NEW 7.5 year assessment is out! This one is oudated now.

Sorry for the delay guys. I’ve been working on the book for Overcoming Tendonitis (here’s the site article on it), which has delayed me significantly in working on various articles!

I’m happy to continue where I left off. Here’s the 4 Year Assessment and the 5 Year Assessment. Last year’s post got rather long, so I’m going to try to summarize in bullet points what I thought in my 4th year vs 5th year vs 6th year.

I wanted to write down some of my thoughts on climbing from my perspective. This post will be mainly about bouldering, strength training, and hangboard and how it relates to bouldering performance.

Background

I have a good background on strength and conditioning and bodyweight strength training from Overcoming Gravity 2nd Edition, gymnastics, and parkour coming into bouldering. Since I started bouldering, I’ve always been able to do about 1-4ish one arm chinups (OACs) the whole time while climbing, dipping at least 90+ lbs for 5 repetitions, weighted pistols +50% bodyweight, at least 1-3+ freestanding HSPUs, 10+ weighted hanging leg raises, and so on.

The first edition of Overcoming Gravity has been use by many climbers, including Steve Maisch’s articles on isometrics on hangboard (archive.org because his website died) for climbing. Some protocols on isometric length such as holds in the 7-10s range for hangboard trend can be traced back to there or Eva Lopez’s work as well. Generally, I tend to use the equivalent of 2s isometric = 1 repetition, which I discuss in Prilepin Tables for bodyweight strength Isometric and Eccentric exercises.

Started climbing around 27-28 years old. As of publishing this updated article, I’ve been climbing for about 6ish years now (technically slightly less because of week and month breaks due to life which I omit).

Current abilities

4 year assessment:

• Strengths: Pinches, compression, thuggy moves, stemming, crossovers, lockoffs
• Moderate: Heel hooks, body positioning, dynos, slopers, overhangs, roofs
• Weaknesses: Balance-y slab, crimps, pain tolerance, sweaty fingers (which is no longer a weakness)

5 year assessment:

Added new categories so I could better track. My heel hooks and roofs definitely improved the most over the past year.

• Excellent: Compression, thuggy moves, stemming, open hand
• Good: Pinches, lockoffs, crossovers, heel hooks, slopers, roofs
• Fair: Body positioning, overhangs, half crimps
• Poor: Pain tolerance, dynos, full crimps
• Terrible: balance-y slab, highballs, bad landings

Removed: sweaty fingers. I use anti-hydral now.

6 year assessment:

About the same for me as the above, except full crimps went up from terrible to poor.

It’s not that I didn’t work any of my weaknesses, but I think I progressed in my strength and weaknesses about the same. My pain tolerance mainly varies based on how much I use small holds, so I need to get better at using small holds. My gym doesn’t really have any place for slab. I don’t do highballs or climbs with bad landings because I have a family and can’t get injured. I have been working on full crimps and they’re slowly getting better.

Grades

Moving and transition between gyms. Earth treks (to summer 2017):

2017 (moving from Earth Treks (MD) to Hangar 18 (CA): Sending 90-100% V8, 40-50% V9, and 0-20% V10s indoors. I’ve sent multiple V9s when I go to other gyms, so it’s not that my current gym (Earth Treks) is soft or hard or anything. Currently, I am in Southern California mainly at Hanger 18 gyms, so it’s not comparable. Usually anywhere from about 100% of V6-7 and V7-8+s to V9-10+ varies. Hard to say because it’s all very slippery old holds and the setting is mediocre at best (sorry setters, I was spoiled before). ET is about 2-3 grades soft from outside whereas Hangar is maybe 1-2 depending on climb.

I’ve climbed outside much more often. In 2013-2016 I climbed outside one time and sent V3. In 2017 I climbed outside about 10 times sent many V6-V8s but no V9 or V10 after I wrote the 4 year assessment. I’m mainly going to do a outside grading style as my assessment of my climbing abilities from now on.

2018: I climbed outside about 20 times and send several V9s and 4 V10s. Usually send V7-8 outside in a session, so not a very big disparity between outside and inside for me once I practiced outside climbing more.

