UKC

Hi everyone,

Thinking of asking for some climbing training books for Christmas and am looking for some suggestions. Mastermind looks ace for the mental side of things but looks a bit expensive. Does anyone have any suggestions for the physical side? I climb about 3 times a week and am looking to break into the E3-E4 onsight realm of climbing. I'm prepared to train a lot to meet these goals. Any personal experience of training programs that have worked for you would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot,

Alex

In reply to climb the peak:

I can massively recommend the Gimme Kraft books. The training books from Eric Horst are also well respected from what I've heard, although I've not read them myself.

In reply to climb the peak:

That said for E3/4 onsight you probably will get the most out of simply going to climb a lot of E2 routes onsight before finding a well protected, steady E3.

In reply to MischaHY:

Thanks for the help and recommendations

In reply to climb the peak:

The first book, if you don't have it already, should probably be 9 out of 10 climbers Make the Same Mistakes by Dave MacLeod. It's a slim book packed with very useful information, something you can pick and read just bits from and worth returning to again and again.

Performance Rockclimbing by Dale Goddard, Udo Neumann was one of the first books covering training for climbing and is still excellent despite being over 20 years old now.

Gimme Kraft has had mixed reception from climbers. Some don't like it, perhaps it wasn't what they expected. It's basically a book of exercises grouped by the equipment used. So it has a section on bouldering walls, bars, campus board, peg board, sloper rail, floor exercises, rings, TRX, etc.. I think it's pretty good for what it is but it's by no means a general training book for climbing. It's niche book covering exercises for strength training.

In terms of training programs they're all very individualised. A good way to think about what you need to do is to ask yourself why you can't get up the routes you want to. Are the moves too hard? Which would suggest more bouldering and strength training, or are you running out of steam, suggesting more endurance.

But at your grade it might just be a case of getting more experience. If you're climbing 3x a week just make sure you're trying hard enough climbs, at least some of the time. For training and getting stronger overhanging climbing is best. And stick with it. You don't want to be having weeks off here and there. Consistency is key.

In reply to climb the peak:

The Rock Climber's Training Manual by the Anderson Brothers is probably the best and most comprehensive training book on the market at the moment.

In reply to climb the peak:

If you can already onsight ~7a outside like your profile suggests then you can already physically climb e3/e4. Maybe a bit of spare endurance wouldn't hurt but I'd not get too weighed down by all the periodisation type training presented in most of these books. The skill and mental side is way more important for trad imo.

In reply to climb the peak:

In my opinion:

#1 Still 'The Self-Coached Climber' - Dan Hague and Douglas Hunter. Great for movement skills and breaking down to fundamentals. Good for technique drills.

#2 The Rock Climbers Training Manual - Anderson brothers. Best for periodised training programmes.

#3 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes - Dave MacLeod. I personally don't think this is very useful without some other training books as its approach is more to tell you what not to do.

In reply to climb the peak:

Yeah I'd agree with Snoop6060.

7a IS E4 so essentially you are already climbing at that grade. Climbing wise a typical 7a is physically harder than a typical E4, but the E4 might require a bit more endurance just to get the gear in.

I see you've also redpointed 7b. 7b is hard E5. In fact the climbing on most E5s will be no more than 7a+, sometimes only 7a.

So to start climbing E3s and E4s I think you probably just need to climb trad routes at that grade more often, gain confidence in placing and trusting your gear.

