Ines Papert - Credit: Thomas Senf

Arc’teryx Equipment invites you to embrace the history and the future of mountaineering during three days of Alpine experiences intended to educate and inspire anyone with an interest in the mountains.

The Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix is the alpine base Arc’teryx has chosen to host an educational weekend for those interested in becoming more familiar with mountain sports, as well as those interested in honing their skills and shared passion.

A gathering of professionals and outdoor industry hosts will lead participants through a weekend of alpine exploration: the gear, the activities, the environment, the highs & lows involved in all things alpine.

Attendees can test and learn more about the latest in Alpine equipment, improve their alpine skills, learn about the challenges of the human body in the altitude as well as how climate change affects our glaciers and mountain regions. There will also be time to share stories & experiences at the spectacular Alpine Movie Night.

Experienced mountain guides as well as Arc’teryx athletes including Ines Papert, Nina Caprez, Luka Lindic and many more will be on stand-by to provide participants with advice and assistance, the aim being to raise awareness about personal responsibility and self-sufficiency in the mountains. Clinic topics range from Glacier Training for beginners to Advanced Alpine Climbing. All clinics cost €35 except Alpine Climbing Grade II to III and Grade III to IV which cost €80.

The Alpine ARC’ademy is presented by Arc’teryx in cooperation with the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc, GORE, Suunto, Petzl. Primus and SCARPA.

For more information on the individual venues, workshop registration and to win a mountain day with Nina Caprez at the Alpine ARC`ademy please:

• visit us at: alpinearcademy.com (online from April 23 )
• #AlpineArcademy on Twitter
• Facebook

Contact: alpine.arcademy@arcteryx.com

Arc’teryx Alpine Academy – Chamonix, France, 8-10 June 2012 is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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3. Fort William Mountain Festival 2012

David Palmer

This article is inspired by an athlete you’ve probably never heard of, yet was at one point the greatest athlete in his sport, in addition to being analogous to the greatest athletes of all time. David Palmer, a professional squash player from Lithgow, Australia recently retired from the sport at the beginning of November, having had one of the most illustrious careers ever seen.

David’s story is a lengthy one; however the focus of this article is a period in his life from 1992, where he had to choose between the AIS (Australian Institute of Sport) and Joe Shaw, a coach who pioneered the use of, at the time, highly advanced methods for the development of elite athletes. David chose Joe to the annoyance of the AIS, and subsequently became one of the greatest athletes of all time.

Joe used many methods to monitor David’s progress, and whilst these are now mostly common practice among elite athletes, such as using binaural beats to alter the brain wave zone and implant positive affirmations, at the time they were revolutionary, and some still are.

The Resting Heart Rate

A key training aid which can be employed by a variety of athletes (stretching from recreational to elite) is that of the resting heart rate (RHR). Most people who exercise can tell you how to measure the pulse, and also that a low pulse can in theory denote a good level of fitness. Most people however are unaware of the full potential of the RHR to describe the current and future states of their body.

Joe Shaw used this expression to explain the reasoning behind measuring the RHR:

• If you can’t measure it, you can’t understand it
  
• If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it
  
• If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it

If we take the example of most exercisers from above, most can measure the pulse, however most people’s knowledge of that system stops at understanding.

The pulse rate can be thought of as not just an indication of fitness, but also as an indication of vitality. It’s essentially a barometer of the body.

There are limitations however and these need to be understood in order to realise the importance of the RHR.

Firstly, it is natural for some people to exhibit symptoms of arrhythmia. Arrhythmia is a condition whereby the heart beats faster than normal (tachycardia), or slower than normal (bradycardia). This point shows the main limitation of using RHR as an exclusive measure of fitness.
 For example, you may test untrained subjects at random, and find that some have a RHR of around 50bpm. You may then test well trained subjects, and find some of these also have a RHR of 50bpm.
 Whilst this is an extreme example, it shows that RHR’s are highly variable and specific to the individual.

Levels of Fitness

So whilst it may not be scientifically accurate to compare between subjects, the RHR can be used very accurately to measure within subject fitness (the fitness of an individual). Many formulas exist to determine various zones of heart rate, and also as a predictor of fitness based on the RHR, however the most important measurement is the starting RHR; that is the very first RHR that you take and record. With this number, fitness can be measured very accurately providing several factors are met. Firstly, the RHR should be recorded daily, and secondly, the heart rate should be measured (preferably when you wake up) at the same time each day to ensure consistency.

On taking the RHR for a period of weeks, you can begin to understand your own pulse rate better, and even pre-empt and prevent overtraining which is explained later.

A trap many people make the mistake of falling into, especially at the beginning of a training programme, is expecting the heart rate to fall down too quickly. When no decrease is noticed after a week, they get disheartened and stop their training.

A lowering in RHR is brought about through long term training, resulting in athletic bradycardia/ventricular hypertrophy (enlargement in the heart muscle). This can often take many months, with shorter term changes such as increases in red cell volume occurring first. Once the RHR starts to decrease, it’s important to always refer back to the initial RHR value, since this will show your true progress, and be much more informative that a generic heart rate zone table used to describe the general population. These should generally only be used as a rough guide.

A Barometer of Health

Another feature of the RHR which is relatively unknown by the majority of athletes is that the RHR is generally very stable, and usually fluctuates only, and very precisely, at the onset of illness, so the RHR in this respect can be thought of as a barometer of health.