2019: Since May 2018 I started sending a bunch of V9 and V10s outside, even after the birth of my first son. Late 2018 I got an overuse A2 left ring pulley strain and it’s been about 5-6 months of rehab. Just starting to get outside in April to May. Pretty close to a V10 I was working on in May, but temps got too hot. Since June I’ve been working on Overcoming Tendonitis a lot so I haven’t been able to get outside much (or climb) but I’m getting back into things. Feeling pretty close to my late 2018 level.

The goal is to put up some more V10s and send a soft V11 this fall/winter.

Technique focus with strength base

2017 opinion:

Most climbs from the V0-4/5 range focus on learning significant amounts of techniques including body shifting, weight transfers, toe/heel hooks, hand and shoulder positioning, and so on. If one is strong, they can mostly just muscle their way through the V4-5+ range within a few months while virtually ignoring technique.

Unlike most conventional wisdom, I would not necessarily count this as a detriment in the true sense of “detriment” (although I will say it is somewhat debatable). Higher grades tend to require more technique than the lower grades, which means you are forced to learn good technique. Obviously, I do think that learning technique the earlier the better is important, but you will learn it regardless anyway if you are focused on pushing your grades up.

2018 opinion:

I recant on the former opinion above. After climbing outside more and focusing much more on technique, I believe that you should focus on technique focus all the time and never try to muscle through anything. If you get a problem by muscling through it, you should try to come back later and do it with better technique.

You should mainly focus on optimal body position and footwork to minimize the amount of force put onto the hands and fingers. This will allow you to feel the very subtle positions that your body needs to be in to make the correct movements. If you rely on muscling and crappy technique indoors, it is only magnified when you start to climb outside.

2019 opinion: Same as above. I don’t expect this to change much anymore.

My current opinion: Train technique from the beginning if possible for “optimal” results. For “good” “mediocre to poor” results, muscling through problems works but will definitely come back to haunt you later on even though it can be corrected.

Contribution of strength training to climbing

2017 opinion:

In general, a solid strength base will help an athlete progress up to the V6-7 range indoors fairly rapidly (note: indoor grading is generally 1-3 V grades easier than outside). If one came in with similar strength levels as me, I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them reaching the V6-7 range within 1.5-2 years and probably less than a year. Maybe even as small as 3-6 months for the more genetically gifted. There is some hand strength transfer.

The benefits of strength focus at higher strength levels start to lose steam in the V7-V10 range. Generally speaking, hand strength becomes much more important as holding onto smaller and smaller holds in the 4-10mm range become more important. After all, what good is your strength if you can’t use it because your fingers can’t hold onto a hold?

Over the past ~6 months, I’ve started trending toward more hand strength focus over training strength focus with better measurable progress and results on the wall. I’ve adapted into a more minimalistic routine of OAC/OA DB Rows, dips, and pistols with more hangboard focus. This has pushed me back up from some/most V7 into most/all V8s while the grades in our gym have been trending from easier than outside to about the same as outside grades.

List of exercises I’ve found most effective are:

• Legs: Deadlifts (low volume up to only 2x bodyweight) and/or weighted pistols.
• Core: reverse hyperextensions and weighted decline situps.
• Upper push: Weighted dips, and maybe overhead pressing or pseudo planche pushups.
• Upper pull: One arm chin progression as a main, and maybe front lever row progression and/or one arm DB rows.
• Antagonist exercises: rice bucket or wrist roller or DB wrist extension

I personally use weighted pistols, weighted decline situps, weighted dips, and OAC as main exercises. Then supplement a session as needed.

2018 opinion:

I’ve been experimenting heavily with how much I can remove and still improve in climbing, and what exercises I can add that give the most benefit in climbing over the past year. My opinion has changed heavily between then and now, and you can compare this in my recommendation list of exercises. I believe this list is vastly more effective than the previous.

