Training for trad climbing

How do you guys train for trad climbing? Having a job it’s unrealistic for me to go to the crags everyday. I feel like gym climbing with only face holds is not really applicable to trad climbing. My gym has 4 cracks of various sizes which I climb frequently but I feel like I can be doing more. What do you guys do?

For overall fitness, I do a lot of leg presses, rowing , lat pull downs and ab exercises.

For crack specific, I run countless laps on my gym cracks. See how many times you can climb it in a row, or try literally putting your hand 1 inch above the other. Makes the route last forever and makes you use every variation in crack width. I also practice swimming (so left hand above right hand the whole way) and vice versa. See how big of a reach you can make. 
 
I haven’t tested this yet, but I feel like 2 and 3 finger pockets on a hangboard stimulate the same muscles that you use when climbing finger cracks

Lastly,  I run laps on the auto belay until I can’t grip anymore. I feel a lot of hard trad is continuing to climb while being pumped 

You could always just crush your hands and feet into vice grips to simulate tight and painful jams

I have an adjustable crack machine in my garage.  I do two types of training on it:
1) long runs of up/down laps on easy sizes, mixing up sequences (shuffling hands vs windmilling big hand-over-hand strides)
2) Setting it to the hardest widths (finger/thumb stacks, thin hands, wide hands) to work on the specific techniques

As a result of this type of training, I'm pretty good at down climbing cracks

More conditioning. Especially core muscles.

I started a rigorous training regime. You do 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats, and a 10kn run every day. This helped me go from 5.6 to 5.7 in only a year!! 

Akash Rama wrote: How do you guys train for trad climbing? Having a job it’s unrealistic for me to go to the crags everyday. I feel like gym climbing with only face holds is not really applicable to trad climbing. 

Trad climbing is not synonymous with crack climbing! You can climb nothing but face and plug gear for months at places like the Gunks.

F Loyd wrote: I started a rigorous training regime. You do 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats, and a 10kn run every day. This helped me go from 5.6 to 5.7 in only a year!! 

Salty sport climber alert!

Glowering wrote:

And here you can see the most expensive pull-up bar in America.  

Artem Vasilyev wrote: My reply will be hotly contested by ye olde trad dads - but I recommend bouldering whenever you don't have a partner to practice to onsighting/making moves at a particular grade without making yourself figure out good technique while runout and thinking about your next piece. Also I recommend trying as hard as you possibly can while sport climbing.

Most trad climbers lack climbing fitness. Most climbers with good fitness lack the willpower to climb hard trad. The goal is to train like a sport climber but climb like a trad climber.

Crack technique is important mostly on either ringlock splitters (hard), thin hand cracks (not as hard, but not particularly easy) fists (same description as thin hands) or Offwidth (Avoid

Actually agree with this advice but not with the comment: 

"Most trad climbers lack climbing fitness. Most climbers with good fitness lack the willpower to climb hard trad."

Huge generalization there that I do not think is at all true, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

Artem Vasilyev wrote:

Agreed - this varies depending on your climbing area. This is not true in a place like Eldorado Canyon, Yosemite or at Indian Creek. However, this is true in a place like the Gunks. 

Oh, I'll just leave that out there for the Gunks folks to chime in on! 

;)

Bouldering

I think training for trad climbing is interesting, training like you would for sport climbing is a valid way but trad definitely has a greater focus on aerobic capacity so building up those physical adaptations that allow you to more efficiently deliver oxygenated blood to your forearms, this is a must for being able to recover mid route and really let your self hang around while you figure out the beta. Training for this is best done through mid intensity climbing with a very moderate pump for 7 minutes then a 3 minute rest. 

Buck Rogers wrote:

Actually agree with this advice but not with the comment: 

"Most trad climbers lack climbing fitness. Most climbers with good fitness lack the willpower to climb hard trad."

Huge generalization there that I do not think is at all true, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

It's not a particularly useful comment, but I think that logically it would have to be true. Most people who identify as trad climbers are probably sub-5.9 (spend a weekend day at the Gunks to get an idea of this). And most fit climbers do not climb trad at their max (spend a day at any urban gym to get an idea of this).

Pnelson wrote:
It's not a particularly useful comment, but I think that logically it would have to be true. Most people who identify as trad climbers are probably sub-5.9 (spend a weekend day at the Gunks to get an idea of this). And most fit climbers do not climb trad at their max (spend a day at any urban gym to get an idea of this).

I guess that I'm hanging out with the wrong (or right) trad climbers as I do not find this true at all.

;)

+1 for onsight practice. This can be done on indoor routes and/or bouldering. Practice thinking on the fly etc.

Indoor crack for jams would be an idea. Not physical training for technical....

heareth ye heareth ye:

if't be true thow becomes a v8 bould'r'r

then trad wonneth't needeth willpow'r, coequal in the gunks!

ye olde trad dad hast spoken

Auden Alsop wrote: This- I jumped my highest trad lead by more than a number grade by bouldering a shit ton in the gym.

"If you have no power, you've got nothing to endure."

 -Yaniro

I consider slab climbing a trad skill.

I think everyone has covered the training for climbing part here. You don't mention your experience level using trad gear. That requires a lot of practice as well. Trad climbing is mostly about efficient use of gear. You need to be close to 100% efficiency on easier routes before you can break plateaus into harder grades as a trad leader.Here are some ideas:

Practice racking your gear so you know where to find the piece you need, when you need it. Everyone has slightly different preferences, just do what works best for you.

Practice placing gear at the base of a crag, again and again, until you guess the right size most of the time. Picking the correct piece the first time is one of the most important parts of trad leading.

Learn how to build gear anchors for toproping and multipitch climbing. Practice this at the base of the crag as well.