An extract from Joe Shaw’s journal illustrates this:
“I cannot stress the importance of this measurement strongly enough. The RHR is an indicator and a barometer that informs you of problems before they occur. If his RHR rises from 37 to 40 overnight then there has to be a reason. David assesses what he did yesterday, how he feels, tired or whatever, what he ate, and establishes a reason. If he cannot, then he monitors the RHR the next morning and it has risen to 42.  He immediately stops training because he has an illness about to commence, or it has by now commenced, and he requires medication or rest.”

Whilst this may seem a very extreme example (it must be remembered David made his living from sport), it illustrates the point that the RHR, when measured in a consistent way can advise on whether or not to train, and whether the current training regime is resulting in improvements to fitness.

Crucially for more regular exercisers, the RHR can give indications of the onset of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It is important to note that contrary to popular belief, anyone partaking in regular exercise has a risk of developing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, especially if the individual partakes in heavy bouts of high intensity, short duration sprint or power exercises.

Another extract from Joe Shaw’s journal illustrates this:
“[David’s heart rate has risen from 37 to 42 in two days.] It may be that he is overtraining, and the warning signs have been given. You can bounce back from exhaustion in 2/3 days but overtraining is a state of prolonged fatigue and can destroy your athlete. One AIS pupil ran 400 meters in 75 seconds, 30 times in the morning, considering that essential to his fitness. He finished with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and in my opinion these runs did not help him at all.”

“Overtraining may be defined as a state of prolonged fatigue caused primarily by excessive training and characterised by decrements or stagnancy in performance despite continuous training (Costill 1986 & Kuipers and Keizer 1988). Overtraining is the result of short term balance between stress and how your body adapts to it (Michael Yessis Ph D .Sports Medicine)”

Using expression the if you can’t understand it, you can’t control it etc… through not understanding the actions of the RHR, an athlete could mistake a sudden increase in heart rate as a sudden drop of fitness, or conversely, could train exceptionally hard but not detect any noticeable decrease in heart rate. Both these situations require a thorough evaluation of the training plan:

1. Am I doing the correct type of training which is specific for my needs?
2. Am I giving my body enough time to rest and recover? (A fundamental part of training)
3. Am I eating and drinking to sufficiently replace the nutrients I have lost?
4. Is my training regime sufficiently varied?
5. Am I being realistic? (Remembering that it can take several months to notice a decrease in RHR)

From the above examples and current literature, it would appear that the monitoring of RHR is imperative if you are serious about maintaining health, and increasing fitness levels.

If you have chance, take a minute to check David Palmer’s web site.

If you have any questions about RHR or any other aspects of fitness training, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

Heart Rate, A Barometer of Health is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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We have started by looking at things like their diet, body fat levels, current training structure, current climbing grade, strengths and weaknesses, reoccurring injuries and access to training facilities. Using this information we have design a program that will help them achieve their target.

We will come back and review everyone once every two months, looking at their training and if its helping them achieve their chosen targets. At the end of the year, we hope we can all celebrate as we hit our 2012 goals!

Gareth Hanson – Current Grade VS

Gareth on Pork Chop Slab, Almscliffe

Gareth is 40 this September and wants to be in the best shape of his life for his birthday. He indulges in cross country mountain biking, snowboarding, climbing and more recently kite surfing. His focus tends to shift from activity to activity depending largely on the weather conditions. If it’s windy he will kitesurf, if it’s dry he will climb and for everything else MTB seems to fit the bill.

He currently leads VS trad and 6a sport outdoors and particularly enjoys climbing slabs and walls. He has had relatively little leading practice lately so can find it harder to commit to moves above protection.

Gareth’s training is currently a mixture of indoor climbing sessions, weights, cycling and kite surfing, along with occasional trip out climbing. Up to this point his climbing training has had very little structure. He has a history of rotator cuff problems as a result of weight  training and other sport related training in the past.

Gareth is 5 foot 7 and weighs 72kg. His diet is generally healthy and varied.

Climbing Target – E1 Trad and 6c Sport

Gareth’s training at the moment isn’t specific enough to improve his climbing performance. Although weights do have benefits, they don’t target fingers, technique or stamina, which are key for improving his grade.

His diet and weight is healthy and will have little impact on his overall performance at his grade level.

Gareth’s new program has been designed to make him a more confident leader, improve his climbing fitness and overall finger/body strength. The program is as follows:

Monday – rest or bike.

Tuesday – Boulder at the climbing wall. Warm up really well on nice easy stuff. Then look at doing different types of boulder problems on roofs, overhanging/vertical, slabs. This will target the different muscle groups required for climbing and help build his technique on the varying surfaces. Finish with core and specific rotator cuff work.

Wednesday – Rest or bike.

Thursday – Leading at wall. To help him improve his confidence and stamina he will do leading pyramids as follows with a 10 min rest in between each route.

5b, 5c, 6a, 6b, 6b+, 6b, 6a, 5c, 5b

Finish with core and rotator cuff work.

Friday – Rest.

Saturday – Climb outside or climbing specific weights.

Sunday – Climb outside or Power endurance circuits, composing of 5 sets of a 25 move circuit with 6 minute rest inbetween.

Menna Pritchard – Current Grade VS

Menna climbing at the Gower

Menna is a single mum to a toddler.  As the same time she is also studying full-time for a degree in Outdoor Education, as well as working as an Outdoor Instructor and doing
some volunteer PR work for a few companies. As a result getting spare time for climbing training can be difficult.

