Had the opportunity to film a few videos showing different techniques for improving your power endurance, with support from Metolius. The first one is based around the use of a campus board, except with your feet on the board at the back. The other three all use finger boards, which is great is you have limited space (one with feet on and the other two without).

The first two are shown below. By using your feet to reduce the weight on your arms, allows you to hang on for much longer, generating a much bigger burn. I get the best results from the one based around a campus board.

The remaining two ,shown below, have all your body weight on your arms. As a result the load is greater on your arms and fingers, leading to improvements in your finger strength. The small amount of time between the sets, ultimately leads to improvements in your power endurance as well, but not to the extent of the feet on work.

After getting hit by the dreaded golfers elbow I have managed to develop a really nice sling training program, with the help of Jungle Sports, that is still allowing me to train. The great thing about slings is that you can suspend your wrists in loops to take the strain off your finger flexors and elbow. The end result is an improving elbow and much improved upper body and core strength.

I have created a video below showing my current program. I have been picked up on my form on a few of the exercises by Jungle Sport. The idea is to keep your core locked at all time when doing the exercises. This not only makes you work harder, but it gives you much better all round body control for climbing. I have been doing the exercises for 6 weeks now and have noticed a considerable difference in my muscle mass around my abdominal and shoulder area.

I did three sets of each, with 10 reps or maximum depending on the exercise. I also threw in some shoulder presses and wrist extensions.

With the rubbish weather we have had this year, rather than easing off my training to focus on routes, I have found myself extending my training period a lot longer than normal. As a result I seem to have picked up golfers elbow

I have a history of ulna nerve problems with my elbow, coming from my neck. Normally I keep climbing while I have my neck treated. This time it wasn’t getting better. It took a while before I released I had an overuse injury, that I had still been training on, rather than I problem I could normally work through.

I was diagnosed with overtight finger flexors, which had put strain on the inside of my elbow. At this stage it was still a fairly minor problem that with massage may have cleared up. I was advised by the physio to start a regime of eccentric exercises to help strengthen the tendon. The idea is that the eccentric reduces the load on the strained flexors and focuses on the tendon itself. After a few days a minor problem had turned into a problem where I couldn’t turn a door handle! I was told to still continue and that it was normal for it to get worse before it settles. Well it didn’t settle and I soon stopped any climbing!!

Image showing site of pain and cause

After a few conversations with Osteopaths, they have a very different opinion on the use of eccentrics. Their thoughts were that eccentrics will only increase the tightness in the flexors and inflame the tendon more and that they shouldn’t be used until the cause of the condition has been treated (the tight flexors). This is certainly what happened to me. During the two weeks of eccentrics my flexors got tighter and the elbow more inflamed.

So what I am doing now? I’ve stopped climbing for at least 4 weeks (or doing trad). I have changed my training to exercises to ones where I don’t grip. So I am using this as a opportunity to get much stronger shoulders, wrist extensors, back, chest and core. I can do any push exercise such as pressups, shoulder press, dips etc. I can also do any exercise using slings, because the weight is taken off my finger flexors onto my wrists, by the slings themselves. This allows me to do all sorts of excellent strength work, including front levers, iron cross (slings on forearms), inverted rows, superman, unstable pressups etc. All training is done with a golfers elbow strap to reduce to strain on the injured elbow.

To rehabilitate the injury I am doing daily massage on the flexors (very deep), icing (3 times day) and ultrasound. The end result is that I have improved significantly within the last few weeks, with a few days of it getting worse after I tried deadlifts! I am will also be reviewing an Armaid from the US in a few weeks, which should help as well.

So the moral of the story is with an overuse injury be careful doing a rehab exercise that puts additional load on tissue that is already traumatised and sensitive from the original problem. Also if you are injured use it as an opportunity to develop other areas of your climbing, which in my case is my main weak area, my upper body strength.

I keep seeing stories about climbing and being over 30. Please have a thought for us that are on the wrong side of 40! Fortunately there are climbers in their 50′s leading 9a, which makes me feel a lot better.

Here’s my experiences of being a 40+ climber:

• Any muscle imbalances you had 20 years ago are now loads worse! To stop injuries occurring as a result make sure you train your wrist extensors, shoulder rotator cuff, lower traps and core. I’ve found training all my antagonist muscles and core with slings has helped me train harder.
• Weight doesn’t fall off you anymore! I used to eat what I wanted and was always 10.5 stone. My normal body weight is now 11.5 stone and have to watch everything I eat and do loads of cardio (intervals) to get my weight down to around 10.5 stone. Obviously the lack of food also makes me really grumpy!
• Your fingers feel really creaky, especially in the morning, when crimping a lot and when using a keyboard. I try and overcome this with lots of stretching of the fingers and finger/forearm massage daily.
• You lose a lot of flexibility. I now have to stretch my hips and legs daily, to try and overcome this.
• Your back hurts and has a habit of pulling in the morning when you put your socks on! Do lots of core conditioning to give your back a good basis for your training and get a foam roll to get yourself out of your hunchback posture.
• You have a lot less time available for climbing. As a result I spend more time focusing on short high quality training sessions, tailored towards specific route goals I may have.

