Hello,

I (30 y/o, BW ~66 kg, 172 cm, + ~1 Ape) started rope climbing ~8 years ago and have focused on bouldering for the last ~4 years, recently with more structured training. My goal is 7B (Font). Right now I climb mostly 6C/6C+ on the Moonboard 2024 at 40°, occasionally 7A (the only "reliable" grading I have).

I'm happy for any advice on reaching my goal. I know my schedule is tight, but I hope that by moving finger training to the morning, the sessions stay short and focused, and I get a few hours of recovery before climbing in the evening.

Does this split make sense, or would you combine or drop sessions?

Strengths and weaknesses

Two years ago I did a test with a local climbing coach, and we found that my finger strength is weak compared to my general strength but I don't know if that's true.

Looking at the boulders in my home gym, I'd describe myself as a well-rounded climber although dynamic moves definitely don't suit me, but I'm fine with neglecting them.
Personally I feel like having sometime difficulty with hard strenght based shoulder moves.

Current benchmarks

Training Plan

I'm running 4-week cycles with a deload in week 4. Currently I'm starting week 2 and feeling good:

Monday:

Morning:
    Fingers (overcoming isometrics)
Evening:
    Campus (Rate of force development)
    project bouldering
    shoulders

Tuesday:

Restday mostly:
    hip training
    legs
    core

Wednesday:

Morning:
    Fingers (overcoming isometrics)
Evening:
    Board/limit bouldering, Posterior Chain , scapular pull-ups

Thursday:

Restday

Friday:

Morning:
    Fingers (overcoming isometrics)
Evening:
    Campus (Rate of force development)
    project bouldering

Saturday:

Evening:
    explosive pull-ups
    heavy weighted pull-ups
    one-arm lockoff
    Romanian deadlift
    Isometric Pinch training

Sunday:

Restday

Finger sessions (~30 min, overcoming isometrics, single arm, 20 mm edge)

1. Recruitment curls: 5 reps/hand at 85-100 % of curl max
2. Half crimp pulls (4 s): 3 reps/hand at 85-100 % of half crimp max

I’ve been on a long base phase for awhile. Ive made some solid gains and I’m excited about training overall. Ive been using lattice plan to structure my workouts. I’ve learned a lot about training from combing books and the internet and now want to schedule a peak for a trip to red rocks coming up in 5 weeks. I’m looking to multipitch climb some harder routes, up to 5.12. Sport on-sighting days on limestone are possible if weather is poor for longer routes.

Please tell me if I’m doing this all wrong.

M/W/F are rest days, with some aerobic work to show up with fitness for the approaches.

Tuesday- warm up, max hangs, limit boulder

Thursday- warm up, short campus, aerobic power (otm boulders and foot on campusing) campusing done as a maximum lactic load exercise. Reducing rest times throughout the 5 weeks.

Saturday- redpoint climbing outdoors if weather is good, otherwise indoors, and Anaerobic power (1:1 work:rest on short boulders)

Sunday- Volume day progressing to 1000 vertical feet by end of 5 weeks. Am currently doing 600-700 1x per week.

All the while I am attempting to imagine the mental aspects of multi pitching since it is a rarity in my life these days. Once upon a time I was very comfortable hanging in a harness, but I’m kinda a Midwest gym dude these days. I had a trip to some granite in May and got worked by the combination of the approach and lack of large volume days in my training, in addition to the mental smackdown. I’m trying to alleviate these issues. I was thinking of adding some harder training at the end of my volume day, to simulate cruxes high on the original route, but am unsure if I should add extra or move another exercise to there. I’ve been recovering well from my current intensity, and I anticipate tolerating this workload just fine.

Any tips would be appreciated! Thank you!

I climbed and competed quite intensely from 14-16 years old climbing 7c+, 3 rep max pull up +15kg (I was and still am a female on the smaller size so this was just over an added 25% BW)
I’m now 20 and have climbed at most every 3 months. I still have good technique and on select few can climb 7b but I have lost almost all my finger strength (saved a bit by doing a ton of recruitment while initially training) and can only do 3 pull ups max.

