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

become excellent at both. Just as no one has ever won an Olympic gold medal in both the 100-meter dash and the marathon, it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever see a climber who boulders V15 and summits Mount Everest without oxygen. The mental and physiological requirements are just too different.
    Chapter 1 introduced the SAID Principle, which explains that training time should be invested in a way most specific to your primary focus in climbing. If your focus is bouldering, sport climbing, or multipitch free climbing, then training maximum strength and anaerobic endurance must be at the center of your fitness-training program. Conversely, big-wall and alpine climbers would most benefit from stamina training, in addition to some anaerobic endurance training.
    It’s well known that the best method for developing stamina is long, slow distance aerobic training. Applying this method to climbing involves performing a high volume of low- to moderate-intensity exercise lasting several hours or more. Putting in frequent long days of climbing is undoubtedly the best stamina-training method for rock climbers—training doesn’t get any more specific than this! For the average weekend warrior, however, putting in ten to twenty full-length climbing days per month is improbable. Engaging in regular aerobic activity is the best training alternative for triggering the numerous adaptations within the cardiovascular system, such as increased heart stroke volume, lung capacity, and intramuscular capillary density. In the aggregate these adaptations will improve stamina as well as the ability to function at altitude.
    Tips for Training Stamina
     
    1. Perform a high volume of moderate-intensity exercise. The total duration of exercise session should be measured in hours, not minutes.
    2. Log frequent all-day climbing adventures with a goal of twelve to twenty-five pitches of total climbing.
    3. Engage in one to two hours of sustained aerobic activity (running, biking, or brisk hiking with a light pack on) as a substitute for all-day climbing workouts.
    4. Strive for a total of ten to twenty stamina-training days (all-day climbing and aerobic workout days) per month.
    5. When training time is limited, use aerobic interval training and the Tabata Protocol—both will improve aerobic capacity.
    6. Take a full week of rest every two months or prior to the beginning of a climbing trip or expedition.
     
     
    In the final analysis, the average rock climber will not benefit from large amounts of stamina training. With the exception of the overweight climber (wanting to lower percentage of body fat), any aerobic activity beyond a few twenty-minute sessions per week would not be advantageous. As stated above, stamina and strength training are opposites, so excessive aerobic training should be viewed as an enemy of anyone pursuing maximum strength.

Complex Training
     
    I’ll conclude this section on training methodology by introducing you to the exciting concept of complex training. Complex training represents the leading edge of strength and power training, and it’s now in use by elite athletes in numerous sports. Applied to climbing, the complex training protocol described below may represent the most powerful training concept known to climbers at this time.
    Complex training involves coupling a high-force, low-speed exercise (such as hypergravity training) with a higher-speed, reactive-training exercise. Of this pair, the first exercise caters to developing maximum strength, while the second targets power. Research has shown that performing these two very different exercises back-to-back (and in the order of strength first, power second) produces gains in strength and power beyond that achieved by performing either exercise alone. While no studies have been done with climbers, there is compelling research in the use of complex training to increase vertical jump that shows phenomenal gains in absolute ability (Adams, 1992). In this study six weeks of strength training produced a 3.3-centimeter increase in the vertical jump, compared with a 3.8-centimeter increase after six weeks of reactive (power) training. The group performing complex training (strength and reactive) for six weeks experienced an incredible 10.7-centimeter increase in jumping ability.
    To understand why a coupling of these two exercises produces such a synergistic gain in strength and power, we must examine the unique ways in which the neuromuscular system is stressed.