Athlete • Speaker • Guide 
Athlete • Speaker • Guide Date: 11th April 2012
Alright, it’s SPRING in some parts of the world now, and my snow-blind eyes and pasty skin are rejoicing. In the last few weeks I’ve been in Maine (definitely NOT spring), Charlotte, North Carolina, (spring), White Salmon, Washington (trying to spring, but delayed a bit), back east to Texas, (SPRING!), down to Portland, Oregon (flowers, but still sorta spring). In each place I’ve been lucky to climb/boulder on all kinds of stuff ranging from plywood (Mazama Mountaineers) old lava flows (Horsethief boulders on the Columbia, cool techno bouldering), granite, metamorphic something (what is Ship Rock in North Carolina exactly?) and a fair amount of plastic in random places including my old friend Gary’s Portland Rocky Gym in Portland and one in Portland, Maine too.. I’ve been doing shows, running clinics (ice clinics through competition sport climbing clinics, been great, thanks to all who came out!). In each place I’ve been inspired by stories from people about their own climbing and lives; there are a lot of of cool people in the world getting after it, thanks–hanging with you all has lifted me up as much as the green grass and leaves.
I’ve also been recovering from a winter of travelling and ice climbing; I’m pretty sure the travel has smashed me harder than the climbing. And I’ve had a lot of time on planes and hotel rooms where it’s hard to really work (sorry if I haven’t returned your email), but where surfing the internet about nutrition, training or stupid cat tricks just feels so right. I’ve also done some really fun workouts on the rings (never leave home without rings), hotel furniture, “Globo gyms” etc. They haven’t been perfectly regular, but I feel pretty good. Today for some reason I decided to bench press while working out in the scenic town of White Salmon, Idaho, and hit some reps and sets I hadn’t seen in 20 years. I’ve also been truly running some, which I didn’t think I’d ever do again, and my elbows feel great. I credit all of this to the last two months of “inter-season weight room training.” Or doing something when in hotel rooms etc…
What I mean by this is all the non-climbing “training” I’ve been doing. Over the last 25 years I’ve kept reasonably solid logs of my sports activities. Nothing fancy, just notes in books, basic spreadsheets with activities and times, etc. etc. Patterns start to emerge when you keep records. What training brings results, what doesn’t. When I get injured, when I don’t. One common denominator in my highest-performance years is a massive amount of time spent doing a specific sport. My best fitness levels for technical climbing came after basically several years of full-time climbing, with very little else going on (no weight training, no kayaking, no mountain running, etc). I then spent several years injured and unable to climb, but that was OK as I justI spent two years basically paragliding full-time, which led to good results… Overall, I’m physically healthier when I weight-train between sports, but not continuously, and definitely not with the same exercises repeated. If I train in the weight room (and I’d include any non-sporting “training” in that designation) solely I also end up injured and burned out. Putting too much time into training away from sports-specific training results in injury and poor actual sports performance. Too much time solely training for one sport results in great sports-specific performance but ultimately injury… I also include mental “implosion” as an injury; I see many athletes, including some I’ve coached, me, and many I’ve trained with, excel for a while and then blow up mentally. If forward progression stops dramatically then it’s an “injury” in my mind. Variety does prevent sudden implosion.
Where I’m going with all this rambling is that I’m more and more convinced of the benefits of doing some form of structured weight training for some period of time during an athlete’s season. Duh. But, I don’t think this weight training, at least for me, is about sports-specific performance, no matter what anyone says. This is an important distinction: I don’t weight train for sports-specific performance, I train to keep my body sports-capable. It’s more about resetting my body, hitting it in a different way, working through my range of motion and injuries, etc. etc. In fact, for pure sports performance this training is perhaps”wasted” time. I now don’t weight train at all when actually training for any of my sports, and I don’t know one truly world-class technical climber who does. But for long-term performance? I like a good round of weight training of some kind between seasons, it works. Lift heavy stuff, change it up, etc. etc. Crossfit is what first turned me onto this style of varied weight workout (and it doesn’t matter if it’s bodyweight or iron), and that’s my starting point for my workouts today. For me I’ve found some exercises (Olympic lifts for time) don’t work well with my aging body so I have to do them carefully and not for time, and doing my sports simultaneously with Crossfit just does not work. But as a seasonal bridge and a way to put myself back together? Yes. There is likely no deeper respiratory of accessible information on fitness training than what’s on the CF site; much of it is contradictory, some of it is wrong, but that’s the nature of a good library and resource. The people who variously savage Crossfit and wear the cult T-shirts are both wrong and both right, but both should use the knowledge there. Mountain Athlete, Gym Jones, P90x, Seal Fit, WTF fit, read what you can access/experiment with, dig through it, use it, keep notes, progress or don’t, but respect the work that is going on in each arena and try to gauge what their athletes are doing…
So, after a winter of ice climbing I’ve spent almost two months mixing up rock climbing, various ring workouts, the weight room and whatever is handy as I travel. I’ve missed workouts, gotten a little heavier with the limited aerobic exercise, but overall I’m strong, my injuries are fading fast, and I’m stoked to get home to Canmore tomorrow and transition into rock and paddling season. For a while the Crossfit-sorta workouts will be dominant, then more sports-specific stuff, and then no “gym” time at all until the next transition period. My knees, back and elbows (my weak points) are all healthy again, as is my head. Spring training rocks. Oh, and Rock Rings are cool, I’m doing some experiments with them.
Now go train, yeah!
Posted in: Blog
Hi Will,
What exercises are you doing with the rock rings.
I have also rock rings and mostly do hangs and pull ups.
I have also gymnastic rigs which i use. Have you ever used gymnastic rings?
Hey Will – glad to hear you are good physically. What have you done for your elbows? Mine are still killing me and are actually worse with spring climbing. What are you doing with the rings? Those really bother my elbows…
Hope Kim and the family are well – let me know if you get down in this neck of the woods.
What types of experiments are you running with rock rings? What’s working?
Hi, any specifics you can share on training with the Rock Rings? I’ve been getting into them myself lately, but haven’t yet got the chance to see if they’ve helped me actually climb harder or not…
Mike, see the latest blog post, good luck, thanks!
Cladiu, Eric and Harri–Rock rings are about the lightest, simplest, and least tweaky “hang boards” for me to travel and train with. And I paid for my rock rings, this isn’t a product promo (although some friends work at Metolius of course, good people). Anyhow, a hang board in a door jam keeps my arms in one position, which I don’t like. The rings rotate, which for my elbows, shoulders and general body health seems to work a lot better. Plus you can train actual front levers (ab training is a waste of time, it’s the shoulders that are weak on most people) and other body tension exercises. So deadhangs, staggered heigh pull-ups, front levers (still not back strong on those), lock off and push a ring out to the side, all the fun stuff you can do on a hang board or rings.
Gymnastic rings are great, and lighter than Rock rings even. I took a pair with me to Texas last week and had some fun family workouts in the heat there. Muscleups, etc., they are great for your entire upper body. Pound for pound no better “suitcase” training system. The good ball P90X WTF rings are stupid, just get some real rings and then you can do any all the PX smack plus proper gymnastic stuff too.
Have fun!
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