I want to get back into training but have found that I’m struggling to know what extent I should push myself and what kind of a routine I should be having.

This goes particularly for finger training as right now I have low strength but high recruitment so I can push my fingers really hard without realising. So I would like to work on it but I would never recommend finger boarding to someone who is this early on and has had such a low climbing volume over the last few months / years.

Any advice / example programs would be incredibly useful, also any warning signs I should look out for.
Also any general strength and conditioning I can take on without overloading myself 🙏🙏

Thank you for reading!

I'd like to open a discussion on the media landscapes around training for climbing versus running. For anyone interested in both sports, I wonder if you have the same impression: running is refreshingly simple, whereas climbing training media is quite overwhelming. Getting better at running can be distilled really really well into a few key ideas (do easy running, sometimes do a long run, don't ramp up too quickly). However I can't say the same for climbing--it's obviously significantly more complicated, with the mental and social aspects that come into play. And to me, as a consumer of the firehose of media, this makes it often even more difficult to discern "what really matters".

Take Power Climbing Company for example. Undoubtedly a good source of information overall, but when I scroll through their videos, IMO it's intimidating:

https://www.youtube.com/@PowerCompanyClimbing/videos

• Isolated Finger Training for Climbing Is Missing an Important Element
• Is Board Climbing Holding You Back?
• The Simplest (Effective) Climbing Movement and Technique Training
• The Simplest (Effective) Climbing Training
• The Most Important Skill for Climbing 5.13

Now multiply this by every other training channel saying something slightly different: no, board climbing is the single most effective way to get stronger, actually it's _this_ skill that's the most important for 5.13, etc.

Spend a few hours reading about running training and you'll extremely quickly reach the point of diminishing returns; there's only so many ways you can repeat the fundamental concepts of running training. Every coach and seasoned ultrarunner more or less agrees on a few basic fundamental training concepts. Spend a few hours reading about climbing training and you'll come out even more confused about the best way to train.

Is this just something we have to accept due to how multifaceted our sport is? Does anyone else share my feelings? Looking forward to thoughts from others on this.

Something that I think a lot of climbing literature misses is the impact our work and life have on training. It focuses on the mechanisms behind physiological performance or how to benchmark but it rarely explores how training is impacted by work. I have spoken with a lot of climbers about their experience with training after work and a similar pattern comes up are after long and/ or a mentally heavy day. Your route reading falls apart, you stop committing, although your body is ready to go.

Route reading is planning, and planning is one of the first things mental fatigue hits. After two hours of demanding mental work, people got slower at planning their way through a puzzle while their memory held up fine (van der Linden et al., 2003). So, you can read the sequence five times and still struggle to come up with a plan to execute.

Your feet go because skill execution drops when you’re mentally fatigued, it shows up in things like passing accuracy in football (Habay et al., 2021). Moreover, falls feel worse because after hard mental work, people react to unpleasant images just as strongly but are worse at turning that reaction down (Grillon et al., 2015). And the psyche goes because part of mental fatigue is your brain updating its calculation on whether the effort is worth it (Müller & Apps, 2019).

Max strength and power hold up while endurance takes the hit (Van Cutsem et al., 2017). So, on those days where you feel mentally worn down, move the session if you can. If you can’t, do a few max hangs or limit moves with full rest and save PE, route volume and benchmarks for a fresher day.

I am part way through my PhD and I am validating two short questionnaires on measuring mental fatigue, one for in the moment and one for the last few weeks. If you’re 18+ and train 3 times a week (or roughly 3 hours a week) in any sport, it takes about 10 minutes: https://derby.questionpro.eu/t/AB3vCJoZB3waVs

When you’ve had a mentally heavy day, what goes first: route reading, your footwork, your head on falls, or your psyche?

Hi! Just found this sub and I’ve enjoyed reading some of the wisdom.

