Arm and Back Strength

Here arm and back strength refers to the muscle strength required to bend your arms, lock off, and move your upper body while climbing. Some of the common names of the muscles required for this are biceps, triceps, lats, and pectorals (pec minor and pec major).

Arm and Back Strength Drills:

Frenchies

Frenchies is a standard drill for building the strength required to lock off in different positions. Start with a pull-up and hold yourself in a fully locked off position for seven seconds, lower down. Do a pull-up and lower yourself until the bend in your arms forms a 90 degree angle, hold for seven seconds, lower down. Do a pull-up and lower yourself until the bend in your arms forms a 130 degree angle, hold for seven seconds, lower down. One rep is finished when you have held all three lock off positions and lowered down. For this workout try to do three sets of 5-8 reps with a one minute rest in between sets. If you can complete three sets of 8 reps then add a little weight. If you cannot complete three sets of 8 reps then add a chair or footholds to take some of your weight.

Typewriters

For typwriters you need two holds of equal size placed between 1.5 and 2 times shoulder distance apart. The greater the distance; the greater the difficulty of the drill. Grab the two holds and hold yourself on one hand at a full lock off for three seconds, using the opposite hand to take as much weight as possible. Slowly shift your weight from one hand to the other and hold yourself at a full lock off for three seconds. One rep is completed when you have held yourself at full lock off on both hands.

Remember to try and keep your chin above your hands when moving back and forth between the two grips. To increase the difficulty you can increase the distance between holds or add weight. To decrease the difficulty you can decrease the distance between holds or add a chair/footholds to stand on.

Power Ladders

Power ladders are a great drill for combining hand strength training with arm and back strength training. This drill is best done on different walls of varying angles. Create a ladder of similar holds spaced 2-3 feet apart in vertical distance. These holds should be placed for left and right hands and shoulder distance apart horizontally. Do this for three or four different ladders using different hold types for each ladders. The ladders should be between 4-10 moves in length. To do this drill you start with one hand on and place you opposite foot on a hold that will allow you to reach the next hold. Lock off the first hold, hold it for 5-8 seconds and then grab the next hold. Bring your opposite foot up and lock off, hold for 5-8 seconds and repeat until you are at the top.

If you have not done 8-12 moves then downclimb in a similar fashion until you have reached 8-12 moves.

For example I start with my left hand on a pinch and my right foot on a foothold down and right. I lock off my left arm and reach up with my right hand. Once my left arm has been locked off for 5-8 seconds I grab the next pinch with my right hand and place my left foot on. My right foot comes off and I lock off my right arm. Once my right arm has been locked off for 5-8 seconds I grab the next pinch with my left hand and continue.

Do this drill three times for each power ladder with a one minute rest in between attempts. Take 2-3 minutes before switching to the next power ladder.

When doing this drill concentrate on pulling hard with you opposite foot and learning how to maximise the weight that your legs can take. The more weight on your legs the less weight on your arms.

Lock off Boulder Problems

This drill is similar to power ladders but offers a variety of moves. To do this drill either make or find some boulder problems 6-10 moves in length. For each move you lock off the hold with one arm for 5 seconds and then try and move statically to the next hold. You will have to experiment with different boulder problem to see which ones this works with. Try and find the three most difficult problems that you can do this on. Do each problem three times with a one minute rest in between attempts and a 2-3 minute rest in between problems.

Campusing

What would strength training be without a reference to campusing. This section will talk about campusing for strength but you can also campus for power. When campusing for strength try to keep your movements slow and as large as possible.

Try not to match hands but concentrate more on using your lower arm to help move to a lock off with your upper arm. Hold the lock off’s and move slowly to the next hold. It is always a good idea to down campus slowly.

Campusing should not be attempted if you cannot hold a lock off. If you are deadpointing out of control for holds then you run the risk of shock loading your elbows or wrists and injuring yourself. Smaller and different hold types can be used to make campusing more difficult.

NOTE: I am strongly against any under 18 using a campus board and novices should be fully supervised in the use of them, the BMC have some guidance notes here; http://www.thebmc.co.uk/campus-boards-guidance-on-use  

Off set Pullups

Off set pull-ups allow you to isolate one arm more than the other. Start with one hand on a hold and have the other hand holding something below and shoulder distance apart from the first hold. You can use a knotted rope, a piece of webbing, or another hold for the lower hand. When you do the pull-up lock off the upper hand and use the lower one to help hold yourself there for 3-5 seconds. Do this in 3 sets of 8-12 for each arm. Concentrate on holding the lock off and isolating the upper arm as much as possible.

Core Body Strength

Core Body Strength

Core body strength is the ability to use muscles other than your arms to hold you in different positions. Some of the core muscles that are used for climbing are upper and lower abdominals, lower back, hamstrings, and calfs. Generally think of the core muscles as the ones that allow you to keep you feet on a roof, or to pull yourself onto a rock on without bending your arms. Body tension or the lack thereof is a result of core body strength and knowing how to use it.

