Help...Need more bouldering endurance

I have been climbing for about a year on and off in the gym. I have not been able to complete long routes or long traverses as my arms get tired.

I try and keep my arms straight, it seems to be more of an issue of not being able to stop and rest properly to get back strength during an ascent.

Any tips?

1. Down-climb--especially for your easy warm ups, but try to down-climb every problem you do.

2. Get on a top rope and down-climb those too.

3. Make sure your footwork stays solid throughout--don't let the "i'm pumped" dialog going on in your head affect your footwork.

#3... I took a training that involved 3 sessions of 20 min traverses at 65% intensity with 7 min rest between. Twice a week for a month. At first couldn't stay on. End of month I was better. Had to seriously improve footwork to not die from exausted arms!

Unless its a highball, isn't "bouldering endurance" an oxymoron?

Matt N wrote:Unless its a highball, isn't "bouldering endurance" an oxymoron?

yea, it probably requires little to no endurance to send something like Wheel of Life.

I do pyramids for endurance. Take your regular onsight and subtract one or two grades then do a pyramid of four up to that grade and back down. For example, I regularly onsight 10c so I do a pyramid from 5.7 to 5.10b, then 5.10b back to 5.7. After, I rest for 15 minutes and repeat twice more. At first I couldn't complete the set, now its not as bad but I'm still definitely pumped at the end. I'm sure you good apply the same pyramid to bouldering (Like V1-V4) with the same affect to gear it towards power endurance.

AdamB wrote: yea, it probably requires little to no endurance to send something like Wheel of Life.

there has been past debate about whether to give that thing a route grade because it's so long...for the majority of boulder problems endurance in the classical sense is not an issue

Evanhunter wrote:I have been climbing for about a year on and off in the gym. I have not been able to complete long routes or long traverses as my arms get tired. I try and keep my arms straight, it seems to be more of an issue of not being able to stop and rest properly to get back strength during an ascent. Any tips?

"Arms" isn't a very useful term in climbing. If your forearms are tired on routes, but not most bouldering, then you need Power Endurance. The ability to pull hard-ish moves for 25-40 moves at a time. (Number is subjective.) Do pyramids or 4x4s as suggested already.

If your biceps, triceps etc are tired, just keep climbing routes, and work in a few pullups into your daily climbing. Hanging straight armed will help this kind of tired, but not forearm tired.

Or just climb and don't get into any serious training because you've only been at it off and on for a year. Improving is great, but it becomes an obsession. Find a balance.

Matt N wrote:Unless its a highball, isn't "bouldering endurance" an oxymoron?

Seriously bro, Do you even boulder?

Pyramids are awesome too. I find though that the key in pyramids is PAYING ATTENTION TO YOUR RESTS. Make sure you get at least 2 min between sends. It will help endurance greatly.

rock_fencer wrote: there has been past debate about whether to give that thing a route grade because it's so long...for the majority of boulder problems endurance in the classical sense is not an issue

just breaking balls, don't get your undies in a bundle. but thanks for clearing that up Yoda.

4x4's prove pretty useful when training for power-endurance. Pick 4 problems you have done before at or just below your onsight level. Do the problems back to back to back to back (4 in a row, no downclimbing or topping out) rest 1-2 minutes between each set. Do this 4 times. Rest.

Generally speaking any problems more than 6-8 moves would be training endurance as opposed to pure power. So, no, bouldering endurance is not really an oxymoron. It's just another finite facet of training.

And to the OP again, you should be focused more on technique than endurance or power. Endurance is easy to gain over the course of your climbing career but if you develop poor technique, this will be hard to change further on down the road. But, start with easy 4x4's as an intro to endurance.

I wouldn't really call it a technique drill, but I always found that 4X4's did help with tecnique as well. As I progressively got more fatigued throughout the workout Id have to figure out how to climb the problems more efficently. That helped me build better technique.