The Only Training Video Climbers Need for Exercises Selection!

There are no right ✅ or wrong ❌ exercises BUT there are better and worse exercises! 😬This is true for climbing, especially if we want to see our training transfer to climbing performance. 🧗
Have you heard of the SAID principle? It stands for; Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands, and it asserts that the human body adapts specifically to imposed demands. It demonstrates that given stressors on the human system, whether biomechanical or neurological, there will be a 'Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands', this is the principle of specificity! 🤯
In this video, we give you the tools to identify which exercises are more or less specific 🎯 to your climbing AND how to waste less energy 🔥 with the bad ones.
This can be done with a simple 5 step process:
1️⃣Movement characteristics
2️⃣Joints
3️⃣Muscles
4️⃣ Choose the exercise
5️⃣Select the velocity
There is still a BIG question, however, why do some non-specific exercises help me climb harder then❓ We answer this question too because training does not always need to be specific to be beneficial! 👍
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[@JulioCoudio]

The "focus on consistency, not specific" advice for beginners is the best there is. Don't overthink, just start, you'll win an immense amount of time.

[@yercules]

I agree with this overall. Just be mindful of not aiming for too much (sarcoplasmic) hypertrophy in the lower extremity. From personal experience I can say it's harder to loose (unnecessary) muscle mass there, even when being in a caloric deficit and trying sedentary tactics. But such muscular gains won't happen overnight though.

[@JulioCoudio]

As someone overweighed that cannot perform even one pull-up, hypertrophy is not really and immediate danger. At least I have this advantage! The question now is to find the good proportion between loads, reps and rest.

[@Me1234utube]

@@JulioCoudioBeen there ! Pull ups ; try 12 reps x 5 sets 5 min rests, Adjust load; best is a pulley system to take weight off, if you can’t set that up, do “ Let Downs “ stand on a chair to get to the finish of the bar and just lower. Load is not exhausted at end; If after 3 months this is not working or improvement stops, try 4 reps x 4sets 5 mins rest between sets ,Load is hard , good luck, keep your protein up.

[@mr-iz8cx]

In your case you're better off focusing on climbing and thoughtful weight loss than prioritising strength training. A pull up is made so much easier at 10-15% body fat than whatever you might be carrying now. Read up on it dude. Very rarely do you see people at 100kg, 10% fat doing body weight pull ups for more than 1,2,3 reps. Because they can't. I stopped doing pull ups consistently at about V5 and stopped climbing at about V10/11. I just didn't do them, people think they're absolutely necessary and they aren't. I'd say different barbell rows have greater potential. Particularly for creating power. If you aren't doing them right, you easily risk destabilising your shoulders which will suck big time early on in your journey particularly. This is much easier to do if you are relatively weak. Not that you will stay that way✌️ Have fun climbing. It's not a race.

[@TAS_CNX]

Agree, building the habits is the most important thing first off, can optimize them later

[@georgeargiriadis112]

This is really great. I'd like to revisit this later and I think this will come in handy: Timestamps: 1:47 Step 1 - Identify a movement you want to improve at 3:01 Step 2 - Identify the joints in use 3:49 Step 3 - Identify the muscles in use 5:07 Step 4 - Select exercises that target these areas 6:45 - Consider muscle length 9:22 Step 5 - Movement Velocity

[@Whueso]

Mostly climbing and then getting in the gym and doing some antagonist work 1-2 times per week has worked well for me. More specifically though, hammy and glute work for them high fully extended heels. I hate feeling like my hams are going to explode out of my legs every time I pull hard, so sometimes the exercises I choose are to minimize the psychological discomfort of injury fears.

[@LatticeTraining]

Great call on the hammy and glute work! More climbers need this.

[@TheRockinPunk]

I found that progressing with bodyweight dips transferred well to topping out on boulders where the footholds are sketchy or non-existent. I'd recommend using fixed dip bars over the rock rings as the extra stability helps to drive strength and hypertrophy.