Menna currently leads VS outdoors and although she does lots of swimming and weight training, she doesn’t do much climbing specific training.

Menna is 26 years old, 5 foot 4 and weights 61kg.

Climbing Target – E1 Trad and improve her overall bouldering ability

Menna is in a similar position to Gareth in that her training should be more specific to climbing. Time pressures will sometimes make it difficult for her to train regularly, so her priority will always be climbing outdoors, where she can gain the best overall improvement in her climbing ability.

Her diet and weight is healthy and will have little impact on his overall performance at his grade level.

Menna’s new program has been designed to improve her climbing fitness and overall finger/body strength. The program is as follows:

Monday – rest, swim, ride or surf.

Tuesday – Boulder at the climbing wall. Warm up really well on nice easy stuff. Then look at doing different types of boulder problems on roofs, overhanging/vertical, slabs. This will target the different muscle groups required for climbing and help build her technique on the varying surfaces. Finish with core.

Wednesday – rest, swim, ride or surf.

Thursday – Leading at wall. To help her improve his confidence and stamina she will do leading pyramids as follows with a 10 min rest in between each route.

5a, 5b, 5b+, 5c, 6a, 5c, 5b+, 5b, 5a

Finish with core.

Friday – rest, swim, ride or surf.

Saturday – Climb outside or climbing specific weights.

Sunday – Climb outside or Power endurance circuits, composing of 5 sets of a 25 move circuit with 6 minute rest inbetween.

Tony Rees – Current Grade E3

Tony on Lucky Strike, Pembroke

Tony is a full time climbing instructor on Gower, which gives him excellent access to both rock and partners. He has a young family, but has a lot of flexibility at home. His other hobbies include the regular trappings of outdoor folk such as paddling, surfing etc.

He has lead up to E3 trad in the past, but has recently been plagued by golfers elbow. This has had a knock effect on his overall climbing strength and fitness, as his training has been limited.

His main climbing strengths are his technique and overall stamina, but feels as though his ability to climb through hard crux sections of routes his main limiting factor.

Tony’s training sessions are generally weights based in an effort to improve his climbing strength. These sessions have directly led to his current elbow problems.

Tony is 32, 5 foot 8 and weights around 11.5 stone. Although his diet is healthy he does confess to eating any chocolate or sweets he can get his hands on.

Climbing Target – E5 Trad

Tony’s first priority is to resolve his elbows issue. Since he got the problem he has stopped any climbing specific training for fear of making them worse. This is a common mistake climbers make when they get injured. He really needs to climb at a lower level that doesn’t affect the elbows to help strengthen the connective tissue and aide healing.

The first part of Tony’s program is based around gentle bouldering, gradually increasing the standard as his elbows get stronger. This is combined with eccentric work specific to the injured tendon, regular icing after training and massage of the finger/elbow flexors.

As Tony moves into the E5 category power to weight become much more important. Any reduction in his weight and improvements in his diet by cutting out sweets and chocolate would help his progression.

Once his elbows are stronger, Tony will start doing more specific climbing orientated training, targeted towards his weakest area, bouldering strength.

Monday - Rest, cycle etc

Tuesday - Bouldering on a Moon Board and then finish with a power endurance session on a finger board.

Wednesday - Rest, cycle etc.

Thursday - Bouldering on a Moon Board

Friday - Rest, cycle etc.

Saturday - Routes outside or power endurance circuits. 4 sets of 25 move circuit with a 7 min rest.

Sunday - Routes outside or power endurance circuits. 4 sets of 25 move circuit with a 7 min rest.

Rob Lonsdale – Current Grade Font 7c+

Rob climbing Brad Pitt, Stanage

Rob works full time, as an IT Support Technician at an Independent School. He started off trad climbing 10 years ago, and then progressed onto sport routes for a couple of years. He finally decided that bouldering was the way forward, finding this to be by far the most fun and social side of the sport. When he’s not bouldering he mountain bikes in the summer and snowboards or ice climbs in the winter.

Rob has recently bouldered up to 7c+, with his focus predominately on gritstone. His training is purely bouldering based with extensive sessions on the competition problems at his local wall.

He has ruptured a pulley in the left ring finger, requiring surgery to fix. As a result the left hand is significantly weaker as a result. This particularly shows up on a campus board where he can do 1-4-6 static with the right and only do 1-3-5 with the left. He also has had shoulder problems in the past.

Rob is 29, 5 foot 5 and weighs 10 stone. His diet is generally good, although he confesses to having a weakness for crumbles and cooked school lunches!

Climbing Target – Font 8a

Currently Rob’s training is based around competition circuits at the local walls. His climbing style is generally very static and controlled with good locking ability. This suites him very well on his favourite rock type, gritstone.

Robs two main weaknesses are the lack of strength in his left hand/side and a lack of ability to move quickly for holds. As a result left hand specific work and campusing/plyometrics will be introduced into his program.

His body fat percentage has been measured at 14%, which is at the top end for an athlete. Any drops in this area will certainly give him an edge on the hardest boulder problems.

To aide recovery and muscle growth Rob will take a protein shake within 30 minutes of the session end.

Monday – Rest

Tuesday – Boulder and campus board session. This will be a mixture of laddering, touches and double handed work. To strengthen the core Rob will also introduce front lever training into his program. Finish with core and rotator cuff exercises.

Wednesday – Rest

Thursday – Bouldering. Including specific work for the left side, such as long moves off small finger holds, dynamic moves to marginal holds leading with left hand and systems training.

