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How to balance training and climbing time
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Hi! I have this dilemma and wondering if someone with experience may have advice! I have been climbing for 10 years. I am female and 30 years old. I've never been a strong person. I was climbing 5.6-5.7 for my entire first 2 years of climbing. It took about 4 years to progress to climbing 5.10, where I've stayed stagnant ever since. I typically climb 2-3 times a week. I feel like climbing alone isn't helping me improve. My goals are to be able to climb 5.11 in the gym (like, be able to make it to the top, even with some falls) and maintain general fitness for my health. My local gym recently doubled the fitness and yoga classes they offer. In April, I started a new routine- Monday and Wednesday vinyasa yoga followed by a climbing session. I climb until I am sore and can't anymore. In June, I decided to start taking Friday strength/weight classes. I've never done any weight lifting before, but I enjoyed it. Of course, despite all my years of climbing, I am still working with the lowest weights and have extremely low stamina. It can cause me to be extremely sore and takes 2-3 days to recover. It feels like doing those exercises only one time a week isn't enough and that it needs to be repeated 2-3 times a week. But when?! I want to factor in at least 2 strength training days a week, but I have no idea how to fit this into a schedule. My current schedule is: Does anyone else run into this problem? I'm curious to hear your training routines and schedules and how you balance climbing with training and other sports! |
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I think you want to look into Periodization. |
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Lol - cut that yoga out and go to the bouldering cave instead - done. |
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Strength training 1x per week will still yield results (albeit more slowly) as long as your are consistent and progress the exercises. If your schedule and recovery capacity only allow 1x per week strength training, that is fine. Just keep up what you are doing and you'll see progress. I don't see any issue with the yoga either, if that is something you like to do and the yoga before climbing isn't impacting the quality of your climbing sessions. If you wanted to do strength twice a week, you could do Monday climb/yoga, Tuesday weights, Weds rest, Thursday climb, Friday weights. You'd probably need to scale back the intensity/volume of the weights session to not overwhelm your weekly recovery capacity. Another big consideration is what are your weekend activities, and how that fits in. You current plan/description doesn't really address this, but it's an important piece of the puzzle. ---- Overall, your scheduling seems fine either way. Ultimately the most important factor in climbing progression is the quality and focus of your climbing sessions, not how you arrange them on the calendar. So perhaps the question you should be asking is how can you improve the quality of your climbing sessions. |
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JCM is spot on about focus & design of climbing sessions. 3 hours per week should be enough to improve. I would caution about going too fast too early with strength training. Your body will adapt and recover faster, allowing more volume. Give that adaptation time. |
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Skip the yoga and do some low grade moonboarding. Just fail a ton. Within three months you'll be cruising.11 |
Michal wrote: Gawd no, don’t do that - you’ll tear a pully in the first 10 minutes, if you even get off the floor. V0-V3 in the bouldering cave, start with the larger holds. V2 is 11-, your goal. Just have fun with it to get started and learn how to correctly fall to the mat. |
Michal wrote: Hahaha! Have you ever seen a 5.10-climber, especially female, get off the ground on Moonboard? I do think that bouldering would be beneficial. But Moonboard is way too hard at this stage. It has to the kind of bouldering where she can at least make some moves. Starting with V0, and building up.
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If you want to add more weight training, you can do it after climbing. Not a full session, but even a few sets of exercises done consistently make a difference over time. I don’t know what you do in the weight class, but most of the weightlifting exercises, while good for your overall strength, are not directly tied to climbing improvement. If you cannot do a pull-up (I’m just guessing here), it might be worth spending some time working on that. There are a lot of pull-up progression tutorials out there that walk you through the exercises you should do building up to a pull-up over the course of multiple weeks. As others have said, bouldering would be very beneficial to improve your climbing strength. If you mostly climb vertical routes in the gym, Also spend more time on overhanging walls.
