‘Contact Strength’, ‘Max Recruitment’ and ‘Power’ are terms used often by climbers in training, but their actual meanings and inter-relationships can be somewhat ambiguous. As the first in a mult-part series on the subjuect, this post will attempt to clarify these terms and explain precisely what they mean for Performance Climbers. Each muscle in the body is…
Tom brought up a couple of questions which I will start to address here: tom on July 25, 2012 at 2:35 pm said: “you brought up two very interesting areas i hope you will discuss in detail: a) being aggressive in climbing – what’s the mindset, how do you turn it on? how do you…
“ARC” is short for Aerobic Restoration & Capillarity training. This training method was first described in the legendary Performance Rock Climbing. If you are unfamiliar with ARC training, you can get the rundown here. Many climbing periodization plans call for massive amounts of this training; as much as 90+ minutes per workout, with several workouts…
This question comes up quite a bit, along with the more specific, ‘when should I start hangboarding?’ Obviously this is a personal decision, and for many climbers (perhaps the vast majority) the answer is ‘never’. For that reason it makes sense to start with the question, why train at all? A few reasons can be…
The Rock Climber's Training Manual 