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General Climbing Discussion

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Strength/Endurance for leading 26-Apr-2007 At 5:38:48 PM spicelab

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My experience is probably atypical so I would be wary about following it, but I used to get severe compartment syndrome in the forearms from attempting to train endurance which went on for ages. I attacked endurance from all angles including weights, thera-bands, squeezie-thingummies, circuits, hanging and endless laps in the gym. All useless at best and counterproductive at worst.

It was only when I dropped endurance training and started bouldering exclusively in the gym, that I managed to get up a bunch of pumper routes outside, some of which I'd made no progress on in years.

Learning to lead though, first and foremost as many others have said, there is a certain threshold of mental relaxation that you have to attain. Analyse just how much unnecessary background tension you are holding in your muscles - it's very easy to under-estimate this at first!

The physical training is very important, but it will likely frustrate and confound you if you make good gains in that, but still bring too much mental tension to the lead wall.