By Ken Klein
Disclaimer: There’s no denying the massive amount of information surrounding climbing and training for climbing in today's world. This shows up in the form of articles, podcasts and instagram posts to name just a few. The first question any consumer of information should ask is, “Does this apply to me and where I am currently in my climbing journey?” If the answer is yes, great, gather and apply. If that answer is no, continue on for learning purposes only.
Phone rings. I answer.
Athlete - “Hey man, I’m psyched, I just booked a trip to Hueco and I want to start training with you!”
Ken - “Great, when do you leave?”
Athlete - “In three weeks!”
This scenario has played out numerous times in my coaching career and is a tough one to navigate. At Climb Strong, we talk a lot about how training is similar to financial investing for the simple fact that it just is. One of my grandpas was a successful banker and I have a very vivid memory of him sitting me and my siblings down when I was probably around 12 years old and explaining to us that when we start working, if we were to save 10% of our earnings, by the time we were his age we would have enough money to do whatever we wanted. I unfortunately didn’t heed this advice until I was in my early 30s. Was that too late in life? Time will tell. If I could do it all over again would I have started sooner? Absolutely! (Same goes for getting organized in training.)
Now, back to the phone conversation and why it’s challenging. Is three weeks enough time to get someone ready for a trip? It could be, but what those three weeks will really revolve around is tuning up what that athlete already possesses. Is three weeks enough time to change someone’s physiology? Absolutely not. This phone call also presents itself in the form of someone in the U.S. reaching out to me in mid-August wanting to start training for the upcoming fall season, which, again, is just weeks away and not enough time to see a fundamental change take place.
The alternative to this common dilemma is to start sooner, like much sooner. At CS, we strongly believe in spending portions of the year in a developmental phase and then hanging on to the results of this through maintenance phases. This can be tricky for someone who has the ability to climb outside year round and I always joke that it’s easier to train someone in St. Louis, MO than it is in Lander, WY for this reason. But, if you want to actually see an improvement in any facet of your climbing you have to spend time in the developmental arena. I’m a strong believer that if you can get in two quality developmental phases a year you can spend the rest of your time performing and holding on to what you built through maintenance loads.
Not sure where to begin?
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We have covered the difference between developmental and maintenance in previous articles but below is a quick refresher.
| Developmental | Maintenance |
| 2-3x per week | 1x per week or less |
| Long session | Short session |
| Session has one focus | Session can have several foci |
| 3+ sets per exercise | 1-2 sets per exercise |
| Appropriate intensity | Appropriate intensity |
| Developmental | Maintenance |
| 3x per week | 1x per week |
| Approximately 75 minutes | Approximately 35 minutes strength, 25 minutes endurance |
| Upper body strength and finger strength | Finger Strength, Total Body Strength, Aerobic Endurance, General Grip Strength |
| 4 sets per exercise | 2 sets per exercise |
| All loads 75-90% | All loads 75-90% for strength, 50-65% for endurance |
Ok, I’d hope by now that I have established that to actually get more powerful, stronger, better endurance, etc., you need to go through a developmental phase. If you don’t believe me that is fine and continue toggling back and forth between kinda training but mainly trying to perform and enjoy being stuck on the same plateau a year from now. Above are very clear directions on what each phase should look like on paper but I’d like to move on to what you should actually FEEL like when you are in a developmental phase.
Climbers are typically highly motivated individuals and that’s great. What always trips me up as a coach, though, is this incessant need to always be “performing” and I think it’s this very thing that keeps climbers from actually doing a developmental phase or actually sticking with it.
Why?
Because if you are executing this phase correctly your climbing is going to suffer, and time and time again climbers just aren’t ok with that. When I lay out a developmental phase for my athletes the first thing I firmly say to them is, “do not expect to send anywhere near your typical limit during this time and be prepared to feel fatigued.” If you don’t experience these things you have to ask yourself if the training loads you are using are correct. This does not mean we have to completely abort climbing but rather just change our relationship with it.
