Not everyone is used to train for rock climbing. Normally, many of us choose the most obvious (and the most fun, let’s be honest) way of improving ourselves in climbing … which is climbing. But with the closure of climbing facilities, training aimed specifically at improving climbing has become essential and it can be difficult to navigate. Climbing is a fairly complex sport, for which you have to develop different physical and mental skills to be well balanced. Here is a summary of what you can do at home in order to keep and push your level in these special circumstances.
FINGER STRENGTH
One of the most important climbing skills is finger strength. As the difficulty of climbing increases, fingers strength becomes essential. In training, we frequently see two types of exercises:
The minimum edge
Hold the smallest edge possible for 10 seconds, with a 3-4 second margin and a 3 minute rest between the hangs.
The maximum weight
Hold a larger edge (about 18mm) with the most weight for 10 seconds, with a 3 second margin and a 3 minute rest between the hangs.
You can do 2 to 5 hangs per session (gradually) and train for 2 sessions per week, with a day or two of rest between your sessions. If you’re used to training your fingers, you can get more details on suspensions on the Eva Lopez website. For this training, a hangboard or crimps could be useful. If you’ve never done hangs, a simple maintenance job could help keep your fingers strong enough for your return to climbing. At that point, you might consider a less expensive tool, like a Yubi Footrest, for example. Be careful, however, to train gradually to avoid injuring yourself. Finally, if you do not want to spend any money, find a fairly solid edge (door frame, table corner), where you can gently pull as you would do on a edge!
Several finger training tools are available on the Bloc Shop online store.
UPPER BODY
The upper body is a little more difficult to train without proper equipment at home. If you have a bar or hangboard with good holds, think about the type of movements that were causing you trouble and exercise accordingly. Here are some ideas:
Power:
Explosive pull up (fast pull, slower descent) 🡪 6-8 repetitions, 3x with a 4 minute rest
Explosive push up (fast push, slower descent) 🡪 6-8 repetitions, 3x with a 4 minute rest
Strength :
Pull up with weight (you can take a backpack and fill it with books) 🡪 3-4 repetitions, 3x with 6 to 8 minutes of rest
Progress towards the one arm pull up 🡪 Do a pull up with two hands, then withdraw one hand and allow yourself to descend slowly on one arm). If it is too difficult to control, use a strap to hold with your other hand.
You can do one to three sessions per week, making sure you are well rested when you do one. You can combine these sessions with core and abs exercises, as well as exercises that train other muscles (push up, dips), which you will find in our weekly workouts.
Here are two workout suggestions for your core and muscle strength.
LOWER BODY
The legs are also used in climbing and they are fortunately easier to train at home. Whether on a slab, getting up on one foot with all our weight on a tiny foothold, or on a steep wall, where we try to use our feet on big volumes, leg training very important. Here are a few exercises to improve this skillset:
The pistol squat : This exercise will help you get up on one leg, which can be difficult, especially when the step is high.
Explosive squat : The explosive squat helps a lot for dynamic movements such as dynos.
Heel hook : To practice heel hooks, you can simply reproduce the movement with a door frame.
PLAN YOUR WORKOUTS:
The purpose of this article is to give you a general overview of the different types of exercises you can do in order to maintain or even improve your level during confinement. As training planning is personal, I would recommend to consult books where you can learn how to build an efficient schedule that suits your body.
As an example, here is what your schedule might look like:
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
Hangs Abs | Upper Body Lower Body | Bootcamp | REST | Hangs Abs | Upper Body Lower Body | REST |
Have fun!
