Most Time Efficient Way To Build Endurance

With less time at the gym, I am beginning to wonder what the most time-efficient way to build endurance. ARCing is obviously the most time consuming, and I'm not entirely sure if it is effective. Route intervals (hard climbing circuits followed by easier climbing with a hard climbing to easy climbing ratio of 1:2) seems quicker and it is the method that I am currently using (though I am beginning to doubt it's effectiveness as well). 4x4s would be the fastest but are more intense and it seems to produce different results than the other two methods (more power, less endurance). Are there any other methods to build endurance and which one will get me pumped faster?

Push until you drop, rest as little as possible. Get up and do it again. Run & spin on a bike as long as possible, when you think you are about to die push a little more.
I'm not joking or trolling.  

Seth Bleazard wrote: which one will get me pumped faster?

Getting pumped faster will get you further away from endurance. To improve endurance you want to increase the capillarization of your forearms. ARCing is the best way to this. 

I warm up for 5 minutes, ARC for 20 minutes, rest for 10 minutes, ARC for 20 minutes for a 1 hour door-to-door gym session. 

equipesolitaire.com/blogs/d…

No, in the short term you will pump out, but with time your body will adjust & build on your training. If you want to go long & hard you have to train to go long and hard.

Is it possible to gain capillarization through other forms of aerobic training? Running or cycling maybe?

Seth Bleazard wrote: Is it possible to gain capillarization through other forms of aerobic training? Running or cycling maybe?

No. Running or cycling will improve your general aerobic capacity. They will do nothing for your forearm capillaries.

Your original question is a bit nonspecific. You are asking about endurance, and if that is indeed what you are looking for, then Brendan’s answer is correct. But I wonder if endurance is the thing you actually are looking for, given the rest of your question. 

What is your goal, specifically? Is there a 10 pitch climb that you are trying to do (what grade?). Is there a single-pitch sport climb on which you can do all moves, but can’t link them? (again, details?)
Looking at your profile, there is a big disconnect between your bouldering grade and your rope climbing grade. And if your ticks are accurate, you need to get on the rope more, assuming that is why you are trying to increase your endurance, because it most likely isn’t really endurance that is your problem... 

The most time-efficient way to build endurance is to increase finger strength.

Most training experts posit that you can adapt metabolically to your maximum endurance capacity in a couple weeks (forearm-wise). However, increasing finger strength (along with connective tissue adaptation and general bouldering strength) is essestially a climbing-career-long pursuit, and should comprise the bulk of any climber’s indoor training who is interested in pushing grades.

Now, once you’re getting close to rope-season or a trip, you should absolutely involve endurance training, but what is “most efficient” depends on where/what you’re climbing.  Is the climbing more cruxy or more pumpy? Are you falling on specific moves or just gassing off before the chains? Depending on your assessment of what fitness you require, the most common endurance exercises (from most-cruxy to most-endurance-y) would be:

-4x4’s
-Linked Boulder Circuits (LBC’s)
-Route laps/repeats
-Treadwall
-ARC-ing

For cruxy, NRG climbing, I find LBC’s to be the best preparatory method, whereas if I were climbing at the Red, laps on a 10-30° lead wall would probably be ideal.

Edited to add:

Gym training can make a strong climber, but only time-on-rock will make a -good- climber. “Just climb more” is actually good advice for most people who have decent access to rock and are climbing <5.12...

Also, fear and bad technique will have a strong gym climber climbing significantly below their “physical limit”. These things are very difficult to address in the gym, and it often takes years (or the obliviousness of youth) to fully overcome them.

Lena chita wrote:

No. Running or cycling will improve your general aerobic capacity. They will do nothing for your forearm capillaries.

Your original question is a bit nonspecific. You are asking about endurance, and if that is indeed what you are looking for, then Brendan’s answer is correct. But I wonder if endurance is the thing you actually are looking for, given the rest of your question. 

What is your goal, specifically? Is there a 10 pitch climb that you are trying to do (what grade?). Is there a single-pitch sport climb on which you can do all moves, but can’t link them? (again, details?)
Looking at your profile, there is a big disconnect between your bouldering grade and your rope climbing grade. And if your ticks are accurate, you need to get on the rope more, assuming that is why you are trying to increase your endurance, because it most likely isn’t really endurance that is your problem... 

Sorry. I guess it was a bit non-specific. What I am saying is that I would like to improve my overall ability to hang on for longer (and not being exhausted) while sport climbing. Maybe I should be asking for advice on transitioning from bouldering to sport climbing. 

Thank you guys for all the great answers!

Mark Paulson wrote: The most time-efficient way to build endurance is to increase finger strength.

Most training experts posit that you can adapt metabolically to your maximum endurance capacity in a couple weeks (forearm-wise). However, increasing finger strength (along with connective tissue adaptation and general bouldering strength) is essestially a climbing-career-long pursuit, and should comprise the bulk of any climber’s indoor training who is interested in pushing grades.

Would increasing power through limit bouldering/campusing help as well?

Try to track down the essay "There is no such thing as a free lunch" by Mark Twight.  In essence, there are no shortcuts to endurance.  You have to put in the time.