I’ve been climbing for about 17 years since I was 11 years old. Some periods in my life I would prefer bouldering, some I would prefer outdoor sport, some I would prefer indoor lead. Right now I’ve been on a streak of climbing a lot (multiple times a week) and doing lots of indoor lead / top rope. Because of my renewed dedication and because I’ve been weightlifting more, I’ve been noticing myself pushing my grades and I can now more or less flash a 5.12a indoors on top rope and project 5.12b/5.12c. I can probably lead 5.11b/5.11c although I have led a couple of 5.12as before.

I’ve taken movement courses before and I understand basic technique but this is the first time I’ve wanted to do a dedicated training program to push myself. The goal here would be to break into the 5.13s.

Right now my typical week looks like 3x weightlifting, 2x climbing, 1x running and 1x rest day. I’d love to add a training program to my climbing sessions so that I’m best setup to make the 5.12b/5.12c climbs easier and push into the 5.13s. I have no problem being consistent but I’m just not sure what an effective training program for something like this would look like. I would love to hear from stronger climbers than myself if you guys have any advice/resources or training programs you’ve followed before that worked. Thank you!

This just occurred to me randomly while eating dinner, but I figured I should post it here in the hopes it helps someone or to see if anyone else does the same. One thing that’s really helped me in my climbing is trying to make things look easy. I’ve noticed that when I make this conscious mental shift I climb differently, more smoothly and doing more flicking between holds and relaxing in positions. Essentially, if I’m trying to make something look easy, I move in a way that accomplishes that and therefore actually makes the climb easier. But it feels intuitive, rather than thinking about the nitty gritty of how to do every move, I just try and move as smoothly and easily as possible and things often just fall into place. I think this is a big reason why I climb better around good climbers, because I’m essentially trying to impress them my making the climbs look as easy for me as possible. And that just naturally makes me move better. I also think watching a ton of YouTube of pro climbers really helps with this, because I naturally try and imitate how they move even without understanding the mechanics of why they’re doing it.
TLDR- Next time you climb, consciously try to make it look easy, and it will probably feel easier. Also watch a lot of YouTube and you’ll naturally pick up on good movement. Anyone else found the same?

Context of my climbing (boulder):
Ive been climbing at around outdoor v8 max for ~5 years, having sent 2 my-style v9s. I have pretty good technique, and I feel like my strength is really what's holding me back- I go through periods of time especially in the winter when I'm not motivated to climb because I mostly enjoy outdoor climbing. Recently, I've lost a lot of weight and with that physical strength, I was never a super physically strong climber only being able to do like 9 max pull ups but my max now is around 7. I'm 21 F, 5'5 and weigh around 105. I can tell i'm a little worse at climbing outdoors right now by a little, but when I climb in the gym I can really tell I'm a lot weaker. I'd love to start getting better again over this plateau and keep motivation for climbing.

I think some of my biggest weaknesses are contact strength, shoulder/upper body strength in general and tension/core strength on overhang.

What should I do to improve this? I never really trained much previously so I'm not super familiar with bouldering training exercises. I put up a pull up bar and have just been cranking some out in the mornings and evenings, I think probably board climb too, and if that's a good idea, should it be moonboard, kilter, tension? Just find a project on the board and try it or go for more volume? Also is there something I can use for my finger strength while i'm just like watching tv? i see some finger strength devices but i'm not sure how those translate to climbing.
Any ideas on exercises/training plans would be super helpful, sorry if i have no idea what I'm talking about 😭

The video demonstrates 4 tests, which I just did at the gym:

1. Finger Strength - 7 sec hang on 20mm edge in a half crimp, increase weight each time targeting 8 total sets until failure
2. Forearm endurance - At 60% of total weight from previous Finger Strength Test (i.e. including body weight) do 7 sec half crimp hangs on 20mm edge, then 3 sec rest. Repeat until failure.
3. Max pullup strength - 2 rep max chin up, adding weight until failure
4. Box split - With hands on yoga block on 2nd lowest setting, spread legs as far as you can and measure

My results

My climbing background

I have been climbing for 10 years, mostly bouldering and sport climbing in the gym and then sport climbing and trad climbing outside. Have never done any board climbing or hangboarding, and rarely lifted weights. Never had much of a consistent training program but over that full time period have usually stuck to climbing twice a week.

