Climbing's Most MISUNDERSTOOD Training Method

Training until failure from pump is useful for training pain tolerance and adapt your nervous system into recognizing what is a real "emergency" situation. Our brain is wired so that it protects our body from damage and will send pain signals for us to stop. This is a response that can be trained, we literally teach our brain that the situation is not a threat. If you managed to improve your endurance a lot by climbing very pumped, it's most likely that you trained your mental fortitude rather than you forearms endurance 🔥

I believe the main benefit of training for the pump failure that is not talk about is that it is mainly good for knowing when you are "truly" about to fail, so when you are pumped on a route, you can keep calm knowing that even if you REALLY pumped, your tank isn't quite empty. Making you push for those extra key moves. I call it the "courage energy system". Being about to resist psychological distress the closer you get from having depleted all resources.

I remember watching this the first time. I didnt understand all of it, but the second time around something clicked and it made so much sense and gave me a lot of new impulses to think about my training differently. Thanks a lot!

0:25 Absolutely correct. Thumbs up. The general rule is to know the performance determinants in a sport, identify an individual's most performance-limiting deficits among these determinants, and implement a training strategy that most effectively addresses these specific deficits. The derived regime could look and feel completely different from the sport one is training for. A "copy-how-you-compete" approach works and has its own, in a different way specific justification, but often it results in mixed effects, which are usually less effective than polarized concepts (exceptions exist).

INVALUABLE. Thanks for bringing this easily digestible and highly accessible evidence-based approach to developing my own training sessions.

That is a really good definition of specificity.

Hi! Super interesting video as always. I have a question: I've read your article about capillarisation and you say "In periods of training focused on capillarisation, high intensity training should be limited/tightly controlled due to release of anti-angiogenic factors when this form of training is completed.". Does this mean that I can't do strenght training while I increasing capillarisation or that I can't do them on the same day?

Lattice calmly dropping bangers like these, almost daily now.

How about this idea, we take the first exercise and modify it. We find a wall where we have a route that can provide us with the 1 min of high intensity climbing and also on the same wall there would be an easy route that we can climb comfortably with our aerobics system. We then climb one minute high intensity, without getting of the wall, climb 2 min low intensity and repeat for a few reps. This targets the specific adaptation of being able to recover one energy system while utilizing a different energy system

I've been doing a variation of the long interval (5 mins on / 5 mins off) for some time. It's easy to fit in when you don't have the time for a full bouldering session and as it's low intensity I find it ok to do on a "rest" day.

How many sets of the 1 on 1 off training do you reckon is a good amount for an endurance session? I did a session with 3 sets with 15 minutes of rest in between. Is that enough time on the wall?

Can short and long intervals be done all in the same session or would it be more beneficial to do them as separate sessions?

Great session templates but what i would like to know is how to modify them. For example 1 on 1 off on 40-50degree spray wall would be too intense for intermediate climber even on jugs to recover in 1min. How would you change this workout and will this be explained in the guide?

I found the diagram with the energy tank very useful. Please correct me if I'm wrong: we don't want to climb until failure, because that would mean 'emptying the tank'. Instead, when training the aerobic system, we want to train 'filling the tank' and doing this requires us to do a lot of volume. Is the idea that going until failure is 'bad' because this will prevent us from doing more volume, when volume is the effective training stimulus we are after?

The metabolic context you describe is of course one of the most important in training power endurance. But why do you afterwards only recommend a climbing interval training for this? Interval climbing is highly related to coordination and technique aspects, too. If you just want to focus on metabolic factors, repeaters on a fingerboard for me seem the best way to train, regardless of the SAID principle. Concerning your statement that most of the climbers try to make their "anaerobic tank" bigger, I don't think so. Training your glycolytic system is the most uncomfortable type of training and when you go into a gym the climbers either avoid this state in their forearms (boulder) or make way too long breaks after they got pumped forearms (lead).

One thing I don't understand... As an analogy to running, I can train two aerobic factors: 1) speed I can sustain, and 2) distance I can sustain it for. Typically the first through intervals, and the second through volume. The exercise you proscribe seems to build volume, but not a sustained intensity. When should we be working in a more interval-type training for climbing endurance? How should it be programmed along with a low intensity volume workout?

Great video! For 1 on, 1 off, how do we know if the intensity is too low?

I am very curious about this as a beginner/intermediate climber, I have been climbing just over 2 years and consistently climb around a 7a-7a+ range yet that has almost all been bouldering. I understand endurance training is only one very important component of climbing and others like technique and power are often treated as being just as important in most training programs, but after thinking about it would it not be better for newer climbers to put far more focus on endurance in the beginning? If you can climb for longer with good intensity and keeping your power then you will just have more time on the wall which as a by product will allow you to learn far more technique in each session and also allow you to use your power for far longer making both of those training sessions provide so much more. If I am managing to recover from these endurance sessions well enough is there any reason I shouldn't train more endurance than the others?

Wow. Love it. The biggest leap I ever had in endurance in forearm capacity was after a month doing multipitch in the French alps, Chamonix area. Guess it was long (25 minutes on a pitch at a time), trad so within reasonable intensity (6a and below), and slow placing gear, and at altitude. Never really explained why until now. Bet the combination of moderate intensity, long duration AND altitude is good.

I like to start the day with a 30 minute session of low intensity, continous hangs on either an edge or half crimping a pull up bar. Typically 7 seconds on, 3 off. I mix in some pull ups, scapular retraction and stretches. Sometimes I work up a little bit more of a pump and take a minute rest to make coffee or whatever. I wouldn't say the first and last minute feel the same. Would you recommend a lower intensity throughout rather than this mix?