Maintaining Performance: Staying Strong to Perform Your Best All Season

The fall climbing season is either upon us or rapidly approaching.  Whether you are training hard to peak in a couple of weeks or are getting outside and trying to send now, we all have to deal with maintaining our performance over the course of the season.  Neil Gresham wrote an article for Rock and Ice that addresses the issue of maintaining performance once we transition away from training and switch into sending mode.

As Gresham notes, this can be easy at the beginning of the season when psyche and power are high.  The issue arises when continually trying to put forth peak performances over the course of an entire season.

“Maintaining performance for prolonged periods can be tricky. As climbers, we often emerge from the gym at the start of the season packed full of power but unsure how to keep it. The more you trade rock for plastic, the more you’ll discover that while your endurance and technique improve on real rock, strength and power will diminish.” – Neil Gresham 

Gresham, however, suggests that by planning your midweek training sessions during the season carefully one can stave off the strength and power decline and maintain top performance for longer.

“When considering how to approach training in a way that allows you to maintain performance long term, the pertinent question becomes: How can I design my midweek training and nutrition to enhance my outdoor climbing goals?” – Neil Gresham

In his article, Gresham provides tips about what kind of training to do during the season and how to schedule it to ensure proper rest, about nutrition strategies to keep you both light and properly fueled, and about doing antagonist training to prevent injury.  Click through below to read the whole article.  Some of his tips might just make the difference between eking out that late season send or heading into your next training cycle empty handed.

Click Here: Maintaining Performance: Staying Strong to Perform Your Best All Season

(photo by Spencer Tang-Smith, courtesy of rockandice.com)

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