5 Time-Saving Training Tips from a World Class Climbing Coach

Join coach and founder, Ollie Torr, as he goes through some tips, tricks and hacks for training more efficiently alongside a busy schedule! 📅

🌎 Ollie Torr is a world-class coach working with all climbers, from the upper elite in our sport all the way through to 'everyday' climbers. Including the military, route setters and 9-5 working parents. Ollie has had to use common tactics and think outside the box to help these climbers train efficiently. He also lives a busy lifestyle himself and uses these tactics in his own training.

We mainly work with passionate rock climbers who might work a full-time job, look after a family or both. These busy climbers don't necessarily get the luxury of climbing on any given day and when it comes to supplemental training it's easy to think we don't have time. 🕝

In this video, we have a few tricks to share with you that can cut significant time from your training routine and not limit your gains, or maybe just give you a bit more time to enjoy climbing with friends! 💪

00:50 - Tactic One; Supersets
02:47 - Tactic Two; Training Combo
04:10 - Tactic Three; CARCing
05:43 - Tactic Four; Warm-Up
09:16 - Tactic Five; Cut The Fat
11:44 - Case Study Example

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[Platypus]

I think you guys are not optimizing enough. I will provide some examples so that we all can be more productive and profitable:
1. Working Excel spreadsheets pairs well with burpees. The kettlebell can press many keys at once. The heavier it is the more keys you press.
2. Have you considered how many mouse clicks you perform everyday? And then you complain about finger strength? Get your mouse modified by a technician so you need at least 0.5 kN to press it. It worked wonders to me (until carpal tunnel issues arose).
3. Choose to cook things that require working out. I found out that Japanese mochi requires pounding with a hammer, so now my diet is 70% mochi. That saves a lot of time (although I spend more time in the toilet, but see #5).
4. Replace objects with climbing holds. My bicycle handle is now a 7 mm edge, so I crimp hard at every turn. I also attached a 7 kg brick to my phone to work on my pinches. Not to mention you can mono anything from a shopping bag to a cement sack.
5. Time in the toilet is (funnily enough) time that goes down the drain. Apart from practicing pompoir, you can remove the toilet altogether and practice your squats. As a bonus, moaning and screaming is way more socially acceptable in the bathroom if compared to a gym, so you can go full Ondra.

Optimizing every bit of our time certainly doesn't give us the impression we live in a dystopia! Our jobs are really not leeching our lives...let us go on!

[DeeveeL]

Damn… Loads of experts in this comment section

[wissamharb]

This is exactly how I climb/train. Literally. Weekly routine is very similar as well. It took me 6 months to arrive here. Started with trying to do EVERYTHING to slowly shaving off and focusing of short term goals. Wish I came across this video earlier. Anyway in 6 months I lost 20lbs, got to 10% bf, broke into V6-V7 and 5.12 climbs, did a muscle up for the first time without training for it, learned the dragon flag, the advanced front lever progression, and Lsit from 0 to 10sec hold. Cheers

[aaronhauptmann]

This is almost exactly what I've been doing for the last 6 months. I took out the Monday Wednesday S&C stuff a few weeks ago to peak for a local comp and have been on a rampage climbing better than ever for the last few weeks.

[MrPrinny]

So I won't bore everyone with my whole week routine, but my warmup at the gym is minimalistic, yet it has never let me down. It's super simple. For reference, I try to do about 50/50 bouldering and rope climbing on a given week.

If it's a bouldering day, I start with a V0-2, and do two routes. Then 2 on V2-3, 2 on V3-4, and 2 on V4-5. I try to do new routes whenever possible to introduce movement variety. Don't avoid styles you're bad at! If it's not new, I practice a drill on it. Then a 5-10 min break, and onto my projects. That's it :)

If it's rope routes, I start on auto belays at around 5.8/5.9, do 2, then 2 at 5.10a/b, 1-2 at 5.10c/d, and 1-2 5.11a/b. The upper grades depend on how hard the route is. Once again I try to do new routes, and if they're repeats, practice drills on them.

