How sport climbers train: Training secrets that help the world's best reach the top
Sport climbers spend up to five hours at the climbing gym every day, but there are more variables in their training regime than meet the eye. Olympics.com spoke to athletes from around the globe to discover the five key things they focus on to perform their best on the wall.
Sport Climbing
Boulder or lead, five hours or three, on or off the wall, and what about training the mind?
The training routines of sport climbers are as varied as the athletes themselves. Olympics.com spoke to the some of the world's best to discover more about the work behind the scenes that helps them reach the top.
1 - Train seasonally: Hard training in the winter, "fun stuff" in the summer
With the IFSC Climbing World Cups taking place roughly from April to October each year, winter is the off-season for sport climbers.
However, rather than a rest period, it is often the most intense time in the athletes’ training regime.
“During the winter periods there was a couple months where I was training six days, seven days a week, eight hours a day. It was incredibly intense,” Great Britain’s Toby Roberts told Olympics.com. “My body was completely destroyed, but that's when I find that all the gains come. I remember getting to the end of these sessions feeling absolutely destroyed and then waking up the next day and then going and doing the same thing.”
The training tapers off in the spring and summer months as competitions start. From that point on agility and readiness to tackle a variety of wall set-ups become the focus.
This is when Roberts says he also has the most fun with the sport.
“It starts to become more about the competitions, feeling good, feeling bouncy, not doing all of this intense conditioning and training, and then focusing more on the movement side of climbing," he said. "These World Cup competition blocks are incredibly complex these days, so that was a huge part of my trainings and preparations is to get on as many blocks, as many boulders which are similar to those inthe World Cups, as possible, to really train the movement styles and patterns.
"So the hard training happens in winter and then the fun stuff happens in the summer.”
2 - From boulder to lead: Explosive power vs. endurance
Training also varies within the competition season itself. The World Cup events start with bouldering and wrap up with lead climbing.
To accomodate the demands of the different disciplines, Canada’s Sean McColl goes for short but powerful training sessions at the start of the season. Later, as he starts preparing for lead, the sessions get slower but increase up to five hours per day.
“The beginning of the season is mainly based on building power. The sessions are much shorter. I have two sessions a day combined with probably some sort of run or cardio,” McColl told Olympics.com. “When I get into the second part of the season, I go into the training much longer. I do a lot of weights, upper body, again back in the circuit mode. The lead sessions take the longest.”
Serbia’s Stasa Gejo follows a similar approach to training - shorter and more intense sessions to start the season followed by endurance exercises for lead.
“I train around five times a week, sometimes twice a day, for about two hours each. I try not to train longer in bouldering, longer than three hours, but lead sessions can take up to five, six hours, more focused on quality,” Gejo told Olympics.com. “Intensity is important and is rather short.”
3 - Off the wall: Dumbbells and running shoes
While getting familiar with different boulder and lead set-ups is at the core of a sport climber's training, athletes also make sure to step away from the wall.
Canada’s Alannah Yip trains hang boarding, specific techniques, footwork and balance when she is in a climbing gym. To compliment this training she adds strength work in the gym as well.
“When I’m at home in the season before the competition, I usually train five, six days a week. Some of these days I’m doing are not climbing based, just in the gym with weights,” Yip told Olympics.com. “Typically I climb five days a week and I’m in the gym four to five hours per session. When the competition comes closer, our training gets more specific to the competitions. We do simulations of the competitions, do the same volume of training that we do in the competition.”
Republic of Korea’s Seo Chae-hyun incorporates weight training to add power to her performances, while Gejo is a gym regular during the off-season. The Serbian climber does not have time to go to the gym during the season, but with a bit of creativity she has managed to keep her muscle strengthening routine on track.
"There are a lot of exercises not on the wall but you can do anywhere: bodyweight, different core exercises, legs,” Gejo said of her gym-free way to do weight training.
For France’s Mejdi Schalck running is the off-the-wall exercise of choice. The 2023 world silver medallist in men's boulder goes on at least one run during the off-season to add to his four or five sessions in the climbing gym.
4 - Flexing the mind
Physical strength – whether through climbing sessions or running – is not the only thing that Schalck is working on. Mental preparation is also part of his routine, as it is for many sport climbers.
“The hardest part is the mental side. Everyone is super strong physically in climbing,” USA’s Sean Bailey told Olympics.com. “I try to, mostly before bed, think about what my goals are, what the next step is.”
Australia’s Oceania Mackenzie does competition simulations and meditation as a way to become more mindful, while USA’s Jesse Grupper adds in a downward dog (a yoga pose) or two.
“I do yoga every day to get in my own routine,” Grupper told Olympics.com. “I’ve been practising meditation too, to be present and able to perform and relax when I need to. Apart from that, I do simulations of competitions."
His teammate Colin Duffy, meanwhile, has fine-tuned his mental powers in a way that was almost unavoidable for an athlete - by competing, again and again.
“I don’t do any mental training,” the Tokyo 2020 Olympian told Olympics.com. “My experience through youth competitions and now World Cups for a few years, I solved the mental game and the experience allows me to just block in when I go to the competitions.”
5 - Training and recovery: A fine balance
Feeling “destroyed” after a training session, like Toby Roberts, is not surprising given how much time climbers train in a day. With sessions lasting from two to five hours, recovery becomes increasingly important.
A “two days on, one day off” approach is the most popular among climbers.
USA’s Jesse Grupper, Sean Bailey and Colin Duffy all follow this schedule, as do Australia’s Oceania Mackenzie and Spain’s Erik Noya, with minor variations depending on the season.
“There are a lot of options," Noya told Olympics.com. "If we are in competition mode, I train two days and rest one. If we are in pre-season, we normally do six days of training and rest one.”
Of course, not all athletes have the luxury of a full resting day. For some like Grupper, a rest day is an opportunity to get other kinds of work done.
“I find that it helps me perform at my best when I'm able to also think about other things,” said Grupper who works as an engineering research fellow at Harvard University.
"Typically I’ll do two days on, one day off and repeat it for several months. First day I focus more on power and bouldering skills as I’m kind of learning this new discipline for myself. Then I do a double session focused on lead climbing, more volume climbing. I have a couple of breaks in the middle of the day to do some work."