Superpower: Training Power- ClimbStrong

Training for bouldering?

Or bouldering as training?

This article is from Steve Bechtel’s site, climbstrong.com about what it means to train power and if that’s actually what you’re doing when you’re bouldering. As he puts it:

“First, training for bouldering has to be separated from bouldering as training if big increases in power and strength are your goal. We’ve been on the right track; bouldering helps us develop more power than route climbing does. But ultimate levels of power are developed in sets of activity much shorter than the time needed to complete the average problem. We diminish the body’s ability to develop power by climbing too long, even on short boulder problems or campus board sets.“

He suggests training power by spending some sessions focused on power development on its own versus focusing on completing boulder problems. In other words, doing fewer, harder moves are better power training than trying to get to the top of a boulder problem.

“To make things simple, we’ll look at this in terms of moves rather than time. Most of the sets in these high-power workouts are one to three moves in length and can be either portions of hard problems or specific sets of moves set specifically for limit-level moves.”

He then shares three different exercise sets he recommends for training power by working limit-level moves.

Give it a try….

CLICK HERE: Superpower

(photo courtesy of climbstrong.com)

Steve Bechtel is the author of Strength: Foundational Training for Rock Climbers.

To hear more from Steve Bechtel listen to our podcast interview with him here.