• Legs: 1-2 sets of 10 reps pistols are sufficient for leg strength.
• Core: 1-2 sets of 20-30 reps of weighted reverse hyperextensions and 5-10 reps of ab wheel or hanging leg raises.
• Pull: Super wide grip arched back chest to bar pullups. Alternative is campus board uneven pullups focusing on the top or bottom arm depending on if you want lock off or pull strength. Add weight if necessary.
• Push/pull: Strict bar muscle ups / weighted ring muscle ups.
• Scapular strength: Arched back front lever pulls
• Other: Antagonist work if needed
• Fingers: Finger rolls and traversing. Hangboard if you need it.
• Specific: Depends on climb. See below.

Notable changes reasoning include… Barbells and weighted pistols are too draining on recovery and replaced with minimal leg work. Long sets of abs endurance is fairly useless, and posterior core is more important than anterior core. One arm chins and front lever aren’t that great for climbing specific moves. Strict muscle ups can help lockoffs and double as pushing so you don’t have to have a direct pushing movement. Added a category for scapular strength and antagonist work only if you need it. Minimized use of hangboard. Some other thoughts on why things are good and bad here.

I usually only work 2-4 of these exercises in a single session, usually focusing on what I’m weak or what I need for specific climbs that I’m doing. 20-30 minutes max per S&C session about 2x per week.

Also, you can potentially add a specific routine for a specific climb. I added 3 rounds of 5 pullups and 5 rows with no rest between all the rounds to send Shoot the Moon V10 in the Instagram video above because my strength failed near the end of the minute climb. This helped me send it much easier.

2019 opinion:

Since having a kid and getting stronger outside and getting the injury, I’ve further made improvements and minimization to training. I went back to an old mainstay face pulls and found that progressive overload with them was probably slightly superior to arch back FL pulls. It also benefited posterior delts, external rotator cuff and forearm work too.

Here’s my new list of recommended exercises. Explanations below.

• Legs: 1 sets of 10 reps pistols. Weighted pistols are fine if you have recovery. Pistols > deadlifts >> squats.
• Core: 1 sets of 20-30 reps of weighted reverse hyperextensions and 5-10 reps of ab wheel or hanging leg raises. Most people overrate core. Train for strength and train power transmission of core climbing. Long circuits or holds are a waste of time.
• Pull: 1-2 sets of 5-10 reps no kip explosive muscle ups or high pulls > Wide grip arched back chest to bar pullups = campus board uneven pullups (top or bottom arm for lock off or pull strength) = Strict bar muscle ups / weighted ring muscle ups (for powerful lockoff). Add weight if necessary. Explosive muscle ups build power and strength simultaneously and you can make them wider if needed. Face pulls half eliminate the need for wide grip arched back chest to bar pullups because of the strong gaston strength you get from them. Hence, focused pull is better.
• Push: 1 set of anything that does not injure your shoulders. Dips, bench, overhead press, whatever. If you are doing muscle ups, you get to eliminate this. It should be pretty obvious why a pull muscle up variation is helpful as you can eliminate a pushing exercise.
• Scapular strength: 3 sets of 5-20 rep range Face pulls (rings version if no machine) > Arched back front lever pulls. Face pulls are superior to the FL pulls and save recovery for focused pulling work.
• Prehab: Antagonist, rotator cuff, etc. Work if needed. Face pulls hit both of these if you use the rope above or rings. Face pulls are basically a 4 in 1 exercise also hitting antagonists and rotator cuff.
• Fingers: Hangboard repeaters + 1 set max hangs > traversing > repeaters > max hangs = Finger rolls. See comments below.
• Specific: Depends on climb (e.g. longer climbs could require some endurance pullups and rows like I did with a longer V10 climb I did).

Comments — Fingers: Multiple caveats: Repeaters allow enough volume hangboarding to elicit a hypertrophy adaptation by themselves. If you are able to climb enough to get enough volume on your hands, max hangs are hands down the best exercise if you can keep progressing through plateaus. Traversing is generally superior to repeaters, hangs and finger rolls because you are working climbing specific movement but generally not as measurable so I knocked it down to a combo of repeaters + 1 max hang. This is probably the hardest category to classify, so if you find something that works for you then go for it.

Final verdict: face pulls are actually that good and allowed modification of many different exercises to hit many things at once.

