Training for Climbing, 2nd: The Definitive Guide to Improving Your Performance (How To Climb Series)

Training
     

     
    Figure 5.8 Rate of Force Production
     

    So while strength and power are clearly related, they differ in the rate at which a force is applied. A real-life example that helps clarify this distinction relates to your ability to grip a tiny hold versus your ability to quickly stick (draw in) a small handhold at the end of a lunge. Figure 5.8 shows hypothetical force-time curves for three climbers. Climber A possesses the strongest grip strength and can hang on the smallest holds, but he is not very powerful. Climber B has less absolute strength than Climber A, but she is more powerful. Consequently, she can summon her strength more quickly (that is, she has greater contact strength), and she will be more successful at catching dynos and quickly latching on to tiny holds. Climber C is neither strong nor powerful—he’d better stick to climbing slabs.
    Obviously, it’s ideal to maximize your strength and power, much like Climber B. This can be achieved by partaking in a variety of exercises that train both strength and power.

Training for Strength
     
    Rate of strength gains, as a result of training, decreases as a function of your current level of strength. Therefore, initial increases in strength will result from even a poorly conceived and executed training regimen. Adaptations in stronger, more advanced climbers occur more slowly—and possibly not at all unless they are using the best training methods. This helps explain why so many intermediate to advanced climbers feel they are no longer getting stronger: For them, further gains require advanced training techniques and the discipline to apply them precisely over a long period of time.
    In terms of training maximum strength—your ability to pull a single maximum move or grip a small edge or pocket under full body weight—it is widely accepted by sports scientists that exercising at high intensity and heavy loads is the most important factor. Furthermore, the muscles must be progressively loaded beyond the point to which they are accustomed. In the weight-lifting world, this is achieved by performing three to ten repetitions at some high load, which is increased over time. Unfortunately, this is a difficult protocol to create for the purpose of developing finger strength for climbing. For instance, what do you do to create progressive overload of the fingers (forearm muscles) once you are strong enough to handle your own body weight over steep terrain? The obvious answer is to “climb longer,” which is exactly what many climbers do. This strategy, however, develops endurance of strength (anaerobic endurance), not maximum strength.
BOULDERING AS STRENGTH TRAINING
     
    A better strategy is to seek out progressively more strenuous boulder problems that seem to require near-maximum strength. The drawback here relates to the fact that it’s very difficult to say if you fell off a move because of muscular failure or because you performed the movement poorly (bad technique). Further diluting the training effect is the randomness of handholds in size and shape, which dictates the use of different grip positions—we now know that varying grip position is a good endurance strategy, but it’s poor for building maximum grip strength. Consequently, while you may notice some gains in strength and power from bouldering, you can assume that it’s not providing you with the greatest strength gains possible. There are just too many variables involved.
    Bouldering on a steep artificial wall represents a better format for upper-body strength training, because you can control the size and distance between holds and minimize the technical aspects that might spit you off before muscular failure. Still, there are practical limits to how far you can increase hold spacing and decrease the size of the handholds—beyond a certain point the moves will become overly technical or the tiny holds too painful to climb on. As described above, it’s necessary to perform three to ten maximum repetitions before reaching muscular failure (for the purpose of developing maximum strength); in the case of climbing with both hands, you would need to perform six to twenty total hand movements before failure.
HYPERGRAVITY TRAINING
     
    Once the above strategies have been exhausted for the purpose of developing further gains in maximum grip strength, you need to up the ante by employing hypergravity training. At advanced levels of training for climbing, the importance of