 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

IMHO the best time/money investment right now for you would be to get Dave Macleods 'all climbers make the same mistakes' book, 'the rock climbers training manual' by the anderson brothers (these 2 are truly amazing) and possibly The Self Coached Climber if you feel that you are weaker on more technical boulders/routes (not just crimp ladders). I climb sport 6c indoors and boulder font 6a-6cish didn't really get anything out of SCC but others have given it super reviews, and there is ALOT of information in that book.

I was totally dissapointed by Cafe Kraft. It's nothing you couldn't learn just by looking at gymnastics conditioning websites, a few bodyweight exercise compilations on youtube and some advice from a few experienced climbers.

regarding diet, most people will tell you (and i live by this): Plenty of vegetables, fair amount of fruit, nuts, seeds, not too much red meat, not too much booze, regular smaller meals instead of big ones, and drink plenty of water. (avoid liquid calories like the plague, e.g. coke, redbull, whatever)

I've found on the willpower front I find it easier to control my diet, train when im feeling a bit naff etc if I have goal routes to think about and a training plan written down where I can see it every day.

Studies also show that willpower is actually a finite resource and that if you resist temptation like a cookie or something the first time, the second time you are more likely to give in and will probably eat two cookies too. Best off allowing yourself a cheat snack, meal or day in the week where you are less concerned with your diet, it will make the rest of the time much easier knowing you have that to look forward to (though I'm firmly of the opinion diet shouldn't feel like 'work', I eat tons of salad and love it!)

If you want to talk more about training plans etc PM me and I can show you what I constructed for myself.
 CMcBain 07 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

For diet I found Matt Fitzgerald's book 'Racing Weight' really useful and informative. It's aimed at endurance athletes (runners etc) but a lot of the principles transfer well to climbing where ideally you want to be as light and strong as possible. I'm sure Dave Mac recommends it somewhere as well.

On that note his own book '9 out of 10 climbers' is very informative as well, it's covers a lot of stuff that traditional training books don't (particularly your mental approach and technique). From my own experience, the most important things are;
- Train regularly (2-4 times a week, every week)
- Sleep and eat properly to recover from sessions
- Warm-up properly. I like at least 45 minutes of warming up by traversing/doing easier routes, it's a great time to focus on technique aswell, I quite often focus on one or two specific techniques when warming up (say pulling hard with your toe's and drop knee's)
- Vary your sessions, endurance (laps on routes below your limit, high volumes of easy bouldering), power-endurance (3x3's bouldering, doing a route close to your limit twice), strength (working hard boulder problems/routes). You'll find a wealth of info on how to train this stuff on the internet.

Most important is just to stick with it, most people give up more regimented 'training' after a few weeks without realizing it takes much longer than that to reap the benefits.

Good luck!
 solomonkey 07 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

I think winter Climbing is the best training for trad - each to there own but may be just your ticket to being an all rounder .
In reply to CMcBain:
> - Train regularly (2-4 times a week, every week)
> - Sleep and eat properly to recover from sessions
> - Warm-up properly.
> - Vary your sessions

Exactly what he just said!

Four days of Neil Gresham's coaching course can pretty much be boiled down to these key points. Do that and everything else should start to fall into place.
Equally if you aren't doing the above there is little point paying for 1-2-1 coaching as they are the first things any coach will ask you about.

 kenr 08 Dec 2014
In reply to jsmcfarland:
> Studies also show that willpower is actually a finite resource

Nowadays "will power" for avoiding over-eating in some situations is something you can purchase ...
www.thekitchensafe.com

Storing food in difficult-to-access locations is a trick I use a lot.

Ken
Post edited at 05:26
OP Stevie989 08 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

Cheers for the pointers guys.

When weight lifting I was consuming 4-5k of calories a day just to maintain a weight of around 72-3kg. I kinda knew where I was and what I was doing with that.

I just tend to go climb - not eat before hand or protein after like I would have with the gym. In fact I tend to only eat one meal a day - will power for me is Remebering to eat and not the other way about.

