Climbing

For encouragement, if that helps, it is a lot easier to get it back than it is to gain it, muscles form a sort of memory (not the muscle memory people usually think of) and once you start using them again, it takes much less time to get back to functionally same strength.

Hard to give you too specific tips, but heres some:

• Spend time fingerboarding every session. During my warmup I like to do sets of 3x 5-8 on 3-5 off, at 60-80% (if closer to 60% then I might do sets of 5) of my maximum. In between hangs ill do 3-5 mins rests where ill be doing other warmup excercises. Don’t need to have legs off the floor, start lower intensity and increase with successive sets. This both helps with long term finger strength, but also makes your fingers grip better for the session since you’ve recruited the muscles by progressively loading them.

• Forget the grade, tape color or whatever system your gym uses. Grading is inconsistent and subjective and does not count your specific strengths and weaknesses. There will be higher grades you can climb and lower ones that will wreck you. Use it as a rough guide, but at the end of the day what matters is how hard the climb is to you.

• In the same vain, forget optics, dont focus on completion as intended, use other holds to make moves easier erc. The goal is to learn moves and get better and have fun. I always try climbs out of my range and I get excited when I can tack on a move I couldn’t make last session. Eventually you can string the whole sequence together.

• Focus on good form (silent, precise steps, good body positions, dropknees etc) on easy climbs, I find this transforms boring climbs into something more interesting. Focus on how this feels. It can make me feel like a pro climber climbing like this on a V0-1-2, you don’t really experience this when climbing hard climbs, the focus is just not there. I do this for my warmup climbs, but returning it can be worthwile dedicating longer sessions to this.

• If you feel climbs are too hard, maybe try the spraywall, if it is set well and the angle is doable. You can find easier versions of moves you can’t do on set problems and it takes away the stress of reaching the finish hold. Just try fun moves.

• Dont overtrain (keep the load reasonable, stop climbing when performance drops, you feel like the grip is just not there anymore), sleep well, eat good food after workouts (all the time, of course, but especially).

• Finish off your sessions with a strength workout, but don’t overdo it. You don’t need gymbro routines with 10 excercises at 5 sets each. Your main training is on the wall. Dont be afraid of “easy” variations. Pullups (with a band if you have to, horizontal or negative pullups), pushups or ring dips (latter is better but harder and more daunting, recruit a band if needed) and a core excercise or squats of some variation, don’t sweat the specific kind at the moment. Anything between 2-5 sets, as you tolarate and want will be fine. I usually jam these into a superset, shooting for reps around 1-2 reps in reserve, with 3-5 mins rest in between sets and since I like to be efficient, I do some flexibility work during that time. For upper body, difficulty in the 3-8 rep range will be best, generally, but this is dependent on the excercise. If you hit 10-12 3x, you can safely move to a harder variation.

E: Oh, and importantly, rest between attempts, dont keep throwing yourself at the wall and expect better performance without rest. Start from the place you failed so you can try the hard move rested.