What am I asking for?

I really have no baseline for how to interpret these results and where I should focus my training efforts, so I am looking for help there. I've asked Gemini but I'd rather get real human feedback. For reference, my goal is to climb 5.11+/5.12- more consistently, not expecting onsights but also not really wanting to spend 3+ sessions on the same route.

Also for reference I am 6'2" and 174.9 lb (79.33 kg) - not sure if relevant

Not sure if it matter

Thanks!

Posting this since this might help others who find themselves in the same situation. I would have loved to see this post a few months back.

TL;DR: you can strength train with A4 pulley injuries and maintain most of your upper body strength, although training safely may require special exercises (listed below)

The Injury

I have injured the A4 pulley on my right hand's middle finger. It was a grade III injury, as per this article.

I (and many people in the gym 😎) heard a clear pop, and my finger was swollen almost immediately after, but I felt no pain.

I did an ultrasound scan, and my doctor was almost certain it was a complete rupture.

The Recovery

I had a thermoplastic ring done one week after the injury, and wore it for 8 weeks. During these 8 weeks, I did not train my fingers at all.

On the 9th week, I started physical therapy for a month. Exercises were quite similar to what you can find on this video.

Physical therapy lasted 4 weeks. I had a green light to lightly climb, but I didn't because I was doing other sports.

I'm now on my 14th week post recovery, and can do 75% of what I could on the wall. I'm not pushing it hard, and I'm doing rehab 3-4x per week with exercises from the video linked above.

Strength training

Could I do pull-ups?

After 8 weeks wearing a thermoplastic ring, yes. As recommended by my doctor (hand surgeon) and by my physical therapist.

Could I do any other pulling exercises?

Only those that did not involve closing my hands, which involve almost all back exercises, unfortunately.

I experimented with some weird stuff and was able to train my back well enough.

I did sets of 20 5-second isometric holds, lying down on the floor, with the scapula fully retracted, as in a row with my elbows on the floor.

I did the same with my elbows elevated on a chair, where my upper body was in an upright position.

I also did a straight arm back exercise on the 5 minute on this video.

(I can draw this if someone needs it btw.)

I did 9 sets per week for each, and lost a bit of strength. I was doing 3x12 weighted pull ups with 20kg added, but now I'm doing only 10.

Could I do pushing exercises?

My doctor recommended against it, but she gave me a green light for pushing exercises with open hands.

I did push ups, pike push ups, and ring rows with open hands.

9 sets per week each, and no strength loss.

This is a thread for topics or questions which don't warrant their own thread, as well as general spray.

Come on in and hang out!

I started climbing around summer of last year and have been climbing 3 days a week, usually Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Right before I hit a year of climbing, I broke my leg bouldering and had to take almost 3 months off, from April until the end of July.
Since getting cleared to climb again, I've been back on my regular schedule for the past few months. I climb 3 days a week, with a push day on Tuesday and a leg day on Thursday.
I'm wondering how the time off affects the safe recommendation to wait at least a year before starting hangboard training. Does the 3-month break mean my fingers and tendons lost enough conditioning that I should wait another year from when I returned to climbing? Or does the climbing experience I gained before the injury still count for something?
I'm 5'7" and 140 lbs, and I definitely don't want to rush into finger training and risk an injury. Just curious what you all would recommend in my situation. Should I keep climbing for a while longer before starting, or would it be reasonable to begin hangboarding now?

Hi! Old school user of this subreddit here with a meditation on what I’ve observed over my last decade and a half of climbing.

