Introducing The Lazy Climber
I’m a 23 year old rock climber with aspirations to send hard and elevate my ability far beyond what I have ever achieved on the rock. The only problem is that I am lazy. Very, very lazy.
I’ve always wanted to be the best climber that I could be, but I’ve never wanted to actually work for it.
I’ve spent hours researching training methods, days watching YouTube videos of climbing specific training movements, and years dreaming about being a better climber.
But every time I’d walk into the gym for a climbing session, I’d end up mindlessly projecting boulders until tired, and make a half-assed attempt at some kind of training. After doing this for 5 years, I was fed up with myself. I needed a way to keep myself publicly accountable. I needed the community of the internet of climbers to keep me accountable, push me through my plateau, and cheer me on while I reached my goals. So here I am.
This is a blog about training for rock climbing, written by the laziest climber of them all. Don’t believe me? I was supposed to write this blog post in MAY!
My Background
First, a little bit about me. I joined a rock climbing team in 6th grade after doing some summer camps at a local climbing gym. Prior to this, I was the king of the jungle gym and the only third grader that could climb to the top pull-up bar at our old school playground. Climbing was an inherent and irrevocable trait, that became a lifelong passion.
At the time, this was the only climbing team in the area, and youth competition climbing was not well known. We would practice from 6–9PM, every Tuesday and Thursday, and the youth competition circuit was mandatory. I was lucky enough to have some great coaches that were devoted to improving our technique, strength, and mental game. More importantly, my coaches cultivated our love for the outdoors and outdoor climbing through transformational trips to the climbing Mecca’s around the U.S. Midwest.
I stayed on this climbing team until I graduated high school, and was able to send my first 5.13a the summer before my senior year of high school. The consistent technique and strength training that I was forced to do on this climbing team was great for my development as a climber. I never really hit a plateau while on this team because we were always training for the next competition, working on our weaknesses, or preparing for the next outdoor season. I took for granted the workout plans that were created for us, the authoritative coaches that pushed us through the exercises, and the same loving coaches that helped us through times of trouble, with our climbing or our lives.
After high school I continued to climb and tried to train, but with no coach or figure of authority the training soon disappeared altogether. I made excuses and told myself that I would do that hangboard workout my next session. I would skip weekends at the crag to hang out with my buddies, from fear of missing out on that weekend’s festivities.
This cycle continued and was exacerbated as I entered college. I had too much freedom and often found myself partying instead of climbing. There was just too much to experience in the world to be stuck in a smelly, chalky gym. Yet when I would visit the gym I would be disappointed that I could not climb the grades that I used to be able to or hang on a crimp that used to feel easy. My actions did not align with my goals. Though this was not obvious to me at the time.
Now What?
Fast-forward through college 4.5 years to January 2018. I graduated the previous month with a degree from a college, and took off with my girlfriend to Red Rocks, then Hueco Tanks, for a celebratory post-school trip. Through college I was able to maintain my high-school level of climbing strength, and took down some harder 12’s in Red Rocks and a V7 in Hueco.
Returning home to the Midwest winter at the end of January, I was psyched to train hard for the first time since leaving that climbing team. I had no school to drag me down, no job to consume the majority of my waking hours, and memberships to 3 different climbing gyms around me. As with most things I do in life, I went way too hard, way too fast, and did some unspeakable things to my rotator cuffs through excessive training.
I was out for 6 weeks before I could pull onto a wall, and about 8 weeks until I was climbing a couple grades (around V5) below my previous abilities. I had secured a full time corporate job working for the man, trading 40 hours of my life each week for “a secure paycheck”. Rather than jump back into a full blown training plan right away, I decided to test out some different exercises and training protocols to determine what would work best for me. I also decided that I would document everything that I did with a blog to keep myself accountable. That was 5 months ago in May, and I am writing this first post in October. Better late than never though!
As you can see from the above figure, I tracked when and for how long I climbed every time I went to the gym or went climbing indoors. I also tracked the exercises that I tested out, how many sets/reps I did, and how much weight I used. From this figure it was apparent that my climbing was fairly sporadic, the sessions were pretty short, and there were periods where I did not climb for a week or longer. I only climbed 3 days in all of July!!! This was an indication that I need more structure in my climbing. I needed a training plan.
The Training Plan
I’m writing this blog post so that means that I will be responsible with my training now, right? NO! I need a plan, and that plan needs to be posted on the internet with scheduled updates so that I can be held accountable for my actions. That is the whole point of writing these words on this screen.
So here is my plan, what I am going to do, when I am going to do it, and why:
What holds you back from sending your projects? Your weaknesses of course. What are my weaknesses? I know what I think my weaknesses are, but I don’t know what they actually are, so that will be step 1 of my plan. Before step 1, I’m going to write down what I think my strengths and weaknesses are. Then I am going to spend a couple of climbing sessions trying many different bouldering problems of varying styles, deliberately figuring out why I am failing on them to uncover my weaknesses. I’ll have a journal with me during this process to meticulously record my weaknesses on different climbing movements. For now I will not be considering endurance or power endurance, as those can be trained in a straightforward manner.
Through this process, I hope to uncover my 2 greatest weakness in terms of my climbing. Why two weaknesses? I don’t know. One seemed like not enough and three seemed like too much to work on at one time. Now for step 2:
With the 2 greatest weakness pinpointed, my goal is to make them my strengths. I am going to create a four-week plan with two training sessions each week, specifically targeting the weaknesses. I picked this duration to have a long enough time to see a measurable increase in results without wasting too much time if the exercises do not work.
The most important part of step 2 is posting my training plan. I will create this plan and make a blog post detailing all of the exercises, planned sets/reps and weight, and how I will be quantifying the results. This blog post will appear here NEXT MONDAY, October 8th, 2018. Posting this date is very important for me because if I am not held accountable for an action, I will not perform said action. Remember, I am the LAZY climber.
Step 3 will consist of weekly blog posts, after each week of the program. The last week’s post will be longer and go into detail about how I think the plan worked, where the plan could be improved, and what the next plan will be.
Thanks for Reading!
If you have made it this far, thank you so much for reading this! I promise that I will follow through with my plan, and post my results for you to see.
If you have any comments or advice on how to stick to a training plan, post them below! I’m always interested in what other people are doing for their training and how to beat their laziness.
If you feel so inclined, follow me on Instagram.
-The Lazy Climber