[@julianisface]

I've seen massive benefit in Cossack squats and Copenhagen planks. I can actually push through my feet and hips so much better now that I have strength in the hips glutes and adductors

[@zacharylaschober]

10:33 I find this important to note but hypertrophy is an adaptation promoted by mechanical tension, alike strength, but requires a constant caloric surplus. Lower rep ranges are still hypertrophic, and higher rep ranges still get people strong though there is a host of context surrounding training history and weekly volume and proximity to failure and more which is needed. Few climbers venture to such an extreme higher rep range to need to make the distinction.

[@harlimaw]

Hey Lattice! Thank you for showing the Chest Fly using TRX. May I suggest a video that features only the use of Gymnastic Rings for climbing benefits? This the only tool I got at home. Have an awesome year ahead!

[@R3FL3XSN1P3R]

Pull ups (all variants- arched body, hollow body, explosive, to chest, to hips), dips, rows (elevate feet at different angles- all the way to tucked front lever rows), pushups (on floor, but build to ring), hanging leg raises, rollouts, hamstring curls (tuck feet in them lying flat on back, elevated arse, pull towards you), build up to pistol squats using them to assist where needed , chest fly, reverse fly. If you do all that that's all you'll need for climbing and beyond.

[@WendelinvonRedwitz]

Thank you for your video! (Turkish) slow motion get ups work well for me to activate the hams + shoulders + back. I think it is more activation and mobility then a real power exercise. I can recommend it :)

[@mr-iz8cx]

Good to see strength training for climbing has moved forward. I remember ten years ago coming into contact with powerlifting, after a climbing injury and realising how primitive climbing strength training was. Basically a ladder of progressive overload with no periodisation and basic preventative training. Poor nutritional advice also. Great way to injure oneself and have progression, mostly relying on the luck of your genetic profile and hard work. I'm sure I wasn't getting the absolute best info, but I was definitely doing some digging, watching and listening

[@LatticeTraining]

Yeah we still see some very basic and even poor advise in the climbing community today. Often based on "this is what I did". But it is getting a lot better with many good coaches and creators out there with good information.

[@GJ_0008]

This is a nice concise distillation of what can be a complex topic. It would be nice to have had a mension of how to progressively overload (or more likely not!) and manage with periodisation, RPE/RIR so you don't just stay on a path of continually adding weight or reps to failure untill you inevitably get injured! I guess this would make the video too long and be best placed on a seperate vid. Thanks for this one though. Coming from the starting point of 'what do i want to improve' and anatomy rather than 'I think i should do these exersises because I see others doing them' is a good point.

[@50crates-]

To not forget core strength you could add some hanging knee raises or full hanging leg raises (l-shape raises). As a beginner with not a lot of core strength yet this helped me enourmously on the wall

[@sumpin_or_other]

The hardest part I've been working on is balancing strength training and climbing. For example, working targeted muscles twice a week but also wanting to be recovered in time for climbing

[@sumpin_or_other]

Because if you're still sore and still recovering (from either training or climbing) and you interfere with that recovery by training or climbing it can hinder the full benefits from either

[@matthewsevers5862]

I struggle with this balance too. What I’ve come up with is, not every session (lifting or climbing) can be maximal effort. So I try to structure longer rest periods after very high intensity sessions and less around lower intensity sessions. I also structure my year around my goals. Training/ lifting a lot/harder in the off season and climbing more during the season.

[@craigbritton1089]

Cardio is very important if you have long or steep approaches. And if you have both; even more so. I have found wind sprints to be more beneficial and more fun than long runs.

[@Jcupzor]

Wrist curls (all kinds) has helped my grip strength (slopers!) and overall hypertrophy of the forearms immensely and ring flys have taught me to engage my shoulders properly on the wall, which I really lacked before. Also doing alternating push exercises and pullups at the moment :-) Ty for great content as always.

[@Jcupzor]

I would also like to add in bicep curls but It just seems like too many different exercises to me at once! Do you have any advice for how much strength training to supplement with? Currently climbing 3 times a week and strength training 2 times a week, usually after climbing.

