Climbing's Most MISUNDERSTOOD Training Method

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Endurance training may be the most misunderstood training practice in climbing and bouldering 🧗. And it's understandable because as climbers we try to mirror the feeling of the point of failure in our endurance 🥵. This is the feeling of being extremely "pumped" in our forearms 🔥. So many climbers will chase this feeling and point of failure in their training with the aim of extending how long they can sustain hard climbing.

Unfortunately this oversimplification misses the mark in a few respects. Firstly it's associated with very high training volume and fatigue 😵, there is only so much we can do! But the main issue is that training this way fails to efficiently target 🎯the individual energy systems, using an "all at once" approach. While this is effective to a degree and very useful at times (peak prep), it is stopping many climbers from reaching their potential 🦸.

In this video we look at how the different energy systems work ⚡, how to avoid falling into the same trap that many climbers do and give you 3 excellent training exercises to develop your fitness and aerobic capacity 💪.

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[AllegraClimbingPsychologist]

Training until failure from pump is useful for training pain tolerance and adapt your nervous system into recognizing what is a real "emergency" situation. Our brain is wired so that it protects our body from damage and will send pain signals for us to stop. This is a response that can be trained, we literally teach our brain that the situation is not a threat. If you managed to improve your endurance a lot by climbing very pumped, it's most likely that you trained your mental fortitude rather than you forearms endurance 🔥

[maximefortinmusic]

I believe the main benefit of training for the pump failure that is not talk about is that it is mainly good for knowing when you are "truly" about to fail, so when you are pumped on a route, you can keep calm knowing that even if you REALLY pumped, your tank isn't quite empty. Making you push for those extra key moves.

I call it the "courage energy system". Being about to resist psychological distress the closer you get from having depleted all resources.

[ScienceSportsMore]

0:25 Absolutely correct. Thumbs up.
The general rule is to know the performance determinants in a sport, identify an individual's most performance-limiting deficits among these determinants, and implement a training strategy that most effectively addresses these specific deficits. The derived regime could look and feel completely different from the sport one is training for.
A "copy-how-you-compete" approach works and has its own, in a different way specific justification, but often it results in mixed effects, which are usually less effective than polarized concepts (exceptions exist).

[hminhph]

I remember watching this the first time. I didnt understand all of it, but the second time around something clicked and it made so much sense and gave me a lot of new impulses to think about my training differently. Thanks a lot!

[nirmalasokan]

How about this idea, we take the first exercise and modify it. We find a wall where we have a route that can provide us with the 1 min of high intensity climbing and also on the same wall there would be an easy route that we can climb comfortably with our aerobics system. We then climb one minute high intensity, without getting of the wall, climb 2 min low intensity and repeat for a few reps. This targets the specific adaptation of being able to recover one energy system while utilizing a different energy system

[petroffma]

One thing I don't understand... As an analogy to running, I can train two aerobic factors: 1) speed I can sustain, and 2) distance I can sustain it for. Typically the first through intervals, and the second through volume.

The exercise you proscribe seems to build volume, but not a sustained intensity. When should we be working in a more interval-type training for climbing endurance? How should it be programmed along with a low intensity volume workout?

[AB-fhzh]

That is a really good definition of specificity.

[PB-skjn]

Wow. Love it.
The biggest leap I ever had in endurance in forearm capacity was after a month doing multipitch in the French alps, Chamonix area.
Guess it was long (25 minutes on a pitch at a time), trad so within reasonable intensity (6a and below), and slow placing gear, and at altitude.
Never really explained why until now. Bet the combination of moderate intensity, long duration AND altitude is good.

[Whueso]

INVALUABLE. Thanks for bringing this easily digestible and highly accessible evidence-based approach to developing my own training sessions.

[arrowblast]

Lattice calmly dropping bangers like these, almost daily now.

[devonrd]

I found the diagram with the energy tank very useful. Please correct me if I'm wrong: we don't want to climb until failure, because that would mean 'emptying the tank'. Instead, when training the aerobic system, we want to train 'filling the tank' and doing this requires us to do a lot of volume.