Overall, I’ve minimized my routine to 1-2 sets of pistols, 1 set of core work posterior/anterior (if I feel like it), 2-3 sets of face pulls, and 1-2 sets of explosive muscle ups while still getting stronger on the wall. Haven’t been able to test it outside much so far this year because of the A2, but a couple of early sessions outside are promising.

My current opinion:

Focus on minimalist strength training if you are a beginner (0-12 months). 80-85%+ of your time should be spent climbing and focusing on technique. 3x a week should be climbing for 1-2 hours building up to 2-3 hours. Strength training should be at most about 20-30 minutes of strength training 2x a week at most. Focus one leg, one anterior and posterior core, one pull, one push, and face pulls.

If you have been climbing for longer and your body can handle it, consider going up to 4x a week for 1:30-2 hours and slowly build up in the 2-2.5 hour range. Strength training should still be at most about 20-30 minutes of strength training 2x a week. If you have specific weaknesses, go up from 1-2 sets to 3-4 for more volume.

Strength may be a limiting factor in your training if you cannot lock off around V6-7. If you can do a one arm pullup, you are likely not strength limited until you can do at least V10+.

Grade chasing versus completing all problems at level

Unchanged opinion and text for 2017-2018. Added a few caveats for 2019 in italics.

These two things are not mutually exclusive, but most people have a preference. I tend toward “grade chasing” along with most of my friends, but there are a few that prefer to complete everything at a given level. Both have their place from my perspective.

It’s useful to acknowledge that grade chasing will bring up your technique in other areas. When you’re working at the limit of what you can do, you’re generally challenging the strength, technique, fitness, hand strength, and other variables from a lot of different perspectives. I almost exclusively grade chased until a few months ago, and I think focusing on both facets has made me a bit more well rounded (still suck on pure slab though). However, it hasn’t changed my life in terms of thinking that this is something I should have been doing all along.

Completing all of the grades at a certain level is generally more ‘telling’ when climbing you’re a “VX” climber. Generally, in my mind when someone claims they’re say a “V8 climber,” I would expect them to be able to send a V8 in front of me in a session or two. It can be humbling to claim your highest grade as “the grade you climb,” especially knowing that it was probably soft for it’s grade. Generally, all of the first grades you get are going to be soft unless you find a problem that perfectly fits your style.

In general, I think whatever fits your personality best is the way to go. I prefer grade chasing and that is what motivates me to continue climbing well. I want to eventually be able to send V12 and flash V10s. Others who are motivated by completing all of the climbs or being well rounded — which is indeed better for competitions if you are into that — should stick to that.

Currently, since my gym puts up climbs 1x a week now, I usually try to do all of the climbs in a 1-2 days when the come out (project) then then just do volume the other 1-2 days I climb (perfect technique repeats, traversing, make easier climbs harder by doing them 3 finger open hand or skipping holds, etc.). If climbing outside, I will only do volume in the gym and focus my projecting on climbs outside.
What do I mean by volume day? Example.

My current opinion: Both grade chasing and being well rounded work well because they fit different athlete’s various motivations. Switching athletes out of their inherent motivation is generally a bad idea. There probably is a 80/20 67/33 or 60/40 split where you get the best of both worlds. If you’re a grade chaser, spend a session every week or two working the “lower level” problems that you don’t care for to make yourself more well rounded. If you are a well rounded climber who rarely projects, spend a session every week or two projecting very hard climbs.

The effect of hangboard and hand strength on climbing

2017 opinion:

Generally speaking, if you are going to do one thing aside from climbing to improve your climbing beyond intermediate strength levels, it should be hangboard.

Eric Horst’s article on Energy System Training accurately summarizes the pyramid aspect of climbing.

• Climbing is the foundation of the pyramid and the main focus. Most of the time spent on climbing should be aimed at improving sports specific training.
• A standard foundation of strength and conditioning for agonists (pulling muscles), antagonists (pushing muscles, and forearm extensors), legs, and core should be built on that.
• Specific work such as hangboard, campus board, and system boards are after that to focus on specific weaknesses and bring up hand strength. Hand strength strongly correlates with climbing ability, based on various studies
• Finally, energy system training is to maximize performance after all of those factors.