Friday – Rest

Saturday – Bouldering indoors or out

Sunday – Bouldering indoors or out.

Paul Fearn – Current Grade 8a+

Paul on the start to Caviar, Rubicon Wall

Paul works at home for a Chinese mobile phone startup. Although he has a 9 month old, working from home provides him with plenty of flexibility for his climbing. From his roots in trad climbing nearly 25 years ago, he now mainly focuses on sport climbing and bouldering.

His hardest sport route is 8a+, climbed last year. His climbing has been blighted by back and shoulder injuries until recently. Following lots of conditioning work he now feels that this winter will be his first uninterrupted period of training for 15 years.

Traditionally Paul has focused on training his strengths and little time on his weaknesses. As a result he has strong fingers, but poor upper body strength and power endurance.

Paul is 40 years old, 6 foot 2 and weights 73kg

Climbing Target 8b+ sport route

Pauls focus over the winter will be on improving his weak elements. Before Christmas he went through a block of strength training, including bouldering, plyometrics, campus board, bachar ladder, weighted pullups and front levers.

For the next eight weeks he is going to focus on power endurance, with a one week break inbetween for a bouldering trip to Spain. To maintain his current strength he will continue to do one strength session a week.

To try and stay away from injuries he will spend a lot of time working on his core, rotator cuff and lower traps and back flexibility.

At the moment he is the heaviest he has ever been. During the climbing season he will lose 4kg to improve his power to weight. At this level of climbing losing 4kg can help give you the edge needed to reach the next grade.

Pauls training for the two blocks of power endurance is as follows:

Monday - Rest

Tuesday - 25 move 8b+route circuit on his board. Initially he can’t do the circuit and has to do it in three overlapping sections. He will take a 15 second rest between each section and then have a longer 15 min break inbetween. As he gains more power endurance he will be able to eventually complete the circuit and use it for intervals. Finish with four sets of power endurance on a finger board, front levers, core and rotator cuff/lower trap work

Wednesday:  Rest. He finds repeated days of power endurance hard on his forearms, so needs to adopt a one day on one day off approach.

Thursday - Repeat Tuesday, but finish with PE on the campus board.

Friday -Rest

Saturday -  Bouldering on a Moon Board. Campus and plyometrics. Finish with intervals on route length boulder problems (20 moves) around 7c-7c+

Sunday – Rest and then repeat

We are all going to meet up at a climbing wall in 2 months time and check on our progress. We will let you know how it goes!

Follow 5 Climbers: Try and Achieve Their 2012 Targets is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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Steve McClure on a power endurance route at Raven Tor. Photo copyright Steve McClure

As part of our training series this week we are going to focus on power endurance. Often overlooked by many climbers, training power endurance, is critical to getting you up most UK sport routes where the hard sections are usually no more than 10 to 30 moves.

Steve McClure needs little introduction to most climbers. Having climbed the UK hardest sport route, Overshadow at Malham Cove 9a+, and onsighted upto 8b+ he can certainly be considered to have excellent power endurance! Steve recently kindly spared me some of his time to do an interview on the training techniques he and others use to enable them to get up some of the hardest power endurance routes in the world.

What techniques do you recommend for training Power Endurance?

As a first stage I would suggest the ‘getting really pumped’ method. The key is monitoring the time period. It needs to be about 90 seconds to 120 seconds, from start to failure. The movement needs to be either the same, or on a circuit with absolutely no change in difficulty. This is the problem with circuits, as often it ends up being too easy and then too hard with a fast build-up of fatigue and failure due to being ‘powered out’ rather than pumped. The campus method has worked very well for me and many others. This must be done with feet on, or it will be too hard and you’ll be bouldering! Feet can be on specific footholds or a chair or whatever. Aim for 3 – 4 reps of this, each taking around 90 – 120 seconds. Rest 5 – 7 minutes in between. The movement should be similar to normal campusing, but with feet on, like rung 1 – rung 4, rung 6 match, then back down again (worth putting in rung 2 on way down to cut out the crux move (dropping 4-1) and so you lead with a different hand each movement)

What happens if you don’t have access to a campus board?

It is possible on the fingerboard, you can do actual hangs with feet off, 7 seconds hang, 5 seconds off. However, it may be better to have assistance from feet on a chair or similar allowing you to use smaller hand holds and stay on the board with both hands on for about 5 seconds, then one off for 3, both back on again for 5, the other hand off for 3 etc. This is more applicable to climbing where you stay ‘on the rock’ rather than stepping down, and the hold size will be more appropriate.

What do you do during the rest part of the interval?

You can throw in some body tension exercises.

How do you help improve your recovery on the rock? Do you do try resting on large holds during the rest period, of the interval, and then going again?

On the board it’s useful to switch to a better hold (if available) and shake out to aid recovery just like on a real route. Typically stop the movement before failure at around 4/5 tired, and shake for 30 seconds (15 each arm) before going back in. Alternatively come off completely at 4/5 tired and rest on the ground for 15 seconds before getting back on.
Rest properly between each set though, where a set may include a few rest periods of 15 seconds on the ground or on a hold. Each ‘Set’ must be quality, starting the work feeling reasonably fresh. Just as if you were trying a route.

Do you vary the grip you are using on the campus or is it done open handed?

On the board I always use open handed, (though this tends to be a half crimp for the middle finger when all 4 pads are on a rung). Crimping repeatedly is prone to injury, especially when going for it really pumped.

