Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
Climbing: Get Stronger!
As winter sets in it’s difficult to get outside to climb but the gym provides warmth, challenge, comraderie, and tendon busting intensity. Here are a couple workouts that are fun and also beneficial to things like power and strength endurance.
Add On. This is a great game to play with three to six people. The first person hops on the wall using one hand hold and any feet and makes a move in any direction holding the hold he moved to for two seconds. The next makes that move and adds one of his own reaching his hold a holding it for two seconds as well (to show he has the ability to move off of that hold).
This pattern continues with only one rule: if you fall at anytime, you are still in but have lost the right to add moves to the end of the climb. Works best with traverses.
Burnout. Pick a couple partners (the more the merrier as you’ll be able to rest longer – but not too many as you actually want to get something out of it!) and a short climb, two grades below your max onsight. Climb the problem as smoothly as possible until your partners decide your effort wasn’t clean enough or you fall, and then you are out. Variation: 4Xs – pick the same climb and climb it four times. Focus on smooth purposeful movements.
Up Downs. Pick a climb well within your range and climb it from start to finish to start. Stay in control the whole time avoiding “falling” onto holds on the way back down. Move “statically”.
Remember to drink plenty of water, warm up properly and take full advantage of rest. More climbers injure themselves at the gym than anywhere else.
Brandon Groza
outsideallday.com Contributor
on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 12:31 am:
Groza,
Next time have someone take a picture of you in action on the wall, preferably with your shirt off. We need women to visit the site more often and Andy and I are not cutting it.
DSheek
I would fall from the wall.
on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 5:18 pm:
Agreed!