General Conditioning
Detraining
Tags: capacity, climbing, Detraining, Power Endurance, Steve Bechtel, Strength
By Steve Bechtel The cool thing about studying one field for a long time is that you start to identify the core principles of how that field works. You start to understand that it shares principles with other fields. And you start to see that everyone who advances in the sport must follow those principles….
Endurance Training Revisited, Again, Redux
Tags: capacity, climbing, Endurance, Power Endurance, Steve Bechtel
By Steve Bechtel Endurance is the ability to display power or strength over time. It can be of continuous, high intensity, or it can be intermittent in nature. There are many different ways that endurance shows up in our sport, and there are a few key lessons to take home before we start equating simply…
Why A Collection? Behind Writing “Mettle.”
Tags: book announcement, mettle, Steve Bechtel
by Steve Bechtel Every once in a while, someone would say something about doing a collection of articles as a book. I would dismiss it, thinking there was no need, that all of the things I wrote on the site and in the newsletters were “out there.” Why would someone buy a book when they…
The Todd Skinner Workout
Tags: Conditioning, Endurance, Fatigue, Finger Strength, Intervals, Power Endurance, Todd Skinner
By Steve Bechtel Once upon a time, there were no climbing gyms. There were good climbers, among them my friend Todd Skinner, who did a fair amount of hard training off the rock. During the late 1980s, Todd and some friends developed a freestanding “box” of slats with several different sizes of wooden edges attached…
Understanding the Lactic Energy System
Tags: Conditioning, Endurance, Fatigue, Intervals, Power Endurance, Quality Training
by Steve Bechtel If you’ve ever climbed to the top of a strenuous route, you’ve felt the burn. If you’ve ever trained super-hard, you’ve felt the debilitating soreness the day after the session. Undoubtedly, you’ve also read or been told that one or both of these is due to lactic acid buildup in your muscles….
Getting Back to Top Form Quickly
Tags: Conditioning, Endurance, Finger Strength, Intensity, Nutrition, Planning, Quality Training
By Steve Bechtel In a perfect world, we’d redpoint hard routes every weekend, all year long. We’d always feel recovered, and we’d be able to boulder at our limit one day and free big walls the next. But in this world, we have obligations, injuries, and seasons that keep us from climbing well for large…