When I started climbing (only 15 years ago) the sport had already experienced big changes. There were already gyms in a lot of major cities and, although climbing was about to boom, it was still genuinely an unusual thing to do in most places.

As a result, there was a real sense of community around climbing. Lots of us were weirdos. The somewhat makeshift climbing gyms of the time were filled with very motley crews of very different people making friendships that would have been unlikely to develop elsewhere because of differences in age, interests, income, whatever. People talked with each other, joked, gave each other shit, tried hard, fell and laughed. This seems to have been lost, at least where I live.

It’s partly true that climbing just a victim of its own popularity. (A massive, loose community isn’t a very meaningful community.) But there are other things going on that are equally important

Architectural changes in the gyms themselves undermined sociality and made gyms less friendly places. The infusion of money from the sports growing popularity permitted bigger gyms and the emergence of “comp style” setting necessitated lower route density. You are no longer forced to sit six inches from someone who might (as a result) become your friend.

There was a moment when board climbing & training seemed like it would save climbing for some people. Only a small portion of clientele were interested and, if you wanted to climb on the board, you had to sit right next to other people and watch them climb. What were you gonna do? Pretend like you didn’t see the person right next to you? It didn’t matter that you were climbing v10 and they were climbing v3.

But by this time the black hole of Instagram was already beginning to swallow climbing. The kilter board (in retrospect) was seemingly designed to be posted and soon all the board makers integrated Instagram into to their apps and their marketing strategy. This is the real bad part.

Some board companies more than others have learned from Edward Bernays and started selling us a climbing & insta posting identity where being strong and always sending hard is the highest (and only?) good in climbing.

So it’s great that we have all these training tools and knowledge but it strikes me that people are enjoying climbing a lot less than they used to. When I go to the gym and sit under my local TB2, I am usually the only one making conversation and the only one smiling. One time recently I asked someone what boulder they were climbing and someone else leaned in and told me I could look at the name under “recently displayed” in the app. 😐

Partly it’s the phones, doing what they do, sucking people in with beta vids, rankings, and the possibility of recognition via content creation but it’s also the obsession with sending hard that business-generated social media content has engendered by linking the climber’s identity not just to climbing, adventuring, nature, or to a group of friends, but to climbing hard.

There’s no more chuckling when someone dry fires: the stakes of failure are too high. There’s no room for casual conversation: everyone is too busy optimizing and aspiring to Board Lordship. People don’t experiment, set climbs together, or play games: there are Benchmarks or Classics to send.

If you made it this far I’m honored. Hopefully I don’t sound too old. Say hi next time we’re at the board together.

I'm a V11 climber who's primarily trained on the TB2 for quite a while. Recently, I picked up a pair of gymnastics rings for home training, and I'm interested in using them to improve body tension, core strength, and power on steep overhangs.

Currently, I can do a muscle-up, L-sit, and front lever on rings. I'm considering progressing toward skills like the back lever/iron cross, but I'm not sure how much these movements actually transfer to climbing performance.

I've tried adding JUST progressions to positions like the front lever for around a month, but I haven't seen a big jump in my body tension.

For those who have incorporated rings into their climbing training:

• Which ring exercises have you found most beneficial for steep climbing?
• Have you noticed meaningful improvements in body tension over a longer period?
• Are skills like the back lever worth pursuing, or would simpler strength exercises be better for climbing?

I'm particularly interested in incorporating rings as supplemental training without taking too much away from my regular climbing sessions.

I'd be psyched to hear opinions on this.

Thanks!

Hello, I want to start focusing on increasing my finger and grip strength and also lower my injury risk.

I've only been climbing for about a month and I know the best way to improve is to keep going but I also want to work on my fingers for calisthenics reasons and thought this would be a good place for insight on these tools.

I've narrowed it down to 5 tools and was wondering if any of you guys had any experience with them and which you'd recommend. Recommendations outside of these are also appreciated.

