How to train early, or late, or when you only have 10 minutes

I'm starting a vlog. This is episode #1. This vlog will be about all things climbing - hard climbs, new climbs, training, science, deep dives and things I've learned and I think might help you too.
Vlog #1 is an ask me anything and I deal with how to manage circadian rhythm with a ton of different inputs so you are sharp and ready for early morning (or any time you like) training. And how to be a climber despite having hardly any time. Like 10 minutes. Yes, you can get strong in your ten minute break.
I hope you enjoy and to catch the future episodes, do subscribe to my channel. 12 years of blogging on training for climbing, plus all my books are on my website www.davemacleod.com

[@matthew6732]

When Dave answers a question he REALLY answers a question.

[@serenekitchen]

Stannis Baratheon is a rock climber!? All hail the lord of light

[@AAMGG]

Yessss, finally hahaha

[@MythAvatar]

I kid you not, i saw the guy that plays Stannis in a film and was like, WTF DAVE?? then realized...I've seen all 7 seasons too.

[@karlbrittan]

Hi Dave, many thanks for the 10min wo. During a four month break after the birth of my second son, I dropped from 5.12 to 5.9. Performing this wo 5 times per week, plus one 3h climb has allowed me to regain essentially all of my previous ability in 6 weeks. It is simple, effective, enjoyable and easy to try hard again and again.

[@clairemacleod7310]

Thats brilliant Karl!

[@Jaded-Wanderer]

Best climbing channel on youtube

[@CoyoWyWy]

Dave, you're one of the most inspirational climbers out there. I've learned so much about improving at climbing from your books, blog, etc. Your pragmatic and science minded approach to training and climbing is much appreciated. When I need to get psyched for a trip or redpoint your send videos are a go to! Thanks for all the great content you put out!

[@synyzal772]

So glad I found this channel a week or so ago; steadily making my way through the videos. The information is so good as someone who's getting into climbing at 27 and looking to improve quickly but safely.

[@virgill6881]

1. pushups max intensity, (around 5 -6 reps, max 10) 2. pull-ups max intensity / one arm pull-up 3. max hang (10 sec), 1 min break: 3.1. 4 finger openhanded 3.2. 3 finger openhanded drag 3.3. half crimp 4. max pullups w/ strict form on easy to hold edge

[@markuskoops]

I wish I came across a video/info like this a few years back. What you are talking about is exactly the things that helped me manage my sleeping disorder. I can't stress how important it is to adhere to this rules strictly if you have problems with your sleep cycle and how much this helps. Stopping to eat after a certain time and stopping exposure to sources of blue light combined with a "clean" (no noise/light) sleeping environment literally made the difference between 1-3h and 8h of good sleep a night. Really good information and you seem well informed on the issue. I'm a bit surprised to stumble across this in a climbing vlog but it's always good to spread this info as I'm sure there are a lot of people suffering from sleeping problems out there.

[@nelsonianb1289]

I really appreciate the thorough and genuine reaponse you give, regardless of subject. Especially hearing from somepne whom has suffered from depression amd has spend a great deal of time figuring how to live like a normal human. As a 31 uear old I still struggle with it. So these videos of how you have gotten your body tp function normay. Hope you are well.

[@0RANGOTANG]

Can't wait for more of this series Dave!

[@richardbyrom]

So many useful tips, I love the way its all backed up with scientific research

[@reztlebwettam1053]

Thank you Dave for taking time out of your busy schedule to provide this content for all to view!

[@rafsroka]

This is probably the best climbing video I've seen. I have all your books Dave and now this! It is so helpful! Thanks!

[@nsewnsew1]

Thanks very much for these informative vlogs, they're great. I've got a daughter, a full time job, and fitting in climbing is a juggling act. Much appreciated to hear some sound advice.

[@SgtSnausages]

I think I love you, my man. Your videos are amazeballz.

