UKC

Hi,

Are there any weight training workouts with specificity to climbing?

I do a lot of squats and deadlifts when I'm down the gym. What do other people do?

Cheers

In reply to climber007:
I'd imagine anything that works the climbing specific antagonist muscles would be a good start, so any muscle that you don't usually use when climbing.
Bench press and shoulder press/smith machine come to mind immediately, unless you spend you life topping out of boulders.
Core exercises would be good, squat will help with that but would that not also give you giant heavy thighs? That's not going to be helpful for climbing...
Also, and only because I am currently waiting for surgery to fix a recurring dislocating shoulder, don't rule out the small stabilising muscles to keep you injury free, side arm raises, shoulder rotation exercises, reverse flys etc.

In reply to climber007: surely core strength workouts should be top of your list? And lots of gyms have some climbing holds somewhere for pullups etc.

In reply to climber007: i started weightlifting and my climbing suffered massively.be very careful if you want to improve your grade

In reply to climber007:

I was a weights sceptic but now believe they are an important tool for all round fitness particularly if yo have a sedentary job. That said to climb well your body needs to specialise and if you keep using weights to pull your body in one direction whilst trying to improve climbing you will probably be frustrated.

Perhaps things like farmers walks and heavy finger rolls could help but I would concentrate on routines to prevent climbing injuries such as a rotor cuff programme and elbows, knees etc. You could look at the way you lift too go for power and speed rather than just low down dirty force/strength

In reply to climber007: i'm in the same boat. want to get the gym , but not sure where to aim. in my job i have to use manual handling so my legs are great. it's the top half i need to work on. sorry to the OP for hijacking the thread.
jeff

In reply to climber007: When training for climbing weights aren't useful they will tighten you up and will not carry over to improved performance. The only weight you should use is the kettlebell. Kettlebell presses will strengthen the weak links in your shoulders and kettlebell snatches will work your cardiovascular system and increase shoulder endurance.

You should also think about learning the gymnastic bridge, this will work all the muscles that are neglected by climbing and will improve flexibility and core stability.

For your legs you should not do bilateral squats, you should only do single leg moves like split squats, one legged dead-lifts and lateral lunges. This is because single leg and split leg moves stretch and strengthen the tight hip flexors as well as forcing you to retain stability in a split stance perfect for core and balance work. The best leg move for a climber is the single leg squat information is here-http://maxwellsc.com/blog.cfm?blogID=60

The most important thing is your grip it is what will limit you the most on the rock, work it by hanging from a pull up bar, you should be aiming for 4 sets of one minute before progressing to hanging from a folded over towel. Information on the towel hang can be found on http://www.alkavadlo.com/2012/09/11/hand-and-finger-strength/

For working your core you should be doing hanging leg raises, which will simultaneously work your grip and your abs. When you get more advanced move onto the planche, the front lever and the back lever.

Pull ups are good but once you can do more than fifteen you should weight them down only add enough weight that you can do at least 8 pull ups and no less than ten. This is the sweet spot between strength and endurance and will ensure the most carry over to the Rock or climbing wall. Also there are so many options with pull ups, frenchies, flexed hangs and plyometric pull-ups are all useful.

Dips are Ok if you want to train to top out on boulders, but often are rough on your shoulders, you don't need to add them but they are useful in some situations.

And remember in training for climbing Eric Horst said (In training for climbing) that one third of climbing is skill, one third is mental toughness and one third is strength. So focusing on the gym is only working on a third of your climbing training.

In reply to Galifreytourist: Galifreytourist: Here is a climbing program that is useful for me during the week. It is a whole body split to make sure you work all the muscles.

Workout 1
Dead hang- 4 sets of 1 Min
Single leg squats- 5 sets of 2 with a 10 second pause at the bottom
Kettlebell Clean and Press/Pull ups-5 ladders,do one pull-up/do one Press, rest, two pull-ups/two presses, rest..., 5 pull-ups/5 presses then start again at one.
Kettlebell snatches with a 16 kg bell, roll a pair of dice and do as many snatches as possible in that time.

Workout 2
Fingertip Push Ups-3 sets of 10
Gymnastic Bridge Holds- 4 sets of 1 min
Kettlebell Clean and Press/Pull Up 5 ladders.
Farmers walks bodyweight each hand for 20 meters perform two or three times.

You could also do this as a whole body workout by pairing antagonistic exercises. Or you could split it up into body parts, Forearms, legs, core, Back and conditioning. Remember to focus on bodyweight exercises as much as possible.

This program is a bastardization of Pavel Tsatsouline's Rite of passage program. Props go to him.

Logic fail right there.

In reply to nw: sorry should have said barbells and dumbbells, the kettlebell is not the same as the barbell because it focuses on unilateral movements preventing an imbalance between right and left, and it doesn't lock the shoulders and wrists into a single plain allowing your shoulders and wrists to move naturally.
Also the lock out position at the top of the Viking press is a really good and safe stretch for your shoulders unlike the behind the neck barbell press which just jacks up the shoulders.
Thirdly the handle of the kettlebell allows you to get a full stretch of the delts at the bottom of the press, unlike the dumbbell where the range of motion is compromised by the size of the plates.

Also the shape of the kettlebell is better suited to more ballistic exercises like the swing and the snatch, the torque of the dumbbell twists it out of your hand during these exercises.

In reply to Galifreytourist: Having said that kettle bells are not necessary to improve shoulder strength and mechanics, just doing press ups and handstand press ups will develop healthy shoulders, for example do a push up with one hand on a basket ball, the extra stabilisation will help train the smaller muscles of your shoulder.