In reply to climb the peak:

Thanks a lot for the advice! I do need to get outside more and do more climbing there, but would also like to make the most of the time I spend training indoors. I'll have a look at all the suggested books

In reply to stp:
Possibly a 7a climber can do trad e3 / 4, but a trad is usually much more hopefully onsight, so if you can only redpoint 7a, you might struggle to on sight e3 /4, but If you can reasonably comfortably -ish! onsight 7a, then game on.
I'm not really in a position to know, but i guess there's the odd e2/3 i might have got done this year had i tried more trad , but actually found hvs my trad limit vs 7a redpoint.
However, onsighting bolted 7a there is little fear, just onsight adrenalin, so you could pick bomber gear e3 and have a good chance of success, but not so on scary e3, unless yr that kind of climber too.
The endurance required (placing gear) on some hvs, even vs! surpasses that of some 7a, i think,

In reply to climb the peak:
I'd like to recommend Logical Progression, except that it is ridiculously expensive at £25 for 110 pages , compared to the volume of work that has gone into the others ! The periodized training stuff in other books, is surely for mid or high 7's or low 8's + above ?

It seems a little bit incomplete, uses strange baffling English ("non-linear" training ....what's wrong with just saying "parallel "?), but if you haven't got much time to study training, or train, perhaps spending £25 on an easy short large print! read + simpler programme is worth it?

Eric Horsts Training for Climbing is pretty good too, you can sample loads of it from his website.

In reply to Rock to Fakey:



You can read Logical Progression for free if you take a one month Kindle unlimited trial from Amazon. Don't forget to cancel at the end of the month though! I also really like the book for its very simple approach.

In reply to TonyB:

Hmmm ..that's cool, i just learnt from experience that I forget to cancel!

In reply to Rock to Fakey:


In his profile he has onsighted 7a (and redpointed 7b).



Agreed though most trad E3s and E4s are perfectly safe, certainly the ones that get climbed regularly, as long as one is competent at placing good gear.

In reply to stp:

Thanks yeah i read that, but do you not think that RP 7b ability would equate more to .. well it's not easy to translate, too many variables! You could onsight techy e5 6a, you could fail on pumpy e3 5c, if brave u could breeze up bold e4 5c or bold e5 6a, you could fail on a hard safe one move e3 6b, etc.

I notice a partner i have is getting trad e3 and sport 7a onsight, so you are about right. E4 might be doable too.

In reply to Rock to Fakey:

Agreed there are many variables. My thinking is that if one can climb 7b, even if only on a top rope, then physically (which is what this thread is about, training) one already has more than what it takes to climb E3/4. Therefore the way forward to leading E3/4 is likely to do more with experience on the sharp end, practicing lots of trad. Though I'm happy to admit that without seeing Climb in the Peak actually climbing my opinion is only speculative.

In reply to stp:


It rather depends why you can climb 7b!

When I climbed my first one I was great at hanging in front of things working out the weakling beta and great at remembering sequences. They don't help much onsighting or trad climbing! I wasn't very fit (or very good at onsight route reading, not that that's a physical thing) and so I was onsighting maybe 6b/+, which as a limit without a rack makes E3/4 a pretty big ask!

In reply to stp:

Thanks for the discussion guys. I tend to favor safe trad routes and don't have a particularly good trad head!

In reply to TonyB:

Brilliant, thanks a lot, I'll try that out.

Thanks everyone for all the other suggestions.

In reply to AJM:

Interesting and a very unusual disparity I think.

In my experience there's usually no such thing as weakling beta on most 7b's. Most have crux moves of solid 6b (uk tech grade), and often they have several moves of that grade. Generally you also need to have a reasonable level of fitness too, unless you pick a particularly bouldery one in which case the moves will be really hard. Maybe it was down to lack of self-belief or confidence perhaps? For most climbers who redpoint 7b, a 6b or 6b+ is no more than a warm up grade.

In reply to stp:


Yes, probably, but it's amazing what toproping and fiddling around for long enough can do.


You just need to look harder!

I just didn't have any base aerobic stamina. Good rests, fine, but marginal ones, no chance. For a lot of short UK lime redpointing you can get away without it - you need to be able to boulder maybe V4, V5 at a push (I'm no good with UK tech grades, sorry), get a bit of power endurance from time on the route, and get the sequence really worked so you can sprint it. It works for that one particular case, it doesn't mean you can climb 7b elsewhere (eurostamina is a humbling experience!) and it doesn't translate well to onsighting. Developing an elbow tweak which limited me to aerocap training was something of a revelation in that respect.