Is the idea that going until failure is 'bad' because this will prevent us from doing more volume, when volume is the effective training stimulus we are after?

[lorenzoc.]

Hi! Super interesting video as always. I have a question: I've read your article about capillarisation and you say "In periods of training focused on capillarisation, high intensity training should be limited/tightly controlled due to release of anti-angiogenic factors when this form of training is completed.". Does this mean that I can't do strenght training while I increasing capillarisation or that I can't do them on the same day?

[Breowan]

I've been doing a variation of the long interval (5 mins on / 5 mins off) for some time. It's easy to fit in when you don't have the time for a full bouldering session and as it's low intensity I find it ok to do on a "rest" day.

[abab]

What are the advantages of each training method (short interval, long interval, continuous)? and should you shake out during the endurance training?

[oohall]

Would long-duration assisted hangs on a bar or jug rung be a viable alternative to continuous on-the-wall climbing? Obviously it'd be incredibly boring (and less specific), but spending 5-20 minutes on the wall in a gym isn't going to be viable for a lot of people.

e: tried this out today, kinda blows. For me at least the amount of weight I can support for 5+ minutes is about 1/3rd of body weight so I need am inconvenient amount of assistance to make it work at all. That said, while I was hanging out I had a better idea: farmers carries with dumbbells.

Basically, pick a heavy weight you can hold for a few minutes and lighter weight you can hold forever. Hold one weight in each hand and walk around until your forearm on the heavy side starts to feel a bit pumped. Once you hit that point swap the weights between your hands so the pumped side can recover with the lighter weight while still doing a bit of work. If you choose your weights right you should eventually settle down into a steady rhythm with each side carrying the heavier weight for about the same time. Rinse and repeat until you hit time.

It's still pretty boring, but being able to walk around helps a lot.

[dillonliew]

How many sets of the 1 on 1 off training do you reckon is a good amount for an endurance session? I did a session with 3 sets with 15 minutes of rest in between. Is that enough time on the wall?

[thomaschambon]

You mention that fatigue is caused by the accumulation of byproducts.

I was interested in understanding what exactly cause fatigue, since it could shed a light on how to train and it is also interesting in itself, and what I found was that :

- Lactacte is not the cause of muscular fatigue.
There is a correlation (fatigue occur and there is a lactate accumulation at the same time) but no causation. Rather, exercising produces fatigue and lactic acid as well but the latter does not produce the former. (Brooks et Fahey, 1984, Brooks, 2000)

- Other leads were not conclusive as well. For instance, the accumulation of protons (H+) due to ATP hydrolysis would not explain fatigue either. It was a model with in vitro backing but it does not work in vivo (Dobson et coll., 1986 and Sahlin et Ren, 1989 ; Arnold et coll., 1994)

So... The conclusion I reached was that nobody currently knows how fatigue occur.
Do you have an opinion on this and sources that I could read ?

Thanks !

[j.j.]

The metabolic context you describe is of course one of the most important in training power endurance. But why do you afterwards only recommend a climbing interval training for this? Interval climbing is highly related to coordination and technique aspects, too. If you just want to focus on metabolic factors, repeaters on a fingerboard for me seem the best way to train, regardless of the SAID principle. Concerning your statement that most of the climbers try to make their "anaerobic tank" bigger, I don't think so. Training your glycolytic system is the most uncomfortable type of training and when you go into a gym the climbers either avoid this state in their forearms (boulder) or make way too long breaks after they got pumped forearms (lead).

[krakenattackin]

I love Lattice's videos but I feel like they are hard to apply to my programming sometimes because of how much you guys prioritize periodization. I'm a weekend warrior who climbs outside year round without many major goals/trips. I have no use for a "peak" phase, so I really can't use any of yall's programming, because I don't want to deteriorate my current performance for a long period just to perform better for a short period.

[foihdzas]

I wish my local gym was less busy so I could do these. Especially the long interval. Climbing is just too popular now.