How many times a week should you do this training during a power endurance cycle?

This must be done twice a week as a minimum, but 3 times maximum. It can be done after climbing, and in fact is a very good top up, as its relatively low impact and not too power orientated. It can also be done in its own right, though it’s an easy session really, and just doing this 3 times per week will give you more PE but less of everything else.

How should you fit it into your training week?

You can either fit it in after a climbing session or you can do a PE session the day after, to make your climbing volume go up slightly.

How long should you train using this approach?

Aim for a 4-5 week block, backing off if you start to feel too tired. If you make 5 weeks at this intensity you should feel the gains. Take a week off PE completely, then resume for another 4 or so weeks. Then you should be firing! PE will be great! Drop off this exercise to once a week at maximum, to maintain this PE level.

Do you use any other techniques for developing the PE required for the test pieces you are well known for?

Circuits are probably the best overall, but hard to make, and use in busy walls. Bouldering continually below your limit is great, drop off a problem and then within a few seconds (maybe 10) get back on. This can be done for around 5 problems. Make sure the level is correct to avoid failure too early.

Our thanks go to Steve McClure for taking the time to complete this interview. We wish him all the best for his climbing during 2012.

Steve is sponsored by:

Steve McClure on Training Power Endurance is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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1. 12 week progression to insane grip strength – guest post by Paul Wilson
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These objectives can be anything from doing your first E1, increasing your climbing grade from 7a to 7c or doing a specific route.

Using a Scoring System

Climber with a high ranked score for stamina on Ergometria – Sector Wildside Sella. Picture courtesy of Orange House Photos

To help you design a training program a good place to start is to look at your current ability. Try honestly (if you can’t be honest get a friend to do it for you!) giving yourself a score between 1 to 10 (1 being given to your worst attribute and 10 to your best) for each typical climbing characteristics such as finger strength, explosive power, lock off strength, power endurance, stamina, technique, body fat percentage etc. So for example if you find that you are getting pumped fiddling in wires on a E1 or making those clips on a 6a, but can crimp your way up Font 6c boulder problems, then score yourself a 3 for stamina and a 10 for finger strength.

Then consider your objectives/target routes for this year. Let’s look at two approaches. One where you have specific routes in mind and another where you want to improve your grade to a certain level.

Targeting Specific Routes

For the specific routes, what type of climb are they? Are they long Gordale stamina test pieces or crimpy Peak power endurance routes? How do these routes compare with your key strengths and weaknesses? It may be helpful to score the routes with a similar system that we did for ourselves, with a 10 for the dominant route climbing characteristic and a 1 for the least dominant. Let’s try this with a typical Peak District sport climber wanting to peak for a holiday in Spain. The objective for the holiday is to a do 7b+ steep tufa stamina test piece. The scores may be something like the following:

Typical Tufa Pulling in Spain

Clearly we have a mismatch in the key strength attributes. To achieve success on the route, the climber is going to have to include much more stamina training on overhanging rock and include more bouldering/route work using pinches/slopers with long locks. Building these elements into your training program now will maximise the possibility of success on your chosen route.
Remember that the scoring system is specific to the climber or route concerned. So if a fingery 7a is your maximum grade, then you won’t get up a stamina 8a, by focusing on just your weak elements. You will also need to make gains in your strong areas, however these can be done at a lower level than your weak points.

If you have specific information about the route then you are at even more of an advantage. At this time of the year you need to be looking at replicating the types of moves found on the route within your training program. For example if the hard sections of the route are primarily small layaways, then create a systems type model using layaways or boulder problems with layaway holds.
If you have access to your own training board then you can be even more creative and build a replica of the types of moves found on your project.

Targeting a Specific Grade

There are two approaches to improving your climbing grade. The first is to use a balanced training program to improve all your climbing attributes. The second way is to focus your training effort improving specific attributes which will allow you to skip a number of grades.

Creating a Balanced Training Approach

This is the slowest way to improve your climbing grade but does result in a more balanced climber and one who is capable of operating across all the different route types within their grade.
To achieve this it’s important to develop a training program that has a mixture of all the different climbing attributes. The program must be specifically tailored to place strong emphasis on the weak areas. Remember to still train your strong areas, otherwise you will find yourself in a position where you just become good at your previous weak elements!

Focusing on Specific Attributes

Focusing on your strengths – a fingery, power endurance route in France

When looking at your score you may have one or two attributes that are particularly strong. For example you may be one of those lucky people who have naturally strong fingers, but have to put in a lot of work to make gains in stamina.
So why not focus on these strong attributes and select your routes carefully so you play to these strengths. Using this approach it’s certainly possible to jump your grade from 7a to 8a, with a good winters training. However the resulting climber will be fairly specialised in a certain style of climbing and the number of routes they can do at the new grade will be limited. You may well find yourself in a position where on some types of routes, that focus heavily on your weak points, that you still climb at your old grade.
To correct this at some point you will need to spend time focusing on the lower scoring attributes, before you will be comfortable at this new grade.

Over the next few months we will look at different training techniques to help you achieve your climbing goals and show how these can be incorporated into your training programs.

We will also provide our readers with advice on how they can best achieve their climbing objectives. Please post your comments at the bottom of this article and our contributors (including myself) will offer guidance on how you can improve your climbing.

