UKC

Been looking into weight training for climbing. Anyone have any positive results or want to try it out in the chesterfield area?
Just starting with it and would like to train with someone with similar goals.

In reply to JVard:

I think it can be useful as an antagonist activity but it seems like a bit of a waste to train climbing specific muscles in a gym when you could be training them by climbing instead.

I would use a gym (and infrequently do) for squat and deadlift to increase general and core strength, benchpress as a pure antagonist/ injury prevention exercise and possibly a shoulder workout for stability.

In reply to JVard:

I tend to do squats and core work with occasional pull-up stuff thrown in, but climbing is still the best workout for climbing. Though gym membership is cheaper then a years access to your local climbing wall.

In reply to edhawk21:

Read Training for the New Alpinism, that'll convince you that the 'common sense' idea that climbing is the best training for climbing is wrong!

In reply to Dandan:


Big subject but just picking up on this specific point if there is a specific climbing muscle or group that you are targeting then weights can be a great way to intensively work it more than climbing ever would. Of course you can do the weights exercise after you come home from climbing. As an example a route I'm trying requires gastoning strength. A couple of times I've come back and done a weird exercise of my own devising lying on your side using a dumbell to work that action and position.

In reply to JVard:

Hi. Weight training can definitely be beneficial. A good program will allow strength and power development in all commonly-used ranges of motion (and as Shark suggests you can make up your own exercises to suit for less commonly-used actions). It also provides opportunities to identify and correct specific areas of weakness / under-activation. For instance there are far too many climbers who are ultra-shredded yet horribly kyphotic and stiff: weight training requires that these issues be addressed, as the immediate alternative is injury. Climbers on the other hand can 'work around' these movement discrepancies while kidding themselves that they're moving well. In weight training, correct form is key, and it offers a kind of therapeutic discipline in regard to healthy movement.

As to whether it's going to make you a much better climber, it kind of depends on what your current general weaknesses are. Is it your fingers, or your core, or your head? Weight training is only going to directly transfer to one of those. If your weaknesses relate to a lack of absolute strength and power, it could bump up your grade significantly. For most people, doing lots of climbing is going to yield the greatest gains, bearing in mind some of the physiological principles of training. But clearly there's a ceiling to the gains to be made from only climbing, where a certain area is letting you down.

Anecdotally I climb very little at the moment, maybe once or twice a month, focusing almost entirely on weight training for now. Despite the bodyweight gain associated with the training and nutrition (up about 8kg from this time last year) I'm still bouldering at the same level or a bit higher. Gives me hope I may actually not be a bumbly, one day

Luke

In reply to shark:

Have you compared the effectiveness to setting replica problems on a board Simon? I get the idea of being really specific to a move but actually it's still moves not muscles you want to train...

In reply to AJM:

Yes I have tried replica moves. No I haven't compared effectiveness. Not sure how you could or why unless a scientist. Doing replica moves after you are busted from doing those moves at the crag is a non-starter as finger strength not to mention soreness is the limiter whereas weights is something you can do. All approaches have pros and cons so best to try all of them.Similarly when strong people say just boulder they dont appreciate when you are weak that pulling on to even try isn't possible. Moves not muscles sounds good but what does it really mean.

In reply to JVard:

Weight training can definitely help one's climbing (assuming, as said above, strength is your limiting factor).

Ally Rainey has written a lot about weight training for climbing on her web site: http://allirainey.com/

She says after a period of getting stronger with weights you have to learn to climb again because basically you have a new body. Having a stronger core or arms etc. mean you'll be able to do moves you couldn't do before so you need an adaptation phase.

There's also a lot of body weight training you can do to. The book Gimme Kraft is a bible of mostly body weight exercises for climbing using bars, rings, campus boards, sling trainers, peg boards, indoor walls, and just things you do on the floor.

In reply to shark:


What I mean is that all climbing moves involve a movement way more complex than the sort of movement you can easily hit with isolated weights and that as a result I'm dubious that the results will be as good as something more specific. Accept the comments about finger strength but in almost all circumstances if I wanted to get strong on a particular move then I wouldn't train it the same day as having been out on the crag trying to do it anyway.

In reply to shark:


So, have you done the route thanks to this lying on your side doing curls (sounds a bit wrong), or is it too soon to ask?

In reply to Jon Stewart:
Its not at curl more like a waving motion. If I do the route it will be the result of a combination of a lot of things with only incremental gains. Also some of the things wont have worked. I wouldnt be surprised if 50% of the training I do is wasted but I'll never know for sure which 50%.

In reply to JayPee630:

Well, yes and no. TftNA promotes a periodized approach to training, with quite long periods where sport-specific training builds on more general conditioning performed earlier in the plan. This is not the only approach - The Rock Climbers Training Manual, for example, uses much shorter periods.

It's also worth bearing in mind that TftNA is specifically geared at Alpinists, and while there's certainly a lot of common ground, Alpinists have quite distinctly different strength needs from those of Sport Climbers.