I'm around 69-70 kg as it is (at 5'8") but no where near as lean as I was. Most likely due to my roundness for a beer or two (no binging!) at night.

45min is a hell of a warm up but it makes sense and would let me focus of specific techniques.

I've been spending a lot of time in the TCA the last few weeks as the weather has crapped out and as such I've predictably picked up a couple if pulley strains in my ring fingers. Nothing major just a bit tender.

A month if lighter traversing work would do me good.

Anyone recommend some good sites for body weight exercises?
 Fraser 08 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

Your OP reads to me like you're just in very common territory, ie you've plateaued. If I were you, I'd forget about your power-lifting history, it's about climbing training now. Do you want to get stronger or have better endurance or both? Train accordingly - it's not rocket science, and there are probably hundreds of threads on UKC alone on the subject, all with decent advice. My guess is you're making the common mistake of thinking just any old climbing, in an unstructured way, is sufficient to break through that plateau. Fact: it won't be - otherwise you'd have done it by now, so something needs to change, and that's the establishing of a proper structure to your approach and application of training. Good luck.
 Steve nevers 08 Dec 2014
In reply to The Ex-Engineer:

> Four days of Neil Gresham's coaching course can pretty much be boiled down to these key points.

TBh i did one of Gresham's masterclasses, and it was pretty much a waste of money. All he covered was very simple common sense stuff and a few core exercises that every youtube system board video covers in the first 30 seconds.

Did get a nice hat for free though, so at least my heads warm.
 Siderunner 09 Dec 2014
In reply to Fraser: good post. I did unstructured training for years, on the premise I would gain so much technique eventually I'd not need so much strength. Wish I'd discovered the value of regular fingerboarding and limit bouldering a long time ago instead. With bouts of endurance training (4x4 and roped laps) at times during the year, as a supplement.

Training all year is also really valuable - taking 3m off each year has always really set me back - something Dave Mac discusses in 9/10.

To the OP: food before and after training is important: to maximise effort in sessions and recovery for the next one. If it makes no difference you're probably not trying hard enough!
OP Stevie989 09 Dec 2014
In reply to Fraser:

Thats probably the the heart of the problem. Unstructured climbing and probably too much of it.

I don't think strength is the issue (not saying I'm super strong but probably 'strong enough') of course we'd all like a bit more finger power but I think I need to work on both power endurance and also more straight forward endurance.

I'll do a bit of digging!
 proandras 09 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

From wider point of view, a half year climbing is enough only to discover your base line. You have just learnt how to apply your 'general' skills in climbing (E2 is impressive). Real progression as a climber just starts from now.
 craig1983 09 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

I'm the same Stevie, walking round TCA lately just bumbling round problems and not really enjoying it.

Said to you I was gonna take a break from it and go to GCC, but decided that some structured training was a better idea. Won't necessarily enjoy it any more, but at least I'll be doing some good and hopefully getting stronger while the weather sucks!
 Siderunner 10 Dec 2014
Endurance is pretty easy to train IMO, the three standards are boulder 4x4s, roped laps (e.g. Repeat a pumpy route 4 times with 2' rest between each time; swap with partner; repeated 3-4 times using different routes), and a bouldering circuit (create a boulder problem links of eg 30 moves). 4-6 weeks of 2 of those sessions a week should show marked improvement.

Strength or endurance, the eternal conundrum? I got on two routes that were out of my depth (7b and 7b+) recently to try and find out which is the bigger weakness. Couldn't pull the fingery campus start on the 7b; couldn't link much more than 3 moves on the 7b+. After discussion with a couple of guys who're a good deal better (7c+ level), the conclusion is strength work is going to be my priority as it'll make the enduro moves less near my limit. Also reading 9/10 Dave makes it clear that year round strength work supplemented by brief (6 week?) pre-peaking endurance work is the way forward due to the physiology. Otoh starting a winters training with general volume climbing and conditioning work makes sense to handle the rigours of hard bouldering etc later on.

