Training for Rock Climbing
Why Train?
You don't have to train for climbing, if you just enjoy going climbing every now and again training might not be for you. On the other hand, if you want to get better at climbing, reach the next climbing grade, impress your friends or just be the best you can be, maybe training is the answer.
Firstly, training is not boring, it does not take the fun out of climbing, nor does it mean lots of hard work and no enjoyment. For most people training can just mean thinking about what type of route to climb and when, whether to go bouldering, or sport climbing or just doing proper warm ups and cool downs.
Before explaining what to do and how to structure your climbing sessions, it is important to understand the principles of training so you comprehend why you are making changes.
The Body's Energy Systems
The body has lots of different ways it can make the energy needed to exercise. The biochemistry behind these energy delivery systems is very complex, this page shows a simplified version. Knowing how the body works will help us understand how to adjust our climbing to get better results.
The muscles need a chemical called Adenosine Tri Phosphate (ATP). This is made from the body's ability to use energy stored in the food we eat to make ATP. The 3 ways that are used in rock climbing are outlined below.
Aerobic System
This is the breakdown of food into other chemicals with the use of oxygen. Carbohydrates, fats and protein can all be used to do this. Breakdown of fats is slow but yields a huge amount of ATP, Carbohydrates (glucose) breakdown is a bit quicker and also produces a large amount of ATP, but not as much as fat. Protein breakdown is only found in sick or starving people and not of importance to the climber. Oxygen must be present for this to happen, so this system is reliant on the body's ability to take in, transport and use Oxygen.
For this reason the aerobic system is used in long distance events that don't require high intensity exercise but will require the large amount of ATP created.
Anaerobic System
Glucose is broken down into many different intermediate chemicals in the aerobic system. During the final stage, oxygen is used to 'mop up' some of the waste products (Hydrogen). During higher intensity exercise the body's ability to transfer and use oxygen may not meet the required energy demands. Therefore the body has another way of producing energy when there is not enough oxygen.
This is called anaerobic glycolisis, this yields a small amount of ATP but quickly and without oxygen. The end product of Glycolisis is called Pyruvic acid. Pyruvic acid is then used to mop up the waste Hydrogen just like oxygen does in the aerobic system. Pyruvic acid is changed into Lactic Acid when Hydrogen is combined.
Anaerobic glycolisis will be used for short bursts of exercise lasting for around 2-3 minutes.
Phospho-Creatine System
This system is also anaerobic (does not need oxygen) and produces huge amount of ATP quickly. This is done by the breakdown of a compound call Phospho-Creatine (PC). PC is spilt into its component parts (phosphorus and Creatine) and this process produces masses of energy which is used to make ATP. The only drawback of this system is that PC is heavy and can't be stored in large quantities. Therefore the PC system can only produce ATP for around 10 seconds.
The PC system will be used for all-out maximal activity lasting around 10 seconds.
