The mass of people who engage in some form of conditioning program do so in a haphazard, adlib manner. There is little or no method to their madness other than to ?climb a lot? and ?get pumped.? This unsystematic approach will produce mediocre results and can often end in a performance plateau or injury.

Conversely, a well-informed climber is proactive in designing and modifying their training program for maximum effectiveness. Wisely, the program targets their weaknesses, is modified regularly to stave off mental or physical stagnation, and is crafted in a way to produce a peaking effect for an upcoming roadtrip or competition.

Leveraging the Principle of Variation
One of the cornerstone principles of fitness training is to regularly modify your training program to confuse the body and rejuvenate the mind. Sadly, many climbers engage in the same basic workout ritual week after week, and gain only increasing frustration given their lack of progress. In an attempt to overcome the plateau or lack of results, some individuals decide to increase the volume of their samey-same training program. Of course, taking a ?zero-results program? and multiplying by two computes out to, well, zero results!

A more intelligent and effective approach would be to regularly vary the focus of both your training and real-rock climbing. In the gym, it?s vital to vary the fundamental details of workout intensity, volume, length, and the amount of rest between sets (or climbs). On the rock, motivation and achievement often come in proportion to your willingness to try new types of climbing, visit new areas, and test the limits of what is possible (given your current ability). In this way, take a moment right now to make a to-do list of crags to visit or types of climbs to get on in the next three months.

In my book, Training For Climbing, I describe a highly effective a 6- and 10-week training cycle that will produce optimal results, both in terms of improving your strength and climbing ability. So whether you adopt one of these training routines or devise one of your own, commit to mixing it up both on and off the rock, and your performance will go up and up?and up!

Copyright 2003 Eric J. Horst. All rights reserved.
(Shelly Presson on Ice Cream Hangover (5.11b), Shelf Road, CO. Courtesy StewartGreen.com)