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Me and my partner have a moonboard she climbs constantly at 5.10. hanging up .11 and yes she gets up the easiest moonboard problems.You should pay Lattice or something similar for coaching and that will 100% work. |
Michal wrote: Your partner sounds stronger than OP. In the first post Melissa says that her GOAL is get up a a 5.11 climb in the gym, even with falls. So her goal is to get up to something that your partner is already doing. But obviously, people are different, and the reasons for their stalling/lack of ability to progress past certain grades are different. |
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Some great advice above (JCM is spot on) and some not so great ones. I'll repeat what has been said, if you enjoy yoga and climbing isn't your sole reason for existence, then do yoga! Two hours per week of yoga is not going to hold anyone back from sending 5.11s. What hasn't been mentioned is taking some time to analyze what's holding you back. Is the lack of strength the only reason why you can't climb 5.11s? Or is there some bigger weakness that's the main reason? Getting stronger definitely helps, and it may overcome deficiencies in other areas. But I have seen some pretty strong guys not being able to climb 5.11s. Do you have good technique? Can you read a sequence well and have good tactics? Do you have good finger strength to hold on to smaller holds? Are you able to really try-hard, let everything else go and just focus on the moves? Do you eat well, rest well, and manage your weight well? I know a lot of people who can't climb 5.11s consistently, and they all have deficiencies in one or more of those areas. I think you will improve much faster if you can figure out what is the biggest factor(s) holding you back. You can pay to get some professional coaching, but if you don't want to spend the money, you can also ask some friends or even people you barely know who are solid 5.12 climbers for some advice and critique of your climbing. Ask multiple people if you can, and see if they all identify similar weakness in your climbing. Nothing against strength training. If it's something you enjoy, definitely do it for general fitness. I just think that there may be faster ways to get to your goal of climbing 5.11s if strength is not your weakness (that's something you'll have to figure out). |
Michal wrote: I find it hard to believe someone who has to hangdog up 5.11 can get up even the easiest moonboard problems, especially on the 2016 hold set |
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Agree with the posters suggesting that some steep bouldering would be useful for OP, but the Moonboard is likely too hard a medium at this time. Aikibujin's advice to climb with, emulate, and take advice from 5.11 and 5.12 climbers is a good suggestion. You tend to rise to the level of the climbers you climb with most and learn from. |
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The Moonboard suggestion is hilarious. |
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The moonboard can be 25 degrees as well. I guess a better way to say it is any board. Kilter, tension, grasshopper are all adjustable it does not have to be henious. Just try a few moves on a board for 30 min a week and she will make gains. Don't have to send anything. This would just be part of the training. Worth a shot! |
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I think psych mike is closer then far off. You need to learn to do moves that are hard for you. There is no better way (that I’m aware of) beyond limit bouldering. There are plenty of moves on the moonboard that are from great hold to great hold. My partner projected move by move one of classic easy benchmarks. Of course it was super nails for her, but she steadily saw progress and the whole point is to spend a massive % of the time failing. I have met very few people who have the discipline to seek hard for them moves in the boulder cave. To me it seems like you most likely don’t try things that cause you to fail in the gym. Could be wrong, but to me that’s probably a lot of what your missing. |
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I think JCM and aikibujan's advice above is spot on. Climbing goals aside, if you're serious about mixing in some weight training I'd also suggest trying it on climbing days. Yoga would probably be manageable on rest days if you want to keep it in the mix. If you're limited by class schedules I guess that may be hard, but once you have the basics down weight training should be something you can do pretty much any time. In my experience "strength training classes" can be fun and a good workout, but are really more conditioning than strength. To really make strength gains you only need to master a few basic lifts, but a personalized program makes all the difference. It may or may not actually help your climbing, but it will almost certainly be beneficial overall! |
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Seems like you're climbing 4 days in a row based on what you're showing (Friday-Monday) which means, most likely, that fourth session is shit anyway and you could sub in a day of strength there if you wanted and give your fingers a rest. Could also sub in one of the climb sessions during the week for fingerboard and strength training as they compliment well for a full workout. |
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Just climb. |
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Just climbing would work for a lot of folks but certain goals are going to come easier with some amount of specialized training |
