Sharpening Is The Last Step

Don't hurry past useful training on your way to the fun stuff.

I like to tell the story of when we released our Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced bouldering programs several years ago. Each of these was carefully planned out and tested to help a boulderer at a given training age to advance as safely and effectively as possible.

The Novice plan featured more general exercise, lots of variety, and a whole bunch of trying different boulders. The Intermediate forced a weekly cycle, aimed at developing some specific finger strength, and was more restrictive in the variety than the Novice plan. Finally, the Advanced plan was more restrictive still. It was based on monthly cycling, aiming for micro-improvements, and was pretty focused on just a few things.

Truly advanced trainees are rare. Once you reach the advanced stage, one might think you’re really going somewhere. “If I copy an advanced climber’s program, I, too, will be advanced.” In reality, trying to do an advanced program in order to become advanced would be like deciding to skip ahead to graduate-level calculus instead of learning the basics of geometry and algebra.

This is exactly what happened when I released the programs. I started getting questions about how to modify the advanced program for a V4 boulderer, how to make it more flexible, to add in some pull-ups. It took a while to figure it out, but when I looked at the analytics on the plans, I saw clearly what was up. The Advanced program had more than 10 times as many views as the Intermediate one, and the Novice plan had hardly been opened. It hit me like a freight train: people don’t want to think of themselves as beginners at anything. Further, how can someone who has been climbing for 8 years and doing V10 be considered an intermediate?

My error was in labeling. My error was in not explaining that being a novice or an intermediate, in terms of adaptation potential, is a wonderful place to be. Why? Because more things work to help you get better. Because you can actually feel yourself get better. Because you are building a goddamn sword, not just sharpening the blade a little bit.

For years sports scientists and coaches have cautioned against using specific means to develop general qualities. Being too sport-specific doesn’t let us train at the same high volume and potential for adaptation as general means. Imagine if every movement you do to improve your strength is somehow manipulated to be “sport specific.” Your leg strength is built with climbing shoes on. You do pull-ups, but only while using crimps. We not only risk injury, but we run into the issue of pattern fatigue. But continually stressing the fingers and toes and playing at the end of the kinetic chain, we never reach our full potential for strength. No one can effectively train for maximum pulling strength if they are training for contact strength at the same time.

I suggest looking at all of our activities as a continuum, from general activity (any exercises at all), to general activity that is duration or intensity specific to our sport, to specific training, to simulation, and finally to performance. Let me quickly elaborate on these five factors:

Activity (at all)

If you’re a climber, you probably think the only useful training is hitting the Kilter Board, or boulders, or whatever your current climbing-like training is. But what if you’re visiting your parents? What if you’re on vacation in Hawaii? Don’t be some kind of freak about staying on your exact plan from back home. Going for a hike with dad or a bike ride or getting a workout in at the hotel fitness center can help keep your fitness levels from dropping. It can also be fun. If you’re way out of climbing shape, starting in by adding general activity to your daily routine is a great way to start back. Everything falls into this bucket, and even though we know it only helps a little when it comes time to redpoint, there are times that activity is all you get.

General Training

General training is usually about developing overall strength or power, or it can be about building the endurance systems up for our sport. This training is usually driven by weight training, but could also take the form of swimming or nordic skiing, or other sports. Here, we look to develop our overall ability to pull, push, squat, hold tension, and the like. We try to exceed the performance environment in what our body can do. We look at general training as being duration-specific, such as building the endurance to give high power output for five minutes, or as intensity-specific, such as being able to hold a one-arm lock-off. As I mentioned above, developing these qualities in a general way lets us “hone the blade” with specific training later. This helps us avoid pattern fatigue and overtraining and tissue injury.

Specific Training

This is where we boulder, campus, hang from our tips, and spend time on system board movements. Timed circuits, linked problems, and all the other cool stuff you come up with falls into this category. I like to think of specific training as time in rock shoes, but really it’s any time we are integrating the same groups of muscles in the same way we do when climbing. In this way, climbing on a jungle gym, working with gymnastics moves, and more can be seen as “sport specific.”

Training tends to be both intensity and duration specific. This means that if we are aiming to get good at five minute efforts, our training should address this duration zone. This also means (and this is really tough) that the intensity should be close. All-out efforts on the rock require that our training be similar. We get an idea of intensity through perceived exertion, maybe heart rate, but hitting the mark is a challenge.

Simulation

Simulation, doing as exact a move or sequence as possible, is one step better (yet more limited in its result) than specificity. We all know of the Tony Yaniro stories of building replicas of cruxes, training hard on them, and then coming back and crushing. More and more, we see boulderers quite successful with some exact movement training. It works. The problem is that we’re now really into the sharpening of the sword. Exact simulation gets you well prepared for a hold type, move length, and duration that is on your project, but the development is narrow.

In the alpine world, my friend Mark Jenkins talked about mountaineers who trained to go up Everest in the gym at home. Hours and hours were spent slogging up the Stairmaster, until some were truly as strong going uphill as the worlds best alpinists. The problem? When it came time to walk downhill or with non-flat steps, they were crushed. The movement is totally different, and their quads and calves couldn’t take the loads.

Simulation should be used sparingly, at the very end of a training cycle, and to top-up your conditioning for a project. Otherwise, you’ll get good at too little for it to do you any good at all.

Performance

Performance - actually getting on your project or trying to onsight your goal route, or showing up at a comp - is what it’s all about. It is the ultimate honing of your blade, to stick with our analogy. However, if you haven’t done the base work, you might find that the project will take you way too long. You might find yourself having to get your fingers stronger for a specific hold. Might need to build up stamina for the route.

When you get to your project, you should be above 95% in all of the basic physical traits needed for it. Should be able to climb to the top of a nearby, easier route. Should be able to at least use the holds on the climb. Your time on the route should be able efficiency and economy. It should be able pacing, learning, and most of all about drive.

Performance periods should ride the wave of your fitness, and as you come off the top, you should wrap up the goal, and move back into prep for next time. Trying too hard to stay at a peak can result in staleness or even injury.

All of our preparations will slide along this continuum. Get some activity if your way out of shape, but don’t worry about what it is. If you’re absolutely strong and feeling awesome, go prove it to yourself on something you’ll be proud of.