[@LatticeTraining]

Great suggestions with your exercises, thanks! Regarding the amount of strength training, 2x/wk is a good frequency. Doing more is often fine, but it really depends on your current level of recovery, training history and current training volume. If you want to add more, make sure you are well established at your current training volume. If increasing training frequency to more training days, think about programming different muscles groups through the week.

[@Jcupzor]

@@LatticeTraining "...make sure you are well established at your current training volume" very useful advice and key thing to remember for me. Thank you!

[@tobyrandles47]

Brilliant video, quality information steadily communicated 👍

[@KannKeinenSinnMachen]

Thanks for your high quality content!

[@stefanr00]

It is hard to nail transferability of an exercise because it depends on a lot of factors. I think that the benefit of strength training for only one specific move on one specific boulder (your project) is very limited because of the limited amount of characteristics you can copy into an exercise and the best exercise is this move itself (projecting). Also this depends on: are you really not strong enough for this boulder, or is there some other factor making this move hard like coördination, technique or commitment? Consider that in an off-the-wall exercise you are only going to improve on strength. For generally getting better at certain moves (and also to lower injury risk), there is a lot more benefit of strength training I think. I would like to add to this video that for optimizing transferability it is also important to analyse muscle function (is the intented move concentric, eccentric or isometric?) and apply this in the exercise. For improving heel hook specific strength for example I like to do single leg bridges with the heel of the leg in a TRX. I then pull the TRX towards me with the heel much like in a heel hook move on the wall.

[@ezclimbs]

Great video! Agree with a lot of it! When I first started strength training, just the fact that I was doing any strength training at all led to big gains in my climbing. Since then, I’ve been put through various exercise plans by various people and, most recently, keeping things simple has been working really well. You’ve also reminded me that I need to improve my cardio to gain some general fitness but I really struggle to stick with cardio exercise regimes 😅

[@garronfish8227]

Ive trained the frogger streach, specific sloper holds on a hangboard and endurance to be able to do some bouldering projects in the past two years. But hope to make use of this video info to train for future projects.

[@daanschone1548]

Focus on one or two things for at least a few months. Don't make it complicated. Complicated plans are hard to stick with.

[@XTjonaW]

Love this 💯% TRUE !!!

[@garronfish8227]

Such good advice thanks so much

[@paveld9249]

thanks

[@yercules]

In addition to this I would recommend: Power cleans and 45 degree squats (high velocity) for dyno's, unilateral squats (pistols, splits) for slabs/volumes, body rows and cuban rotations for overhang. Dips for mantles and such.

[@LatticeTraining]

Thanks! I am working on pistol squats again for the same reason. I had not realised how weak my legs had gotten at full depth after neglecting these for a year. I also like Cossack squats for the same reason.

[@yercules]

@@LatticeTraining Yessir! I like cossacks as well! It's also more enjoyable to perform unilateral movements imo. Although not time efficient: do you think unilateral rdl's are beneficial too?

[@LatticeTraining]

@@yercules I do unilateral rdl's but only with a flexibility focus. I do a really slow tempo and push maximum ROM. When training strength I do a normal rdl.

[@stampatron]

Bodyweight straight bar dips help an awful lot with topping out/mantles

[@LatticeTraining]

Great! I think this is underrated, especially for climbers heading to Fontainebleau or similar areas with hard top outs

[@robertspoerri1557]

Hi there. Great short video.Thanks once again for the effort. I was wondering whether you could give us some more information or a video about the ideal load when doing power / velocity based exercises. what percentage of the 1 RPM is suitable for the main movement patterns doing velocity based training (bench press, squat, deadlift, pull). I saw you doing fast deadlifts with 40 kg in the video. Assuming your 1RPM ist about 140 kg, that would be like 30% of the 1 RPM. Can this be transfered to all movement equally? E.g. my 1 RPM for Pull-Ups is like +50 kg, can I do 2-3 sets with 4-6 reps of +30% = +15 kg pull-ups? Thanks for the help

[@LatticeTraining]