Seth Bleazard wrote:

Would increasing power through limit bouldering/campusing help as well?

There is the theory that the harder you can pull, the more endurance you have, when pulling below your max. It's tied to the feeling that "holds are easier" when you get stronger. Also remember Tony Yaniro: "“If you can't do the moves, then there's nothing to endure.”

On average, do boulderers more easily transition to sport climbing, or is it the opposite?

I think the most efficient way to build endurance with training periodization: You get STRONG, then you train ENDURANCE. Add ARCing when you're getting close to wanting to send that enduro route. It's backwards to what I would say is the recipe to say, having a fast marathon: train for efficiency, then speed work at the end to peak.

This is basically because a well-developed cardiovascular system - what you find in say: a marathon runner, isn't what's holding you back on a sport climb. If it was, I'd somehow be crushing sport climbs near my max bouldering level, and I am sooooo not.

There's more than one way to train, but check out Steve Bechtel's book Unstoppable Force. He argues that endurance training works but the benefits fade quickly, whereas strength takes longer to develop but also persists longer. He advocates for pairing hang-boarding with low-rep/high-intensity weightlifting. I've been working his system for a couple of months and have certainly noticed the benefits in my own climbing. 

Steve House always talks about long duration over high intensity training as the best way to build endurance. Ill also second what Nick Sweeny mentioned about that Mark Twight article.

Also, I recently started to implement running into my training and my climbing jumped a letter grade . I found it way easier to recover at a rest stance as my breathing was a lot more controlled.

(maybe running had nothing to with the jump in ability but id like to think it helped)

Obviously there are a lot of opinions about what works!

Eric Horst did a series of podcasts on energy system training that you might find worthwhile.

First of several Horst Energy system Podcasts

For me, intervals on the treadwall, 5 on/5 off x 4 at a high intensity have been most effective.

But you may need to experiment to find what works best for you.

I never seemed to get much result from ARCing, but maybe didn't give it an adequate try.
Frumkin's 'high pump' lap workouts increased my stamina (ie ability to do multiple attempts in a day) but not my endurance (ability to finish a single route burn.)
They also took a lot out of me and really prolonged recovery.

General cardiovascular work, like running, can help if you're VO2max is low, but that's not the case for most climbers.

And personally, I don't think the House/Twight book has anything to say that is relevant to sport climbing.

Seth Bleazard wrote:

Would increasing power through limit bouldering/campusing help as well?

Not as much as hangboarding.  At your current level, it’s very doubtful that power is the thing holding you back on sport routes.  In fact, hangboarding is probably the only real climbing-specific training tool I’d recommend to anyone who’s not yet climbing 5.12-.  Presently, campus boarding would only be a recipe for flappers and tweaked fingers (I know this from experience).
Over the years, the terms “quickest”, “fastest”, and “most efficient” have come up more and more in posts from folks looking for training tips. Unfortunately, these terms are mostly antithetical to the way climbing development works. And believe me, the difference is always painfully obvious between the person who “has climbed 5.12 in the gym” flailing their way up a gimmie 12a and the person who already has 100 outdoor 5.11’s under their belt doing the same route in fine style.

There was a climber survey on Reddit that I analyzed. There were more than 400 respondents. I looked at both roped climbing grades and bouldering grades. I tried to correct for experience (by multiple methods, ie years climbing) then looked at (climbing grade - grade predicted from experience)/ years climbing. Basically trying to find who progressed quickly.

for roped climbing:

1. ARC was Strongly statistically insignificant. People that list ARC, progress as the same rate as people that don't.
2. listing the word cardio was Strongly significant, except it was a negative effect. People that do cardio appear to progress about a half to one grade slower per year than people that don't.
3. Hangboarding was significant. Specifically, only the repeater protocol seems effective in training for roped routes (p<.005), doing it twice per week was better than once (p<.005), once was better than 0 times per week (p<.005). Doing it more than twice/week was not statistically significant.
4. Both route laps and 4x4s were statistically insignificant. However, 4x4s were close to being significant. And I suspect if the survey allowed you to specify endurance training frequency per month instead of per week, there would be a significant effect at lower frequencies. I suspect once every two weeks might be closer to ideal.( I'm making several assumptions here since it only asked endurance training frequency, not a frequency for each type of endurance training. But I would definitely choose 4x4s over the route laps based on the numbers I saw.) The other methods, treadwall, etc that have been mentioned were not options in the survey.

Seth Bleazard wrote:

Sorry. I guess it was a bit non-specific. What I am saying is that I would like to improve my overall ability to hang on for longer (and not being exhausted) while sport climbing. Maybe I should be asking for advice on transitioning from bouldering to sport climbing. 

The following is based on what I commonly see in people like you, based on your ticks, since I haven’t seen you climb, and don’t know you:

You are probably overgripping. You can get away with it while bouldering, but on routes it kills you. The blood flow to your firearms/finger flexors gets restricted when you grip with more than ~30-40% of your max, and your energy production goes into anaerobic, that’s why you get that feeling of being pumped, so learning to hold on with minimum effort will make a difference in getting pumped to failure, vs not. 
In the long term, of course, improving your strength and power is one way (the way) to make more moves feel like less than 30% of your max. But as a beginner climber who boulders v3, but can’t do 5.10 cleanly, trust me, you have strength and power to spare for 5.10. 

