One of the primary needs I hear climbers talk about is the ability to develop greater power. When we talk about developing power, it’s important that we clarify that power is a derivative of strength. Essentially, it is strength displayed over limited time. It’s really simply the skill to move quickly at any given load. In practice, it’s the ability to generate force to make a deadpoint move or a full-on dyno to a distant hold.
More importantly, building power in our training preserves our athleticism as we age. Abundant evidence shows that adults lose power much more quickly than they lose strength. Building a body that is more capable of generating power also means that the body is more capable of absorbing force, such as jumping off of boulders or hiking downhill without injury.
If there is an argument against using power exercises in your training, it is probably simply that power exercises can take slightly longer to recover from than simply doing slow strength exercises. To me, this is a win-win because it seems like if I can get my athlete to embrace doing more effective training and taking the rest that it requires, I am more successful as a coach.
In our quest to develop power, we try to be as efficient as possible. One of the great findings in sports science in the past 50 years is a concept referred to as “the complex method.” Essentially, this method features using a heavy strength exercise coupled with a biomechanically similar power or ballistic movement, back-to-back with no recovery between. For example, you might do a set of three heavy deadlifts followed by five jumps onto a box. The deadlifts are slow, and the jumps are fast.
The actual physiological term for what’s happening during the complex method is called post-activation potentiation. Like all good training, power improvements come along slowly, but by using the complex system, we expose our neuromuscular system to high forces and high speeds, addressing, essentially, both ends of the force-velocity curve.
A 2019 meta study confirmed that these complex sessions statistically increase jump height and sprint efficiency over a training block, and they do so more effectively than just explosive training alone. Athletes also typically see increases in slow strength during these training blocks.
I am going to lay out the way that I would program a 4-week block of complex method training for an athlete alongside a normal indoor bouldering plan. Although you can go ahead and follow along with this program, you can also simply follow these guidelines:
