It's an old adage that "climbing is the best training for climbing," and many climbers lean on this line as an excuse for not engaging in any training activities outside of climbing itself. Let's examine this precept and determine, once and for all, if it is valid.

When I am asked the question "Is climbing the best training for climbing", my canned answer is--"it depends." This is because the best type of training for a given climber depends on his or her current strengths and weaknesses as well as current absolute climbing ability. For instance, in terms of improving climbing technique and mental skills, no amount of strength training will produce direct improvements in these areas. However, for developing sport-specific strength (i.e. conditioning to improve grip strength, lock-off ability, and endurance of upper body strength), simply "climbing for training" will produce limited results and only slow (or no) improvement from year to year. Sound familiar?

One reason that climbing is not the best method of strength training is because the ultimate goals of "training" versus "climbing" are very different. For instance, the goal in climbing is to avoid muscular failure at all costs and, hopefully, reach the top of a boulder problem or climb before the arm and forearm muscles pump out. Conversely, when training for climbing it is often best to exercise at the highest possible intensity and produce muscular failure in a few minutes, if not a few seconds. Summarizing--in climbing, you strive to avoid failure; in training, you tend to pursue failure.

Another example that underscores the difference between climbing and training for climbing is the way in which you grip the rock. In climbing, the rock dictates a random use of many different grip positions and, at times, you may even deliberately vary the way you grip the rock. As a result, it's unlikely that any single grip position will ever get worked maximally and, therefore, the individual grip positions (e.g. crimp, open hand, pinch, etc.) are slow to increase strength. This should help you understand why a full season of climbing may indeed improve your anaerobic endurance (i.e. endurance of strength), but do little to increase you absolute maximum grip strength. Therefore, varying grip positions is a great strategy for maximizing endurance when climbing for performance, but it stinks for training maximum grip strength. Effective finger strength training demands you target a specific grip position and work it until failure (See HIT Workouts).

As a final note, it may be best for some climbers to engage in physical conditioning that is not sport-specific in nature. For example, an overweight individual would be better off spending their non-climbing training time performing aerobic exercise (and, of course, improve their dietary surveillance) rather than sport-specific climbing exercises. Likewise, some "way out-of-shape" individual (i.e. unable to do even a few pull-ups, push-ups, abdominal crunches, etc.) would be better off engaging in a period of standard circuit training to improve general conditioning.

In the final analysis, if you are serious about climbing performance you must not be satisfied simply "climbing for training", nor can you mindless adhere to old adages or train in the flawed ways as most other climbers do. Becoming the best (and strongest) climber possible demands that you become a knowledgeable self-coach and thoughtful practitioner of "training for climbing."

Copyright 2002 Eric J. Horst. All rights reserved.
(EH crankin' out the Sling Time (5.11d) roof at the Shawangunks, NY. Courtesy of Eric McCallister.)