UKC

Hi guys

So I've regularly bouldered/climbed for the last 12-months.  The majority of that time it has just been 1X week (that's why I'm still rubbish! lol) but more recently it's been 2X weekly.

I've just bought an annual membership for my local bouldering centre (Lancaster Wall) and want to make sure I get the best value for money without overdoing it.

Typically, my normal week will be 

Monday: either climb (boulder and roped) with my partner OR boulder alone

Wednesday: climb or boulder with my climbing buddy.

Friday evening/Sat/Sun: alternately, I've either got my kids or spend it with the missus doing outdoor stuff, which may include some bouldering or climbing, but easier stuff than I'd do indoors, so not physically taxing.

So my long winded post is that I'm wondering realistically how many more times I can boulder without it being detrimental to my progress?

If this was a question about squats or deadlifts I'd know that I need to periodise my training with easier sessions alongside hard sessions, but I'm not sure if 'easy' bouldering sessions really add any value and I should limit myself to just a couple of hard sessions a week?

I'm 48, relatively heavy for my height 5'7" and 80kg) but it's mainly useful bodyweight and I'm physically fit, easily able to run 10km in around 51-52 mins, deadlift 190kg, squat 165kg, so hard physical activity isn't a new thing for me.

Two or three times a week is fairly typical for keen middle-age bod but it kinda depends on how hard and for how long you go at during the sessions. You need to balance, frequency, intensity and duration to suit whatever workload you can currently cope with or you'll start to get tired.

You'll need to suck it and see.

The sessions by myself are normally quite long as I feel like I'm more limited by my technical ability and hand/grip strength that other areas of my body.

Makes sense to suck it and see.  If I go again either tonight or tomorrow (climbing partner is away this week) and it feels super hard then I know I'm gonna need more rest between sessions. 

Cheers 

I'm in my early 40s and it takes me 2 days to recover from a hard indoor session (2 to 3 hours high intensity bouldering). This doesn't really matter so much if you are training rather than looking to climb your hardest, or your clever about what you do with your time (ie. focus on different stuff at the wall). In the winter when I only climb indoors I can't do much more than 4x a week without getting really tired. 

I actually tried creatine this year and found it did help a lot with recovery time.

I'm not a physio (someone who knows better, please correct me), but I'm sure I've read many times from people who know that a sudden increase in activity can aggravate tendons. So just getting too tired to make gains is not the main risk, but instead the risk of elbow or finger tendon injury. Personally, it was elbows for me when I suddenly started doing repeaters on the fingerboard as well as the other climbing I normally did in the week.

So, instead of just going full-on with another regular session, trying hard like you normally do, it might be better to ease into it. Instead of having an 'easy' session (I agree, probably not that useful), you could drop a grade or two and focus on climbing them without any errors, great footwork... other drills are available. 

I'm assuming that you are not interested in endurance, otherwise that is another way of mixing it up. One thing which can be fun is a whole circuit with only 30 seconds rest between each boulder. It can get you really pumped.

Even if you are not interested in any endurance, 4 by 4 boulders for power endurance is still important for bouldering. 

But still, I would bring in any of these in gradually. I'm 41 myself and more aware that pushing oneself needs to be done in the right way.

You've missed the key bit. 

What is the outcome you want from this training? 

Work back from there. 

Hi Si,

I’m the physio who works at Lancaster wall. I’m there on a Monday.

I clicked on this post as this is the kind of question I find really interesting and it turns out you’re local. 

I’ll finish at 8 ish next Monday. I’d happily spend a few mins chatting with you about this if you’re around at that time?

Drop me a message via here or my website. 

It’s the kind of thing that would take ages to type but could be easily covered in a quick chat. I’ve got a few prepared documents around  this subject too. 

Then you won’t need to pay me to look at your sore elbows! 

You will never get a better offer than this: https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/walls+training/appropriate_frequency_of_i...

Andy is one of life's radiators (as opposed to the sinks)

The limiting factor for me (and I’m talking about running here) is rest. I can’t run on back to back days and have to a day off. In the past I’ve tried working out to an 8 day week schedule to achieve this but it’s hard to keep this up as life intervenes.

Must sat looking at your current schedule I’d have thought you could fit in another quick/short session on the Friday before the weekend starts without too much risk of injury.

Every other Friday I pick my kids up which involves a 6.5hr round trip so that Friday is out but the other Friday would be doable so that's definitely an option

That's a very good point!

Ultimately, I want to get better.  Is that too generic an answer? *shrugs shoulders*

I think I've got a few issues in achieving that: 

  a)  my ability to solve the problem isn't brilliant, although it's getting better.  Sometimes, I just can't read the route, especially on harder V4 grades and above.

  b)  my technique probably lets me down

  c)  my grip strength is probably lacking in comparison to my overall body strength

Hi mate, that is so nice of you!  Unforunately I'm away next monday but if you were around the following monday I could come find you and have a quick chat (I promise it'd be quick - in fact, you might look at me and decide I'm a lost cause! lol)

I've usually found that:

Once a week is enough to keep ticking over but isn't enough to get me to my peak, or anywhere near it.  It's fine for the Autumn when i'm not particularly motivated.

Twice a week for a few months is good.  Gets me up towards me peak (I climb E1/E2).

Three times a week would be ideal but doesn't often happen.  Life gets in the way.  It's also where you start to over-train and pick up injuries.  Then you have a lay-off and are desperate to make up for lost time....