Turbo Charged New Year’s Training Resolutions is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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Hey guys, my name is Paul Wilson and I am locally known in the West Midlands for my fat loss programmes and fitness systems. In fact in a recent survey from thebest.co.uk I was voted in the top 5 for most loved personal trainers in the UK.

I have also been bouldering now for 4 years and recently I noticed a huge improvement in my climbing after performing forearm-strengthening exercises that has increased the strength in my grip. I started to introduce these exercises into my weight training programme when I found that I was getting a lot of forearm fatigue when climbing.

Anyway enough about me, here are three awesome forearm strengthening exercising that you can do to achieve a stronger grip in an area that often needs some special attention.

Easy enough, now get out and do it. Below I have attached a 12-week progression program for these exercises.

Week 1 to week 4

(in these weeks have a 30-60 second rest in between sets. Take a 60 second rest in between exercises.)

• Towel Wide-Grip Pull ups
  3 sets of 6-10 reps
• Towel Leg Raises
  2 sets of 10-12 repetitions
• Towel Inverted Row
  2 sets 10-12 reps

Week 5 to week 8

(in this week you have no more than 30 seconds rest in between sets. Take 30-60 seconds rest in between exercises)

• Towel wide-Grip Pull up

1^st set -6 reps
2^nd set -1 rep
3^rd set -6 reps
4^th set -1 rep
5^th set -8 reps
6^th set -12 reps

• Towel Leg Raises
  1^st set -15-20 reps
  2^nd set -10-12 reps
• Towel Inverted Row
  1^st set -15-20 reps
  2^nd set -5 reps – with a 3-5 second hold

Weeks 9 to weeks 12

Now we are going to combine a 3-exercise circuit. This one is advanced, hence why you should have completed all previous weeks to reach this point. Perform each exercise back to back with no rest until you have completed all 3.

• Towel Wide-Grip pulls up
  8-10 reps
• Towel Leg Raises
  8-10 reps
• Towel Inverted Row
  8-10 reps

Rest for 30-60 seconds and repeat 5 times.

(Your ability to recover faster is a way to measure your level of fitness. Notice I have given you 30-60 seconds to recover in between sets. Keep on eye on how long it takes you too recover as you progress through the weeks – this will be an indicator of your improvements as the less time it takes you to recover. On weeks 9-12 you will perform all exercises back to back without rest. Good luck!)

Awesome, there you have it a 12 week progression to implement into your workouts that will build insane forearm strength and endurance while also focusing on back and core strength.

If you have any questions, I will answer them below in the comments, and for more of my articles you can take a look at my fat loss blog at www.trainwithwilson.com.

Be incredible,

Paul

12 week progression to insane grip strength – guest post by Paul Wilson is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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1. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 4 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 1)
2. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 5 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 2)
3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 6 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 3)

I’m currently working on dropping around 5kg, which will have me at my leanest adult weight ever. I’m already 2kg down, with just 3 to go. Some of my friends mentioned they were using iPhone apps to help manage their weight, so I did a search and stumbled across the Livestrong iPhone app, which I have to say, is really rather good!

Livestrong is partnered with the Lance Armstrong Foundation, fighting to improve the lives of people affected by cancer.

The concept

The 'My plate' tab

The idea behind losing weight is a pretty simple one. If you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. This app (and associated web site) provides a handy tool for tracking what you eat and the amount of exercise you do. It takes the data that you input and tells you whether you ate too many calories or had a deficit. It even has a handy progress indicator, which tells you each time you add some more food or exercise data, how many calories you have left for that day. The app is connected to a pretty huge database of exercises  and foods (625,000 according to Livestrong), so it’s pretty easy to record the data.

Price

The app is £1.79, which I think is more than fair. There is a free version, which I confess I didn’t try, so I don’t know which features you lose out on if you opt for that version. If anyone is using the free version, let me know.

Getting set up

The 'Food Search' tab

I registered on the web site, which has a calorie planner. You enter your age, height, current weight, basic life activity levels (without your workouts) and how much weight you would like to lose per week, and the site works our how many calories you should eat per day. You can add the information through the web site or straight into the account tab in the iPhone app.

Features

The app has 5 main tabs:

1. My plate – This is where you get a breakdown of the current day:
   Daily calorie goal
   Calories remaining
   Percentage indicator, showing how many calories you have left that day
Calories consumed
   Calories burned
   Net calories consumed (Calories consumed minus calories burned)
A break down of what you ate for each meal.
2. My weight – You can enter your weight as frequently or infrequently as suits, and the app will show you a nice graph of weight loss / gain.
3. Food – Here’s where you enter what you ate. You search for a type of food, e.g. eggs, and the app will provide a list of possible foods matching your query, and how many calories is in each of them. Once you’ve spotted the appropriate choice, you indicate what time and date you ate it and the app adds it to the calculation.
4. Fitness – This tab is where you enter your exercise. E.g. climbing (which comes up as rock climbing – ascending, 13.6 calories per minute), how long you spent doing that activity, e.g. 60 minutes and when you did it. The app then calculates the rest. You do have to think about what you’re doing here. It’s easy to say “Well I went climbing at 12 noon and climbed until 5pm, that’s 5 hours!” Unless you were climbing a big wall or working a route with someone else belaying the whole time, it isn’t. If you spent the 5 hours single pitch cragging, you might have spent 1.5 hours climbing, and the rest of the time belaying, chatting, drinking tea and shouting encouragement at your mates. I would say it’s pretty important to make this distinction or you’ll end up seriously kidding yourself.
5. Account – Here you can modify your goals and synch with the Livestrong.com web site.

