Planning Your Trad Climbing Training: What Matters?
Ok trad climbers, let’s get serious – training serious! When it comes to how you structure your training as a trad climber, there are some important factors that warrant a little more focus (typically) than others….
1. RESTING/PLACING GEAR – This one is important, as let’s face it, a lot of trad climbing actually involves quite a bit of intermittent resting/recovery or stopping for 15-60 seconds to place a bit of gear. How do you improve the ability for the forearm to recover though? The correct approaches to training will deal with both the capillarisation aspect and also the body’s ability to efficiently deal with metabolites produced by the muscle. It’s VERY trainable.
2. POWER ENDURANCE – Ok, this one is a subtle one, so pay attention! Remember that when we’re planning for our training, we’re really trying to dial into the demands of our sport and THEN building a program to make adaptations towards them. What are the power endurance demands of trad climbing? The answer is “not as middle-zone as you think” which means you typically need to address the further ends of the spectrum (short end or long end!).
3. BOULDERING ABILITY – Yes you read correctly, we’re talking about bouldering on a trad climbing post?! Because of the nature of a lot of trad climbing around the world, it’s often broken sections of difficulty (cruxes) with good rests. Look after your bouldering top-end execution and you will be in a MUCH better position. Way too many people plan for plodding, but forget that trad climbing is more like Fartlek!
Don’t forget that if you’re a sport climber or boulderer, check out those links for more info on your specialisation.
Main article 📸 Stefan Patrick Morris (@stefanpatrickmorris)
So would you suggest getting the bouldering training plan over the sports for trad climbers?
Hi Nick, you can actually go for either a Sport OR Bouldering Plan in reality because the flexibility and content options across both of those plans is exactly the same i.e. we can make a Sport plan that’s 100% focused on trad or a Bouldering Plan that’s 100% focused on trad (whether the training is done on a rope or bouldering or a combo!). What does matter, is that you give us really clear goals on what you’d like to achieve, how much time you have available and the facilities you have at your disposal. Then, once your coach has your assessment results, they’ll build out all your weekly sessions and make sure they’re fit for your goals, your time and your training resources. I hope that helps clarify! Do drop us an email if you’re still unclear at all.