[@dadbod4038]

great vid from one of my fave crushers ;)

[@coltish]

So good to hear your thoughts on sleeping. I am actually on KZbin because I couldn't sleep, despite eating a handful of pistachios (high in melatonin) and Magnesium Glycinate (I read good things for people with issues falling asleep). What I believe I did wrong, after hearing your findings: I ate late (wholegrain bread, avocado, and a hard-boiled egg should be enough fat to put me to sleep!?!?), and I also take my phone to bed with me every night to play sleep audio. I use night mode on my phone but maybe it would help more to just put it in another room. I also took a hot shower and I was struggling with getting my body temperature to a comfortable level. Other than that, my circadian rhythm is off and if I think about anything that gets my heart rate going, then, it always seems to keep me up. Cheers! Going to try everything you mentioned and see if it helps, especially being strict about the routine. My wife and I are having a little girl in a couple months and I need to get it together! Haha :) I notice a big difference in quality of training and recovery when I sleep early and well.

[@CptBrave]

Hi Dave, Just wanting to say you inspire the hell out of me. I enjoy your ease and calm attitude although you climb hard - push yourself hard on your goals. I wish you the best and want to thank you to share us who you are.

[@climbermacleod]

Thanks!

[@seamus354]

Really enjoyed this and loved that you back up what you are saying with research as well, can’t wait for the next blog!

[@YoureInSilico]

Subbed for your quality hangboard tutorial and I'm really glad I did.

[@TomCastellani]

Watching this video late in the evening when I know I should be getting to sleep it feels like Dave is literally telling me to stop the video and get my the laptop. :D

[@alexthomas5178]

Loved this Dave, obviously a lot of work went into making this. Looking forward to watching the coming episodes!

[@spencerinspain]

Dave this is awesome. Esp 10 min workout. Very practical and real. Keep it coming!

[@vapofusion]

This was really great for drilling down a quick routine for me in the morning 👌

[@Drinkyoghurt]

Dave, you can use f.lux on your computer/laptop/phone or if you have an iPhone use the built in functionality for filtering out the blue light once it becomes late outside. Use warm LED or halogen bulbs for your room lighting. Also if you have an iPhone the new iOS 12 has built in screen-time monitoring for your different apps such as social media and can lock you out. I have found that if I take my phone with me to bed I will stay up to 04:00 sometimes, whereas without it I struggle to stay awake at midnight.

[@tobywright5942]

Thanks very much for choosing my question and the very informative answer! All really helpful stuff. How do I claim my prize?

[@climbermacleod]

Thanks Toby, Could you please drop me a line www.davemacleod.com/contact.html and let me know which of my books you would like and where to send. Thanks!

[@muscularibuprofen69]

I was delighted to see this from you. I've been a fan of your work for a while. Great episode and looking forward to the series!

[@conradclipper]

Another brilliant video. Love ya Dave.

[@colm_fitzgerald]

Very valuable stuff here. Thanks, Dave!

[@teoo315]

Really interesting the 10mins routine. Thanks for sharing your experience and scientific knowledge. It would be great a focus on aerobic and anaerobic training for climbing!

[@MrMungo6]

Dave is the man.

[@libertinesrock]

Really like this from you Dave! Will have to rethink my sleeping patterns after this. Just one thing I would love from the next video; as a headphone listener, is there any chance you could be wearing a slightly less rustly jacket next time.

[@gaboriel]

Thats a funky but GOOD ASS title

[@camilocarrillo2132]

great!

[@paulmorrey733]

Thanks Dave

[@penko123]

i do that very often, training in a 10 min time space but i often have problems with finger injurys because you cant really warm up in a 10 min training when you want to give maximum strength

[@MrCraigieBoi]

Great video with some great info I have subscribed :)

[@anthonyguevara5650]

Great info, mate!

[@edek6702]

I read that it is the intensity of light that triggers the suppression of melatonin, whether or not it is blue light does not matter so much as the intensity of the light. So any light before bed will affect the circadian rhythm. What are your thoughts on this, Dave? Love the vlog!

[@FerAdventures]

If you don't mind I can answer this question (I have lots of research after struggling to sleep for ages!). The intensity of the light without blue spectrum needs to be very high in order to suppress the production of melatonin. With low variation the filtering of bue light is the main factor to avoid this: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15713707. Also there are a coupe of studies that proves that the Blue Light Blockers work: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25287985

[@nikpapan]

Thanks for all your videos. If one arm is far less strong than the other, does it make sense to train the weak one more?