This type of pyramid progression — sports specific, strength and conditioning, isolation work, and energy system — works for most, if not all, sports and disciplines from novice to elite.

This jives well from my experience, as it should. I had a solid strength base coming in which helped me improve very rapidly up to V6-7 range, but after that range I needed a lot more climbing specific isolation work.

Right now, I currently do a routine of 3x a week bouldering for 2-3 hours, 20-30 minutes hangboard, then brief strength workout 20-30 minutes. I find that works better than 4-5x a week for me, and I can do recovery work on the other days such as cardio if need be.

Slightly different than last year. I’m trying to transition to what I said earlier about 3-4x a week about 1:30-2 hours building up to about 3 hours. With 2-3x a week hangboard and 1-2x minimalistic strength training since I’m already strong in the body.

2018 opinion:

I still recommend the pyramid, but with a higher emphasis on the ground level. It is more important to train technique over anything else, especially when you can get good hand strength with technique. Replacing hangboard with traversing can be useful if you don’t do sport climbing and still be effective since you’re getting both technique practice and high volume forearm work for long term hypertrophy which helps with strength.

This overall means placing hangboard and other higher level things to a slightly lower level than I thought before, unless that is a specific weakness.

2019 opinion:

Pretty much the same as 2018. Identify your weaknesses to see if you need to hangboard or not. I do not think it’s needed for everyone, especially beginners (<1 year of climbing). Even after 1 year it is not necessarily needed.

My current opinion: Focus mainly onto techniques that can keep you on the wall that still work your weaknesses before you try to go to any other supplementing training methods. Hangboard, campus board, and system board and energy system training are good tools to use to break through plateaus in climbing. Likewise, they can be used concurrently with climbing and strength training to make continued progress without plateaus.

Various holds in hangboard

2017 opinion:

I’ve experimented a lot with different holds for improvement in hand strength over the past 2 years, especially once I found that just climbing and strength training wasn’t working as well to improve my climbing ability.

• What works: half crimp max weight, open hand crimp, minimum edge
• What doesn’t work well: Slopers, pinches, repeaters (to an extent).

Let’s go over what doesn’t work well first.

• I’ve found pinches to not work at all for me. On the Rock Climbing Training Hangboard (Anderson Brothers), I worked my way up from 0 lbs pinching to +40 lbs, with a 50 lbs hold thrown in as well. This did jack squat for improving my climbing ability. On the other hand, Reddit’s climbharder has had similar effects from different results. In general, they’ve found little to no improvement from cycle to cycle. You only see great improvement over the course of many cycles. My current theory on pinches is that they correlate to getting stronger in the upper body. The harder you can pinch is similar to how hard your co-contraction is in your forearm flexors/extensors and upper body such as biceps/triceps, shoulders. This would explain why newbies tend to get increased gains from doing pinch work, but those who have been climbing in the intermediate V5+ range don’t benefit as well if at all.
• Holding slopers just does not work. It’s too dependent on humidity and skin friction to matter. They don’t even translate to the wall which sucks. That’s all I’m going to say about it. It’s a waste of time. Open hand hanging translates significantly better.
• Max hangs are better than repeaters for hand strength. This should not be a surprise to anyone give that repeaters typically train more endurance than strength with shorter rest times. I don’t see a point to doing repeaters at all unless you’re a route climber.[1]

What works.

• Half crimp max weight. Work by hanging weight off you and doing it on a hangboard or no hang devices such as the Grippul. Either seems fine from my experience, although no hangs have an easier set in my opinion. These get your hand strength up. There’s a range of about 1-2s to about 10s that you can work with as long as you get enough climbing + hangboard volume to improve. I usually do about 2-5 sets of 5-10 seconds.[1]
• Open hand crimp is what slopers holds wish they trained. Open hand crimp builds finger strength in open hand and is less stressful on the connective tissues. Generally, you can do much more weight open hand when trained than half crimp. I’ve been working 3 finger open hand crimp on the RCT Anderson’s hangboard to solid effect. Down to 3 fingers on one hand with some added weight.
• Minimum edge you may need to use a board like the Transgression board to get accurate sizing of holds to work systematically down with. Some larger gyms carry them in their training section (Earth Treks has some for example). Min edge seems to be mostly about training pain tolerance, distal interphalangeal joint (DIP joint) connective tissue integrity, and getting strong(er) on smaller holds. Generally speaking, if you’re in the V8+ range you’re going to encounter < 8mm crimps, so if you tend to work a lot of crimp problems then minimum edge training may not be necessary.

