Page 43 - 2020 AMA Summer

The author modelling Prana’s new range of pyjama climbing trousers.
(also much easier to fit around other tasks since sets are usually shorter). Isolation or tour is an ideal time to build a good base of strength that can then be applied once you are back climbing.
“You can argue all you want about technique and friction... but for me it really comes down to strength and how hard I can pull, I’m afraid” – Ben Moon
Exploit the opportunities
Rather than manage decline, I have tried to take the opportunity to focus on a few areas that I have unfortunately neglected over the past few years: preventative exercises to build resilience and therefore avoid injury (e.g. shoulder stability), finger strength, flexibility, and more general strength (e.g. core). These sessions fit very well with a very regular and predictable routine. I used to include structured training in the vast majority of my visits to indoor climbing walls, with some time dedicated to just playing about for fun. Two children and a busy job torpedoed that approach, with ‘playing about’ prioritised during the valuable climbing time - at the expense of system boards, fingerboard- ing, antagonist training etc. The new ‘ground-hog day’ routine enables a focus on these important, but usually neglected, aspects – hopefully building a habit that will continue after we are able to return to the walls and crags. With a home wall (or a fingerboard), power endurance can also be developed to ensure that when you return to climbing you have a solid base of strength and power endurance. Power is more of a challenge , but can be trained, to some extent, on a pull up bar:
‘Chausseur de Prises’ start, <7A, Garage
“Gimme Kraft!” has some useful exercises for doing so.
Don’t overtrain!
Given time to train, and no opportunity to actually climb, there is a huge temptation to ramp up the fingerboard and weights sessions to compensate or ‘seize the opportunity’. I certainly felt that pull and it was largely the painful memories of past injuries and the resultant enforced breaks that stopped me throwing in 3-4 hard fingerboard sessions a week. The Lattice Team have uploaded some great Q&A sessions on this topic to YouTube. Variety of sessions, flexibility, and management of personal expectations are important here. Fortunately, I had built flexibility to my approach since my expectations were already being effectively managed by the toddler, who dropped her afternoon nap in week 2 of isolation – I was glad to be able to conduct strength sessions with short intense sets.
“You can argue all you want about technique and friction... but for me it really comes down to strength”
Some final remarks
In the broader context, ‘working out how to maintain climbing performance during this period of social distancing’ is a very mild problem to have. Nonetheless, climbing is important to me and the AMA membership and, despite current access issues, I don’t expect this to change in the medium/long term. I have therefore found
it helpful to use training as a focus during this period, and take the opportunity to address my weaknesses in order to come out more resilient and stronger, hopefully with better habits.
Resources
The climbing community has responded very constructively to the lock-down, with lots of useful training tips posted online by coaches and instructors. I have highlighted a few resources below that I have found useful.
Lattice Training. Some great videos on training at home, plus Q&A sessions available online for free, and paid-for plans (which I would recommend).
Gimme Kraft!: Effective Climbing Training. Matros, Korb & Huch. Individual exercises to train strength and power. Training Beta. Podcast, including interviews focussed on training at home and (paid-for) plans.
Metolius guide “How to build a home climbing wall”. Available at www.rei.com. Useful free guide for home builds.
Home Climbing Wall Forum. Facebook Group for people to share ideas, designs and questions regarding the construction of home climbing walls.
Make or break: don’t let climbing injuries dictate your success. Dave MacLeod. Really useful for understanding the stresses that climbing places on the body and how to (try to) prevent issues.
9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes. Dave MacLeod. A classic high-level view of climbing performance. Holistic big picture stuff, but also drills down into simple practical tactical-level advice.
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