On the web site you can see a detailed breakdown of the food you ate, including:

• Cals
• Fat
• Cholesterol
• Sodium
• Carbs
• Fibre
• Protein
• Sugars

The 'Fitness Search' tab

There’s also recommended levels for each of these, and you can see at a glance how your diet compares to these recommendations.

Will it work?

Good question! You have to be very diligent in entering the data, and it does require some thought. You might enter 2 slices of wholemeal toast for breakfast, you need to remember to record the butter too. The chances of being able to accurately guess how many calories there are in a sweet and sour pork from your local Chinese might be a struggle (the app does have a good go at suggesting options from a whole range of popular restaurant and supermarket chains, but the number of calories in these meals can vary wildly). That said, eating sweet and sour pork from the Chinese is not the ideal choice for losing weight anyway! I imagine that if for the majority of the time you make your own food and record it carefully, you won’t go far wrong. One friend did report losing half a stone in 5 weeks.

Best of luck with reaching your goals.

Product review – The Livestrong ‘Calorie Tracker’ iPhone app is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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FigFour & Safety kit ready for use

The breeze was catching at the leaves and the birds singing softly in the distance as I contemplated the tools in my hands.  I was spending a morning at Rutland Outdoor Centre with Steve Boylan, having a go with the FigFours that Rock Blok, the centre’s outdoor climbing wall, have recently introduced.  “Why don’t we start with a bit of a warm up?” said Steve, pointing me in the direction of the traversing panels set out around a large tree.  With the centre being a popular spot for family activities, the traversing walls include plenty of large juggy holds suitable for new climbers, so we spent a few minutes just moving around, getting ready to get onto the main 8 metre tower.

With safety gear donned, I tied in and balanced the FigFours in my hands.  I’ve been lucky enough to try ice climbing, but never mixed climbing or dry tooling, and so I was a little apprehensive as I looped the stiff rubber strap over a friendly grey jug and started hauling myself up the first route.  The plywood handles are ergonomically shaped to provide numerous ways to grip them, and the rubber loop protruding from each ‘axe’ is flexible enough to mould around the holds as you use the FigFour, but it is still firm enough to remain pointing upwards as you grope around and attempt to loop it onto your next hold.  As a newbie, my choice of hold for the FigFours tended very much towards the jugs, but as Steve demonstrated, with experience and precision, the rubber loop can grip sloping or small holds for a more challenging climb.

Steve Boylan demonstrates two possible grips on the FigFours

You can use whatever footwear you fancy when you try out FigFours at Rutland Outdoor Centre; stiff winter boots are a popular choice, but I decided to keep it simple and stick to rock shoes.  The climbing tower itself is heavily featured, making foot placements straightforward, with one side hosting a chimney.  Steve confessed that he and his colleagues have to spend some of their time dissuading the local bird life from becoming too attached to the chimney and trying to build nests in it!  Gaining confidence as I became more used to the climbing style demanded by the FigFours, I followed an enjoyable route up into the chimney, gradually edging into the restricted space where footwork became more important.  As the holds peeled off into a different direction, I found myself adding a sideways pull to the FigFours, and then before I knew it – pop! I was off, swinging gently on the toprope.

I worked my way around the tower, trying out the routes suggested by Steve while he remained a reassuring and encouraging presence at the base.  Despite choosing climbing shoes, I was surprised by how dependent I became on the FigFours and this, along with gripping the handles too tightly, definitely contributed to how pumped my forearms rapidly became – after 4 or 5 routes, I was ready to put them down! I’m sure that having the FigFours available to practice with more regularly would help me to overcome this and achieve something like better style, as well as providing an enormously useful chance to practice technique before a trip out for real.

Steve starts up the route which becomes the chimney

Having introduced the FigFours during the winter climbing season, the centre hasn’t seen a huge demand for them but as the weather improves and the outdoor wall becomes a more reliable alternative for those looking to train in the dry tooling or mixed climbing disciplines, they should become a popular resource. Having the FigFours available for hire also allows climbers who might be contemplating a first trip using tools to try them out and understand the challenges that this sport entails; so I’d definitely recommend that climbers who might be considering it to take the opportunity and have a go.  If you are an experienced climber, you and a partner can turn up and hire out the kit, but Steve and his team are also willing to instruct anyone who’s climbing alone, or who would like a bit more guidance.  Climbing on an outdoor artificial wall next to Rutland Water is an enjoyable experience in itself, and with the range of other activities on offer, you could make a day of it, or keep non-climbing friends or family entertained too.

If you would like to try FigFours, head over to the Rutland Climbing Centre web site.

FigFour – Training aid for mixed climbing and dry tooling is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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3. Sandy Paterson – Contributor

This is not light bed-time reading, it’s a full on training manual. As such it requires you to take notes, fill out surveys, create spreadsheets to plan training macro-cycles. Prepare to get your hands dirty!

The book doesn’t pull any punches. After nearly 3 years I wouldn’t really consider myself a beginner, but I’m not sure I fit the profile of the accomplished climber either. The weekly schedule for accomplished climbers includes: 4 climbing sessions per week, 2 of which are all-day sessions! It does provide an alternative for weekend only climbers, but that’s essentially climbing all weekend. Bad news for your non-climbing girlfriend/boyfriend then!