[1] Edit: I no longer do max hangs for 5-10s holds. I started doing an investigation of max hangs versus repeaters for strength and hypertrophy. I came to the conclusion that repeaters are superior in isolation, but max hangs can be effective with hard climbing in certain circumstances. Circumstantially, given that my current gym — after moving to CA from Earth Treks in MD — no longer has a lot of hard crimp climbs, repeaters are superior for strength and hypertrophy given my current situation. The volume with max hangs and half crimp work during a session must be practiced probably for 10-15 or maybe more climbs in order to get the volume along with max hangs to force adaptations. Initial tests (2 weeks of repeaters) have confirmed my hypothesis, but further testing is still needed. This is Steve Maisch’s current conclusion too (see above link).

I recently wrote this up on reddit on my switch in training philosophy from strict minimum edge training to minimum edge pulling. Previously, I had mainly been doing it for the pain tolerance as I didn’t really see that much carryover from it to being able to pull on smaller holds that well.

About a 3-4 weeks ago, I decided to try ~3ish sets of 3-5 pullups on minimum edge as my minimum edge training. I’ve seen a clearly improve difference in my ability to pull on smaller holds while still getting the pain tolerance training that the fingertips need to some extent. I’ve worked up from 3 sets of 3 pullups with no weight to +25 lbs for 3 sets of 5 reps on the small edge of the RPTC hangboard (trango) which is the 7.9mm. Joints were slightly sore for the first couple sessions, but have since not hurt at all during the training.

This makes logical sense to me since when I climb I don’t necessarily need to hang on the smallest hold. What limits me is going to be my ability to exert force off the smallest hold that my fingers can tolerate. One of my bigger weaknesses has always been terrible crimps, but I’ve noticed that I’m actually decent on terrible crimps now.

Anyway, just want to hear some different types of experiences to see if this has been the case for other people and/or if some other people may want to see if it benefits them better than straight minimum edge hangs.

2018 opinion:

After experimenting a bit more and getting a larger volume of climbing, I think that the 3 grips are still the best bang for the buck.

• Half crimp max weight
• Open hand crimp (often 3 finger drag)
• Minimal edge

As long as climbing volume is sufficient to continue to improve technique, you don’t need the repeaters volume. It would be better to do traverses instead of repeaters for more climbing focus hand endurance and hypertrophy. Extra volume that is needed on the FDS and FDP muscles can be replaced with finger rolls.

I do not currently hangboard at the moment, and I have been still making good progress in improving my ability to flash lower grades and send higher grades. I attribute this to these things:

• 3 finger open hand climbing for all warm ups up to about V4-5 indoors
• Traversing to work endurance and hypertrophy while still getting climbing specific skills
• Modifying my workout routine to work the specific weaknesses for the muscle groups while minimizing the amount that I do to improve recovery
• 5-10 climbs with closed crimp to work improving recruitment in those positions. This has been helping substantially compared to hangboarding because it’s more specific with climbing focus, and it’s lower volume so I don’t need to worry too much about overdoing the closed crimps to injury.

I still like hangboard and think it has a place, but it is unneeded at this point as my hand strength is still improving from other sources.

2019 opinion:

I still think half crimp max weight, open hand, and minimal edge are the best 3 edges. The antagonist work from face pulls actually has significantly helped improve my grip strength, and I was up to 4-5s left arm and 7-8s right arm one arm hang on BM2k bottom rung before the pulley injuries. Working back up to that now.