It is what it is. I mention it really to highlight that actually it's very possible to be extremely non well rounded and climb 7b in a way which translates very poorly to ability in other areas.

In reply to AJM:

Your earlier self is also me. I've redpointed exactly one 7b and it consisted of a steep 6C-ish fingery boulder problem followed by ten metres of 6b slab. For me to onsight anything above 6b is not unheard of, but still a rare event and a Good Day when it happens. I'm hopeless at seeing sequences myself, but ok at remembering and executing them after I've seen them done or had them explained to me. And - as you yourself have seen - I'm prone to panic when I get pumped.

I also - and again this is probably not untypical - redpoint two grades harder outdoors than in, partly because I can't be arsed indoors but also because indoors tends to be sustained & pumpy.

In reply to Ian Dunn:

"best" if you need to be told what to do step by step - (under the illusion that the RCTM way is the right "scientific" way) - which I'll guess is what the majority of modern climbers need.

Perhaps less "comprehensive" than the Horst books, whose philosophy is more to offer lots of ideas and exercises (with explanations of which might be good for what) and let you choose -- which supports the idea that different people do better with different approaches, and that in the long run avoidance of boredom is a key to successful training.

But really for long-run success in training, the most important book to own is "Make or Break" by Dave MacLeod. Because in the end the limiter is injuries, and MacLeod's careful book is way the best for that.

Ken

In reply to kenr:

My version of it is quite old (2005?), but my Horst read much the same as my RCTM, except that RCTM felt 10 years more up to date. I'd have said both of them are quite prescriptive. Same for SCC.

The one I've always thought was the standout different approach was 9/10, which by design didn't really do detail at all...

In reply to AJM:
Yes, especially for training for outdoor climbing, MacLeod's brilliant book "9 out of 10 Climbers" just cuts through all the pseudo-scientific fluff and side issues, and gets to the questions that really matter and tells you what he thinks.

Sort of assumes you've already read a "normal" training manual, so you can appreciate what he's telling you.

Worth it because "what Dave MacLeod thinks" has a much higher percentage of being right than most other writers.

Ken

In reply to kenr:

I think you need both aspects. The detail in the other books is better, and then 9/10 can help remind you of the wood as well as the trees. That bigger picture can come from the other books (RCTM has got at least one of its authors to 9a, same as DM, so it's clearly not missing anything) it's just maybe less explicit, and sometimes 9/10s solutions ("just move right next to the crag") do read like the solutions that seem natural to a complete obsessive rather than a keen hobbyist!

In reply to AJM:

>"a complete obsessive rather than a keen hobbyist"

I like that. Makes you wonder about your position on that spectrum.

In reply to Rock to Fakey:




With respect I disagree - 7a requires way more fitness than most E3 - perhaps an E3 6b would have moves that could challenge a 7a climber, but the route would be a one move wonder and protection excellent. 7a onsight equates to E5 trad in my book.


This just unquestionably isn't true. I've spent many a day happy soloing VS/HVS - I would never consider this with 7a. In my opinion HVS is 6a at hardest.

In reply to MischaHY:

An average hvs would be tech 5a or b, which probably might equal french 6a, but hanging around to place gear, i have failed on a granite vs4b 1 month before a 7a RP, and think something like the few other VS / hvs i did this year would easily get 6b and 6c at least to inc hanging around to place gear, that's how i'd grade em, others may have a different opinion.

In reply to Rock to Fakey:


This just reads as though you are mainly a sport climber and when trad climbing you overgrip/struggle with the headgame, place too much gear, place it slowly etc. I'd be astounded to find a VS that was f6c worthy........

In reply to galpinos:

I have not ever managed to train a book to go climbing ....

In reply to galpinos:
Yeah that could make some sense, more trad next yr tho i hope
The vs might have been a sandbag that should be hvs too.