I thought it would be helpful to share some quick ideas this morning on how to squeeze in climbing training into a busy schedule. Ideally, all climbers would be able to climb 4 days a week, workout most days, etc. But in reality, for most climbers life is too busy to make that a reality. I thought I’d share some quick ideas on how to fit training into your schedule. For the sake of keeping this article short, refer to TrainingForClimbing.com, and PodClimber.com to get details on what some of the workouts I refer to are. Read the rest of this entry »

My weekly training schedule usually consists of 3-4 days climbing and training at the climbing gym, and 3-4 days of aerobic workouts (usually running). However, as I sit here this morning reviewing my calendar, I realize that this is one of those weeks where I will have no time at all to go to the climbing gym. But I do have time to run, and there are some great forms of running that actually translate directly into improved climbing performance. Interval Training is the best way to run to train for climbing. This is because interval training trains your body to remove lactic acid from your muscles faster and more efficiently. Lactic acid is what gives you that “Pumped” feeling when climbing. Training your body to remove the lactic acid faster will improve your climbing anaerobic endurance!

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One of the most effective means of training stamina is to perform exercises that do the following:

• Increase Capillary Size
• Increase the Body’s Ability to Remove Lactic Acid from Muscles
• Build aerobic endurance
• Keep off excess body weight

Other than being intentional in sport-specific training (more details on that next week), training with running intervals accomplishes ALL of the above objectives.

Running Intervals

1. Choose a running route that will give you some elevation change (hills)
2. In the beginning, start with 30 minute sessions 4 times per week, eventually turning 2 of those sessions into 1.25 hour sessions. The goal is to really push yourself, so if you start in week 1 with 30 minute sessions, by the end of week 3 you should be pushing yourself to 1 hour sessions, and then 1.25 hour sessions by the end of week 4.
3. Start out your run with a 3 minute jog. Then run hard (at 90 percent of your max) for 5 minutes. Then back to a 3 minute jog, then 5 minutes hard, etc. Repeat this pattern for the duration of your run, allowing for a 5 minute jogging cool down at the end.
4. If you do this for a 10 week period, you will notice incredible climbing performance improvement, as well as increased all around health!

You can read more about this and other running ideas at the Running Blog posting on VO2 Max and Intervals.