Training Apps

Climb Coach and Core Training are two training Apps that recently have been realeased. I thought it was a good idea to ask the funders to give us some insight and also give some thoughts in regards to "lifestyle" climbers who do not train.

Steve McClure - Climb Coach
Not many top climbers have a training coach. In part this is due to there not being that many training coaches! Often the top climbers ARE the training coaches! This is because, certainly in the past, knowledge of training has been gained through experience and trial and error. More recently sports science has helped push knowledge forward, and training advice has become more wide spread. There are also ‘past’ experts who have a lot of knowledge who are keen to bring younger climbers up. I would think that in the near future there will be more coaches around.

The second issue is cost. Many top climbers don’t have much money, in fact there is probably more money to come from junior climbers parents.

As for not following a structured training plan, I’ll speak for myself and many British climbers. In general, climbing is still viewed as a lifestyle choice, and ultimately it is about having fun. British climbers tend to have a very varied sport and like to excel at everything. That may be sport, trad, bouldering, DWS, even winter climbing. It is impossible to be your best at everything and so a compromise is reached. We tend to be ‘out climbing’ when we can rather than training, with the style varying on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis. Often we get psyched for a given style and that takes priority, but even then there is the temptation to do something different.

I guess the rewards of being specific are not great enough. For the general climber variation is much more fun, and for the professional, a varied performance is viewed highly, even if numbers are not at the very top.

However, there is no doubt that structure in training would help a lot. Most British climbers will train at some point, usually during the winter as the weather is poor (like our summer). The majority of climbers do not use this period wisely with the training time being simply ‘going climbing indoors’ and varying as much as the summer outdoor climbing. If we all actually ‘trained’ when we were training then I’m sure we’d go up a notch.

youngsters are both motivated & encouraged to train in the same way as adults to reach ever escalating grades. But with this comes a serious risk of injury - a teenager's growing body is not the same as an adult and can pick up serious long-lasting injuries especially during specific periods of growth. I have seen far too many young talented climbers become injured and give up climbing or have to take long breaks and never quite get back into the swing of climbing again - Adam Dewhurst an ex-EYS winner is just one example. Another incredibly talented but currently injured climber is Kitty Wallace who also won an EYS in Bulgaria in October 2010. I helped to train her to this win (but of course cannot take any credit for her hard work over years) I then left for a year long trip round Central & South America to arrive home to find she had been scheduled weighted lock-offs by another trainer (who shall stay nameless) - causing significant long term damage to growth plates in her elbow. She literally started climbing slabs again for the first time last week . . .

All this says to me is there are a range of strength and power based exercises that should not be trained by teenagers as it can easily cause long-term damage. I / ClimbCoach would always advise pre-teens and teens to look to either the IFSC's or their own climbing governing body's guidelines for training - which usually stipulate not partaking in certain maximum strength, power, weight based exercises or campus boarding until at least the age of 18. ClimbCoach would also advise the same with all of the Max Strength & Power based workouts in the app. It is also important to point out that the disclaimer each user of ClimbCoach must agree to on download stipulates that users must be over the age of 18 or being trained by a guardian over the age of 18 who takes full safety responsibility for training a minor in an appropriate way as advised by either the IFSC or their governing body.
To end though,  all I would say is that climbing is a life-long sport which brings so many incredible experiences with it. It's difficult advice for teenagers to take on board who are so keen to improve but all I would do is advise teenager climbers and boulderers to be patient with training and play the long game of improvement. An injury early in your teens can take away a life full of incredible experiences and adventures. 

Chrisian Core - Core Training
I did it because I'm trying to leave something "good/helpful" to the climbing world before to stop competing, before "disappearing". If the App is appreciated, slowly, I'll add in future a lot of informations more, (for free), like new training programs, feeding, informations, etc…, everything I know and it can helping people, because it's really important now the future climbers begin from our trainings, experiences and sometimes mistakes. That's why this's very important. Only by it there will be a real training climbing world's progression i think.  
I never did it thinking to earn moneys, (I hope to get back the money I spent to realize it…)

About training advices:  Just 3 important rules
1. If you are ready/intentioned to train (for every level) it's important to try to do it well, following a right way. Sometimes it's a mistake to train in the gyms "just climbing" (I'm talking about training and not enjoying climbing with friends) but that's better to follow a program with specifics works and objectives.

2. To create in the mind important goals, believing in their own ambitions/objectives, like a good position in a competition, a hard route or boulder we really want to do. This reference keeps always high the motivation, that's indispensable.  

3. Regardless of the level that one has, believing in the training for a while, keep training hard for months, sometimes years. The constancy makes the difference, believing in what you do and you make.

--- Maybe you could start with writing something about how you train at the moment?
At the moment I'm training in different gyms and many different boulders on the rocks too for Paris World Championship.  The style in competition now is very different, more technical, with few holds and many volumes, and sometimes in every problem is strange and difficult to understand the moves in few minutes. (This aspect of corse it's a part of the competition too).
---
Do you have any more projects and what is your ambition for 2012?
In the moment we're working to realize the new Varazze's guide, complete, so I'm working all the new most beautiful project we still have here. I'm surprised because after 12 years climbing in this place I've still new boulders to try, it's important for me because it keeps high my motivation.

1.How do you think that there are so many top athletes that do not have a trainer and that do not follow a training program?

Climbing is a discipline that not imposes "strict limits" for fortune, that's the nice, you can improve even simply by climbing. The body is a strange "machine", we saw children doing incredible performance and "old" doing routes that before even they could not. This show is like climbing a set of complex components, leaving the physical and mental ability to succeed at everybody.

Besides a lot of people in gyms climb simply for the pleasure of doing so with friends trying boulders/routes setted by others, and this "game" unwittingly leads to a physical/body improvement. From there, there are people more likely to progress more physically than others.
It's obvious though that if them use a training program with clear goals to progress becomes easier, more targeted, they can avoid mistakes and sometimes injury.
It always depends on what each of us wants to get from their workouts.

------

Do you think that all of them would improve if they also structured their training?

Sure, everyone can continue to improve more with its own specific training adapted to their characteristics. At any level, just want it.
The training to be successful must become part of our life, not a "task" that each day we have to do, it must has to be part of us, tiring it is true, but motivating, driven by continuing desire to see us stronger, discovering how far we can get. We feel alive, so we train.

I had the pleasure to coach a lot of friends over time, most of them were informed about the individual exercises to do, but did not know how to put them together, creating a program, an order to follow. 
That's why in my App "The Core Training" besides to put a lot of useful exercises to do on the climbing wall, finger board, campus board, etc, I also add a lot of training programs organized by levels, for boulders and routes, to give everyone a program to follow.

The workout is a set of details to put in a specific order, and it is therefore important to know much information as possible. I think these two Apps: "Climb Coach" and "The Core Training", together give an excellent opportunity, because they offer different and useful opinions to all climbers they need, to learn more and to improve with facility and awareness.