By Steve Bechtel
Last month, I had the pleasure of going to a big bouldering competition with no agenda except to watch my daughter climb, and then stay around for the open finals. It was a great event, and instead of focusing on the whole of the competition in the finals (who was topping, who looked like they might win, etc.) I decided to watch for some key indicators of movement: pace, explosiveness, precision.
What became immediately apparent was that even at this elite level (there were Olympians in the mix), the climbers still showed distinct styles of movement. This is fascinating, in part, because it shows that we’re still not at a level as a sport that a “best style” is firmly established. In the men’s comp, we still saw a very slow and technically excellent style from one climber, a seemingly reckless power-dominated style from another, and the wow-that-person-is-super-strong style from another.
When we first start to climb, we default to using our strengths developed from other sports, genetics, and childhood activities. Young, strong boys, tend to claw their way up boulders with their arms. Dancers look for precision and balance solutions. Taller climbers look to leverage their height.
Yet as we advance, we start to have to develop the skills needed by harder climbs, and can easily get off track by continuing to play to our strengths.
It may not even seem like we are doing it. We just start to like climbing on vertical terrain, or we stick to short bouldery problems, etc. After a time though, clear limiters start to show themselves. One climber might be strong on static movement, but reluctant to take risks with a big dynamic move. Another might do well when their Kilter board is set to 20° but struggles mightily at 50°. What's more, it is easy to say to yourself that you only want to develop in this particular style. Yet the reality of rock climbing is that there is a tremendous crossover between the abilities learned on different rock types, hold types, and angles. If we want to excel, we need to work on the whole game.
Looking exclusively at movement style, there is a time for explosiveness, for slow movement, and for being able to hold specific positions for extended periods of time. This is really hard to practice when we are climbing near our limits. It is exceedingly easy to practice starting in the weight room.
When we want to develop the ability to hold difficult positions or to move explosively, the easiest place to do it is with simple and repetitive movements. Once we learn to move this way, we can take them into sport specific movements and then finally into the performance environment.
Despite a continued effort on the part of climbing training influencers, there is little need to optimize a single method of training for strength, and instead a bit of variability is the right choice. A simple model for this might be to take your existing resistance session and simply apply a little bit of speed to one of the exercises, and then do one of the exercises a little slower.
Most of us will tend to keep a default pace in the gym. When strength coaches look at pacing, they note the value as “tempo.” When training specific exercise speeds, the coach will assign a particular number of seconds to the descent portion of the movement, a second number to the hold at the bottom position, a third number to the ascent portion of the movement, and finally a number for the hold portion at the top of the movement.
Imagine doing a squat. If your tempo is noted as 2:0:2:2 you would take two seconds to travel to the bottom, immediately take 2 seconds to travel to the top instead of lingering, and then hold two seconds at the top before starting the next rep. A 1:5:1:5 tempo would be an overall different experience, even with the same exercise and load. At such a tempo, we would descend for a second, hold that difficult bottom position of the squat for five full seconds, move back to the top quickly, and then rest in the top position for five seconds before subjecting ourselves to another rep.
It doesn't take much practice to sort out what the training effect of a particular tempo might be. Slow tempos result in stronger holding positions and steady movement. Faster movements develop power. In fact, a notation of “X” in place of a number in the tempo sequence is usually to do that movement explosively. Sticking with our squat example, we might see a tempo notation such as: 2:0:X:5 which would indicate a two second descent, an immediate return to ascent as quickly as possible, then a five second rest at the top.
Slower movements will produce the ability to maintain static positions more easily. You can even note a full static hold for an exercise or two. What I would suggest, is simply starting to experiment with different tempos, and try to review what each of those feels like in relation to your preferred climbing and training style.
Let's take a look at a specific example.
A typical strength session might be:
Front Squat, 5 sets of 3 paired with
Pull-Up, also 5 sets of 3.
Deadlift, 5 sets of 2 paired with
Overhead Press, 5 sets of 2.
We’ve covered a bunch of different movements, but the tempos are probably relatively similar—likely 2:1:1:2 or something. In order to develop broader base of training tempos, we’ll adjust the exercises as follows:
Front Squat, 4 sets of 2 at 3:1:3:1 tempo, paired with
Pull-Up, 4 sets of 5 second static hold with eyes at bar level
Deadlift, 5 sets of 1, normal pace
Push Press 5 sets of 3, X:1:1:3 tempo
Now we have a very difficult squat which will produce a bunch of strength at the bottom of the move, and will clean up any weak spots in the range. This will probably have to start a little lighter than normal loads. We have a static hold on the pull-up, loaded to make 5 seconds really tough, but working in the most difficult position for the athletes. Deadlifts are done at normal pace, and are focused on moving the highest loads possible. Finally, the press is done explosively (using the hips to make it a push press), with a required 3 second rest at the rack position to force maximum effort on the next rep.
If this were the first workout of the week, the second might follow totally different tempos, but with the same basic exercises. For example, a jumping version of the squat, a quick pull-up, a slowed-down deadlift, and a static hold on the overhead press.
Once we learn to move at these different paces in exercises that don’t tie to our performance, we can start to take them into the rock gym. I’d recommend playing along the tempo continuum for 4-8 weeks before really applying this in climbing practice.
The standard starting place for a lot of us is the “Kontrast” drill from Gimme Kraft, where you pick a medium-level boulder, do it fast once, do it slowly once, and then do it at the appropriate pace. This is fine for beginners, but the drill gets boring pretty quickly. Instead, I suggest you dedicate a big chunk of time, maybe 20-30 minutes, near the beginning of a session and stick with one particular pace. For example, you might work at a very slow pace for 8-10 problems through your warm-up and into the first several minutes of a session, then just go climbing. Alternatively, you could force quick moves and a little less control for the first part of another session.
The problems you pick won’t be super challenging, since pace is going to be your focus. We simply can’t try our hardest just to do the moves AND be working on pace at the same time.
Supporting exercises can help us reinforce these varied tempos. Fast laps on the campus board, dynamic jumps onto hangboard edges, and even single-arm movement can help develop speed. If slower paces are the goal, offset static holds on the campus board, slow cable pulls with a Tension block, or even the static dynamic exercises might be the key.
But where to start? Think about what you get complimented on by partners. Is it your strength? Your smooth control? Your technical savvy?
Are you just more comfortable moving slowly? Can’t ever lock off?
Identify a weak point. Figure out a good way of identifying your performance. Start hammering it.
Hold Fast,
Steve
ABOUT STEVE BECHTEL
Steve is the founder of Climb Strong, and is proud to be the worst coach on the Climb Strong team. A climber for nearly 40 years, he has traveled to globe bouldering, sport climbing, and doing first ascents of some of the world's biggest walls.
He is co-owner of Elemental Performance + Fitness, and is the author of several books on training for climbing. He lives in Lander, Wyoming, with his wife Ellen and children Sam and Anabel, who are closing in on the $100 pull-up challenge. Last month, he took three tries to re-send a route he had flashed several years ago.
Tags: pacing, speed training, Steve Bechtel, Steve's Blog, tempo