UKC

Josh Hadley, one of the lead coaches from Lattice talks us through how best to train your upper body at home. Many of the exercises and sessions detailed below can be found in the free Crimpd app, which is available on both iOS and Android.

Tom Randall will also be live on the forums between 5-6 PM today (14/05/20) to answer any questions you may have on the topic of home training.

Hi Tom, 

A question that hopefully will be useful to others too.

In the past when training at home I would tend to combine fingerboarding with other shoulder and core exercises, either floor based or using a TRX, including some of the exercises in this article. (Josh's advice on pressups is really good by the way, I wish I had seen that 10 years ago.)

Like many others I have recently built a home board (45 degrees) and am doing limit bouldering rather than fingerboarding for most of my training, in which my shoulders and core get a hard workout as well as my fingers. What I don't really understand is what types of upper body strength won't be worked by board climbing and therefore which I should try to train separately in addition to the board climbing (with enough rest), using which exercises. I am doing some some theraband exercises for my rotator cuff (as I had problems with my left shoulder a few years ago) but I'm thinking more about strengthening exercises here.

Or should I assume I get enough from the board, and just do a few other exercises for antagonists and injury prevention?

Cheers

Si

This is a really common misconception that your shoulders and core get a maximal workout from climbing on a 45 deg board - far from it! Sure you may get A workout in those areas, but it’s not maximal. If you want to seriously address core, shoulders etc, then in high level climbers it needs to be done off the board. That’s IF you think those areas need work. Also you need to be distinct about whether a certain level of strength/power etc is sport-specific or not. It’s actually a very good question and one I could spend way too much talking about if you ever see me at a crag :-D

Thanks Tom.

Could you explain a bit more what you mean by this?

"Also you need to be distinct about whether a certain level of strength/power etc is sport-specific or not"

I'm probably being a bit dumb.

Hi Tom,

Is it better to train for longer but less frequently or for shorter but more more frequently? Ie training for 2hrs 3 times a week or training for 1hr 6 times a week? 

And does the type of training eg fingerboard, strength, mobility, etc change the frequency / duration recommendation? 

Cheers 

Hope this isn't too late... fair enough if it is...

Despite climbing for about 4 years and living near the Works I'm a pretty ropey and weak boulderer. I was hoping that lockdown would be a time to improve, but it's a struggle!

One piece of info that would be really helpful to know is, in your opinion, how much time per week (or day?) should I commit to training? Because without really knowing that it's super hard to gauge whether I'm doing too much or nowhere near enough!

Sorry, quite a broad and basic question but one that I feel would help me!

Cheers!

Invariably, it works better to spread the training out as you allow adequate recovery time for each session and the session quality also ends up being higher. As an overall rule, you should leave a longer time for harder, higher intensity sessions (strength, AnCap, hard power endurance). Also older climbers should leave significantly more time between sessions!

It's a broad question, so I'll have to give you a broad and simple answer. 

How much? Enough to cause overload of the soft tissues and metabolic pathways (this massively influenced by your current fitness and training history). Enough to be motivation to cause you to get up the next day and think about doing it again! More detail than this and I'd have to talk to you properly and get into the nitty gritty. 

It's actually not that hard all this training stuff.... you just need to find the right reason for it. I personally think (reading between the lines) that motivation might be the bigger issue for you. I could be wrong though! :-D

When cross training, does training one energy system cross over more than another?

E.g. would improving my aerobic capacity on the bike improve my aerobic capacity on the wall more than building anerobic capacity on the bike translating to improved anaerobic capacity on the wall?

:O I am SO motivated!! 

Thanks very much for the answer though, sounds like a need to put a bit more thought into it!

If you have missed Tom, I'm fairly confident in giving a layman's answer to this, which is that unless your general fitness level is very poor then there will be negligible crossover in both cases.

The reason is that your aerobic capacity for climbing is limited by your forearm muscles' ability to accept and use oxygenated blood at a given rate, not the rate at which your body can produce it. So improving this latter quantity through cycling, running (or any other cardio exercise for which it is a limiting factor) gives no benefit. It's because of the small size of the forearm muscles, vs for example your legs.

Analogous for the anaerobic system. 

No, you'll see almost no benefits of cross training other than general increases in work capacity and muscular conditioning - and it should be pointed out that they're only likely to be put into the "benefit" category if your level of sport-specific conditioning is pretty low anyway. So for example, if you're 1 yr into climbing, you've previously been at a desk job for 15yrs and not doing any sport, then likely it's good to get some extra sport time in! But, if you've climbed for 15yrs already and are expecting benefits from cycling then you're extremely unlikely to see them (I can think of a few exceptions, but they're unusual). 

It's fairly simple, in that it's possible to over-develop muscles and muscle groups to the extent that you're not getting any further benefit from that training that's specific to the sport. So for example, you may wish to train an incredible set of shoulders that would serve you very well in a steep climbing setting or competition bouldering, but it turns out you actually climb and perform on slabs. Another example of this would be the extent to which me and Pete trained our core back in 2011. It was utterly critical for Century Crack but massive overkill for any other form of climbing. In climbing, we need to constantly reassess what's useful and relevant to both our grades and our specialisations. Hope that helps?