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Hi Eric, I’ve been training a lot lately (25 days per month), but I feel like my climbing is actually getting worse as my flash ability has gone down. Normally I can flash many V5 – V7 boulders, yet I just got shut down by a V4. My tendons feel weak, my knuckles hurt, and my knees are bugging me. Might this be overtraining? I’d love you opinion. (P.S. I’ve been climbing 1.5 years and my hardest ascent is a V10.) –Skyler (California)
Hi Skyler, Yeah, you’re likely overtraining a bit—25 climbing days per month is too much. If you boulder and train hard every session, then 4 days a week is the absolute limit. Progressing to V10 in 1.5 years is incredible! Naturally, improvement will slow as you climb the grading scale, and periods of plateau are inevitable. Don’t get frustrated, but instead know that it’s part of the process. The worst thing you can do (a common mistake) is to ramp up training even more (frequency and intensity) in an effort to break the plateau. While this might be the right thing for a climber only climbing 2 days per week, for YOU (someone climbing 5+ days per week) it will eventually lead to overtraining and often injury. Experiencing a drop in performance, as you are now seeing, is a sign that you are experience overtraining syndrome. I suggest you take at least a full week and then ease back into a schedule of climbing 4 days per week. Sleep and nutrition are important, too, so work on that if needed. Hope this helps. Good luck!
I bought your H.I.T. strip’s recently and I built a home wall specifically so I could train with it. I’ve recently started training in phases and with weighted pull ups, as suggested in your books and I’m finally seeing progress after more than a decade. Thank you! Question: What holds would you recommend for the feet–is there a set you would recommend? – Eric (Oregon)
Hi Eric, For foot holds….use anything you like! I suggest medium sized holds (1 – 2” deep) or even some small blocks of wood that are easy to place your feet on quickly without much thought or effort—the goal of HIT Strip training is to move quickly up and down the strips to train the upper body. This is NOT a technique training platform (use bouldering and other climbing activities for this), but simply a highly focused grip training exercise.
I’m glad to hear you’re already obtaining strength gains from the HIT System! Here are a few more tips: Consider sanding a little texture off the HIT Strips—where your fingers wrap over the holds, not where the first pad grips—to reduce skin pain/wear. In the future, when you are adding a lot of weight, you may even want to tape your fingers (if skin wear is an issue). Anyway, HIT workouts, along with bouldering and some hangboarding will definitely make a big difference in your climbing. Try to build a good program and schedule, but also be sure to get enough rest so you are fresh on outdoor rock climbing days!
Dear Eric, I used many of your training suggestions and they helped me a lot last few years. I went to a very cool climbing trip in Siurana for 3 weeks and now I stopped climbing for 3 full weeks because I feel exhausted. I had a big achievement to climb 7b/+, after long time training and trying so many routes at that grade. Now, I wonder how should I start again: running, light basic endurance or try my old projects. I realize that I’m recovering at the moment, but why do I feel deadly tired for so long? –Lambreva (Bulgaria)
Hello Lambreva, Congrats on your great trip and achievements! Yes, it’s not uncommon to be very tired after a long trip of hard climbing—the nervous system can become so fatigued that it takes a up to a few weeks to recover completely…to regain that “fresh” feeling again. Anyway, you can certainly start off training with some general conditioning such as running, a little weight lifting, antagonist training, and some easy climbing. Do this for a week or two until you feel ready to start into a new training cycle with the goal of achieving greater strength and power…and your pursuit of 7c/+! Hope this helps—good luck!
Dear Eric, I have been climbing most of my life and I’m reasonably accomplished, as an alpinist and sport climber, for my age (56). I have a busy and stressful job, but I continue to climb often, and gym training regularly—I’ve recently redpointed 13b. I am now training to have a go at Freerider on El Cap in the fall. So here are my two questions: #1. I have widely fluctuating power levels – somedays I am really strong and other days really weak (relatively speaking). I cannot for the life of me work out my cycle and I have spoken to many better climbers and none have the magic answer. This phenomenon seems to worsen with age. Do you have any advice? #2. I am stuck in my progression (my goal is to return to climbing 13+s, but quickly, not after many days of effort) with power being my main limiting factor I think and this is something I find is slipping with age and harder to regain. My training is really doing routes at the gym for endurance and bouldering for power. I have never campus or hang board trained and these may be the way to go. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. –Simon (Canada)
Hi Simon, Freerider would be an awesome accomplishment—it’s on my climbing bucket list, too! Anyway, much of what you describe I can relate too…because I experience the exact same thing (at age 51). I personally have only a few “high-power” days per month, but unfortunately many lower-power days where I’m unable to climb near my limit. Ultimately, I do think it’s an age thing—ambitious middle-aged climbers, like you and me, probably tend to train too much for our age with not enough recovery time. My high power days seem to occur when I’m coming off a 3 or 4 day break from training…or following a week of tapered training. I think the key is to identify exactly which exercises really benefit us versus exercises that just create fatigue. Reducing the latter and focusing on the former will make training more effective. Also, I find that it takes quite a bit of time to get my neural drive going—I need just the right progressive warm up to get my recruitment up….hopefully just at the right moment to give a hard route a couple good tries. It’s certainly frustrating, because in my 20s and early 30s I could climb hard all day…and recover from training in a single rest day. But not anymore…
The bottom line: I don’t think there’s any secret around what you and I are experiencing other than to train smart, rest a lot, eat right, and try to time things out so we can have a high-power day when we need it! As for training, I do think you can get some gains for a dedicated cycle on the hangboard (with weight added…perhaps up to 50% of body weight). After a few months of hangboard, you might want to add a small amount of campus training, but the risks are high with dynamic training for people our age. Hope this helps in some way. Keep in touch and let me know how Freerider goes!