If you are in a strength or power developmental phase I think this presents the perfect opportunity to focus on a few different climbing skills performed on warm up intensity boulders or work on aerobic capacity. With each passing week my athletes begin to adapt and 8 weeks later they have seen a profound change in both of these areas. And then the fun begins.
An example of adding in skill development that I have seen work great is selecting 3-4 skills and executing them on roughly 3 boulders for each drill. “Executing” is if you climb the boulder and feel you have actually performed the skill then you can count that as 1 of 3. If you feel you didn’t execute then you simply try again. As a reminder the difficulty of the boulders needs to be no higher than flash or flash +1 level because keep in mind we are in a development phase and the climbing can not tax us to the point where we will be unable to push it in the strength or power training. If we want to get better at climbing we have to practice. The goal should be to come out of this phase and not only be stronger but also better. There are many resources for climbing skill drills and last year CS dropped The Drill Manual.
Aerobic capacity work also couples well in a developmental phase but once again we need to be sure we are hanging out in the right intensity. There are a few factors we look at when choosing intensity for these workouts but a good starting point is warm up level routes or eight letter grades below what you typically redpoint. The next would be the talk test. Can you climb up the prescribed route and talk in full sentences the whole time? If you cannot, it’s more than likely too hard. You can develop a slight pump but at no point should you have to stop and shake out. Climbers struggle with these workouts because it feels too easy but when I look back at the last two months of my training and climbing it has been the aerobic work that has had the biggest impact on how I feel not only on routes but boulders as well. You can do these workouts in many different ways by climbing single pitches, doubles, triples and even work up to climbing routes 4x. There is no secret formula on building aerobic capacity but one important aspect is that the grade you choose will not vary all that much and we want to focus on adding in more volume as you adapt. A go to workout for myself and my athletes is as follows;
Week #1: 5 sets of 2 (10 total pitches)
Week #2: 6 sets of 2 (12 total pitches)
Week #3: 4 sets of 3 (12 total pitches)
Week #4: 4 sets of 4 (12 total pitches)
In this workout the volume never goes above 12 pitches because skin can become an issue and I am progressing the workout by switching from doubles to triples to route 4x4s. This style of workout also presents yet another opportunity to choose a skill and work on it while you are doing these routes and chances are it will keep you more engaged while climbing.
Finally, another way to look at all of this is what I call ratio based training. This concept works great for the athlete that wants to continue to climb outside during the developmental phase. In a developmental phase the ratio needs to swing in favor of the training. 3:1. Train for three days, climb for one. You can still climb on the training day but the volume and intensity need to be kept in check (as I just layed out above). The priority that day lies in the training, not the climbing.
In a winter phase leading up to the spring and early summer performance phase you could do the following. (Training:Climbing)
Jan 3:1
Feb 2:1
March 1:1
April 1:2 (focus switches and climbing comes first from here on out)
May 1:3
June: Based on weather, psyche and how close you are to sending, time to wrap up performance and start laying groundwork for the developmental phase starting in July when it’s hot as hell out.
It’s the end of January and if you really, really want things to be different this spring you need to act now. In what area are you lacking and start there. Push yourself and don’t worry about your performance until around the beginning of March when the ratio swings back in favor of having climbing be the ultimate focus. Build what you can now, hold on to it during your performance phase, repeat once again in the summer and there’s a good chance 2024 could be a very productive climbing year for you!
ABOUT KEN KLEIN
Ken is a National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) Certified Personal Trainer and Certified Performance Climbing Coach. His climbing travels have taken him all over the world from the amazing limestone walls of Spain and Mexico to the expansive boulder fields of the Rocklands of South Africa.
He has coached and instructed rock climbing in every capacity: from youth teams to accredited college courses. His passion for coaching is matched by his ability to connect with climbers of all levels. Ken is constantly evolving as a climber; whether he is repeating a climb in Rocky Mountain National Park or working on a project 9,000 miles away, he is always learning to look more closely at himself and his own climbing, while consistently trying hard and having fun.
Ken is the High Performance Director at Climb Strong.