Anyone else add training weight during gym climbing?

Why do people add training weight so rarely in the gym? Do most people not find it useful? I feel like it's been something of a game changer this summer, but most people are really surprising that someone would add weight (there are always a lot of questions about why would I do this). I figure why not train with as much or more weight than I'd be carrying in a trad rack or in a couple dozen quickdraws for linking sport pitches.

The way I do it is that I pretty much always have a second set of shoes and a water bottle hanging on my harness since I will have at least that much weight on me outside. I also occasionally climb with a pack (up to 20 lbs extra or so). I drop a grade or so on lead but stay close to my limit for TR. For safety's sake on lead, my belayer clips a sandbag to their belay loop, or I skip this exercise if my partner is too light or feels uncomfortable with it.

The only other instances I can recall of people adding training weight are a person I've seen leading at my current gym once in a while and someone where I used to live who would wear a weight west while traversing (non-stop!) for an hour or so per week.

Well, other than getting a lot of strange glances for huffing around a pack in the gym, there are arguments to be made for and against added weight. A primary argument against is that if your technique isn't already fairly advanced, you run the risk of getting sloppy form if you're not properly engaging your core. At least for harder bouldering, you're increasing your risk of tendon injury, but it doesn't sound like you're doing that. Plenty of people rave about the benefits of weighted training, but I've never really been into it (except for weighted pull ups). I say if you want to get stronger, at a minimum, just boulder more.

Edit to add: When I'm in early season training mode, I just naturally let my wid-waist tire get a bit bigger for my ";training weight";. I get to eat more at dinner, cookies, beer, and it's worth it! Of course I deflate the tire later in the season, which is less fun.

i did the weight vest a bit last spring in prep for the bugaboos but i always felt like people thought i was weird. i dont know why i cared. thanks for reminding me, i think ill start it up again.

Rack in a pack.

If you're going to climb with all your gear but don't gym climb with it or similar weight, aren't you just undertraining?

It looks dumb, but I walk around my neighborhood with my pack too.

If you push harder in the gym by increasing resistance, you are training. There are many ways to achieve a stimulus without wearing weights. Yes, if you climb 5.10 outside and come to the gym and climb 5.10, you're not really training. I guess wearing a backpack will help, but there are more efficient and targeted ways to achieve the stimulus. Weight vests have their place for some though, I won't deny that.

Tradgic Yogurt wrote:Why do people add training weight so rarely in the gym? Do most people not find it useful? I feel like it's been something of a game changer this summer, but most people are really surprising that someone would add weight (there are always a lot of questions about why would I do this). I figure why not train with as much or more weight than I'd be carrying in a trad rack or in a couple dozen quickdraws for linking sport pitches. The way I do it is that I pretty much always have a second set of shoes and a water bottle hanging on my harness since I will have at least that much weight on me outside. I also occasionally climb with a pack (up to 20 lbs extra or so). I drop a grade or so on lead but stay close to my limit for TR. For safety's sake on lead, my belayer clips a sandbag to their belay loop, or I skip this exercise if my partner is too light or feels uncomfortable with it. The only other instances I can recall of people adding training weight are a person I've seen leading at my current gym once in a while and someone where I used to live who would wear a weight west while traversing (non-stop!) for an hour or so per week.

Before I go on any big climbing trip I'll spend the month before with a pack on my back in the gym. I usually fill it with exactly what I'm bringing plus my rack. I never boulder with a pack on though, that seems like a recipe for a broken ankle and makes you look like even more of a knob.

90% of the people in my gym have never climbed outside and of those who have, maybe 2% have actually lead a trad climb - so when people see I put a rack in the bag, they don't ask questions. They just assume it is what you should be doing.

More than the weight, I think it is the change in CoG that you need to get used to more.

^+1
Center of gravity is a nice point.

Why not just climb harder? Training by climbing with extra weight just develops bad technique & poor muscle memory. Weighted pull-ups & hangboarding are another matter.

the schmuck wrote:Why not just climb harder? Training by climbing with extra weight just develops bad technique & poor muscle memory. Weighted pull-ups & hangboarding are another matter.

So when you climb with extra weight (your rack), aren't you still developing this bad technique and poor muscle memory? (Should i have switched off my development capacity prior to racking?)

I imagine racking on your harness does less to shift your center of gravity than wearing a heavy pack or weight vest.

Nathan, the difference is that once you rack up, you are climbing, not training. At that point your body knows that it can stick that long deadpoint, and it knows how to keep a tight core without sagging. If you are training with a whole bunch of crap hanging off of you, you are just learning to climb below your optimal performance. Anyway, I could be talking out my ass, but that's been my experience in cycling & running. I never trained with weights for climbing, save for weighted hangboarding.

i think it depends on what your goal is.

for me it was increasing endurance and ability to carry a pack and rack on long routes. for that i wore a weight vest and down-climbed all the routes i climbed. this worked well for me. for long moderate routes i dont need the strength to do super small crimps and pinches etc but i better be able haul all my gear up 40-50m pitches all day long.

if you are trying to push your grade up, weighted training is probably not as effective as climber harder grades and bouldering.

the schmuck wrote:Nathan, the difference is that once you rack up, you are climbing, not training. At that point your body knows that it can stick that long deadpoint, and it knows how to keep a tight core without sagging. If you are training with a whole bunch of crap hanging off of you, you are just learning to climb below your optimal performance. Anyway, I could be talking out my ass, but that's been my experience in cycling & running. I never trained with weights for climbing, save for weighted hangboarding.

