The NEW Way to Train for Rock Climbing

Have you heard of CARCing? 🤔 It's been around for decades in some form or another, but recently it has become really popular among a number of elite climbers and coaches. Could CARCing be the future?

You may have heard of ARC training, which is short for ‘Aerobic, Respiration and Capillarity’ training. It is to rock climbing what a Zone 2 run is to a mountaineer. It enables climbers to develop the base fitness that climbing performance relies on.

ARC training requires climbing for long periods of time on easy terrain which can be a mental challenge. The term CARCing was defined by Lattice coach Jonny Kydd after he started integrating his ARCing while on long car journeys to work on his project most weeks. This is why the ‘C’ was added, in his bid for efficiency and maximising performance, he swapped climbing practice for light grip training while in the car. 🚗

(⚠️ Please note that we would advise against any form of training whilst driving - see our disclaimer below ⚠️)

But CARCing, due to it being so far from rock climbing practice, is not well established as a form of training.

So, in typical Lattice Training fashion, we set about to devise an experiment to see if CARCing was truly worth the hype! In just 4 weeks, Lattice coach Josh Hadley did over 17 hours of CARCing to see if it improved his endurance… 100, 250 reps later the results are quite incredible. 😲

Will you be adding CARCing to your training routine?

0:43 What is Carcing
3:05 Why Carcing
4:25 My Experiment
5:35 My Testing
7:38 The Results
11:58 Should you Carc?

⚠️ DISCLAIMER: Please note that although we advocate the use of light grip training (and have adopted the term CARCing for this), we do not recommend or advise that you perform CARCing whilst driving any form of vehicle. The contents of this video are for informational purposes only. By watching this video, you agree that any actions you take as a result of the information or content provided are entirely at your own risk and Lattice Training Limited shall not be responsible for the loss, or damage, of or to any property or to any person arising from the same.

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[LatticeTraining]

A bit of extra context to how my endurance improved in these 4 weeks.

Day 1. My Critical Force was 31.4%. This is below the average score for 8a/5.13b which is 34%

Day 30. My Critical Force was 38.5%. This was above the average score for 8b/5.13d which is 38%

These numbers are personalised to my height and gender.

[coolguyASDQWEFEWFADSFAS]

If CARCing doesn't sound good what about something like edging? Since you are mimicking pulling on an edge for long periods of time without quite reaching that high intensity zone where you can't maintain.

[tristanmayfield]

I'm honored my desk grips made it into the video!

[sebastianflynn]

This is the kind of content we need.
I feel we need more context regarding how effective that increase is relative to other training methods.

[climbingclem]

I am CARCing while watching this video

[politykanazw]

"Jorking it"
I've been jorking it for 17 hours

[McAwesomeness]

Might be good to note that you are talking about percentage _points_, increasing your CF from 31.4% to 38.5% is a 22.6% increase!

[TijmenHatesads]

For the injury worries I always wonder how manual labour factors in to training like this. I've never seen a construction worker warm up their wrists and hands: we just showed up (hopefully sober), chugged a cup and a half of coffee with the morning cigarette and grabbed the the tools we needed for the day. Then it's 6-12 hours of laying bricks, drilling holes or tightening nuts. Repeat for 5 days a week, ~45 weeks a year, 30-ish years total with generally little to no finger injuries. Quite some messed up elbow, shoulder and hip joints though.

As for a name: call it barking. Barely Aerobic Resistance-training, Kinda.

[peterkapunkt]

I am carcing with my right hand since I was a teenager for about once or twice a day. it's noticeably stronger so I guess it works.

[ozamram]

Really interesting study and results! Thanks for the effort & great content

[Royalrights]

Nothing like CARCing with the boys.

Just getting grippy with the lads.

[bloodkrowbastard]

I did this for 3 months when I had my first real climbing injury, I used real easy grippers every night sitting watching tv about 100 reps 3 sets a hand, then used the band around the thumb ('hitch hikers enhancement' for those who know arm wresting) for the same reps, and the difference it made to my grip when I came back was insane, and there was a noticable difference to the size of the muscles around my thumb too.

[niklasbirksted]

Heh, your results are pretty much spot on wrt what is to expect from doing z2 training. And just use zone 2, everyone uses it already and it's easy to translate into other sports. And also, it IS zone 2 training, so there's that. A few notes:
1. I would be very interested to see what rowing could do as an alternative way of doing z2.
2. Someone projecting hard should - theoretically - more than anyone prioritize z2 training. Enough z2 will improve the ability to recover between attempts and sessions, giving them more bang for their buck. In essence, z2 only make you marginally stronger, but it allows you to become a lot stronger.
3. It's super interesting that there is such an easily available way of doing z2 training for climbing, as reaching a level where you can even do z2 training is quite an effort in itself.

[dsmeier]

The beauty of actually arcing is getting in movement practice with it. So you get technique practice and endurance gains.

[devonrd]

Did this for one day for 20 minutes, had instant inflammation in the carpal tunnel area! I feel like a more isometric type contraction would be healthier, than jiggling those tendons around for such long periods of time. It's a highly repetitive movement, so I feel like others should be careful with this as well.

[Tarabulus]

"I now have a passionate hatred for this thing!"

Sounds like success to me! :)

[hanshans]

Great video! I use a foam stressball for carcing - doesn't apply equal force to all fingers so i move it about to different positions and pinch it too and the variety makes it less dull and the foam is never sore on the hand. I'm looking for a sitffer one and/or a cylinder next!

[willbland]

Great video! How did you schedule this around your training days - would you stack this onto the day you were climbing/hangboarding - or add this into the recovery days?

[alexb]

Although not best for performance, one of my favorite things is to try these odd ball training methods! Keeps things interesting!

[goldeneddie]

Need a more direct motivation for training your grip? Try 'MARRIAGE' - - especially with children - just a few weeks of 'Married Life' plus 'Parenting' will have you pulling at the trim of your car or any available edge whilst gritting your teeth and suppressing a huge aerobic scream as you desperately try not to 'lose your grip'.