Athlete • Speaker • Guide 
Athlete • Speaker • Guide Date: 2nd April 2010
For those of you who don’t know, Adam Ondra is among the very best sport climbers in the world. In terms of climbing the biggest collection of very hard routes fast he is arguably the best. In any case, he’s damn good. Here are his thoughts on training for climbing and eating for the same, lifted from the baurock.ru web site. I often talk with people about how to become better rock climbers; some get it, but most don’t want to believe the path forward for pure rock climbing technical performance is to train either in the climbing gym or on the rock by climbing. I train for a range of sports and my training reflects that range, but if you want to climb harder then climb rock, pretty much everything else is a waste of time. Or you can argue with Ondra’s success… Do check out the whole interview if you’re into hard rock climbing, it’s an interesting look into a prodigy’s mind.
I train more or less just by climbing. How simple! I train on couple of small bouldering walls, where I train endurance and bouldering power as well. I rarely climb indoor with rope because there are not good walls enough in the city. The way I train depends on what I am training for. If I am preparing for bouldering, I do just lot of hard boulders. If I train endurance I do laps. I figure out usually 20move lap and try to climb 3 times. 60 moves are usually more than enough. Good trick how to become stronger is to use ONLY micro footholds for your feet. You work on your power and precise footwork at the same time. I do not train more than 3 days in a row.
11. Do you follow some certain nutrition diet or restrictions in your food?
I care about what I eat and try eat in some healthy way and to get enough proteins and vitamins, try to think what would be good dinner for fast recovery and so on, but I do not restrict myself in amount of food. When I am hungry, I eat. I have advantage that I can really a lot and I do not put on weight.
So, eat well, and train specifically for specific performance. Works for me; I’m in a “general” stage of my training, looking forward to tomorrow’s Crossfit workout, Tabata this. If you’ve never done CF it’s not a bad workout to start with if you drop the rounds to 16 or even eight instead of 32, or pay the price. If you’ve never done air squats before click this link. Main points: Weight on heels, everything lined up from your toes through your femurs, stick yer butt out, stand up fully. Go. You can even download an ap for your iphone for the Tabata intervals, and if you’ve never done squats remember that you do one every time you get on and off the toilet, nothing new.
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wicked. I'm listening, i'm listening!
Eat lots of power bags, BK, Wendy's and Wings, drink alot of beer too! Then you can say you're just a bit out of shape, then climbing will become about the past and not the present, so one can just talk about it instead of doing it. Way cooler to talk about; when you sent some super rad rig back in the day, than trying to presently, re-send all them rigs you've already done even if you are fitter than back in the day.
ok on a more serious note, AO says a lot of good info about real situations that help your climbing. The most important is really the hardest and that's training/climbing and doing such that it kicks your ass, rather than making you feel good about your gym session. Just like weights, if you use 15kg and really need to move to 25kg to increase the power, but the large reps of 15 make you feel good – then it's more about feeling good than getting better.
Bouldering indoors with the kids can really help increase your power, which makes climbing routes easier, as you are stronger – this has no real visual effects, meaning that if you look ripped, it does not mean you are stronger than the non-ripped dude or dudette.
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