A last thought : bouldering can feel like pottering at times. Trying really hard (for you) problems is a good way to get better I think, and involves lots of resting. As long as you're really thinking between attempts, and experimenting, and trying with every fibre of your being when you're pulling, I think this is one of the best ways to get good. Almost every wad I've seen interviewed mentions it when pressed about how they got good.
mctrials23 10 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

Trying hard is actually really hard to do consistently. I'm sure that we have all had those climbs where we try ridiculously hard and do something that we didn't think was possible before. Some sessions everything in your body just works together and clicks and you climb really well.

I know that a lot of the time, on a problem that I haven't been able to complete I will sometimes get up it and think "that wasn't that hard, I could have done much harder moves". I also find that unless you do some things in a session that are very strong, you never recruit the strength you do have fully so you never quite find that ability to pull hard.

Its a really tricky thing to pull off. You need the right warm up, right progression through the grades and you need to peak at the right times. As far as I can tell, the accepted wisdom for getting actually stronger is doing things that are only a few moves right at your limit. We are talking 3-4 moves before you cannot do any more (due to the power / strength requirements not because your footwork is sloppy and you slip off).
 AJM 10 Dec 2014
In reply to Siderunner:

The exercises you mention are good for power endurance, but thats very different from basic aerobic endurance. Important not to get the two (and when they should be trained) confused or to assume it's the same.
 Siderunner 11 Dec 2014
In reply to AJM:
You're right, I was really talking about anaerobic / power endurance, which is what I find stops me on many limit sport routes.

Thinking about big trad pitches for the OP, aerobic (forearm) endurance for hanging around for 30 - 120 minutes may be a significant factor. In which case the classic training for forearm *aerobic* endurance is long stints of continuous climbing, e.g. up to 30 minutes up and down endlessly (or more conveniently traversing, though less specific). Often short-handed as ARC=Aerobic Restoration and Capillarity, courtesy of Goddard & Neumann (1993). Great for learning efficient technique and resting.

Speaking personally I did a heap of this ARC / PE stuff over several years and still couldn't pull cruxes above English 5c. Regular limit bouldering seems to have got me up to about V5 which means I can pull the cruxes on most F7a's. But the endurance and resting tricks I got from all that ARC and PE training are definitely useful too. Ultimately which to prioritise depends which is holding you back more, though in the end a bit of both is needed - time for a periodised plan methinks!
 AJM 11 Dec 2014
In reply to Siderunner:

If you can do V5s then there's a lot of 7b-c routes that you should be able to do the moves on, nevermind most 7as!

As an aside though, sInce your power endurance can only take your basic aerobic fitness and build on it, it's proba ly actually quite hard to tell whether it's your pe or the fact your pe is limited by a low aerobic base that's stopping you. And aerocap is a lot more time efficient than arc
 Fraser 11 Dec 2014
In reply to AJM:

> If you can do V5s then there's a lot of 7b-c routes that you should be able to do the moves on, nevermind most 7as!

I'm pretty sure 'The Self Coached Climber' says climbing many sport F8a's *only* requires V5 bouldering ability. Aim higher!
 AJM 11 Dec 2014
In reply to Fraser:

I already have, and you're right, the crux was V5, but it tends to be more believable to point at a few letter grades of difference rather than an entire number grade. Also, to use wild generalisation and crude stereotyping, you might think on average you'd want to be a bit stronger for most UK routes.

Besides, I'd have thought you'd have to spend a really long time optimising all your other training really well to do 8a if your limit bouldering grade was only V5 (ie you'd never done V6 full stop). I'd have thought that you have a lot more leeway a few grades down.
 AlanLittle 11 Dec 2014
In reply to Fraser:

> I'm pretty sure 'The Self Coached Climber' says climbing many sport F8a's *only* requires V5 bouldering ability. Aim higher!

Not that I'm an expert on 8a routes of any kind, but I suspect that these are 40 metre lactic acid fests in places like the Red River Gorge or Catalonia, and that 8a's in e.g. Cheedale have rather harder moves.
 Ally Smith 11 Dec 2014
In reply to AlanLittle:

> ...I suspect that these are 40 metre lactic acid fests in places like the Red River Gorge or Catalonia, and that 8a's in e.g. Cheedale have rather harder moves.