That's a good questions but I don't have a simple answer for you. Different movement will benefit from different relative intensities. First consider if you are generating force from a mechanically advantageous position and the range of motion. If we take Olympic lifting for example, the different derivatives use different loads based on how hard it is to generate force from the starting position. Another example is full ROM squats (might be done single leg elevated on a box) or partial ROM squats (countermovement jumps). There are also different thoughts about the "optimal" load because the force-velocity curve is a spectrum. General recommendations are anywhere from 30-70% of 1RM. If you are considering the pull-up also include your bodyweight (you are still pulling this). If you weigh 80kg and pull +50kg. Your calc should be 130*0.3. So 30% would be 39kg (total). This means for a high velocity pull, you want approx. half your body weight assistance. You'll be using a thick resistance band to make this practical. Even the most elite climbers will not do power pull-ups above bodyweight.

[@alexexistsyes]

For strength training, is it a good idea to invest in lifting straps, so we put less strain on the forearms? Like on weighted pull ups as an example? Or for climbing might as well go without the lifting straps?

[@HugoBroad]

How should I train endurance for lead with a fingerboard.

[@illustrationmaking]

….(don’t bounce the bar on your chest….lower slowly…pause… explode upward…. #benchpress… stay safe 😉)

[@V8chump]

Am I just lucky that I’ve gotten v10 with almost no specific training? There almost seems to be too many mid exercises muddying the waters

[@aurelienfontaine6287]

You should change your username to V10Chump

[@DaneFerolin]

Consistency is king 👑

[@AKNmlb5]

I saw Tyler Nelson compare the ring fly and the bench press on IG as well and I'm a little confused with the comparison... To me, the ring/TRX fly is the preferred exercise for rock climbing specific adaptations because of its closed chain nature and its similarity to rock climbing movement when compared to bench press. Sure the bench press can be overloaded more simply, but the ring/TRX fly can be overloaded via changing the angle of your body with respect to the ground or straightening/benching your elbows. I suppose if chest development/strengthening is the goal the bench press is more advantageous, but if we apply the SAID (specific adaptation to imposed demand) principle, the ring fly is clearly more applicable to rock climbing (squeezing, etc as mentioned in video). That's not to say that both don't have their place in a properly developed training plan for rock climbing.

[@gball8466]

Just superset the bench press with dumbbell flys. It saves time and works both aspects: the push and the squeeze.

[@deltaflux2381]

If you change the angle of a TRX fly, all you do is put more emphasis on the shoulders, triceps and core, because you end up more horizontal. Besides, TRX flys are supposed to mimic compression moves, and I cannot imagine a scenario where you need compression while being in a horizontal position (with your belly pointing to the ground). TRX flys cannot be properly overloaded.

[@climbscience4813]

@@deltaflux2381 Sorry, but that's wrong. As long as you move your feet such that the straps maintain the same angle to your body, the only thing that the more horizontal body position does is increase the force that you have to overcome. The fact that your body is horizontal also does not imply that it transfers more to horizontal positions in climbing. One thing I agree with is that at some point it becomes difficult to overload the exercise. As soon as you're parallel to the ground, you would have to start with weight vests. Most people are very far away from that strength wise though.

[@climbscience4813]

I agree. In my experience it can be more difficult to set up ring flys to be more consistent in difficulty due to body angle variations and range of motion variations. This is much easier in the bench press. I think the bench is also more stable and thus might allow for higher motor recruitment therefore. I would still prefer the ring fly for climbing specificity.

[@Arithmophobia]

just don’t trust anything Tyler nelson says

[@joolsgrommers1466]

Nice black holds in the background there Josh. 😉

[@kenderpl]

Stiff leg deadlift (what was said in the video) is not the same as Romanian deadlift (what was captioned in the video).

[@LatticeTraining]

Yes, I said it wrong. Realised this in the edit hence the caption. Sorry for any confusion.

[@plastikmaiden]

The RDL is a variation of the SLDL. @RenaissancePeriodization aught to know. kzbin.info/www/bejne/l3momGB6edRnnLssi=AGejo6qz2Rkc_GPk

[@craigbritton1089]

Some Yosemite Squeeze Chimneys will have pushing away from a wall strength used.

