Stuck Climbing the Same Grade? You Need a Training Program. Here’s How to Make One

Check in here next week for part two of this series: How to perform an accurate self-assessment prior to starting your training plan.

Part 1: Developing a strategy for physical gains and technical growth

Developing an effective climbing training program is a challenging task that demands a nuanced approach. This article is the first in a series of four, in which I’ll show you how to design a personalized training program that develops your strength, endurance, and climbing skill set. With a dedicated multi-month effort, you are sure to reach some of your climbing goals!

The Importance of a Personalized Approach to Training

Look around the gym or crag and it’s clear that no two climbers are the same. While you may climb with friends who are roughly the same age or experience, you have obvious differences in climbing skill, physical capability (finger strength, flexibility, etc.), mental disposition, and the nature of your physique, among other things. Obviously, then, the most effective training program for you will be somewhat different from anyone else. Your personal climbing preference—bouldering, sport climbing, gym climbing, multi-pitch—must also be taken into account when building a training program.

What is a “Training Phase”?

A “training phase” or “cycle” is a block of time dedicated to climbing-specific training rather than climbing performance. This dedicated training block is best scheduled during your off-season from outdoor climbing. Winter is “training season” for many climbers, so it is an opportunity to build strength, power, and endurance that can be leveraged when you return to climbing outdoors.

To participate in a training phase you will need access to a well-equipped climbing gym, enabling you to engage in truly climbing-specific training by pulling on plastic, wooden hangboards, system boards, and even on tall lead walls. Old school “health clubs” and CrossFit gyms—while good for a fatiguing weight lifting workout— lack specificity and, therefore, are an ineffective pathway to enhance climbing performance.

Climbing a few days per week on a home woodie or at the gym will also allow you to expand your technical skill set, movement efficiency, and mental game. It is important to combine these “skill set days” with exercises that increase your climbing-specific strength and fitness to develop a comprehensive training phase.

How Long Should A Training Phase Last?

An effective training phase should be no less than one month, however eight to 10 weeks is ideal for developing lasting strength, power, and endurance for your next climbing season or road trip.

Many team sports employ a periodization scheme for their multi-month off-season training, commonly dedicating a month or so to base aerobic-endurance training, then a month or more to strength training, and then concluding with a few weeks of grueling power-endurance (anaerobic intensive) training prior to the start of their next competition season. While such a periodized program may have some use in climbing, most non-competition climbers aspire to “perform” their best in climbing year-round. If you prefer to test yourself on limit boulders or sport routes throughout the year (at either gym or crag), then a traditional block-periodization scheme is not the best fit for you.

As I will cover in future articles, a better approach is to vary your training focus throughout each week (a.k.a. Daily Undulating Periodization, or DUP). For example, you might perform two max strength/power workouts (anaerobic alactic focus) per week as well as two or three endurance-oriented (aerobic and anaerobic lactic focus) sessions. This DUP training strategy will simultaneously level up all three energy systems, enabling you to perform well on the plastic or rock at almost any time, year-round—just avoid doing the same exact workout on back-to-back days.

Determining the Daily and Weekly Focus of Your Training

You must  identify your shortcomings on the rock to get the most out of your training phase. It’s not enough to simply state “I’m too weak to climb the next grade.” You must strive for a nuanced approach to self-assessment that begins with evaluating your technical and mental skills. (More on this in the next article.)

Physically, most climbers feel they need stronger fingers. Quite often, however, experienced climbers are robbed of their finger strength due to a weak core and poor postural control during crux climbing movements. This underscores the importance of a comprehensive approach to building your climbing training phase.

Common goals for climbers beginning a training phase include: increasing maximum finger strength and endurance, core strength, pulling power and endurance, and increasing mobility and lower body flexibility. If you’re a boulderer, gains in strength and power may be more meaningful, whereas gains in anaerobic and aerobic endurance are likely the priority if you are a route climber.

Common Climbing Training Mistakes to Avoid

Here’s an abridged list of common climbing training mistakes. Climbers stuck at a given grade level—or reaping little from their training efforts—may be suffering from one or more of these flawed approaches.

• Not climbing or training on a consistent basis. If you’re only climbing/training once per week (or less), don’t be surprised if you’re not progressing. Twice per week is the minimum number of climbing training sessions for eking out some gains…but strive for  three or four gym visits per week.
• Attempting to train too many climbing aspects and exercises in a single session. You’re not training optimally if you attempt to boulder, route climb, hangboard, and weight lift all in a single session. Keep your individual sessions focussed, and be mindful of overtraining. More on this in the coming articles.
• Absence of a weekly-training game plan. Try to plan your workouts at least a week in advance. Identify your training days, then consider the appropriate focus for each session (perhaps bouldering and strength/power training on Thursday and then route climbing/endurance training on Saturday).
• Training the same max strength/power exercises or near-limit boulders on back-to-back days. High-intensity training/climbing is extremely taxing on the neuromuscular system and connective tissues—doing this on consecutive days will provide a poor return on training investment and it will often result in injury (most commonly finger, elbow, shoulder) and time away from climbing.
• Not doing any generalized aerobic training. No, you can’t run, bike, or swim yourself to the next level of climbing. However, there’s plenty of research—and pro-climber proof!—that doing some base aerobic training supports climbing performance and recovery between boulders and exercises, and increases stamina on route climbs and during rigorous workouts. My recommendation: Try to fit in a total of one to two hours of Zone 2 cardio (prolonged low-intensity aerobic activity)1 each week—this can be done on rest days from climbing-specific training or it could be done on a climbing-training day as a separate workout (say, in the morning, if you’re an evening gym climber).

In Closing

Yes, climbing training is a complex topic, but I hope that my series of articles will provide  straightforward and accessible insight that you can start implementing today. In the next article, I’ll provide a strategy for self-assessment and basic exercise prescription. The final two articles will then detail a basic training program for intermediate boulders and sport climbers, respectively.

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