1. Nature Climbing Stone Hanger

2. Hand of God Micro

3. Frictitious unlevel edge 2

4. Frictitious Port-A-Board

5. Hoopers Beta MODEDGE: Adjustable Finger Trainer

I will mostly be using these tools with a lifting/loading pin if that makes any difference.

Not sure if this is more injuries related or not? Sorry if it’s in the wrong thread, but wanted to hear some people’s opinions on how to handle the mental aspect of physical injuries. 5-6 months ago was managing a persistent tendinosis on my biceps femoris tendon as well as a bone marrow edema (bone bruise) on my left pointer. Well after 3 months, both were mostly dealt with, but not without the loss of the spring season. Well, lo and behold, I come back to the wall ready to get back in peak shape and try hard, and the other side of my knee/hamstring starts hurting. Turns out, MCL sprain and Pes Anserine tendonitis are flaring up. On top of this, seems I’ve started to develop Synovitis on my right middle finger, limiting any other training I can do while I focus on pt for my leg. I understand in the grand scheme of things, these injuries are not life changing or even theoretically ridiculously long term, but I feel like I’ve been going insane! Climbing is my biggest passion and not being able to exert at my max has left me feeling at a loss of identity and motivation, even outside of climbing. I find myself anxious all the time about the healing progress of my injuries and if I’m really doing the right things. I know climbing and injury are two things that go hand in hand, and I’m trying my best to manage it with as much thought, effort, and awareness as possible, but I still can’t help but feeling kind of lost, anxious, and demotivated. I don’t know if anyone has any advice or personal anecdotes, but I am really curious how other people manage this stuff. Appreciate any opinions and thank you for reading if you made it this far.

I posted about this here a while back but it's finally reached a point relevant to the community: a laser overlay for your wall. It's a small projector with a camera, set it in front of a wall, pick a route in your app, and it marks the holds for that route. No wiring and no mounting, and it fits in a backpack, so it moves between walls and resets.

We've had quite a few people climbing with it this year - in coached training, gym and home settings - and everyone is pretty psyched on how (cost-)effective it is. For anyone who climbs on a single board a lot, something like this isn't necessary, as memorization is easy when you're working a few hard problems over enough sessions. It becomes really useful after resets though, or on new boards or for circuits with many problems, or for folks who simply aren't familiar with a wall. It's also great for add-on or similar games.

Spraywalls at gyms and even having friends come climb on your homewall have pretty significant barriers to entry simply because it's hard to know which holds make up the problem you're looking for.

In a nutshell: the camera photographs your wall once and finds the holds. A galvo mirror pair then steers the laser to whichever holds the route uses. It was developed initially with the Crux app API for spray walls, but systems boards work great already (all you LED-less moon enjoyers out there) and more spraywall app integrations are in the works.

Some common questions:

Does it work with systems boards? Yes. A toggle on the projector's config page switches it to systems board mode (boardsesh etc.), so you use your board's app as normal.

What's the point if your body is just going to block the projection? Of course If you stand between the projector and a hold, you block it. You can still see the climb before you start and the upcoming holds as you climb, and feet below you. In practice it's not much of an issue - in my opinion it's roughly 90% as good as LEDs.

Does it need an internet connection? Yes. The image processing runs on a dedicated server. There's no subscription, just a one-time price. If there's enough demand I'll add self-hosting of the server side code. If I ever shut the server down, I'll open-source the whole thing.

It's past 600 hours and 4,500 routes projected on units in the field. The Kickstarter is mainly to buy parts in bulk and build the first larger batch. It's US-only for round 1, with delivery by Feb 2027.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lzrvision/lzrvision-a-board-climbing-led-alternative

Happy to answer any and all questions!

I've been training seriously for about 2 years now (currently projecting V7/7A+) and my weekly structure usually looks like: 2 gym sessions, 1-2 Kilter sessions, 2 hangboard sessions (max hangs on Climbro), and 1-2 strength sessions (pull-ups, core, antagonists).

