Climbers Shoulders

I read this week about the importance of working out our shoulders and upper arms for climbing. Interesting, because this muscle group hardly gets any attention in most training videos and articles. We are constantly talking about our fingers and forearms. But the truth is that it is just as important to work out our shoulders and upper backs in order to pull down on those micro holds. So let's talk about a real shoulder workout. 

I've yet to encounter in climbing a single situation where a pull-up bar scenario has arisen. If anything this workout is just a bad idea for a number of reasons. First, it causes significant damage to the elbows when done in the kind of numbers you need to make a diference. Second, it actually works out muscle groups you don't really need which contribute to a nice physique but superfluous muscle weight. The solution is to get yourself a finger board. Or build a campus board. Both of these will give you close to real life scenarios that you will encounter in your climbs. Now, not everyone can smear their walls with slabs of wood or nail a fingerboard up. So what can you possibly do for your shoulders? Homemade Climber to the rescue. 

The picture to the right is taken of the inner part of your standard door frame. As you can see a thin strip of wood lining the inside of the door frame makes for an interesting crimper simulation. However it only offers you sideways and upside down angles. No worries. Try standing perpendicular to your door frame and holding the crimp with one arm step right next to your door frame and lean outwards. In this position you will be able to repeatedly pull your body weight into the door. One week of this and you will be a monster at shoulder strength. 

Another good exercise with this part of your door is to stand about half a meter from your open door. place your fingers in the crimp with your hands facing out. This will feel weird. But lean into the door until you feel that the weight is being held by your shoulders. Lock off in intervals of 15 seconds. Rest about 1 minute between sets. 

If you keep a regular training schedule adding these two to your roster should give you noticeably increased shoulder strength within a week.  

Crimping, crimping, crimping

Crimping, crimping, crimping.

There is only one real difference between up-to 5.11 climbing, and the rest - mandatory hard crimping. Sundays climb was rated by the locals as a 5.11a, but with literally one good hold on the +/-15 move problem, I would doubt that very much. The rig wasn't negative until the last 6 moves. But it was a series of precision crimps leading to what would definitely be an onsight dyno maybe done statically to the final jug. So how do we build up this monster finger strength without wrecking our tendons. Or more importantly, what can the home climber do for this?

Its important to remember that all training for tendon strength requires appropriate hydration. Also, its important to know when to stop pushing the training cycle as not to overwork yourself into lesions.
I begin everytendon workout with one set of finger, hand, and forearm stretching. By holding my arms out in front of me, shoulders low, and breathing normally I spin my hands slowly making full circles. Spin each way for about 20 seconds. Afterward I shake out and then get on my hanging area ( I use my door frame, you can get creative depending on whats in your house). Its important to use a area large enough to allow you to hang, but small enough to challenge you. Obviously you are not going to get on a 1cm surface and do pullups your first time.
Try hanging for about 10 seconds. Really push yourself. If ten is easy, try 15 and so forth until you hit your limit. From there subtract two seconds and you have your repetition quantity. Example. If you try for ten seconds but can only do 6 at the most, cut down to 4 seconds and use this as your rep. I do 10 sets of hangs for my weekday workouts. Ideally you are trying to build up to about 15 second hangs. But its important to not that you should not up the cycle too soon. Spend about two weeks with a certain amount before upping your efforts. add one or two seconds according to your personal growth.
Another great exercise to incorporate into your routine is to lock off. This means getting on your ledge and pulling up until your chin is at or above the ledge and lock off there. This exercise translates well to climbing because many times on the rock we have to lock off to reach the next hold. Use the method above to find a safe number of seconds for lock offs. 10 sets once again is the magic number. Why 10? we are doing these workouts to build endurance not strength. And even though this workout naturally builds strength, we need to make sure we are reaching the correct goal which is being able to hang more, whether it is straight armed or locked off.
Its also important to note that crimping becomes easier the more core strength you have built up. As you can imagine, while we hang our bodies natural contours pull us in different ways. the ability to stabilize our hanging makes the work on our fingers that much easier. try incorporating 300 crunches twice a week into your cycle. I currently do 300 four times per week. The first set is a burnout. I can usually hit 100-110 in the first go. This kills. But if when it starts to really burn you push it hard and try for another 20 within a couple of weeks you will see dramatic increases in your ability to both crunch and crimp.
Have a great week and get on the rock!

Moving up!

Its important to feel like your climbing is going somewhere. It can be highly demotivating to consistently get shut down on your projects if you are not naturally a fighter. And even those of us hard wired to battle through problems can sometimes feel blah about going back to a wall that brings you no joy. Yesterday will be one of the days I always remember as a reaffirmation of my climbing stoke. Having applied a rigorous diet for over half a year now, and recently taken to serious methodical training, yesterday I climbed at a different level than what i had been able to do thus far.

We met some friends at the crag after having been by the harder areas of climbing at Campo Escola 2000 in Rio de Janeiro. The wall was impressive, inspiring, but frankly a bit intimidating. Nothing looked doable. And so we went on to an easier route "DuDu" a european 6b (pic). We had great fun and as we were leaving we decided heck, lets just mozzie on over and have a go. Strategically choosing a line out of the way of the other climbers there, Jake and I looked at each other with rather less conviction than one usually has while climbing. I got on the line and found the first three hand positions to be rather easy. But I knew the following crimpers would bring me problems. I find in those moments, actually lying to your self overconfidently helps. "you can do this, no problem, just grab that hold." And unwittingly I did. But the lie faded, as my fingertips stuck to a less than 2mm shelf. "Thats not so bad, but the next move will definitely shut you down." I looked over and it really was nasty crossover arms on peanut crimpers and footholds that more resembled pimples on the rock. 

My left hand engaged my right arm swung over as did my body. I engaged my core and gave the next crimper everthing I had. I stuck. "Holy shit whats going on? Nevermind just climb." some three crimpers more and I made it to the first big shelf. And, as these often are on impressive walls, it was shit. Smooth as silk sloppers. Some fumbling around, some down climbing to reposition and bang, I came off the wall and jake and I met in the air at opposite ends of the rope like two blind balerinas. It was ugly, it was painfull, but my mouth was watering to go back up.

These small victories can mean a lot. Especially when its time to train and all you want to do is stay in bed!

Home workout tips 1

It may look like just a door frame. But this I've found is an extremely effective training tool for maximizing your time. Not all of us have time to spend in the climbing gym everyday or walls we want smeared with chalk and bore out by hangboards. But all of us feel that itch in the fingers at least once a day, calling us to climb anything. Sitting in a meeting, or even in your own office considering how easy it would be to negotiate your body between the wall and a bookshelf ever so delicately imitating a crack climb. Or how each individual move of your current crux haunts you to the point of running the sequence over and over in your mind as you gaze off into nothing. And as I have found there door frames all around us are a great place to get a quick fix. You can do hangs, lock-offs, and even some campus training moves off of them.
Suggested exercise each morning:
5sets of Hangs (start with 5 seconds and 1 minute intervals)
10sets of Pullups (start with 3 pullups per set and see if you can make it to the end. If you can, increase numbers not sets.)
5sets of Lockoffs (locking for 10 seconds is great, if you can get to 15 second locks you will be a monster soon)

Supplement that each morning with 300 quick crunches (more on this later) and loads of water. Eggs work really well for keeping you fueled and strong.

Welcome to crux training. This will be my simple diary of climbing around the world and training for reaching my climbing objectives. I hope nothing. But If you are helped by this, great :)