Climb enough, and you will get stronger. Longer climbing sessions become easier, shoulders and back muscles become toned, and those tiny crimps or slippery slopers become easier to use.
But everyone plateaus. It’s inevitable. When a physical activity is done repetitively and with great regularity, the body adapts. Over time, gains start to come more slowly, and unless changes are made to your climbing/fitness routine, breaking through to the “next level” becomes increasingly more difficult.
So how do you break through that plateau?
Climbing training to the rescue!
Introducing Training Tuesdays, a new program at First Ascent designed to help you acquire the climbing-specific training tools you need to transform that plateau into a launch pad. Training Tuesdays meet weekly (on Tuesdays, as you might have guessed) and focus on four key climbing fitness disciplines on a four-week rotation: strength, endurance, power, and power endurance.
The Training Tuesday instructors – Jayme Novotney and Branden Lacour, two long-time climbing training enthusiasts, and Jake Dermer, a NASM certified personal trainer – will guide climbers in developing the skills to take their climbing training to the next level in DIY fashion.
As experts in their respective fields, Jayme, Branden, and Jake will use their years of experience and knowledge to make you work more efficiently and effectively at achieving your climbing goals. There are, however, no short-cuts in climbing or fitness. Make no mistake – you’ll be putting in hard work, the kind of work that sees results.
To get strong involves suffering…
Even Chris Sharma is training these days, and he said it himself: “To get strong involves suffering, for sure. There is no easy way.”
That said, he also admits that the climbing specific training he’s been doing, something completely new to him over his 20+ year climbing career, gives him a sense of satisfaction and has made him a better climber. Crazy to think one of the best climbers in the world is only getting better!
Remember, strength will only get you so far.
In the book Performance Rock Climbing, Dale Goddard and Udo Neumann compare climbing gains to improving the performance of a car. In short, they say that you can put all the money into the nicest engine, but eventually the engine will reach its peak and the car will go no faster. 
At a certain point, improvements to tires, suspension, fuel used, etc. need to be made to complement the engine and enhance the overall performance of the car. The same holds true with the human body. You can be strong as a gorilla, but if your footwork, endurance, or route-reading skills aren’t up to par, that strength will only get you so far.
In other words, you need to develop yourself as a whole climber to make consistent progress. Training is only a part of what will help you progress. You need to work on your climbing technique and your mental game too.
Most of us don’t have the time to spend those magic 10,000 hours (author Malcolm Gladwell’s famous figure) to become rock climbing masters on our own. Can you imagine 5,000 two-hour sessions in the gym and how many years that would take? Hint: if you did it in daily sessions, it would take you 13.7 years. That why there’s no shame in getting some help to accelerate your progress.
And don’t forget to have fun!
Of course, most of us climb for the sheer intrinsic pleasure of the sport, a sense of community, and (at least for me personally) a chance to pretend we’re defying gravity. The climbing cliche that “the best climber in the world is the one having the most fun” still holds true. But no matter how much fun you’re having, it’s exciting and empowering to cross into unknown territory, and there’s nothing wrong with getting a little help from a friend or a friendly trainer along the way. Don’t they also say: “It takes a village to raise a climber.”
xoxo #letsclimbchicago
By: Gabriel Skvor