The problem I keep running into is that all my data lives in completely different places:
- Kilter sends are in the Kilter app
- Hangboard data is in Climbro
- Gym sends are in a paper notebook (tried TopLogger but my gym isn't on it)
- Strength work is in Apple Notes
- My coach and I communicate via WhatsApp screenshots of all of the above

I've tried consolidating into Google Sheets but I spent more time maintaining the spreadsheet than actually training, and I dropped it after 3 weeks.

What I'm missing is a way to see my overall training load across all activities in one place. Am I accumulating too much volume? Is my board-to-wall ratio off? Is my finger strength progressing relative to my sends? I can't answer any of these without manually cross-referencing 4 different tools.

I've searched and tested most climbing apps (KAYA, TopLogger, Crimpd, Climbro, the board apps) and none of them seem to handle the full picture. They each do their one thing well but don't talk to each other.

What systems have you built that actually stuck? Has anyone found a workflow that consolidates board + hangboard + gym + strength without turning into a data entry job?

This is a thread for simple, or common training questions that don't merit their own individual threads as well as a place to ask Injury related questions. It also serves as a less intimidating way for new climbers to ask questions without worrying how it comes across.

• r/Climbharder Wiki - many common answers to questions.
• r/Climbharder Master Sticky - many of the best topic replies

Commonly asked about topics regarding injuries:

Tendonitis: http://stevenlow.org/overcoming-tendonitis/

Pulley rehab:

• https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en_US/stories/experience-story-esther-smith-nagging-finger-injuries/
• https://stevenlow.org/rehabbing-injured-pulleys-my-experience-with-rehabbing-two-a2-pulley-issues/
• Note: See an orthopedic doctor for a diagnostic ultrasound before potentially using these. Pulley protection splints for moderate to severe pulley injury.

Synovitis / PIP synovitis:

https://stevenlow.org/beating-climbing-injuries-pip-synovitis/

General treatment of climbing injuries:

https://stevenlow.org/treatment-of-climber-hand-and-finger-injuries/

Hi,

Have been climbing (indoor bouldering) for a year now, and comfortably in the V5-6 range with a few 7s thrown in the mix.

I want to improve and want to commit to a more focused intentional training approach.

I climb around 3 days a week at the moment, which just involves:

- Warm up (dynamic stretches, dead hang, pull ups, fingerboard hangs {mix of half crimp, 2 finger pockets, slopers - for 7 secs, 50 secs rest in between, 3 sets of each}, then working through low level climbs (juggy overhangs VB-V3, maybe a campus thrown in)

- Around 2 hours of climbing, mix of styles depending on if I have any projects or a new reset, no real focus

I have no set days for climbing, I just go when I can, and so can’t set specific days for training.

I have no real specific goals other than “be a better climber”, and there is such a varied and overwhelming mix of advice out there that I really don’t know where to start!

Any tips, be they for training methods or where to look or anything at all would be much appreciated!!

Hey all,

I’ve been climbing for about 10 years now. The first 5-7 years of my climbing I progressed quick and quickly became a consistent v13 climber. Never got a finger injury during this time and my style was exceptionally crimpy. My training consisted of climbing hard boulders on a super crimpy homewall. But mostly sticking to the rock.

However for the past 3 years it seems I have nearly zero tolerance for crimping. I’ll feel a small tweak, back off and deload then progressively load the fingers until they feel strong and healthy and slowly ease back into crimping. The minute I do boulders with crimps, boom pick up some more injuries. I can’t remember the last time I have been able to crimp like my old self. I can still climb hard boulders outside but the style is often limited and I have to choose wisely. My tolerance for hard crimping now is equivalent to what my old warm ups would be.

Not looking for diagnosis or specific rehab but wondering if anyone has delt with something similar. It’s incredibly frustrating as I feel like I am a much stronger and better climber now but these damn finger injuries won’t stop. Seems like my fingers just can’t handle it anymore haha.

General info: training structure has been the same for the past like 8 years: one day on one day off 2-3 hour sessions, low volume strength training and finger training in warm up. Rest of session board climbing. In season, generally go outside 2-3x per week with supplemental training session focused on strength training and a bit of board climbing.

