Weight Training For Climbers

Climb Strong has a series of articles on why training with weight can help climbers and what the best exercises are. Part one describing why weight training can help is here. And part two describing specific exercises is here. I liked these quotes:

“For the most part, I am reluctant to prescribe weight training for climbers. I think its too easy to confuse a hard workout with effective training. What’s more, adding strength to poor technique is simply a way of reinforcing that poor technique. With that being said, I will now outline which climbers should do supplemental strength training, when they should do it, and I will outline some basic programs.”

“To develop appropriate strength for climbing we want to use complex, multi-joint movements at loads high enough that the body will adapt by getting stronger rather than getting bigger. Remember that there is a huge misconception that heavy training leads to bulk. Not so. It is high-volume, medium-load training that is most effective for building size (i.e. 8 sets of 12 reps).”