Core Body Strength Drills:

Leg Lifts

Dead hang from good holds and lift your legs straight in front of you, bending at the waist. Lift your legs until your body forms a 90 degree bend and lower slowly. Try not to swing or kick your legs up. If you cannot stabilize yourself have a partner stop your swinging. If you cannot do a leg lift with your legs straight then bend your legs at the knees to 90 degrees. Keep your knees bent at 90 degrees for the whole range of motion both up and down. Do this until failure or repeat as many times as possible in one minute (if you cannot do this for a minute straight). Complete three sets with a one minute rest between sets.

A good climbing variation on this is to find a roof and grab a large hold with both hands. Lift your feet off the ground and lift one foot at a time and place it on a foothold. To make this harder put the feet farther away and practice accuracy with your feet. Modify the holds from underclings, sidepulls, and straight downpulling so simulate different climbing movements. The key is to place your feet directly onto a hold, tighten up (let your feet take some weight) and then release.

Banana Boats

Lie on your back and extend your arms straight above your head. Straighten your legs and then bend at the waist about 20 degrees (form a banana). Slowly rock back and forth keeping your lower back on the ground and pointing with your toes and fingers.

Try to move slowly and don't let your head or feet touch the ground. Do this until failure or repeat as much as possible for one minute. Try to do this in sets of three with a one minute rest in between.

Swimming

Lie on your stomach and extend your arms straight in front of you. Move your arms and legs up and down in a small range of motion trying to keep your quads off the ground. Try to keep your legs straight, but your arms may be slightly bent.

Superman

Start on your hands and knees. Raise opposite arm and leg (left arm, right leg) at the same time to a horizontal position. From there lift the arm and leg in a reverse crunch and lower back to horizontal (one rep). Without letting you hands or feet touch the ground pull up again and repeat until failure. Do this with the other leg/arm for a minimum of one minute each side. Try to do three sets of this exercise for each side.

Hand Strength

Hand Strength

Hand strength is the ability to clamp down on holds. It can be defined as contact
strength (slopers), crimp strength, pocket strength, or pinch strength. Each type of grip requires different recruitment of the muscles in your forearms, and this requires practice.

Holding a sloper requires a different amount of contraction than holding a pocket. Training on just slopers will improve your contract strength but may not help you on a steep wall with small crimpers. The trick is to train on many different hold types and to understand what your limits are. You don't want to climb slopers all evening and then try and crimp near the end. Injuries occur most often when you are tired and you try to push yourself on small holds.

You will probably want to start a general training session (after warming up) by climbing less steep, crimpier routes then moving towards larger holds (slopers and incut, open handed holds).

If you are a very strong crimper but cannot hold slopers then you may want to focus on just slopers for a period of time, thus sacrificing some of your crimp strength to become a better all around climber. The same applies for the other type of grips as well.

In addition to just climbing on different hold types there are also lots of drills that you can do to improve your hand strength:

Weighted hangs

Weighted hangs is an incredibly effective drill for increasing hand strength, when done correctly. If done incorrectly you can easily harm yourself so it is best to start out slow and progress as you feel comfortable. In order to do weighted hangs you will need various different grip types and some way of adding weight to your body (attaching a diving belt, weight vests, backpack of rocks...). Start with little or no weight and try and dead hang some of the different grips, you can switch between one or two handed dead hangs if you want more difficulty. Determine which grips are your weakest and which are your strongest. You should be able to hang from the grips for at least 10 seconds before adding any weight. On the grips that you can hold for more than 10 seconds you can start to add weight, increasing the amount until you can only dead hang the holds for 8-12 seconds.

Select three different grip types and do three sets of 8-12 second hangs on each grip
type. Rest one minute between sets and three to five minutes between grips. You can do other exercises between the sets to decrease the amount of time required to complete the drills (perhaps some core strength drills).

Hit Strips

Hit strips are a drill designed by Eric Horst and described in his book "How to climb
5.12" and more information can be found here... http://www.nicros.com/training/articles/h-i-t-workout-details/

System Board

A system board is a "woody" covered with different grips strategically placed at varying angles and difficulty. The nice thing about a system board is that you move your feet as you adjust your hand grips so you are actually climbing and practicing climbing movements. To train hand strength focus more on smaller holds than big moves and moving slowly between the holds.

Strength and Power, what's the difference?

Strength and Power are two different abilities that muscles may have. It is easy to confuse the two terms but the most simplistic way to describe them is this;

1. Strength - The ability for the muscle to stay contracted under a maximum load.
2. Power - The ability to generate the contraction of strength.

In short, Strength is Static and Power is Dynamic.

If we look at climbing terms, there are many different types of strength involved in climbing:

• Hand Strength - Strength required to hold on.
• Arm/Back Strength - Strength required to bend your arms.
• Core Body Strength - Strength required to keep your feet and hips in place.
• Power - Ability to move quickly and in control. maintenance 
• Opposing Muscle Strength - Non-climbing muscles that you must strengthen in order to keep joints and muscles balanced.

The strengths can be trained using isolation movements, focusing on a specific set of muscles, while power is best trained using compound movements, possibly numerous muscle groups with movements involving more than one joint.