No injury yet, and i feel warmed up without being overly pumped. Just don't forget to rest like 5-10 min. My reasoning is that if I'm there to climb, start very gentle and gradually ramp up the climbing. Warms up everything at once, and I focus the whole time on climbing as well as I can. If it's a training day this is totally different. Plus, like he said in the video, actual climbing is most important, so I made it my warm up too :)

[CrispyCrimpsClimbing]

I literally just cut my training routine buy 50% and my results improved

[GotoZero]

One thing that popped into my head watching this about the superset info, if you are used to doing one body area at a time (IE Upper Body/Lower body), and you start supersetting two large muscle groups, for example squat and bench, you may get dizzy or pass out, as it can be a sudden demand for a lot of blood on the body, at least that's what I found, so just be careful out there!

[DAJ]

I enjoyed your recommendations. Especially focusing on priorities and above all else to enjoy what you're doing.

[elfriederich]

And the best tip ever: make your whole life a training for things which don't require big warmup. E.g. don't plan flexibility training, do it when cooking or brushing teeth. Do a few pull ups every time walking by the bar. Do 30 push ups every time you do x or y. And so on

[CatchTheWave]

Honestly for me supersetting Pull ups (highly fatiguing excercise) with Squats (most fatiguing excercise there is) simply doesn’t work. It’s way too much stress on my body and I need Rest in between both excercises anyway. I think most hobby athletes do

[marctcholkayan]

if I may, I would say always use good technique, even in your warm up climbs. And warm up are a good way to practice technique than are your weakness.

[davidbecker]

Your examples for supersets are really not good for most people. If you’re a highly trained individual, maybe. But consider that if you’re doing pull-ups at or near max, you’re stressing your shoulders and back a lot. Then you go to overhead squat which is stability work in your shoulders and back especially because most people can’t overhead squat enough to make it a true lower body exercise. So now we’ve put back-to-back stressors on your shoulders and back and for most people, this is going to result in an overuse injury pretty quickly. A better combo would be something like pull-ups and back squat where there’s a lot less engagement of the same muscle groups. More so, we need to consider that doing supersets will work your cardiovascular system and might put your body into a slightly different stress than just doing max sets with maximal rest

[larryseibold]

i will add one important tip that i struggle with, but believe to be true: Leave extra in the tank and Never do more than you plan. Have a good plan for the week and season, and always do that or less, not more. I guess a related point would be: have hard days and have easy days.

[nicholasbruce]

I heard about the CARCing "pinch thing" on a Careless Talk podcast with David Mason but can't find anything detailed about it on the internet. He described it as having adjustable tension, obtained by swapping out springs. Can these be purchased? Or have they been discussed in greater detail anywhere?

[janaminerva]

It's interesting that you're pointing out in the beginning that most climbers try to do too much. The only time I've felt really overtrained was when I tried a personalized Lattice training plan for 12 weeks. The training volume was just so incredibly high, it did make me stronger but it wasn't sustainable at all. Yet I ended up thinking I HAD to do this much in order to see any progress, because that's what the professionals were prescribing... 🙄

[Antash_]

Is this a TFCC tear wrist band at 13:10? If so, does it help and how soon you can start to train again with it?

[julianisface]

Do you not have finger recovery issues by loading them 5-6 days in a week? I was told by my PT to allow 48-72 hours between intense finger loading and without that I had hurt myself frequently

[OrionDuCros]

Can you please detail exactly your justification for including an overhead squat in your program?
It just seems preposterous to include a squat varition which is so difficult to load.

[rambl]

Where is Ollie still getting 5.10 slip on Sleuth's from? I can't find them anywhere!

[ioidt]

how long can you pause between warming up and climbing? i only have time to warm up at home then drive to the gym with very little time at the gym ...