9 secrets to improve resistance in rock climbing
Do you wish you could stay longer on the wall, pointing out increasingly difficult and longer routes and bouldering problems? Here are nine fantastic methods to improve your stamina when rock climbing.
- Buy a climbing book or video and slowly practice the technique. Better technique results in greater efficiency on the wall, which, in turn, means you last longer before tiring out.
- Lift weights, focusing on your core, back, shoulders, and arms (girls, this includes you, too). Weight training can be done after climbing or as a standalone workout.
- 4×4: Climb/boulder 4 problems in a row, rest 5 minutes, repeat for 3 more sets. Select four different bouldering problems (or use the same one if you want). Upload four in a row without a break. Then rest for five minutes and repeat three more times on new problems. You can make this workout more challenging by reducing your rest period, choosing harder or longer problems, doing more sets (i.e. 5×4), doing more supersets (4×5), climbing each problem, or using light ankle weights, wrists, or harness.
- Do 30-50 bouldering problems, with 1-2 minute breaks between each one. Solves all problems in 60 to 90 minutes. You can do a similar workout by climbing 15-25 top rope routes, much more doable if you have an auto-belayer that you can monopolize.
- Descend each problem or route. This will drastically reduce the total number of issues you will be able to escalate, so wait until the end of your day if you prefer.
- Up, down, up, up, etc. until you can’t, rest 5-10 minutes, repeat Whether climbing or bouldering, perform each superset without rest between routes or problems, except for the few seconds it takes to walk to the next problem and start. If you’re climbing, consider finding a group of bundled routes (to avoid having to join somewhere else), or just climb and re-climb the same route over and over again until you can’t.
- Traverse the span around the gym, stay on the wall for 10-30 minutes, rest, repeat This variation need not be technically difficult. The goal is to stay on the wall for as long as possible, 10 to 30 minutes or more, for at least two to three sets. Find a corner or some mugs to rest in, but whatever you do, don’t get off the wall until you just can’t stand up any longer.
- Play Add On with a friend until exhaustion Add On is a very fun bouldering game to play with one or more friends. Start by bouldering in three moves and then back down. Each successive climber must repeat the entire progression identically, then add three more. The winner is the last climber to complete all the moves without falling. Once someone wins, rest for a few minutes and play again.
- Perform any of the above variations while wearing a SCUBA weight belt/vest Weighted arm and ankle bands also work. Or you can simply wear plenty of protection in your harness, mimicking traditional multi-pitch climbing, ice climbing, big walls and other real life climbing scenarios. Just don’t add so much weight that you can’t climb high enough to really exhaust yourself at a deep level.
