Hours and outdoors are what counts for youngsters

Adam Ondra is the best climber in the history and he is also probably also the one, relatively to his age, who has climbed most hours in the world. Sure there great short term physical training programs which will make you improve but the #1 criteria to have a long term progress is how many fun challenging hours you put in. A coach that can motivate her/his group to train and challenge themselves 20 hours a week, is probably much more successful in comparison to the best physical climbing trainer in the world, motivating the group just 10 hours a week. At the same time a youngster that not also love outdoors, if possible, will have hard time to keep the hours and motivation during the summer. "I love training as much as competition!" is a recent quote from Akiyo Noguchi which also Ondra and other top climbers often say in public. Ondra interview from when he was 11-years-old. "More meters, more experiences, more fun!" The bottom line is that you and the coaches should carefully pay attention of what motivates the youngsters in order to make them climb 20 hours a week. This might of course be a training programmed but it can also just be climbing. Everyone is unique but it is a fact that most of the best climbers did not have any coaches focusing on short term progress through strict training programs, when they were kids.