My current opinion:

Same as last year — Try to avoid hangboard as long as possible and work on various climbs that will improve the grips that you are weak with. 3 finger open climbing for warm-up has been extremely effective without actually having to train 3 finger open on hangboard. Closed crimping on 5-10 climbs has been effective in gaining crimping strength without having to do it on hangboard. Finger rolls and traversing have been effective for forearm hypertrophy and thus strength without hanging to hangboard, and traversing is more effective for climbing.

If you are going to hangboard, open hand and half crimp are critical to train. Min edge has some use depending on various goals and climbs on the wall. Repeaters are superior to max hangs in isolation for strength and hypertrophy. Max hangs can be utilized effectively if you have hard crimp climbs during your training session to compensate for the lack of volume. Pinches, slopers, and other variants not mentioned do not seem to have as much use to them. YMMV. 3 main ones to train: half crimp repeaters, open hand, minimum edge holds or min edge pullups.

Scheduling sessions

2017 opinion:

I’ve experimented with different scheduling sessions numerous times over the past couple years. What I’ve ended up as the “best fit” for me seems to be oriented around 3x a week scheduling.

• 2-3 hours of bouldering, 20-30 minutes of hangboard, 20-30 minutes of S&C

I’ve tried hangboard before climbing, but it doesn’t feel as good to me. Bouldering then S&C and hangboard or bouldering then handboard and S&C are similarly most effective. Overall, I’ve found that with my style of “grade chasing” that climbing more than 3-4x a week isn’t that good for me. If I were to climb 5+ times a week, then I would have to cut down my sessions to 1-2 hours to build up volume and potentially do some lighter sessions.

Scheduling in additional work such as hangboard and/or S&C work is also another potential factor. I know that some people like scheduling this on their off days, but I like scheduling it on the same day so I have about 48 hours between workouts. That has also seemed to work best for me, but I also know others who do workouts on their off days effectively.

I know several people who train days in a row or multiple days in a row, and their progress has been effective as well. However, for newer people, more than 3x per week seems to yield an increased incidence of overuse injuries.

2018 opinion:

I think climbing more often with shorter sessions is more effective in the long run (building from 3x a week to 4-5x a week), but it needs to be balanced with adequate recovery to prevent overuse injuries. This gives each session a “fresher” way to work on technique. I still like the schedule, although it varies a bit depending on how you like to do things. Daniel Beall suggested hangboard before climbing.

1. Hangboard / Climb
2. Climb / Hangboard
3. Traverse, if any
4. Minimal strength training / finger rolls

2019 opinion:

Find a schedule that works well for you. Personally, with my baby boy I can only climb about 3x per week for about 1.5-2ish hours + 20-30 mins of strength training after that. I can still make good progress on this schedule with minimizing the amount of strength training work I do to barely enough to progress.

I’ve been trending toward being more efficient in my workouts, and that can be emphasized by this article. Most people try to do as much volume as they can to progress, but this “maximal recoverable volume” actually probably leaves a bit of gains on the table. You want to to aim for the region of “minimal adaptive volume” to “optimal volume” as pushing toward the maximal recoverable volume puts you closer to overuse injuries. Rather slightly too little than slightly too much, and you can play around with the sets. I’ve been doing 1 heavy set on face pulls and 1 moderate to high rep set and I’m still progressing well for my main exercise in both scapular, posterior delt, and rotator cuff strength which has helped feel a lot more stable on the wall especially with any shouldery moves.

My Current Opinion: Beginners should start out climbing 3x a week. Whether you incorporate S&C and hangboard on the same day is up to you. It can be trained effectively doing either. Adding more climbing days after your body has adapted to 3x a week may also be beneficial if programmed effectively. It really depends on the work capacity, capabilities, susceptibility to injuries, and scheduling of other activities whether or not to add extra climbing days and/or S&C and hangboard on certain days. This is where a solid coach may be useful to help a beginner progress effectively.

Obviously, as you become more experienced, you can experiment with more training days on. However, it needs to be well balanced in terms of recovery lest you develop overuse injuries.

