Training Non-finger/hand dependent power moves

Quite possibly the worst title to describe this topic but oh well.

Anyways, I'm curious what the collective brain here at MP thinks about weight training for those moves that feel so damn intense but yet another season on the hangboard won't do squat to get you ready for. Those bear hugging sequences up the arete (think Nalle's Livin Large, DWoods' Derailed - in Core and Progression respectively), those blocky underclings, those all too common times when you need to pull a static one arm pull up off an unmatchable pocket with nothing to put your foot on...see Dwoods in Men's 4 during the 2009 Mammut championship.

My point or question rather is this: in general I don't feel that weight training, aside from injury prevention, has much benefit to climbing performance but because climbing movement is so complex, I'm assuming that there are hard moves where the limiting factor is related to an upper body (I'm ignoring slabs and OW) muscle or group that would benefit from being independently trained - or is this a once in a blue moon phenomena? I want to distinguish this question from previously debated topics such as using weight training to improve forearm strength or whether doing cross fit will make a stronger and possibly better climber. Also, because this post is about the training of these movements, I can see the answers falling into a number of categories such as a) some climbing areas and styles rarely depend on these movements like technical/frontal climbing areas, b) training this will help these moves but so will finger/hand/technique training which is more beneficial to all climbing and is a better use of time and body, c) I'm a wanker and understand nothing about climbing movement and physiology, d) see c, e) I've uncovered a key addition to add more training and frustration and will soon earn my own paragraph in future editions of SCC (fingers crossed).

Again, I could be way off base here but as I figure if weight training really does help climbing strength and perhaps performance it would be most noticeable here. I should also specify that I mean strength and power training of these muscles - not aiming for hypertrophy really so low and/or dynamic reps. For further clarification these are the movements I had in mind - One arm pull ups (not two - one), Front raises, chest fly, reverse fly, and perhaps rows - I'm sure more could be thought of but these in particular I can point to a number of boulder problems or routes where the movement mimics these motions.

Lastly, in the case that you believe either c) or d) to be correct - I propose a moratorium on guideline 1 - go wild!

Thoughts? Links? Anecdotes and opinions from that guy at the gym who wears gloves and the whole trad rack while in the bouldering cave (I saw him once, best day of my climbing life)?

-edited to add that I didn't find this specific topic addressed in searchs

ok i bite...

mostly because that was so fun to read
and i love this topic
not that my own discipline has allowed it to become reality...but i sure have read a ton about it :)

hoping to not fall into category d...haha imo:

stamina and stability and breath

stamina--anaerobic exercise can drastically increase your body's (specifically your forearms) ability to exert energy and delay the release of lactic acid (that pumped feeling). Short bursts of exercise will allow you to sustain intense periods of power and strength

stability--core muscles work to balance the entire body for those static and strong moves. incorporating core workouts that mimic the one-arm-no foot or the locked-off-fumble-for-the-right-gear moves. static simultaneous leg lift and pull-up, lock off, breathe and count to ten, lower, controlled and slow. for variation:off a hang board, fewer fingers, one arm, with ice boots....plus these feel cool and increase confidence in situations that require true commitment to your body's ability.

finally, breathing, or rather, the practice of focusing on the breath in a meditative style, woven throughout climbing workouts will reduce panic and add to the bodies ability to feed oxygen to your muscles and brain.

for what it's worth
heather

btw
great advise for training---i'll have to bring my gear to the gym next time lol

Definitely like the way you really clarified the question. My short answer to this is that, yes, I would agree that under certain, specific climbing movements/scenarios that resistance training can be of great value.
Actually I think that strength training is a great way to increase climbing specific strength, especially in the shoulders. I would agree that the penultimate way to train the shoulders would be to use bodyweight exercises... however, for most of us mortals that's simply not feasible, or safe. So having a weight room where you can incrementally overload specific ranges of motion in the shoulders is a very handy tool.
The last thing I will add to this post is that I would venture to say that in order to see some kind of translation from strength training to pulling power you're going to have to be working at very high intensities... something on the order of 90-100% of your 1RM for that particular exercise.
I doubt that most climbers want to spend this kind of effort in the weight room, it's tedious, time consuming to get in the volume required, is potentially dangerous and finally takes away from time that could be spent on the wall.
thanks for throwing an interesting discussion topic on training, it's been awhile.
Have a great holiday weekend everyone.

Mmmmm...compression. One of my favorite types of climbing, and something I consider a strong point.

I am by no means a training expert, but I sort of consider myself a guinea pig because I have tried just about everything...and I know when something is helping and when something is hurting. That said, take my advice with a grain of salt.