Let's see if i can make the proper format... 😄

1. Experience Climbing 15+ years. Currently redpointing 6c on rock on my best days.

2. Height / Weight / Ape 174 cm / 76 kg / ape index 6. Around 22% body fat.

3. A week of climbing and training - 3 climbing sessions most weeks, sometimes 2.
   1.5-2 hours each, mornings.
   Session content: 15 minutes warm up aikido-style (did this a lot when i was young), then progressive harder climbs for 1 hour, 5-10 minutes rest after each attempt. 15-20 minutes easy climbing, 15 minute stretcing.
   2 brisk walks on off days, 1.5 hours at about 6 km/h. No hangboard protocol at the moment. Never tested max added weight. I can hang bodyweight for 15 seconds on a 20 mm edge, half-crimp.

4. Goals: A Slab 6c+ i'd love to make "Ultima chans" at tagliacozzo crag, and "La storia infinita" at guadagnolo graded only 6b+ but with a very big roof that create me several problems. Ideally still be climbing 6b+ at 70.

5. Strengths and weaknesses Strength: endurance.
   I don't fall off pumped. I can reach the crux of a 7a with something left. Weakness: single hard moves. Static power and lock-off strength on small holds. Finger strength is untested, which is itself a gap, I suspect it's below what 6c+/7a wants. Working on them so far: mostly volume on routes at 6a-6b, which I now think is the wrong stimulus for the thing that's actually stopping me.
   I dislocated a shoulder 4 years ago and active overhead loading is still weak, hanging is fine, pulling rope up to clip sometimes isn't. It's with a physio, so I'm not asking for injury advice here. I'm flagging it because heavy overhead pressing and dynamic shoulder-loaded moves are off the table, and any suggestion has to work around that.

My doubts
My plan was a weekly rotation: one endurance circuit session, one bouldering session, one routes session. At 2-3 sessions a week that's one session per quality, and for power, my ralweakness, one session a week looks like it sits at or below the dose that drives adaptation. The split sends most of my limited volume away from my weakness. So: is a 6-8 week emphasis block better use of low frequency two of three sessions biased toward max strength and limit bouldering, endurance dropped to maintenance?
Or does slower connective-tissue recovery at 62 argue for keeping the flat distribution even though it adapts more slowly? Mainly interested in how others training 2-3 times a week concentrate load on one quality without accumulating it.

Imagine you couldn't dead hang, couldn't active hang, and couldn't do a single pull-up or push-up. That's me.

I can barely activate my scapular muscles to get into that “back and down” position, and my PT is the one who figured this out.

Here's where I'm struggling with climbing: my overhang grade (10s) has always been significantly lower than my slab and vertical grades (12s). I've practiced the techniques you're constantly told to use on steep terrain: pulling with your toes and hamstrings, engaging your core, squeezing your glutes, twisting your hips in, flagging, pacing, resting, etc. But I still tend to “power down” about halfway through a route. My body just seems to run out of gas, and I can't hold on anymore. This does not happen to me on other styles.

I'm trying to figure out whether strength is the missing piece for me, rather than continuing to hear that it's all about technique which seems very common, especially among men who are naturally stronger than women like me.

I've watched Neil Gresham's masterclass a million times, read all the books, and practice. I'm genuinely trying to figure this out. I even had a coach at some point, but I think coaches are reluctant to tell you you're weak (since well, that sounds kinda insulting).

• Was there a baseline level of strength you needed before overhangs started to feel fluid and smooth?
• I know pull-ups don't automatically make you a good overhang climber. But I'd imagine that strong scapular control and shoulder engagement are pretty important on steep terrain. Are there any solid overhang climbers who genuinely can't do a single pull-up?
• Can you actually be too weak for the overhangs you're attempting, even if your technique is reasonably good? In other words, can a strength deficit be the limiting factor, rather than technique?

Thanks in advance!