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

to climbing performance. While most climbers obsess on improving the strength side of the equation, it’s equally important to achieve a reasonable climbing body weight.
    In the next section you will learn about flexibility training. While warm-up and stretching is a common least-favorite activity among climbers, it is actually indispensable if you want to refine your movement skills, best prepare your joints and muscles for climbing, and lower injury risk.
    Following this you will learn a dozen must-do exercises for your core and antagonist muscles. The core muscles of your torso are called into play for every climbing movement, and they are especially important when climbing on overhanging terrain. Regardless of wall angle, however, a stronger core will enable you to step higher, move your hips better to optimize center-of-gravity placement, and create torso tension and torque for hard, powerful movements. The antagonist muscles play a similarly vital role in facilitating smooth, balanced movement and protecting the joints. Twice-weekly use of the upcoming antagonist exercises will strengthen and stabilize your elbows and shoulders—important if you want to climb hard and say off the disabled list.
    The chapter concludes with a primer on stamina training. While lack of stamina may rarely be a limiting constraint in bouldering or sport climbing, improved stamina can help speed recovery between attempts and ascents. Of course, possessing a high level of stamina is an essential for all-day, pedal-to-the-metal wall ascents and alpine climbing endeavors. Thus, engaging in some stamina-training activities can elevate performance, regardless of your climbing preference.

Optimizing Body Composition
     
    As explained earlier, climbers with less-than-ideal body composition can increase their strength-to-weight ratio most quickly by decreasing weight, not by increasing strength. Every serious climber should ponder whether or not body composition represents a significant limiting constraint. Obtaining a measurement of your percentage of body fat is the best way to determine if you need to work on this area. Given this data, you can decide how much training time should be spent on improving body composition versus other climbing-specific exercises.

Measuring Your Percentage of Body Fat
     
    Most health clubs and some universities have the equipment necessary to measure your percentage of body fat, so getting your body fat measured may be just a phone call and a few miles away. A study of athletes in a variety of sports reported that males possessed body fat ranging from 4 percent in wrestlers to 8-12 percent in runners and 16 percent in football players, with an elite average of below 12 percent (Wilmore 1983). The same study showed that female athletes possessed body fat between 8 and 25 percent, with an elite average of 15 percent. Therefore, a percentage of body fat near these elite average levels (12 percent men, 15 percent women) is a good initial target for most climbers. Given that climbing performance is directly correlated to strength-to-weight ratio, however, your ultimate goal should be a few percentage points lower—perhaps 6 to 8 percent for men and 10 to 12 percent for women. One study (Watts 1993) revealed that some elite male and female climbers possess body fat as low as 4 percent and 9 percent, respectively. However, extremely low body fat is neither desirable nor advised, since it will adversely affect your energy levels and recovery ability, as well as cause numerous health problems (especially among women).
    If you are unable to get a professional body fat measurement, you can always employ the highly economical, at-home method—that is, pinch a fold of skin just above your hip. If you can pinch an inch or more (thickness of the fold), you definitely need to drop some body fat. A fold between 0.5 and 1 inch thick indicates you may be slightly overweight for a climber. If you pinch less than 0.5 inch of fat, then your body fat is likely at or below the target averages stated above.
    In addition to optimizing your percentage of body fat, you should consider the size and location of the muscles you carry. For instance, it is indisputable that possessing hulking leg muscles is as bad or worse for a climber than carrying a spare tire around the waist (especially since muscle weighs more than fat per unit volume). Since the legs muscles are never the weakest link while climbing, you should limit or