You probably have poor technique. Not using your feet and body positions effectively, not knowing how to find rests, means more strain on your arms => grabbing the holds with more effort than needed => pumping out. Again, can get away with it on a short boulder, but not on a longer route.

You probably are not efficient overall in your movement, or in clipping. Again, the longer you have to hang on each hold, squeezing it for dear life while you fumble a clip, the more pumped you get.

You are very likely somewhat sketched out when climbing above your bolt => fear makes you overgrip, and generally lose technique.  

The “most efficient” way out of this predicament is to climb more. Get in the rope, climb more routes that are easy for you, paying attention to footwork, and making the moves more smooth and efficient on routes you can go, while also practicing clipping those bolts until it is easy, quick, and effortless. At the same time, get in routes that are harder, where you can do all moves, but can’t send yet, figure out the most efficient/least effortgul ways of making each section, and work on linking the sections and eventually the entire route. Rinse and repeat.

It is not a quick fix. But it is the only way you’ll get there. It sounds like you probably wouldn't like this approach... so good luck with your plan to work on power on hangboard, and doing campus touches. 

Steve Pulver wrote: There was a climber survey on Reddit that I analyzed. There were more than 400 respondents. I looked at both roped climbing grades and bouldering grades. I tried to correct for experience (by multiple methods, ie years climbing) then looked at (climbing grade - grade predicted from experience)/ years climbing. Basically trying to find who progressed quickly.

for roped climbing:

1. ARC was Strongly statistically insignificant. People that list ARC, progress as the same rate as people that don't.
2. listing the word cardio was Strongly significant, except it was a negative effect. People that do cardio appear to progress about a half to one grade slower per year than people that don't.
3. Hangboarding was significant. Specifically, only the repeater protocol seems effective in training for roped routes (p<.005), doing it twice per week was better than once (p<.005), once was better than 0 times per week (p<.005). Doing it more than twice/week was not statistically significant.
4. Both route laps and 4x4s were statistically insignificant. However, 4x4s were close to being significant. And I suspect if the survey allowed you to specify endurance training frequency per month instead of per week, there would be a significant effect at lower frequencies. I suspect once every two weeks might be closer to ideal.( I'm making several assumptions here since it only asked endurance training frequency, not a frequency for each type of endurance training. But I would definitely choose 4x4s over the route laps based on the numbers I saw.) The other methods, treadwall, etc that have been mentioned were not options in the survey.

This is really interesting. 

Do you recall what the results were for max hangs?

Steve Pulver wrote: There was a climber survey on Reddit that I analyzed. There were more than 400 respondents. I looked at both roped climbing grades and bouldering grades. I tried to correct for experience (by multiple methods, ie years climbing) then looked at (climbing grade - grade predicted from experience)/ years climbing. Basically trying to find who progressed quickly.

Sounds interesting. Maybe I misunderstand, but are you saying the results are based on the assumption that climbing longer should mean climbing harder? If that were true, teenagers would not climb 5.14, and competition winners would all be senior citizens.

Steve there are some real pitfalls to looking at that survey from climbharder and trying to extrapolate the most effective approach to training for sport climbing. The community there is heavily boulder oriented (and was even more so at that time) and many have very low sport grades relative to route grades they have done. It also tends to self select people looking for physiological gains to increase their climbing grade, ie it's a group that's disproportionately strong relative to the climbing community as a whole.

On the reddit note, I'll refer back to a lattice AMA for someone with far more knowledge and experience to comment on aerobic capacity work:

What are the most common weaknesses you see in intermediate climbers?
TomRandallUK2 points·2 years agoHi, I think it depends on what you definite as "intermediate"! But in my opinion it would be for your typical 5.11-5.12 climber an order of - 1. Localised aerobic performance of the forearm, 2. Ability to relax/have high economy of movement 3. Address basic strength and conditioning of the shoulder girdle to set up for later performance if reaching 5.13 and beyond.

nurkdurk1 point·2 years agoSo for the average intermediate climber would you suggest a focus on aerocap mileage?
TomRandallUK1 point·2 years agoYes this would be hugely beneficial in 90+% of cases. Keep the intensity low and the volume high! Do keep this work at the END of sessions though.... don't let it compromise your high intensity work like bouldering, fingerboard etc.
Full thread here with far more tidbits

Lena has a very accurate post above regarding the usual problems and root causes for someone in that grade on routes. These issues are usually still present at higher grades as well, just to a lesser degree. The best way to address them is with a focus more on technique than "protocols" and exact times, but the programming of ARC type sessions forces one to learn how to relax their grip and drive more through their feet. Aerocap type work is highly beneficial to a novice to intermediate climber.
I personally didn't find the greatest results from the ultra long rep ARC type sessions and use medium intervals more like Mark noted above. Mine will be 8-12 minute reps of climbing linked boulders with 4-6 minutes between sets and 4-7 sets total. As long as your sets are 5 minutes or longer this seems to be enough to really work localized aerobic capacity and force efficiency of movement.