Added: Aim to move up to 4-5x a week training as you can and split the volume apart as necessary. For instance, if you do 3x a week for 2 hours that’s about 6 hours of volume per week. If you wanted to go to 4x a week, you should split the 6 hours of volume into 4 chunks of 1.5 hours. This allows you to spread out the volume which does not put a huge load on the body. Going from 3x for 2 hours to 4x for 2 hours is a 33% increase in volume which start to push out of the sweet spot of decreased injury risk up for acute:chronic workload ratio toward the danger zone. This is not taking into account the fact that there is less recovery with a back to back session which can be brutal on the fingers.

Conclusions

Obviously, these are simply my thoughts based on my background of experience and experimentation. These thoughts should not necessarily be taken as “expert” opinion or recommendations. If you want to try any of these recommendations, they are at your own risk.

• Technique versus muscling climbs:

Train technique from the beginning if possible for “optimal” results. For only “good” “mediocre to poor” results, muscling through problems works but will definitely come back to haunt you later on even though it can be corrected.

• The applicability of strength training:

Focus on minimalist strength training if you are a beginner (0-12 months). 80%+ of your time should be spent on the wall (reversed version of 80/20 rule). 3x a week should be climbing for 1-2 hours building up to 2-3 hours. Strength training should be at most about 20-30 minutes of strength training 2x a week.

If you have been climbing for longer and your body can handle it, consider going up to 4x a week for 1:30-2 hours and slowly build up in the 2-3x hour range. Strength training should still be at most about 20-30 minutes of strength training 2x a week.

Strength may be a limiting factor in your training if you cannot lock off around V6-7. If you can do a one arm pullup, you are likely not strength limited until you can do at least V10+. Antagonist exercises for pushing and wrists will probably help you stay healthy and balanced.

• Grade chasing versus grade completion:

Both grade chasing and being well rounded work well because they fit different athlete’s various motivations. Switching athletes out of their inherent motivation is generally a bad idea. There probably is a 80/20 split where you get the best of both worlds. If you’re a grade chaser, spend a session every week or two working the “lower level” problems that you don’t care for to make yourself more well rounded. If you are a well rounded climber who rarely projects, spend a session every week or two projecting very hard climbs.

• The place of hangboard and similar implements in training:

Focus mainly onto techniques that can keep you on the wall that still work your weaknesses before you try to go to any other supplementing training methods. Hangboard, campus board, and system board and energy system training are good tools to use to break through plateaus in climbing. Likewise, they can be used concurrently with climbing and strength training to make continued progress without plateaus.

• Holds to train on hangboard:

Try to avoid hangboard as long as possible and work on various climbs that will improve the grips that you are weak with. 3 finger open climbing for warm-up has been extremely effective without actually having to train 3 finger open on hangboard. Closed crimping on 5-10 climbs has been effective in gaining crimping strength without having to do it on hangboard. Finger rolls and traversing have been effective for forearm hypertrophy and thus strength without hanging to hangboard, and traversing is more effective for climbing.

If you are going to hangboard, open hand and half crimp are critical to train. Min edge has some use depending on various goals and climbs on the wall. Repeaters are superior to max hangs in isolation for strength and hypertrophy. Max hangs can be utilized effectively if you have hard crimp climbs during your training session to compensate for the lack of volume. Pinches, slopers, and other variants not mentioned do not seem to have as much use to them. YMMV. 3 main ones to train: half crimp repeaters, open hand, minimum edge holds or min edge pullups.

• Scheduling extra climbing days, S&C and hangboard:

Beginners should start out climbing 3x a week. Whether you incorporate S&C and hangboard on the same day is up to you. It can be trained effectively doing either. Adding more climbing days after your body has adapted to 3x a week may also be beneficial if programmed effectively. It really depends on the work capacity, capabilities, susceptibility to injuries, and scheduling of other activities whether or not to add extra climbing days and/or S&C and hangboard on certain days. This is where a solid coach may be useful to help a beginner progress effectively.

Obviously, as you become more experienced, you can experiment with more training days on. However, it needs to be well balanced in terms of recovery lest you develop overuse injuries.

Added: Aim to move up to 4-5x a week training as you can.

If I missed any categories in this article, I will add them later on.

New pieces to add to next article: volume vs limit indoor/outdoor, specific hold improvement training (sloper, pinch, etc.)

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