How Should Climbers Train Endurance?

[@samhparker]

Love this channel for the training tips. Looking forward to using this for winter training!

[@christophejavon3509]

Great video! Quick question, can you do endurance training at the end of a session (like after finger board, boulder and power endurance circuits) and provided of course you’re not completely destroyed? Or should the endurance training be its own separate session?

[@ClimbStrongTV]

Potentially. Really depends on your work capacity and overall recovery ability. What you do not want is for the endurance training to negatively affect strength. If you're not getting stronger/better in that part of your session over time, additional endurance might not be wise. That being said, very low intensity aerobic training can be a useful recovery mode...as long as you keep it LOW!

[@christophejavon3509]

@ awsome, thank you!

[@sondrestorli2959]

Been wondering about this for a long time. Thanks for clearing this up.

[@mycose.toujours]

Absolut wisdom, as always. Thanks !

[@Dr.serhii]

Very interesting and useful, thanks a lot!

[@niklasb6849]

Hey Steve, I was wondering if monitoring heart rate would be useful while doing this? I mean runners basically don't do their sport without it. Would the same rules apply for climbing?

[@ClimbStrongTV]

That would be awesome, and a lot of climbers have tried this out. The biggest issue is that our sport is "acyclic," meaning the outputs are not at regular intervals and intensities the way that rowing or running or cycling can be. Secondarily, one of the big limiters is local muscular endurance in the arms, which has little effect on the heart rate. A fun test is to monitor heart rate while burning out on finger rolls with a barbell. Heart stays pretty steady while the forearms die... I do like HR as a general marker for when we are working below the Aerobic Threshold. On route 4x4s and nonspecific circuits, making sure we stay somewhere south of 180BPM minus age is another good indicator (in addition to conversational intensity and feeling of no pump).

[@tomstavert2690]

For route 4x4s, what length of route is best for this? I imagine you could increase the total number of pitches climbed if you only have shorter routes available (or decrease if you have access to longer routes).

[@ClimbStrongTV]

This ends up being very goal specific, but to start I'd suggest doing a whole phase of these on the same length of route / number of moves. This way you can manipulate the difficulty of the climbing without having random durations thrown into the mix. Totally flexible, too, i.e. if your routes are 50M, maybe doubles are better!

[@martinkolar9199]

for the 20x boulders is it better to go for overhang with good holds or for more vertical wall with smaller to crimpy boulders? Just wondering if endurence differs in forearm and fingers fatique

[@santiagocirigliano5322]

Great vid! but theres something I still don't understand: When climbing my project after 5 minutes, I get super pumped. There, my blood flow is mega restricted and therefore I undestand there is very little blood getting in and out of it. I guess my forearm soon starts to run out of oxygen and so, what is the main methbolic system delivering energy? If the alactic energy system is out of phosphocreatine stock and blood can not get in my forearm, is it the glycolitic?

[@felixd1127]

Another question that interests me a lot and I have not been able to clarify it for a long time. How can you find out which energy system is lacking, the anaerobic one or the aerobic energy system?

[@ClimbStrongTV]

Aerobic.

[@plastikmaiden]

I'd love to do more route 4x4. But in at the gym it feels so inconsiderate to hog routes for so long. What is your take on off the wall ARC training (aka cARCing of lattice fame)?

[@ClimbStrongTV]

More low-intensity muscular endurance work is generally good for climbers, but isolated endurance might not bring the adaptations we're looking for. It will be interesting to see if high volume gripping plays out for anyone who's really gone all-in on it. We do like intervals with a mobile hangboard attached to a rowing machine, or other creative modes of work. Even a general endurance grip workout integrated with some more total body exercise could work. And yet...being inconsiderate might still be the best option!

[@felixd1127]

Hello, I have a question: are all the things you present, including the exercises and the theoretical connections, based on any studies or just experiences? Thank you very much.

[@ClimbStrongTV]

The concept of low intensity training done to develop endurance is pretty well researched. Most specific training protocols applied to climbing are not. For most of us, a best guess is a good place to start.

[@gt4joe]

I have been doing Olli Torr’s ‘CARCING’ routine for 4 months now. Racking up 2 hrs per week. I’ve seen massive improvements in my aerobic endurance. What is your point of view on this? Do I need to do any more or is this sufficient? Thanks!

[@ClimbStrongTV]

Awesome to know. Improvements in measured endurance or in performance on the rock? Psyched to see if this plays out for people. At 2 hours per week it sure better!

[@gt4joe]

@ not done anything to measure, just performance on rock. Thankfully I do it in the car so I don’t have to sacrifice any other training.

[@ClimbStrongTV]

@@gt4joe That's perfect. Psyched to see people are getting a lot out of this. Now...we just need to figure out how to save you from driving so much!

[@elfriederich]

Can you elaborate what carcing is? Thanks in advance :)

[@ClimbStrongTV]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZjdgnmMe6uLhqM

[@DangleBertl]

I don't get why the intensity has to be that low. Let's say I do 15 pitches in the gym in a day. What is the harm of 3-4 pitches being harder, where you have to shake out and have to breathe heavy? It shouldn't matter because you still get the volume and actually have fun while training.

[@michamoin1022]

As far as i know, the problem with that is that with a higher intensity, you target the anaerobic energysystem (power endurance). Getting pumped is an indicator of your anaerobic energysystem getting tired and therefore you don't get those advantages of training the aerobic energysystem.

[@ClimbStrongTV]

@@michamoin1022 This is the idea. Main thing here is that trying to train the more intense energy systems at the same time as trying to develop aerobic endurance is hard to recover from, and the goal is slightly different. We look at this training as developing the ability to AVOID getting fatigued on climbs, where getting pumped develops the ability to HANDLE climbing in a fatigued state.