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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. Older athletes sometimes joke that warming up is all they do. The warm-up functions as a way to get the body working right for hard activity. It increases blood flow and respiration, runs the body temperature up a couple of notches, and gets the mind in the right place. In climbing we usually just climb to get going, but there is probably a better and more effective ways to prime yourself for a good session. The warm-up should be tailored to the requirements of the session.

You've tried ARC training and you've done your share of 4x4s, so why do you still come peeling off the wall just before you reach the anchors? What is it about your energy system development that isn't working? It might be that you aren't progressing your sessions, or it might be that you are increasing the difficulty in the wrong way.

Along the same lines, I think we too often imagine ourselves making big changes if we commit money to the cause. As a person who makes his living from building climbing training plans, this might seem like strange advice, but I've found that there are some huge basic issues that climbers can and should cover before they start paying...for anything.

The term "training" is over-used. People refer to any and everything they do in climbing as training, yet training is a very specific act. It is repeated efforts at improving specific parameters of your fitness. Imagine "training" a dog but just randomly giving it orders with no expectation of behaviors. Organized, progressive, repeated...these are how training must be defined.Yes, there is training for climbing. It is done in the weightroom, on the hangboard, against the clock. And although bouldering, climbing routes, and even System board work can be considered training, they are really practice. Training is how you get stronger. Practice is how you get better.The saying "practice makes perfect" is known to all of us, but the truth is that practice makes permanent. Simply doing something a lot doesn't make you good at that thing. What we really need to do is practice correctly, do it a lot, and then reap the rewards. This is where my 75/25 rule comes back into play: 75% of your "training" time should really be practice time. Don't go to the gym to get tired, go to get better.

Bouldering is exactly the same as rock climbing, except that it's way harder. In an attempt to do this way harder sport, we often employ rock climbing training programs, yet they don't quite work. This article is intended to highlight these differences, provide an introduction to bouldering training, and suggest an alternative way of thinking.