For me it is much more about getting used to climbing with a pack on, the change in weight and CoG, and the fact that shit moves when you make a big throw.

A big deadpoint with a pack on feels so much more different (at least to me). Maybe you climb with a pack more than I do so you are just used to it, but 90% of the time I am within a ropelength of the ground with no pack.

A double rack and pack with 8 or 10 pounds shifting about makes a layback feel a shitload different to me than a single rack on my harness cragging.

Good points, Jake.

fwiw, I train with and without added weight...I am not pushing grades...I do train for endurance...

Fair enough. That makes sense.

I think the bigger question is what are you trying to train for......power? strength? endurance? I think power and strength are better trained on a hang board, campus board, or hard bouldering/climbing without weights. However endurance training is a great place to add weights. If you read Training for the New Alpinism here a quote from that book:

"Take a pack and load it, starting with 10% of your body weight. Finally, leave your ego at the door and prepare to be heckled. You might consider going to the gym during their slowest hours so your friends don't see you. What you are going to do is put in as much vertical as you can manage on routes you can do in boots with a pack.......Climbing up and then down climbing the route is an especially good way to develop both the ME [muscular endurance] and the ability to reverse moves, which could save your life. Go for volume not maximum difficulty. Progress by adding time." Training For the New Alpinism by Steve House and Scott Johnson page 237.

Anyway I used a weighted backpack in the gym wearing mountaineering boots to train for Alaska this last season. And I think it definitely helped especially when I was on long moderate routes going all day long with a pack. The biggest thing for me was actually staying on the wall the whole time so my 20 minutes of climbing was actual climbing instead of mostly resting between routes.

Several useful points here. Thanks for the great discussion, keep it coming.

I probably should've mentioned my goals are generally more height-based than grade-based. Solar Slab, Royal Flush, the Casual Route, Time Wave Zero? Yes please. Sonic Youth? Not so much. I'm going to have to carry at least a couple of liters extra water, Chacos/hiking boots, an extra layer or two, some extra food, possibly emergency bivy.

EDIT: Marlin ninja'd my comment, touche good sir.

Several good insights here, especially Marlin's comment. In preparing for the Creek, I spent 3 days out of the week TR'ing Movement's cracks with a weighted vest. Vests with the ability to add/remove weight are highly convenient for training, since they are adjustable, comfortable, and don't shift your CoG posteriorly. I literally up and down climbed different sized cracks up to 10 times without stopping to rest, came down sweating profusely, panting for breath, and sometimes bleeding, only to find people gawking. But I felt a huge increase in endurance capacity on long Indian Creek splitters a month later. People will always stare and silently judge. Ignore those people. Seriously. Learn to ignore judgement. That's probably a bigger life lesson that should apply beyond climbing at the gym with weights and packs. Anyways keep the training specific to your goals and gradually increase the weight. In most sports, strength training has a huge carry over effect on sport specific performance. Even world class endurance runners have realized the benefits of an optimized strength training program in between running days. Good luck.

ALuckyDuck wrote:Ignore those people. Seriously. Learn to ignore judgement. That's probably a bigger life lesson that should apply beyond climbing at the gym with weights and packs.

This is some of the best advice I've ever seen dispensed on MP. Definitely applicable beyond climbing, as you stated. But it sure applies to climbing plenty, as succumbing to fear of judgment can get you into some pretty dangerous situations high off the ground. Thanks

ALuckyDuck wrote:Several good insights here, especially Marlin's comment. In preparing for the Creek, I spent 3 days out of the week TR'ing Movement's cracks with a weighted vest. Vests with the ability to add/remove weight are highly convenient for training, since they are adjustable, comfortable, and don't shift your CoG posteriorly. I literally up and down climbed different sized cracks up to 10 times without stopping to rest, came down sweating profusely, panting for breath, and sometimes bleeding, only to find people gawking. But I felt a huge increase in endurance capacity on long Indian Creek splitters a month later. People will always stare and silently judge. Ignore those people. Seriously. Learn to ignore judgement. That's probably a bigger life lesson that should apply beyond climbing at the gym with weights and packs. Anyways keep the training specific to your goals and gradually increase the weight. In most sports, strength training has a huge carry over effect on sport specific performance. Even world class endurance runners have realized the benefits of an optimized strength training program in between running days. Good luck.

You may be wrong about stares. My guess is most people are staring because what you are doing is different, they are dumbstruck with awe maybe, wondering if they are capable of doing that, wondering WTF!! And, too shy or polite to ask. Climbers tend to watch each other, yes, in judgement, sorta, but I think we all ponder our capabilities all the time, so something like this will always grab our interest.

On a side note, when a gymnast brought his 50 pound vest in to the gym one night, and shared it around, I think everyone was really sobered at how much harder just walking was with that extra weight. Climbing was much, much more difficult. This was fit, young college kids, too. :-)

Old Lady H, good point! Some of the starers are genuinely intrigued by the novelty. Some of those people ask questions and make conversation about it. I meant to address how to deal with the idea of being self conscious about standing out. Some suggestions above include training during non-peak hours to avoid being seen, which I think may reinforce insecurities. However you go about it, I think training with weights could be beneficial.