Limitless Possibilities

If you want to be physically prepared for rock climbing, you need to concern yourself with the following components:
 

1. Hangboarding

   1. Max Added Weight

   2. Minimum Edge Depth

   3. Repeaters

   4. One-Arm Hangs

   5. Recruitment

   6. No-Hangs

   7. Variations of holds and grip types within these methods.

2. Campusing (Campus Boarding)

   1. Ladders

   2. Doubles

   3. Bumps

   4. Weighted Campusing

   5. Foot-On Campusing

   6. Sloper Balls

   7. 1-5-9's

3. Campusing on Boulders

4. Peg Boarding

5. Limit Bouldering

6. Strength Training

   1. Barbells

   2. Kettlebells

   3. Sport Specific

   4. Bodyweight

   5. Rings

   6. Functional Training

   7. Olympic Lifting

   8. Targeted Hypertrophy (forearms)

7. Endurance Training

   1. Aerobic Capacity

   2. Aerobic Power

   3. ARC-ing

8. Work Capacity

9. Working your Weaknesses

10. Strength Endurance

11. Projecting

12. Blood Flow Restriction Training

13. Circuit Training

    1. Strength Circuits

    2. Strength Endurance Circuits

    3. Endurance Circuits

    4. Density Circuits

14. Physical Assessments and Benchmarks

15. Body Tension

16. Training on Different Wall Angles

17. Antagonistic Exercises

18. Simulating your Project

19. Training Research

20. Mobility

21. Flexibility

22. Hydration

23. Nutrition

24. Periodization

25. Limit Bouldering

26. Injury Management and Prevention

27. Recovery Methods

28. Strength to Weight Ratio

29. Skin Maintenance

30. "Moonboard"-ing

31. Whatever the Pro’s are currently doing.

32. Progressive Overload

33. Overtraining

34. Undertraining

35. Hold Size

36. Hold Type

37. Move Size

38. Exercise Variability

39. Keeping things around long enough to work, but not so long that they stop working.

40. Volume-centric Workouts

41. Intensity-centric Workouts

42. Concentric-Only Training

43. Eccentric Overload

44. Isometrics

45. Session Length

46. Session Frequency

47. Heart Rate Monitoring

48. Breathing Patterns

49. Integrated Strength Training

50. Climbing Pace (Fast vs. Slow)

51. Dynamic vs Static

52. Contact Strength

53. Irradiation

54. Anti-Rotation Strength

55. In-Season Training

56. Deloading

57. Peaks

58. Valleys

59. Plateaus and How to ‘Break’ Them

60. Donut Consumption

61. Pinch Blocks

62. Absolute Strength to Speed Continuum

63. Effort

64. Cardio (Just kidding!)

65. Energy Leaks

66. Exercise Sequencing

67. Ring Finger A2 Pulleys

68. Strength Imbalances

69. Forearm Capillarization

You also need to concern yourself with the mental, technical, and tactical aspects of rock climbing.  You know, the other three pillars of sports performance.

If there’s time, you should also attempt to have a life... Good luck!
 

This is exactly how it feels sometimes.
 

We live in a confusing time.  In one minute, someone will say that training for rock climbing is still in its infancy, then five minutes later someone else will tell me they are so overwhelmed with training information that they don’t know where to start.

There are so many things on that list that you probably didn’t even read the whole thing, (I’m sorry if you did), or notice that I listed "Limit Bouldering" twice.

Or that #60 was "Donut Consumption."

There was a time when I judged information on training for climbing by how much new content it had.  If I already knew about it, then it wasn’t important.  I was guilty of confusing knowledge with understanding.

All the things on that list can be very useful to focus on - for the right people at the right times.*** 

But for most of us, most of the time, a lot of them end up as either filler or even detrimental.  A distraction from what really matters.

If you were offered $1,000 for every protocol, exercise, or extra thing that you could take out of your training program, what would be left?

“In this age of information abundance and overload, those who get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out, so they can concentrate on what’s really important to them. Nothing is more paralyzing than the idea of limitless possibilities.”

— Austin Kleon, author of "Steal Like an Artist"

*** It's ALWAYS the right time for donuts.