[@jetjaxon]

Awesome! Subbed. I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on managing illness - such as cold and flu, around training. For the past few years I have had 3-4 colds a year, some of which become bad coughs that sap 1-2 weeks of training/climbing each. What do you do to prevent cold and flu? When you do get sick, do you keep climbing and training?

[@terraflow__bryanburdo4547]

I used to get chronic respiratory infections as well; went to intermittent fasting and low-carb/high fat diet, and reduced my training volume (catabolic), went to more power-based training (anabolic). Three winters in a row now without a sniffle.

[@terraflow__bryanburdo4547]

At one point at least, Dave was on a similar diet; not sure about nowadays.

[@petarchalamov]

awesome video! thanks and looking forward to the new ones! Question on the 10 min program - i find it very hard to perform at max on a HB if I havent specifically warmed up my fingers. If I do one set w/o warmup ill most definitely be significantly worse compared to if I do 2 3 warmup sets and then go for max. Would you recommend replacing some of the other exercises with more hangs, or so long as the effort is max the actual hold/performance doesnt rly matter?

[@climbermacleod]

Well for starters this is a last resort workout if you absolutely cannot spare more than 10 minutes out of your day and the other 15:50 waking hours are full on non-modifiable activities that are more important than your climbing. It has to be seen in that context. If you can find an additional 5 minutes, just use it to warm up a bit more. If not, maybe there is another workaround, like a little grip master squeezing sneaked in during whatever activity you do before the workout.

[@lukasandersson1406]

Great video!!

[@MajinguUganija]

Feeling kinda stupid cause I just realized that u are the guy from the book (9/10 climbers) LoL. Anyway, cool informative Vlog.

[@climbscience4813]

Hey Dave! Absolutely love the amount of thought you put into things. I am also currently trying to reduce the amount of time I need for working out. One thing I do is taking my warmups (around 15 rep-max or 6 rep max on 7s/3s repeaters) to 1-2 reps shy of failure. As a consequence, my warm up is a proper workout in and of itself. However, by training this way, I seem to spend only half or a third of my workout below my 10 rep-max. Do you think that's a bad thing? Most climbers seem to gravitate towards training max strength most of the time...

[@mathieuwilliams4203]

Legend!!!

[@dannygrout92]

Awesome video dave, really interesting super detailed and insightful. Question: I switched to an 8 hour eating pattern in the last few months after hearing about circadian rhythms. Doing 12 pm till 8pm eating, because it fits my day well. How detrimental is this in terms of it not matching with the morning blue light ? (considering I'm out the door at 8am every day). Would be really keen to hear your thoughts !! Thanks for the videos, really want to see more!!!

[@climbermacleod]

I don't know. It probably depends. It may matter less if you have all the other strategies dialled. One way to find out - experiment!

[@dannygrout92]

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply!! Definitely been seeing moderate improvements, but I guess deconvoluting that progress from just training and eating okay is all part of the fun!

[@FerAdventures]

What is more important is to eat during the day. Long periods of fasting seem to be highly beneficial for general health and support the circadian rhythms. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25404320. The circadian rhythm and peripheral rhythms not only tells you when to go to sleep or start the day. It control lots of your body functions, therefore if you don't eat in the morning but you get out under sunlight that will be the signal to your body have to activate. Eating every day at 12 will help preparing your body to process the food, something unrelated with sleeping patters but still important.

[@richardhorner4785]

Hi Dave, I completely agree with you about creating a bedroom atmosphere that best allows for a good nights sleep. But I am having a difficulty with this. One is if my room is super dark I can sometimes struggle to get up in the morning without the natural light.. or better put, find it a lot easier to get up with the light form the natural day (at least in the spring and summer). I have a SAD light but I still have a tendency to snooze the bugger... Obviously the two concepts are contradictory. its best to sleep in pure dark and wake to natural light... what is your get around??

[@Ishanji02]

Hi Dave, thanks a lot for your effort! I have a fingerboard - posture question after watching and enjoying quite some of your videos. Why are you engaging your arm when hanging (especially with one arm) on the fingerboard? Because of tendonitis (golfer) prevention? I usually try to have a straight arm as possible but maybe that's bad? Thanks a lot Dave and keep it up! You're a big inspiration for me! :-)

[@climbermacleod]

Thanks. I like using a bent arm but I don't always do it this way and I do not really know if it matters as a general rule.