The book is divided into the following main chapters:

• An overview of training for climbing
• Self assessment and goal setting
• Mental training
• Training technique and skill
• Theory and methodology of strength training
• General conditioning exercises
• Climbing-specific exercises
• Designing your training program
• Performance nutrition
• Accelerating recovery
• Injury treatment and prevention

Chapter 1 briefly delves into the history of training for climbing then moves onto the demands of the sport followed by some interesting information on genetic potential. There’s a diagram showing a bell curve, one end representing those with below average genetic potential, and the other representing those with superior genetic potential. What the diagram shows is that the majority of people fall somewhere in the middle. Eric goes on to say that most people are ‘normal’ enough to be able to manage a 5.12 or even a 5.13 (that’s anywhere from F7a to F8a+ to you and me) – I would be very happy with that!

Chapter 2 includes a self assessment survey to enable you to ascertain where your climbing weaknesses lie so you can focus on improving in those areas. The results are divided into: mental, technique and tactics, and physical. It then goes into setting short, medium and long term goals.

Chapter 3 is focussed on the Mental training, an area that most non-professional climbers tend to ignore (myself included). The book covers all mental aspects of climbing, including: separating self image from performance, managing risk, controlling stress and pre-climb rituals. Be prepared to go deep, there’s some very useful information which will benefit most climbers. After all, an improvement in your mental game can be the quickest to implement and can have the most profound effect.

Chapter 4 – Training technique and skill – As with the rest of the book, there’s a wealth of information, presented in a very scientific fashion. The information on motor learning and effective skills practice is fascinating. There’s a self-evaluation sheet to help you ascertain where you need to focus your attention. The chapter features an in-depth description of all the main techniques employed in climbing.

Chapter 5 – This section heads into the theory and methodology behind strength training. It is very scientific and provides a deep insight into how muscles adapt to strength training. If you don’t care and you just want some tips, there are yellow boxes scattered throughout with useful summaries of the information (this device is used throughout the book, which is useful as there’s too much to take in through just one read).

Chapter 6 – General conditioning exercises is focussed on training and exercise for general fitness, core strength and flexibility.

Chapter 7 – This is where you can down and dirty with some climbing specific exercises. Perfect for those of you who like to talk about ‘beasting’. Finger boards, hyper-gravity training, HIT, campus boards and finger strength specific exercises are the order of the day.

Chapter 8 – Designing your training program, deals with planning your workouts for the next year of training. The advice is centered on intelligent training where you plan to reach your peak condition on a road trip or a competition. The book provides training programmes for beginners, accomplished climbers and elite climbers. The macro training cycle requires you to draw out a spreadsheet to plan your training cycles for the year. To save you the bother, I’ve done this for you. Scroll down for Excel and PDF versions.

Chapter 9 – Performance nutrition. What use is training if your body isn’t getting the correct fuel? Eric provides an in-depth guide to sports and climbing nutrition along with a what to buy and what not to buy on supplements.

Chapter 10 – Accelerating recovery. To be able to frequently train hard, you need to know how to recover. This section deals with all aspects of recovery from rest to stretching and self massage.

Chapter 11 – Injury treatment and prevention. This section was made for me. Years of using the gym, snowboarding and mountain biking accidents combined with my latest hard training for climbing routine has left me pretty broken already. I found some sterling advice.

I suspect this is the most thorough climbing improvement guide that money can buy. If you’re after something you can skim for a few easy pointers it’s OK, but it’s far more useful if you treat it as a comprehensive training program and dedicate some real time to it. It is a blueprint for becoming a better climber. But like the sport itself, it’s deep and takes a great deal of patience and determination to get the most from it.

Here’s those docs for planning your training programme:

• Climbing-macroscycle pdf
• Climbing-macroscycle Excel

If you would like a copy of this book, head over to The Climbing Book Shop: Training for Climbing by Eric J Hörst

Climbing book review – Training for Climbing by Eric J Horst is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

1. Climbing book review: 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes by Dave Macloed
2. Climbing book review: Peak District Climbing (Vertebrate Publishing)
3. Climbing books reviews: Rock Climbing Essential Skills and Techniques (Mountain Leader Training UK)

Craig Watson bouldering

As we’re now approaching winter many of us hibernate indoors into the many climbing walls around the country investing time, effort and money in order to maintain and improve our climbing performance. It is a reasonable assumption to say that the majority of climbers focus on their physical performance and less on improving the psychological aspects of their climbing – just have a look at the climbing training literature to see the unequal division between the pages on mental and physical aspects.

Most climbers are aware of the importance the mind has in climbing in both success and failure yet the majority of climbers don’t incorporate mental preparation into their regular training routines. Dave MacLeod’s book ‘9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes’ has highlighted some of the key issues about mental preparation and barriers climbers may face which prevent them from improving but this is just the beginning…

The Harrogate Climbing Wall will be introducing me, Craig Watson, Psychological Performance Coach. I’ll be giving a free talk about mind training for climbing on January 4th 2011, 7.00-7.45pm. In the talk I’ll discuss some of the many issues climbers face, which prevent them from improving, some psychological techniques, which can be used to enhance performance and some hints and tips, which may help you to rethink your approach to both training and climbing.

From December to April I’ll also be holding a monthly workshop on various psychological aspects of climbing from fear to goal setting – Please see Harrogate Wall for details.

Mind Coaching for climbing performance at the Harrogate Climbing Wall is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

1. Mind Coaching with RCUK contributor, Craig Watson at Harrogate Wall
2. Climbing book review: 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes by Dave Macloed
3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game (and mine)