Programming
8 Things To Do Before You Open Your Wallet
Tags: Focus, Motivation, Nutrition, Training
by Steve Bechtel I wrote a newsletter a few months back where I discussed the idea of “big rocks first.” The general gist is to take care of the most important things in your life before you obsess about the minutiae. People, not just climbers, tend to fixate on the wrong things. We obsess over…
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….
Training Age
Tags: Assessment, Change, Expertise, Feedback, Practice, Progress, Training
by Steve Bechtel Want to get good at climbing? Be patient. Every month at our gym, we have a training meeting with the entire coaching staff. These meetings range from exercise technique to invoicing to habit change – basically everything you can imagine when it comes to training athletes. A few years ago, I talked…
Good Training
Tags: Assessment, Goal Setting, Habits, Planning, Quality Training, Training
By Steve Bechtel If you’ve ever had breakfast at a Las Vegas buffet, you know that quantity doesn’t always mean quality. At first glance, more seems to be better…but the lackluster experience and the ensuing gut ache will remind you that getting a lot means nothing more than getting a lot. My brother-in-law, Matt, is…
Don’t Train – Practice, part 2.
Tags: Motivation, Planning, Practice, Progress, Quality Training, Skills, Talent, Training
by Steve Bechtel The first article on practice covered the general idea that you should consider your climbing practice, and some general ideas on what that meant. In this follow up, I’ll answer questions that the first article raised, and give some specifics on how to re-structure your training sessions to include a focus on…
Three Mistakes You Might Be Making in the Gym
Tags: Assessment, Intensity, Progress, Quality Training, Specificity, Training, Weight Management
By Steve Bechtel Training is all about progress. Unless you just love to train (I’d rather watch Deadwood), you’d better be seeing some results for the hours you spend flogging yourself. What we see in most climbers, though, is really just slight decreases in fitness throughout the year, and then an occasional return to a…
Advanced Strategies for Progress: Volume Variability
Tags: Bouldering Training, General Training, Indoor Climbing, Planning, Program Design, Recovery Weeks, Tactics, Volume Variability
by Steve Bechtel All you have to do is read the title to know that this isn’t one of those lovely “simplify it” articles. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of simple plans – yet sometimes, at the very tippy top of your ability, things need to get complicated when you try to move…
Pre-Climb Rituals
Tags: Planning, Rituals, Stretching, Training, Warm-Ups
By Steve Bechtel I like to go to competitions. I like them for many different reasons, but mostly it is to watch people as they prepare to compete. See, the vast majority of pre-event activity is nothing like the way we prepare for training. At bouldering competitions, we see all kinds of craziness, and pre-climb…
Direction
Tags: Planning, Principles, Quality Training, Training
By Steve Bechtel Once the fever to train sets in, awareness of one’s body becomes paramount. Buying into the excitement and perhaps difficulty of this or that training fad, an athlete can actually change direction and drift further from his goal by training harder. Unfortunately, in the world of difficult climbing, simply working hard does…
Get Out of Your Rut
Tags: Change, Habits, Quality Training, Supercompensation
By Steve Bechtel Do you remember back when you used to get better at climbing? Month after month you could climb harder routes, you could feel yourself get better at jamming, at lock-offs, at edging, and it felt like the sky was the limit. Now you know that the limit is right about 12a, and…
Brick Programming
Tags: Density Training, General Training, Periodization, Planning, Power Endurance, Program Design, Tactics
By Steve Bechtel Going bouldering is not training. If you’re one of the lucky few, you can hit the gym a couple of nights a week and continue to get strong, avoid injury, and enjoy the sport. Most of us, though, will reach a plateau where progress is no longer possible on the “whatever” plan,…