Pure stamina f8a in the red or Catalunya could have cruxes as easy as V3.

Plenty of 8a's in the UK have V5 or easier cruxes, e.g.
- Statement at LPT
- Superprow at Raven Tor
- Raindogs at Malham (no move harder than V3, but every move is V2 or 3 in isolation)
 cha1n 11 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

OP, what are you trying to achieve? You've not actually asked a question but I assume you're wanting advice on improving? Asking if training is the answer?

Levelling off of the performance curve is completely normal and inevitable. Why do you think you have stopped improving? Are you actually trying harder things?
 Fraser 11 Dec 2014
In reply to Ally Smith:

That's interesting to know....and quite encouraging!
 LeeWood 11 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

> I dunno if it's will power or a lack of understanding that's the problem.

YES, you don't need to improve if you're enjoying yourself! There will always be another level to aspire to; maybe you need some bromine water
OP Stevie989 11 Dec 2014
In reply to cha1n:

With out sounding flippant I just want to improve generally.

I think I've reached a 'natural' plateau and I think I will need to start to actually train to see any significant gains.

Think about my failures and performances the last few months:

I fell off wally 1 at ratho (hard E2) I think this was a endurance/power endurance issue.

I've struggled with 'steep' bouldering - Gorilla at dumbarton etc - this is a power/power endurance issue - I can often do moves but am then unable to link/make progress.

I havent done a lot of sport but I found Abstract art (slabby 6c) steady but didn't take a major siege (first redpoint).

I've top roped/seconded a few routes in the E4/5 range and found them doable after watching the beta but have yet to attempt a hard lead.

My goal hopefully for next year is to move into the E4/5 range and 7's at sport.

I have no real bouldering goals and just enjoy it for what it is.

 cha1n 11 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

I don't trad climb (although I plan on starting) but I'd imagine that a lot of what holds people back is psychological, the fear of falling off. As you say, you can do the moves on E4/5 after being told the sequence which proves you are physically strong enough but perhaps lack the route reading skills.

You say you've been climbing a couple of years, which is not an awfully long time to be climbing. It takes time on rock to learn how to spot holds and sequences. In my opinion you just need to get out on rock as often as you can, indoor climbing will help with strength but it's very hard to set routes/problems which are difficult to read.

There was a post on here a while back about how long you can progress without training, I don't recall the outcome but personally I've climbed fairly hard without training and I know of others who have climbed equally hard or harder (8th grade boulder and routes) without training too.

Some people have the mindset which allows them to train and enjoy it and if you are one of those people then it wouldn't harm to do small amounts of strength training for your fingers as this is usually the thing that holds climbers back and it takes a long time to obtain finger strength. The endurance will come from just climbing if you're training on routes.
 cha1n 11 Dec 2014
In reply to Stevie989:

Just to add to the above, try not to get too hung up on grades.

I've only gone up one bouldering grade in the last year and you can convince yourself that you're a failure if you're used to flying through the grades as you tend to do initially. The truth is that I know I have improved over that year even if the result is just one grade increase, some improvements are hard to measure but you can just feel that you're improving. If that sensation stops, that's when you need to start trying new things!
 Morgan Woods 11 Dec 2014
In reply to CMcBain:


> - Warm-up properly. I like at least 45 minutes of warming up

Ain't got time for that!
 jsmcfarland 12 Dec 2014
In reply to Morgan Woods:

On the warm-up front even after climbing regularly (2/3+ a week) for 3 years I'm still surprised by how long it actually takes all the various parts of the body to warm up.

I normally go for 2-3 hour sessions (either roped or bouldering) and even with 10-15 minutes on the autobelay doing easy stuff, then some moderate bouldering I always climb my hardest routes or problems in the last 1/4 of the session. Especially bouldering, so I would say to the OP to really emphasise a warm-up, it's really helped my climbing knowing that I will get stronger as the session goes on and to be patient.


New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...