[@bobwojcik6196]

I enjoy doing 1 and 2 hand kettlebell swings.

[@diegolanzarote97]

Yoga in general❤

[@hampusdanielsson6860]

why not a regular deadlift?

[@mikeroberts817]

Much less effect on the hamstrings in the regular deadlift. Since the knee bends the hamstring doesn't have to change in length much through the movement, so it isn't stimulated as much as the RDL/SLDL.

[@zionraymondcastro]

❤💪🏻

[@paulgaras2606]

I’m currently doing rdls, weighted pull-ups, dumbbell flies and rotational overhead dumbbell press in my post-endurance-bouldering-session-lifting. Every climbing session I warm up with no hangs to about 75% of my bodyweight on each hand, and easy tension board at 30degrees This has been the training cycle where I’ve seen the most dramatic improvement. I think it’s down to figuring out where and when to put the really fatiguing sessions in my weekly training routine. We are in the wet part of winter right now but I can’t wait to get after some test pieces at the crag once the weather get cold and dry.

[@LatticeTraining]

Thanks! A great and well-rounded set of exercises. Good luck for Spring time sending!

[@MrNickcrush]

Why not do chinups for biceps? it has the same pulling motion doesnt it?

[@LatticeTraining]

Yes chin-ups are a great option. This video is not to suggest the "best" exercise, just show the process of choosing any exercise. However I would say bicep curls are more accessible. In the past, when we have suggested things like chin-ups or pull-up many people point out they can't do these at bodyweight and require a lot of assistance to start. So bicep curls can be a better option until they have gained more strength.

[@thenayancat8802]

Hard to progress a TRX/ring fly? I haven't found that at all, just make it more horizonal. Certainly seems to be a valued exercise for Ghisolfi and Megos, so I might stick with it...

[@LatticeTraining]

Try not to read into something we haven't said. The ring fly is valid and valuable. We simply think the bench press is easier to measure and progress IF chest strength is the aim. It is easier to add small increments of weight, perform the same ROM with each rep, maintain the same form and measure training load. You can even track bar velocity if you want. If you want to include the biceps as a fixator in the exercise, the ring fly might be for you.

[@thenayancat8802]

You said that a benefit of the bench press is the ability to "progressively overload and get more recruitment into the muscles, which we might not achieve very easily with something like a TRX fly". ie, it is not easy to progressively overload the trx/ring fly. I think my summary is absolutely fair tbh Consistency is a fair point, though; it probably takes more care to have consistent ROM etc @@LatticeTraining

[@harryjerks]

I'd say cardio can be really helpful - if you've got a long schlep up to the crag, you want plenty of gas left over after the hike to put into your climb. If you're driving to a bouldering gym, hitting the weights makes plenty of sense.

[@hissenpissen3588]

It’s probably never bad having good cardio!

[@FartFartovic]

Funny how you guys moved to basic strength training over tax over the year. It's like C4HP made you think differently...

[@LatticeTraining]

We've always liked basic strength and we still practice S&C like we did a year ago, nothing has changed there. The inspiration from this video actually came from researcher Chris Beardsley and his book "Strength is Specific". I highly recommend it. But I won't lie, the fact Tyler's posts create traction and discourse in the community helps the success of any media posted around the same topics. Maybe a campus video next 😉

[@bogdann.2832]

these vids are too damn nerdy honestly

[@evanbennett8954]

Can you just give us some damn exercises without over explaining holy shit

[@noahmaillouxmusic]

Dude for real. Their videos are nearly unwatchable because they just yap endlessly without saying a god damn thing.

[@RudySitter]

Thank you @c4hp. for inspiring the content! 😊

[@LatticeTraining]

I know Tyler is a fan of this topic! Original inspiration from Chris Beardsley who has written good stuff on this topic of strength training. I think Tyler is a fan of his work too.

[@thebionicclimber9187]

@@LatticeTraining Good to know the origin.