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General Climbing Discussion

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Training for climbing? 8-Jun-2006 At 3:11:39 PM gravitychaser

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G'Day Rod.

I haven't read the book you are speaking of, so I can't comment on the advice, and whether you may or may not be following it correctly. As someone earlier in this thread wrote, you need to spend a lot of time at low to moderate training activity in order to give your tendons time to grown in conjunction with your muscle, otherwise your muscular growth will outstrip your tendon growth and you will do yourself damage.

This goes for all sports. If you want to start a training program, you should start with about half of what you think you are capable of. Then you should do a very long endurance phase at low to medium intensity. I'm talking up to 3 months. Then you can start getting into some periodisation as Rod mentions, although I would be more inclined to do 4 to 6 weeks endurance, 2 to 3 weeks strength, 1 to 2 weeks power, then two weeks off and start again.

Many books on training are directed at athletes who already have a good basis of training and strength, and are probably climbing at grades 24 and above. For the average Joe, climbing at grades 16 to 21, take your time. You have many years of climbing enjoyment ahead, and there is no need to rush into it to be the best in a short period of time. Don't compare yourself to the guy on the route next to you. He may have been climbing at a high level and training hard for the past 4 years. Or he might be 15 years old!

Muscular growth will only occur during rest, and when the muscles have protein to grow. But you also need to replace vitamins and flush out all the nasty stuff that is created as a by-product of muscle use. So I recommend that a combination protein / complex carb meal for recovery is taken after climbing, and that anti-oxidants are also taken, either as a suppliment or through veges such as broccoli, tomatoes, peas, and beans.

Jason.