About this video

• Video Title: How to train for bouldering
• Channel: Dave MacLeod
• Speakers: Dave MacLeod
• Duration: 00:31:55

Overview

This video provides a comprehensive guide on how to train for bouldering, suitable for climbers of all levels. It covers setting goals, understanding resources, developing technique, building strength, training endurance, planning sessions, and utilizing tactics for effective training and recovery.

Key takeaways

• Goal Setting: Define your climbing goals (e.g., specific grades, competition performance) and consider underlying motivations like health and enjoyment, not just achieving a grade.
• Technique is Crucial: Bouldering is a technical sport. Effective technique allows you to apply strength. Learning technique involves systematic experimentation, curiosity, and active engagement with movement, not just clocking hours.
• Strength Development: Bouldering requires both maximum force and rate of force development. The ability to "try hard" is a trainable skill. While dedicated strength tools exist, bouldering on the wall remains the core of training.
• Endurance Matters: Even for an explosive sport like bouldering, endurance is important for sustaining effort on longer problems, managing fatigue during sessions, and maintaining composure in competitions.
• Session Planning: Consider your personality when planning training sessions. Some thrive with others, while some focus better alone. Optimize training times and environment to suit your needs.
• Tactics for Success: Effective training includes managing skin condition, prioritizing recovery (sleep, diet, rest), and crucially, enjoying the process to ensure long-term engagement and progress.

Dave MacLeod suggests that while specific strength training exercises like fingerboarding, campus boarding, and weightlifting are useful tools, actual bouldering on the wall should form the backbone of most bouldering training. He notes that experienced climbers who spend too much time away from climbing on pure strength training might get stronger on those exercises but perform less purely on the wall because they haven't integrated that new strength into their overall climbing technique. He personally spends about four times as much time climbing on the bouldering wall as he does on all other basic strength exercises combined. The key is not to let these specific strength exercises dominate the training too much.