[@fezzip]

Thanks Dave, this was very helpful! Fortunately, I live in Sheffield, so quite close to a good range of crags. I will try the 10 mins workout - I never thought that 10 mins could be sufficient for a workout! Just to clarify, would you recommend doing this every day - excluding the days when one can have a longer session? Looking forward to the next vlogs.

[@climbermacleod]

Yes every day, unless someone's training status is low enough, or recovery lifestyle poor enough that they can't recover even from this by the next day.

[@samueldavidson7956]

Dave MacLeod I get a pain deep in the pec (moving up towards the shoulder) when doing the press-ups. I think it’s a small muscle tear but months of rest/recovery/laziness has not fixed it. Any suggestions? Really irritating as I can’t do press-ups as warmups anymore, never previously had an issue and also don’t have any pain day to day or when pulling on anything.

[@theoainleyandco]

theres a free app for your phone and computer called Flux which filters out the blue light in your screens gradually through the evening (even follows sunset times through the year) which works amazingly. you get used to the orange hue after a while of using

[@climbermacleod]

It would be worth watching the vlog, where it says that at 5:27.

[@theoainleyandco]

Dave MacLeod oops didnt notice that caption!!

[@stevencooney9236]

Hi Dave. Is it accurate to say that while training (for example pull-up, push-up, open finger hang) singular maximum efforts or efforts requiring 3 sets (for example) or less require less recovery time than efforts over long training sessions that also create muscular failure? Does a sub-max plod towards local muscular failure take much more time to recover from than single max bouts? I'd figure that if short max efforts can be re-visited more times each week we can make more gains whilst enjoying climbing days at full-recovery.

[@stevemcqueen1968]

What jacket is that? I love it 😍

[@saadiqbey87]

Mountain equipment

[@stevemcqueen1968]

@@saadiqbey87 but what model

[@denislejeune9218]

Thanks for that. Especially enjoyed the training routine. I guess that for 10min you don't adjust your food intake, right? On that note, a blog or part of one on your diet (or the recommended one) would be interesting.

[@climbermacleod]

Oh yes, some diet vlogs are coming. And no, there's no need to worry about eating extra calories after expending so little energy. Stored energy will cover this workout just fine, and be replenished by the next day. You could also do this workout in an overnight fasted state no problem,

[@denislejeune9218]

Ok thanks, looking forward to that. How does this routine square with training at the gym though? Do you mean do the 10min on top of any other fingerboard training, or instead of? (sorry if I sound a bit anal)

[@climbermacleod]

Instead of. This is if you have no time to get to a wall/crag.

[@denislejeune9218]

cheers again.

[@kewner8219]

I'd also love to hear your thoughts on diet! Also, finding a balance between climbing (bouldering in my case) and strength training is something I still struggle with.

[@gregborman6299]

Hello Dave, so grateful for this advice!! I'm a new dad and new business owner and trying to make the trasition from doing workout seasions with multiple days rest to small workout multipul times a day has been demorelisingly hard. Could you please just clarify what you mean by "3 finger open dragged" in the crimp positions section of the max hangs? dragged is not a term I am familiar with?

[@climbermacleod]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJaudmiMfZpgp8k @8.01

[@gregborman6299]

AWESOME! thank you

[@frenchfree]

If I had few pints o heavy the night before and drank a full pint of water before going to sleep. Should I put off that hard mixed route with a two hour approach or just rely on modern ice tools to keep the day short?

[@JorikD]

Funny how I’m watching training videos at 05:04 because I can’t sleep.... Then Dave talks about not using your phone before going to bed...

[@douglasthomson4550]

You don't need animal sources for these nutrients. Not to mention heavy metals in fish etc and atherosclerosis causing fats in meats.. See anything bu Dr Michael Gregor or Mic the Vegan on KZbin. Also see Game Changers to see that animal cruelty is not a prerequisite to athletic excellence.

[@climbermacleod]

LOL you won't have seen my review of the Game Changers movie on this channel then.

[@Kelalasdemonx]

Love a cold shower in the morning because it wakes me up. How does a cold shower at night make you sleep easier?

[@zaczac]

непонятно