Training for Ice and Mixed Climbing
This terrain, especially at the crag, can become very steep, and the physical demands are akin to steep sport climbing. Long reaches, low one-armed lock-offs, and extended toes, as well as more unusual techniques such as dropped knees and Figure 4s and Figure 9s, make hard mixed climbing one of the most strength-intensive subspecialties of climbing.
But underlying it all is a certain basic level of strength. For this reason, ice and mixed climbing training is largely done in the weight room and climbing gym. There just isn’t much aerobic demand in this sport. The notable exception will be for people who would like to lose weight in order to optimize their climbing. If that is you, I recommend adding two to three aerobic workouts per week to increase your overall health and help you shed the weight.
I recommend that people train for at least eight weeks. A two- or four-week plan is good if that is what you can wrap your head around, but most people won’t see much progress in that time frame. So if we establish that eight weeks is a good minimum block for producing meaningful results, then let me tell you that the more time you can dedicate to progressing, the more significant and bigger the gains you will see. I often ask people to adopt a 16-week time frame, and if they can do it, 24 weeks is even better.
The reasons behind these time frames lie in our human physiology and how we adapt to exercise and training stress. Training itself is described by a simple recipe: Apply a training stress followed by rest, then repeat, applying a slightly higher training stress, and do this over and over and over again. Because of our physiologies, we’re locked into this longer-is-better method: It takes a long time to go through enough of these stress, rest, repeat cycles to make gains
Continuity means to train without break. This is not to say that we should train constantly, or even daily. No, that would surely lead to injury. Continuity means to time each subsequent training session so that it corresponds to the period when you are fully recovered super compensated, to use the coach’s term from the last training session.
Gradualness means that you need to, from workout to workout or week to week, gradually increase the training stress. Failure to increase the training stress will result in a plateau. Ramping up the training stress too fast will result first in stagnation, then in regression.
Modulation means varying the training stress from hard to easy. This will be both on a day-to-day cycle or a week-to-week cycle. Correct modulation gives your body a chance to absorb the previous stress.
It is the careful combination of these three elements that best enables long-term gains.
Ice Climbing Strength
The strength needed for climbing ice and mixed terrain can be broken down into two key components: core strength and upper-body strength.
The strength needed for climbing ice and mixed terrain can be broken down into two key components: core strength and upper-body strength.
Core strength : is, if you think about climbing movements, incredibly important. But oversimplified Fitness Blender style workouts are rarely useful for more than helping you do something(where anything is better than nothing). P90X, for example, is muscular endurance training misunderstood and misused. Core training, like all training, needs to follow the principles of continuity between workouts, a gradual increase in challenge, and modulation.
Upper-body strength, pulling yourself up and holding yourself up, is the most obviously important aspect of ice climbing fitness. Besides the required continuity between workouts, gradual increase in challenge, and stress modulation, you need to do two things: First, develop a high level of maximal strength in your arms and shoulders. Second, develop endurance in a strength-sense of the word. At Uphill Athlete, we call thismuscular endurance; other authors and coaches may use a different term, such asstrength endurance.
The Three Phases of Strength Development
Developing both core and upper-body strength isn’t that difficult, but it requires tackling the process in the correct order. Too many people including a younger misstart with muscular endurance. I originally thought that ice climbing training simply consisted of doing loads of pull-ups. I would do as many as I could in a day, then Ia d repeat that again in a few days once the soreness had started to wear off. It is a common approach and a backwards one. The reality is that there are three key phases to strength development.
Phase 1: Conditioning
This is a crucial stage and one of the hardest. The workouts are fairly long, containing a lot of sets and reps. It can be difficult to stay motivated for the necessary four to eight weeks of this training because the gains are not obvious. Gains come fast and furious in the next two stages, but if you skip step one you stand a good chance of getting injured and derailing the whole process.
I like to say that climbing injuries aren’t caused by overuse, they’re caused primarily by ignorance (and secondarily by hubris).Every athlete needs to return to fundamental conditioning work at least once a year. The highest-level professionals do this, and you should too. Failing to recognize this fact results in injuries. To put it another way, there is no such thing as overtraining, only under recovering.
Phase 2: Maximum Strength Development
These workouts are fun, quick to do, and you see clear gains from week to week. Everyone loves this stage. The basic principle behind max strength sessions is to teach your nervous system how to fire more muscle fibers together, in concert, to produce more power. Or to put it another way, this is training your muscles to wire together to fire together.
Phase 3: Muscular Endurance
This is what many of the current fitness fad workouts consist of because this training feels hard and fun, and the gains are fast and noticeable until you reach the limit of your physical potential, which, by no coincidence, is either what you show up with or what you built in phases 1 and 2.
If you go through phases 1 and 2, your physical limits will progress much farther than if you skip straight to the muscular endurance workouts.
The good news is that you can cycle back and forth between phases 2 and 3 several times before needing to go back and address the fundamental conditioning of phase 1. That means you can cycle max strength periods and muscular endurance periods for 32’40 weeks. After that you’ll have to taper and enter a performance phase.