Programming
Understanding Training Notation
Tags: beginner training, notation, Session Design, Strength
As a young climber, I would frequently talk to my parents about climbing. They were genuinely interested, and my father even did a few climbs with me early on. They wanted to know enough to be sure I was safe and careful, but didn’t need to know more. As I improved, I started to talk…
Recovery Training
Tags: Balance, Nutrition, Recovery, rest
We get good at pushing hard into training. We all have been in that super-pumped zone or so sore we can barely move the next day, or so exhausted from a week’s training that we stay on the couch the whole weekend. As good as learning to go hard is, there is a critical Yang…
Hacking the Zlagboard Contest
Tags: Hangboard, muscular endurance, Zlagboard
If you’ve never done a 20mm edge static hang to absolute failure, you’re missing out. This pleasure cruise of forearm endurance is not to be missed. I had the chance to try out the Zlagboard Contest a couple of years ago. The contest involves one simple test: grab the “medium” sized edges on the board…
Effective Warm-Ups
Tags: activation, crag warm-up, Movement, preparation, Warm-Ups
Training is the thing that makes you stronger. Warming up right is the thing that makes training work. For most of us, warming up has an intuitive “feel” to it – we start easy, and after a few minutes of gentle activity we feel ready to go. Younger athletes do, and need, less warming up….
Fat Loss and Weight Management for Climbing (Part 1)
Tags: Carbohydrates, Nutrition, Paleo, Planning, Program Design
By Steve Bechtel Your fat roll is killing you. OK, as a climber, and especially one who is reading an article about training, I’ll bet your body fat percentage is pretty low. On the flip side, though, you are reading an article about weight management. Chances are you’re holding the same weight you usually hold,…
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…
Problems With Projecting
Tags: Planning, Programming, Project Climbing, Quality Training, Second Tier, Training
By Steve Bechtel Project climbing – trying a very hard route over and over with the goal of eventually climbing it in one push – is one of the most fundamentally rewarding facets of rock climbing. It drives us to higher grades and teaches all sorts of valuable lessons. But like anything beneficial to us,…
Do Less
Tags: Do Less, Focus, Motivation, Programming, Progress, Training
by Steve Bechtel It’s a great honor for me to be asked training advice, but it’s also a circle of frustration. The only thing that keeps me from strangling the climbers that contact me, receive advice, and ignore the advice is the fact that I do the same thing myself. Most of us inherently understand…
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…
“Two set of two?” and Other Questions
Tags: Expertise, Programming, Questions, Strength Training, Training Beta Podcast, Volume Training
by Steve Bechtel It’s funny the questions you get after an interview. At the end of 2015, I had the great honor of talking to Neely Quinn at Training Beta for a second time, and had a good chat with Kris Hampton for his new podcast that summer. The format is challenging and I felt…
Get It Exactly Right
Tags: Assessment, Habits, Movement, Planning, Practice, Skills
by Steve Bechtel You’ve heard it many times – when someone sends their hardest it feels effortless. We talk about it as the “flow” state or as having an out-of-body experience. No matter what you call it, it’s a performance state you’d like to recreate as often as possible. We usually see ourselves get to…
Fat Loss and Weight Management for Climbing (Part 2)
Tags: Carbohydrates, Nutrition, Paleo, Planning, Program Design
By Steve Bechtel There is a war going on, and it’s not the one you think. The war is not between the right way to eat and the wrong way to eat, it’s between what’s right and what’s “righter.” Should we go low carb? Low fat? Paleo? Vegan? In the end, it doesn’t really matter…