If you want to improve, I'd suggest (a) some flexibility work and (b) finding a bouldering partner who is about two grades better than you.  They can teach you stuff about technique.

Climbing more will make you stronger and improve your stamina but that's only part of what it takes to be a better climber.

As someone that has had to pay biscuit for his excellent services in relation to sore elbows, I can't overstate how valuable this short chat will be!

A good thing to have a think about is what your priorities are and what your areas of weakness would be. Trying to get better indoors is different from outdoor sport and even further removed from trad. Climbing is a complex interaction between the technical, physical and mental. A weakness in any subcomponent of any of these will stop you dead in your tracks. I.e. if you have poor technique, no ammount of brute strength would get you up a climb near your theoretical limit. Equally, being disproportionately strong in one are is not going to improve your climbing if you're weak in others. For example, you may have quite a good head on you or be technically very proficient but if you're weak physically, they will again only get you so far. 

The best number of sessions is the maximum you can get away with from a commitment perspective and recover fully from. Bear in mind however that the training needs to hit the weak points, so being clear what they are is quite key. This needs to be assessed in the context of what you want to get good at.

It's been stated that there isn't any value in low intensity workouts but I would contend that if you have any ambitions to climb anything other than short intense boulder problems some endurance workouts in your week would be very useful. Most boulders go ,100% every session which is a recipe for never climbing at their best. At 48 yeard i wpuld expect 3 days of rest between intense efforts. If you substitute an endurance session at 40% Max effort in 3*10min intervals you aerobic capacity specific to climbing will improve and you'll then be able to climb longer routes or more boulder problems in your other sessions. 

You might also want to fit in a more general strength and conditioning session using weights and preferably in a class. Whilst this will likely be fairly intense it conditions the other /opposing muscles thereby improving your life and preventing the climbers stoop caused by only exercising the front muscles. 

Stretching and mobility is also useful when you are in recovery. You'll be able to climb harder routes without punishing the muscles 

My current climbing partner is 1+ grade higher than me.  He’s probably only not 2 grades (or more) as he only climbs once a week most weeks due to other commitments.  I do get so much more from my sessions with him than those alone as he’ll give me a lot of tips.  I also find these are carrying over to solo sessions as my problem solving abilities are definitely improving.

The flexibility work is definitely a good call and I’ve started stretching more BUT I need to make sure I’m consistent with it cos frankly………I find it a bit boring but I know it’s a bit of a necessary evil.  Note to self, stretch whilst watching tele!!!

All great points!  Its worth noting that I’ve joined the local bouldering wall as its only 5-miles from me whereas the nearest climbing wall is about 30-miles so its just not convenient for multiple sessions a week, plus my climbing buddy can typically only climb 1X week anyway.  I’m hoping to get to know more people at the gym and be able to do more outdoor climbing during the week.  I certainly don’t just want to become a good indoor boulderer.  I want it all 😬

I also figured that becoming better at bouldering would still improve my roped climbing ability as the skills and technique are the same (I think), just different like sprinting and 5,000m race running are still different but are both still running.  I could well be off the mark here though.

in regards to strengths and weaknesses, my physical strength is definitely an asset BUT is limited by my grip strength so I probably need time developing that (presumably it’ll improve with time anyway but some specific training would probably help speed the process up).  Weaknesses are probably EVERYTHING else to greater or less degrees.  Strewth, it definitely sounds like I’m a lost cause 🤦‍♂️😆

Thanks Mutt, that’s useful advice.  I do plenty of general weight training (although the CrossFit gym where I did train has just closed down 🙄) so I’m not overly worried about imbalances occurring as it’s something I’m very much aware of now that I’m increasing my climbing.

As per one of my other replies, I’ve joined the bouldering gym mainly for convenience and whilst I want to get better at bouldering I hope/expect this to carry over to improving my climbing technique in general.  I think I just need to get out on rock more to improve my trad as I went outdoors with my missus last weekend and being the ‘experienced’ one it made me much more aware about it being very much a mind game as well.

Really useful points about the endurance sessions and I can definitely see the value in using the circuit board to enable me to build up some endurance which will benefit ALL my climbing.

I don't know about lost cause, it all sounds like a great base to work from! If it's finger strength you're lacking, a fingerboard may help close that gap, as will steep fingery bouldering. Both of those sound like reasonable options in your situation. 

I think you are on the right track with bouldering supporting your roped climbing. I've definitely seen a good bit of improvement via that route myself, but I found that keeping some mileage on the sharp end to be important. The good thing about bouldering is that if you try hard problem, everything on a rope will feel easy relatively speaking. 

As I'm sure you know already, consistency is key with any training. Even a minimal ammount will build up over the months and years. Dig in my friend and enjoy the ride

+1 on what Mutt said. An aero cap session will be very valuable for your trad but also improve your session endurance for bouldering - meaning you get more out of each session and build strength quicker over time.

Make sure aero cap it is low intensity however - lower than you might expect. The idea is that it's very easy to recover from, and so you can slot the session into the week without impacting your 'try hard' sessions.

Other than the injury risk, you also need to avoid 'junk mileage' where you are not properly recovered from the last session and so can't try hard enough to get into the 'top end' zone. To make strength gains you need to be fresh and give really high quality max efforts. Going home while you are still not too trashed is a good idea - it's all too easy to get involved and go until you are totally knackered, then recovery takes longer again. If you have a membership, then shorter, harder sessions are an option.

Your aero cap can be done when you are already carrying some fatigue, but do try and be well rested for a harder session.