Ok, so it sounds as things are heavily stacked against me! On a positive note I now know how to train a lot better and don’t just ignore any signs of over training. As a result I’m in better shape than I was when I was 20. The only problem is that getting into that shape involves so many more sacrifices than when I was younger. May be with all this wet weather I should just enjoy chocolate and cakes until things dry out

A month ago I had a go on a crimpy bouldery 8b route. Found I had made an error on my training over the winter! To avoid a finger injury I have done very little crimp training over the last few years. This showed up really badly on the route as I found I couldn’t do any of the moves. I went home with my tail between my legs confused and rather frustrated!

So even though I had actually done a lot of finger work on a bouldering wall, open handed training contributes very little towards crimp strength. I didn’t really notice this last year as the routes (8a+) I did, didn’t require the same level of crimp strength as the 8b I tried.

So the plan was to do a 4 week block of training on a finger board, focusing on my crimp strength. The finger board (Metolius Simulator 3D) I used was kindly supplied by Beyond Hope the UK suppliers of Metolius products.The training was all based around a series of weighted 10 second hangs using the smallest 4 finger hold on the board. I did this using an open hand and crimp grip (4 sets of each with a 2 min rest between sets). Each session was then followed by an hour of bouldering and an hour of slings.

Metolius Simulator 3D Finger Board

The initial weight for crimp was 12.5kg and open hand 22.5kg. This clearly shows up a huge gap in my different finger strength levels. At the end of the 4 weeks I had added an additional 5 kg onto each hang. I then stopped the training as my finger flexors felt blasted.

So yesterday was the moment of truth. Even though I hadn’t been on the route since my first try and many of the footholds were wet, would I be any better………1 hour later, 11 of the 12 moves done!

So the moral of the story is that even though the crimped position is riskier than open hand, if you don’t train it you will get shut down on crimpy routes. However for me I feel that it works best when I do a relatively short period of training effort (4 weeks) as I make gains quickly, but also get sore finger quickly as well. As a way of doing this deadhanging certainly works!

Just had a recent question about how I deal with being a vegetarian and a climber. How do I manage to get sufficiently high enough protein to build muscle and get stronger.

When I first started climbing I didn’t think about taking any kind of protein supplements and just got on with it. I did find that although I could make excellent gains in finger strength putting on muscle mass was very difficult. This is made even worse by the fact that I am a classic ectomorph, which makes it even harder. As a result I could crimp my way up routes with very small holds, so long as it wasn’t to steep.

Since returning to climbing in the last few years I have started to take protein supplements every day after training and sometimes at breakfast. The end result has been half a stone of extra muscle mass, a better recovery and a much better performance on steep routes. However the extra weight has dented my finger strength, which fortunately has been compensated for by the extra strength and power I have gained.

Its now been four weeks of sling training. The results have been impressive with a good increase in my core strength and ability to move my feet on steep ground.

Check out this article for more details.

http://rockclimbinguk.co.uk/sling-training-for-climbing-update/

Since I interviewed Magnus Midtbo, I have been contacted by one of his sponsors Jungle Sports, the sling training specialists. As a result they have sent me some sling training kit and a similar exercise program to Magnus! Check out the video below:

I’m really excited about including within my program as my general upper body strength is rubbish. I’ve had two sessions so far and its a lot harder than it looks! After the first one my core was still sore after 3 days!

With this being my peak training month I have been doing two days on and one day off. Having spoken to the Norwegian Climbing Coach he recommended that I do them on my rest day as they work the muscles in a very different way!

I am using the kit from Jungle Sports. I have been really impressed with the overall quality of the kit. The fact that your hands are in slings rather than gripping plastic handles, works much better for the exercises and reduces the strain on my already tired forearms.

The plan is to keep working hard for the next three weeks and return to a bouldering area in Spain to see if my overall strength has improved. I’ve written a review of the product for the website Rock Climbing UK and will run an update after my trip to Spain to see if it has helped my climbing.

http://rockclimbinguk.co.uk/magnus-midtbo-on-climbing-training/

I’m doing two sets of four weeks, with a week bouldering in Spain inbetween. A typical week will look something like this:

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: 25 move 8b+route circuit on my board. Initally I can’t do the circuit and have to do it in three overlapping sections. I will take a 15 second rest between each section and then have a longer 15 min break inbetween. As I gain more power endurance I will be able to eventually complete the circuit and use it for intervals. Finish with four sets of power endurance on a finger board, front levers, core and rotator cuff/lower trap work

Wednesday: Rest. I generally struggle with multiple days on as I am to sore. As I get stronger will do more days on.

Thursday: Repeat Tuesday, but finish with PE on the campus board.

Friday: Rest

Saturday: Bouldering on a Moon Board. Campus and plyometrics. Finish with intervals on route length boulder problems (20 moves) around 7c-7c+

Then repeat the week. When I can do the whole circuit, I will do intervals, add extra moves and also start to add a large hold in to practise shacking out.