Questionable opinion or fact? Who is right, me or Eric Horst?

I hear on a climbing podcast or from the odd climber every once in a while a statement that goes something like 'I/you get weak on climbing trips.'

Now  I'm on a permanent climbing trip and I'm of the mind that as long as I'm trying hard, exposing myself to as much variation as possible ( different rock types, movement etc), and getting adequate rest)staying healthy etc that I will continue to improve both in strength and ability.

What gives? Am I doing myself a disservice by climbing outside every other day and rarely climbing wood or plastic or lifting heavy things?

ryan climbs sometimes wrote:

Your doing yourself a disservice by only climbing 

I met a guy that climbed 5.14 trad and he told me all I have to do is climb every other day trying hard. He said he's never trained in a gym. I got to 5.12 doing this pretty easily. 

He wrote a bouldering guide for Telluride I don't remember his name. 

Can you elaborate?

-edit to add I should have explained this in the op. Basically I've shaped my climbing to fit the way that guy does it. Variety, every other day is a rest day, and trying hard. 

ryan climbs sometimes wrote:

Bot alert 

Do you prefer bots or trolls?

Where are the fulminating, incurable, and lethal diseases when they're needed? 

None of you have been helpful so far, thank you. 

Adam R wrote:

None of you have been helpful so far, thank you. 

Welcome to mountain project. 

I highly suspect people will have very different experiences. Certainly plenty of people have made it to 5.13 or 5.14 by just climbing so obviously it isn't necessary for many. Would they climb even harder if they trained? I'm a punter, I have no fucking clue. Climbing is a hell of a lot more fun for most people though so why not try that path first? 

Adam R wrote:

None of you have been helpful so far, thank you.

There's this really cool crag you should visit on your road trip. It's called Grand Ledge.

Adam R wrote:

I hear on a climbing podcast or from the odd climber every once in a while a statement that goes something like 'I/you get weak on climbing trips.'

Now  I'm on a permanent climbing trip and I'm of the mind that as long as I'm trying hard, exposing myself to as much variation as possible ( different rock types, movement etc), and getting adequate rest)staying healthy etc that I will continue to improve both in strength and ability.

What gives? Am I doing myself a disservice by climbing outside every other day and rarely climbing wood or plastic or lifting heavy things?

People respond differently to various stimuli but some non-climbing exercise is good for injury prevention.

I think you need to start your own podcast-

Not Training 4 Climbing

Personally, I get stronger when I train.  I get weaker on long climbing trips.

If you enjoy rock climbing then it's not a disservice to go rock climbing.

you will hit a plateau and change your tune if you want to climb harder grades. my guess is that is around mid 5.12 or v5/6

Dane B wrote:

you will hit a plateau and change your tune if you want to climb harder grades. my guess is that is around mid 5.12 or v5/6

Two words: Chris. Sharma.

i need more context than those two words. did sharma not train? are we comparing some dude on the internet to chris sharma? 

Dane B wrote:

i need more context than those two words. did sharma not train? are we comparing some dude on the internet to chris sharma? 

Sharma climbed V10 in his first year of climbing. Jim thornburg posted an amazing Sharma story to his Instagram recently about Chris going to India for a year and Jim thinking Chris's climbing career was over. For Chris's first climbing day back Jim took him to Jailhouse wherein Chris forgot his free shoes and ended up casually sending 5.13 in hiking boots. Again, after a year of no climbing. Sharma is a freak of nature. 

You do get weaker on climbing trips, but you also get better.

The act of climbing makes you a better climber, but not stronger. Training makes you stronger, but not better. In order to reach your maximum potential, you need to be both good and strong. The right answer is a balance of the two. 

People keep claiming with confidence that you get weaker on climbing trips, but that is not always true. Apply some critical thinking before repeating this broad statement. The correct answer, as with most things, is "it depends on the details".

Specifically: 

1. What was your condition before the trip?

2. What are you doing on the trip?

For (1.), If you spent the 6 months before the trip locked in a training dungeon adhering to a well-designed plan, you'll probably get weaker when you go outside and do whatever and have fun. But if you spent the 6 months before the trip on the couch (or even just on a non-optimal climbing routine), you'll feel yourself getting stronger as you climb yourself back into fitness. It depends on your reference baseline. If your baseline level is low and your pre-trip routine was sub-optimal, you probably can improve across the board (strength, endurance, technique). It looks like OP's ticklist shows a max level of ~12a, which is fairly low in the grand scheme of performance climbing, and your typical 12a climber is usually still at a point where they can improve just from being on a trip.

For (2.), what you do on the trip matters. Strength and fitness gains come from appropriate stimulus, followed by appropriate rest. You can achieve these things on rock, or on plastic. Plastic is more controlled and convenient, but you can also plan your rock climbing on a trip to make the physical gains you want. When people get weaker on a trip, its usually because they are either not recovering suitably and spiraling into a fatigue hole (an unsustainable weekly climbing load, relative to amount an quality of rest), or they are over-focusing on one type of climbing and letting everything else fall off (most commonly, only climbing endurance routes and losing strength/power). Neither of these is necessarily a bad thing, if the goal of the trip is to cash in on your training and do some climbs. But this isn't the only way to plan a trip.  You can also plan a trip that essentially is training, if you target your climbing toward the physical adaptations you want and plan in suitable rest. 

I agree with Eric Horst but think he is being a bit extreme. I think it is universally accepted that performance in strength specific sports is poor training. If you’re trying to perform at a high level you essentially transition from training to performing. By the end of the performance period you are in poor training shape and your performance begin to dip.

Eric is thinking long term efficiency. Having specific training regime is better than just going out and performing. However just going out and performing could and does yield some improvement just not as much as a training regimen.

World class track athletes don’t race the 1500 everyday for training. 

If you are in fact presented with a true dichotomy, consider this...

You can train the rest of your life when you're fat and employed and besodden with progeny. But you won't always be able to spend sustained chunks of time in beautiful, rock-rich areas.

Stay on the road, meet cool people, take lots of photos and prehydrate your soul against the exsanguinating parchedness that modern American adulthood can so easily become.

Rudegote believes in you.

A few other random considerations:

- I often find an advantage on a trip is the reduced allostatic load of not having to work. True rest days vs. stressful office days, makes for better recovery, better focus on climbing days, and all around improvement. This does not apply if your are doing the remote work thing on your trip.

- If you are mostly "just climbing" this can start to catch up with you a bit in terms of imbalances and tweaks. Some minor amount of on-the-road "training" (more like body maintenance) can be a good idea. A few dumbbells and a yoga mat in the car for the road trip, used conscientiously, can be very valuable.

- Training on a trip seems to work out especially well on a bouldering trip, anecdotally. If you want to get stronger and more powerful on crimps, going to a crimpy bouldering area and doing a mix of projecting and volume, with appropriate rest scheduled in, is generally going to work pretty darn well. A bouldering interlude also is good within a sport climbing trip, as a power re-up.

- But you can certainty also make gains on other types of climbing. Its just a matter of making sure the physical stimulus you are exposing yourself to aligns with the progress you wish to make, and that you are resting adequately. There's also some value in macro-scale planning in you destination planning (i.e. blocks of focusing on bouldering, vs endurance sport climbing, etc).

You people are whack.  Climbing is training.  Whether it's inside or outside.