Endurance training for climbing
Training your endurance in climbing will enable you to:
Climb for a long time – particularly useful on long pitches that may take half an hour or more.
Recover from a pump.
Delay the point that you get ‘pumped’ by being able to depend more on the aerobic energy system.
Spend more time stopping to plan moves, recover mentally or psyche up for the next bold or difficult section.
Have a better platform to handle more training of all different types.
When you build up your endurance, your’re building up your aerobic capacity and using the aerobic energy system, which requires oxygen to work.
Where climbers need this kind of energy is in the forearms. That’s the bit that gives out when we feel pumped fall off and so, this is a tiny amount of muscle mass that requires oxygen to get there efficiently and optimally. More than enough oxygen circulates in our bodies for our forearms to use, so we know that cardiovascular fitness is not (for most) the limiting factor in climbing.
What happens to the body when you train your endurance/aerobic capacity?
The blood capillary network increases. More capillaries = more opportunity to get the blood to the forearms. Blood transports oxygen.
The density of mitochondria in certain cells increases. Mitochondria are protein structures in the muscle cell, which produce aerobic energy.
How easy is it to train?
This is easy for everyone to train and is a must for any climber in the beginning of the base training period (in order to be able to prepare your body for greater training loads). And a double must for all trad climbers, sport climbers and boulderers who want to complete a high volume of boulder problems in a session. Whilst it can be relatively easy to build up it is the very first thing to drop off when you have a break. People often say that ‘it comes quickly’ however that’s probably only because people have gone on a 2 week holiday to the south of France, having done no similar climbing for the last year and make quick gains! That doesn’t mean their endurance is anywhere approaching what it could be. Perhaps this explains why everyone on the continent is a lot fitter than the vast majority of Brits!
So what does this mean in practice?
There are 3 rules to endurance training:
To increase your endurance you need to train high volume and low intensity. If you do anything else (high intensity, high volume or low volume and low intensity) you will probably be working a different energy system or in fact nothing at all!
You can find out if you are working in the appropriate energy system by paying attention to how pumped you feel. You must always train with a controlled pump levels 1--3 see below.
You should never fall off when training endurance!
Level 1 - No pump
Level 2 - Slight pump
Level 3 - Moderate pump but in control
Level 4 - Very pumped
Level 5 - Extremely pumped - about to fall off any minute
The minute we move off level 3 into 4 or 5, we’re entering into a different energy system Ideally you need to train within the pump levels 2-3. If you train in level 1 you’ll be training at a much higher volume/low intensity and building up the blood capilliary network but it’s useful to combine with other endurance exercises which promote more blood flow in the forearms. Unlike runners, who can use heart rate monitors, the feeling in our forearms is our only feedback.
Endurance training session ideas
Continuous climbing. Pick a climb and climb continuously for 10 minutes. You can do this at the bouldering wall, on autobelays, or with a patient friend on routes! As times goes on you may be able to increase your time on the wall. 10 minutes is a good starting point. Climb for 10 minutes, have 10 minutes off and repeat 3 more times (40 minutes of continuous climbing).
4x4s. Pick a climb at the climbing wall, climb it, lower, pull the rope and repeat a further 3 times. Repeat so that you have done 16 routes in total.
Bouldering: high volume. Go to the climbing wall and complete a high number of boulder problems 30-40. Try and really minimise the rest between climbs. By the end of it you should feel something in your forearms, but not so much that you are beginning lose strength or get pumped.
If you are climbing outside, particularly sport climbing, at the end of your climbing session throw a top rope on an easier climb. Either do one of the above or simply top rope it a couple of times, it will act both as a warm down and help improve your aerobic capacity. If you are trad climbing, again try and do one last climb, even if it is super easy for you.
When you climb outside, don’t make the aim of the day climbing at your max, have a day out where you climb a high volume of routes, aiming simply for ‘time on the rock’.
You can get more creative but sticking to the low intensity/high volume and pump levels rules you should be able to increase your endurance.
Aerobic capacity training is great following a short hard bouldering session or a few hard roped climbs (and actually responds better if you do something intense first).
Training your aerobic capacity is not only good from a physical training perspective but it also teaches you not to overgrip and improves your general climbing movement.