I think that hard compression climbing (and most other types of specific moves) comes down to two big factors, technique and strength (duh!) However, unlike other specific types (ie slab climbing...95%technique...5% strength) Hard compression moves weigh heavily on the strength side...I would even venture to say something like 85% strength and 15% technique...Think about it...one of the most physically demanding parts of compression climbing is moving your body into a position and holding it there...almost all strength!!

As for technique, I can say a little bit more here than the strength because I think the basis is more concrete...Compression moves, while they seem clumsy and often out of control, actually take a certain skill set to successfully complete. For me, what helped when I first started trying really hard compression moves was to get used to feeling out of control. When you feel like you are barely on the rock the typical reaction is to sort of half assed try and fail, or just let go because you already feel like you are failing. Most people like to feel that they are really in control when doing moves, but if you can accept the "not so much in control" as regular, you will be able to push yourself a little bit further, more often. I usually see these types of moves as being really forced and honestly...they just take a lot...A LOT of effort to throw...Also, I think the mini "dead point" is a useful move to have mastered here...Initiating each move with a small unweighting of the hands gives you that split second to grab that next sloper. This takes shoulder and core power but is mostly a technique issue because you have to learn how to focus and initiate that move. You can try this in the gym by setting bad slopers (think teknik no shadow hands) on a blunt arete...Try to make a two or three move sequence where you can barely pull onto the wall, then make the next move just as hard..FORCE yourself to go for the move...and try over and over. That is the pure power that goes into 1 move, now link it into two or three of those, and you can see where shoulder power stamina comes in...Its really hard!!

The second part is obviously strength. I tend to disagree with those who shun the weight room whole heartedly. While I don't think every climber would benefit from lifting, and some disciplines could quite possibly be hindered by incorrect lifting, I think the weights are important for two things. Prehab and base strength. For me, since I pretty much only boulder, I fall into one of the categories that will benefit. Ill usually do a base strength phase right about now when it is really too hot for me to be bouldering hard outside. My thought is that if I can increase my musculoskeletal strength, it will most certainly enhance my bouldering ability. You aren't going to add a ton of heavy, dumb muscle if you lift a weight...some people have to actually try really hard to put on muscle mass in the weight room! For my base strength I like to focus on hand strength and musculoskeletal strength...in that order. I usually focus on doing some type of complex movement mixed in with some hard bouldering. I can give you an example of some of my workouts if you'd like.

These moves require a lot of shoulder/chest strength and power and it is pretty easy to increase the strength in these areas in the weight room while increasing the power on some hard boulder problems which use that type of movement (like hard compression aretes.)

Prehab is obvious...I believe that all free climbers should participate in some type of antagonistic training during their cycles...but that is not part of this question.

Sorry if this seems disjointed...I am kind of just typing my thoughts. Feel free to ask some questions though...

Think about it this way (in response to your "do you use other muscles than forearms" which you didn't say but you kind of did, and I want to answer anyway, the last time you stopped climbing for 3 to 6 months and started again (I would have never experienced this, except that I moved to Hawaii and surf now, but that's a different topic) were you sore in places other than your forearms? I was. So strengthen that shit up! I definitely agree with the core strengthening exercises, and I'd also say to strengthen up all those back muscles real good, and believe it or not I got it in my quads too. But surfing only does so much for quads, unless your super good, and spend more time than the regular kook (me) standing on you board instead of paddling.

Dude, just go surfing.

Pat C wrote:Think about it this way (in response to your "do you use other muscles than forearms" which you didn't say but you kind of did, and I want to answer anyway, the last time you stopped climbing for 3 to 6 months and started again (I would have never experienced this, except that I moved to Hawaii and surf now, but that's a different topic) were you sore in places other than your forearms? I was. So strengthen that shit up! I definitely agree with the core strengthening exercises, and I'd also say to strengthen up all those back muscles real good, and believe it or not I got it in my quads too. But surfing only does so much for quads, unless your super good, and spend more time than the regular kook (me) standing on you board instead of paddling. Dude, just go surfing.

1) my obsessions run deep (surfing is the newest one). 2) it's more fun to imagine indian creek, taquitz, and josh and waves at sandys and makapuu and kromwells and now chun's reef (holy moly that's a fun wave) than it is to try and read scientific papers (not always boring, but not always riveting either)

Wahiawa? are you part of that new climbing gym (is it even new, think I saw it in the star bulletin) haven't checked it out yet. you know bug man guys? I don't know them, but I must say that when I first moved here I was asking and asking about climbing and everybody pointed me towards those dudes.

I don't hate hawaii's cimbing, there are some fantastic routes on mokuleia wall. I'm just not inspired by it like I am by the rocks on the mainland, or the waves in the ocean.

Besides, if you lived in yosemite, would you drive to the ocean to go surfing during climbing season? Same with Oahu (and I would call Oahu's north shore the yosemite of surfing, as well as call yosemite the north shore of climbing, even if it's only reputations being thrown around).