How often have you visited a climbing forum and stumbled upon an endless debate over some trivial matter like the definition of “is”?  It seems that many of us would rather argue about training terminology than actually train.  This pre-occupation with semantics can be a real distraction from the truly important matters (like the phone number for Rock and Resole), and yet, some questions come up again and again:

• What is the real definition of “power”?  The physics definition doesn’t seem to fit the physiology definition–which is correct?
• Are isometric contractions really isometric?
• Is campus training “truly plyometric”?  

Many of us (myself included) have fallen victim to this mentality in the past.  Maybe the problem is that proper climbing training requires so much recovery and down-time that all us training fiends have nothing better to do than argue about this nonsense 🙂

This photo won’t make you a better climber, but it sure is nice to look at.  Castle Valley, Utah, Photo Mike Anderson.

Regardless, the answer to all these questions and many others is a resounding: WHO CARES!?  None of these things have any bearing on the practical matter of how you should train!  When consider such questions, only one thing matters:  will doing [suggested training activity] make me a better climber?  No amount of arguing grammar, spelling, syntax or word use will make you one bit better as a climber.  To improve, you need to do some work.  And no, I don’t mean the Physics definition of work (= Force x Distance).  I mean the good ol’ fashioned kind that predates even Sir Isaac Newton.

We all know what we mean when we talk about climbing power.  We all know that relative to a bicep curl, a dead hang is isometric, and it’s pretty darn close–definitely close enough–to what we do over and over again on the rock.  It doesn’t matter if campusing is “plyometric” or “gullichometric”.  “Plyometric” is a made up word used to describe an arbitrary category of exercise.  All that matters is that it works for climbers, and so you should do it! 

I like to say that sports physiology is a lot like religion.  We all agree on 98% of the dogma, but we fight endless crusades over the 2% we disagree on.  That is silly.  If you’re following any kind of training program, documenting your results, and making adjustments, you’re head and shoulders above the vast majority.  Don’t waste so much energy obsessing over which program is the best.  There is no single approach that is optimal for everybody.  Find something that works for you and tweak it as you learn more about how your body responds to training.  If you sit around waiting for armies of scientists to definitively prove which training method is ideal, you will never get anything done.  Your great-great-grandkids will be long dead before that happens.

The work being done by Sports Physiologists is certainly important, and it is certainly worth some attention.  New theories need to be tested, but there are just too many variables in climbing to expect exact transference of studies being done on athletes in the big money sports.  Anyway, it’s highly doubtful some Silver Bullet set/rep/rest protocol is going to turn you into Adam Ondra overnight.  Even if a study “proves” this or that (which never happens anyway), the “proven” method may still not work for you.  You will still need to try it out for yourself to see if it works for your body.  The vast majority of the time, things that really work have been used for decades by athletes in many sports.  These methods were discovered and refined by athletes themselves, through trial and error, not by a scientist toiling away in a lab.  If you want to find the secret to optimizing your training, get out to your gym and try something new!  Document your results and let us know how it goes.  That is the best way to discover new information, not reading Physiology Journals or arguing on internet forums.

Three cheers for Eva Lopez, Dave Mcleod, Doug Hunter, Eric Horst, Udo Neumann, Wolfgang Gullich, and Tony Yaniro!  Hooray for anybody who is out there trying new things and sharing their findings.  I like the Rock Prodigy program because it works for me.  I know that it works for many other people too, and it might work for you.  But there are other programs out there that work too.  That’s great!  Shop around if you like, try a few different things, and find something that works for you.  If you’re satisfied with the results, then stick with it, that’s awesome!  As long as you’re doing something pre-meditated and you’re tracking your efforts, you’re way ahead of the curve.