Crossfit&Climbing

I have noticed how strong of a pulse there is of CrossFit through the Climbing community. What are peoples thoughts on this?

I think crossfit can contribute to a high level of fitness, but is it a good supplement to climbing and climbing training?

Depends on your goals and what is holding you back from your goals.

it sure doesn't hurt.

Just started a crossfit type class. I almost puked after the first round but managed to keep it down and finish without puking on the instructor. I plan on doing this class once a week until my body starts to adapt. Then maybe twice a week. I feel the crossfit is good because your red lining you bodies ability to "do work" and after that you can drop a couple pennies in the suffer jar.

I started Crossfit about 4 years ago in the Marines and have found it to be the most functional way to get yourself into shape. It is designed for military, police, firefighters, etc, but it definitely has helped me in my climbing game as well. Some climbers I've talked to feel the heavy weight workouts make them too bulky, but I feel the way Crossfit balances heavy lifts with their hopper workouts(doing multiple low weight exercises in the shortest amount of time possible), keeps the bulk down and creates incredible strength.

I've never seen the Alpine Training Center, but it looks promising towards blending Crossfit and climbing, I'm definitely going to give that a shot!

Another reason I like Crossfit is because just like climbing, it pushes you past what you think you are capable of and is a very rewarding endeavor.

I have been Crossfitting for 2 years, and recently became a certified trainer (arguably a joke of a process, to be honest), so I obviously believe in the value of Crossfit as a general strength and conditioning program. I have a few caveats, though: Crossfit can be addicting and the competitive format can lead you to focus on the CF workouts at the expense of climbing specific training or actual outside climbing. Also, you may find yourself wanting to get stronger and stronger to set new PRs on the lifts. At some point you may want to be bigger in order to help that to happen. Increased weight *tends* to decrease your climbing performance.

Having said all that, here's how I have changed with the program:

Spring 2008: 5'10" 158 pounds, climbing 10 years, almost exclusively trad. Hardest redpoint: 5.11c (trad). Began Crossfit

Spring 2009: 163 pounds; managed to climb first two (well protected) .12a trad lines, and first .12c sport in 3 tries, even with less climbing specific training. Can do the parlor trick of a one arm pullup.

Fall 2009: following a water submersion body fat test and a result of 4.4%, decided I could stand to gain some weight. Went from 163 to 181 in 5 weeks. Deadlift went from 365 to 470, clean from 225 to 275. Addiction to CF led to almost no climbing training. Toprope flashing a 5.12a outside was the highlight of Fall 2009. Sad. Can manage a one arm pullup only by kicking those knees up desperately. In the gym, my bouldering ability has not really diminished, but my endurance on routes has decreased markedly.

Winter 2009/2010: Ice and ski season the best the Southeastern US has ever seen. Climb ice and ski a lot. Motivated to climb again. Weight currently coming down. At 176 today. Lifts haven't changed so far. Been in the climbing gym more, focusing on endurance. Hoping to spend a lot of time this Spring outside after an Autumn spent in the box (CF gym)

edited:
Crossfit will certainly make you stronger, faster, and more well-rounded as a human in general. Whether that means it will make you accomplish more in the specific "sport" of climbing is a bit anecdotal and may be dependent on how you approach the program and how you balance it with rock-specific training.

I've seen lots of glowing testimonials about crossfit, but not a single quantifiable piece of evidence that it is in any way related to climbing performance. That doesn't mean it isn't helpful, but if it is, I haven't seen the evidence. So, if you want to feel like you're getting stronger, try crossfit; if you want to know you're getting stronger, you might want to keep looking.

What Mike said...

I've been told by reliable sources that crossfit is great for long, hard, multipitch traditional climbs where you may be doing a long approach, lots of hauling, offwidth/chimney climbing, and regular climbing to boot. This makes sense as the many non-climbing activities involved in hard traditional climbing burn a lot of energy ( more than you'd think).

Let's be real here guys. If you took two twins, had one do Crossfit and the other a climbing specific training program, who do you think is going to be the better climber in a year? (common Anderson Bro's, which of you wants to be the Guinna pig on this one?)

Take two climbers, have one do Crossfit and the other do a fingerboard routine weekly, who is going to become the better climber?

Crossfit is all about training general strength. It is hard, and that is good if you like to thrash yourself on big mountains or walls. If you want to become a better technical climber then you need to train more specifically.

How 'bout you take two twins...one obsessively follows a climbing specific training program, while the other has two kids, moves to Ohio and starts a PhD program. You could argue that two kids and shoveling snow in the midwest are basically the same as crossfit. If you're willing to accept that assumption, then I can definitively say that crossfit does jack shit for your climbing ability.

I do a lot of climbing specific training, system boards, campus boards, finger boards, 45 wall, and 4X4s. But, I do a little bit of the cross fit to shock my body, and to balance out my muscle groups. Overuse injuries come from imbalanced strength, causing the ligaments and tendons to over pull a joint in one direction. And I'm not chris sharma, Daniel Woods, or Tommy Caldwell, I didn't walk up to my first boulder problem and crush it. I didn't start making dramatic improvements until I started training and doing cross fit.

Mike Anderson wrote:How 'bout you take two twins...one obsessively follows a climbing specific training program, while the other has two kids, moves to Ohio and starts a PhD program. You could argue that two kids and shoveling snow in the midwest are basically the same as crossfit. If you're willing to accept that assumption, then I can definitively say that crossfit does jack shit for your climbing ability.

Classic....Well at least you have two kids so you can balance the biceps holding both. Add tire pulling and Plyometrics and you have Crossfit.

Koreo I am quite confident that you would have equal or better results dropping the Crossfit and doing Yoga or Pilates. You don't need "shocking" to balance muscle groups. Crossfit is a 5-6 day a week routine that doesn't become a "balanced" excercise schedule unless you are doing it regularly. If you do the WOD 1-2 times a week you are not getting a balanced routine. If you do 1-2 general workouts (Cindy, et.al.) then you are not really doing Crossfit.

Here's my Crossfit story: Three winters ago I did Crossfit for several months until I hurt my back doing Snatches. I stopped with the Crossfit and started doing Pilates to rehab my back. A few months later I onsighted my hardest route to date. So if you really want to be a better climber try a climbing specific training schedule and do Pilates for muscle balance and flexibility. End of infomercial.

agree with kevin and mike. other than mike moving to ohio and starting a phd. i don't agree with that at all. i would wager that he was hitting the crack pipe and some cheap whiskey when he made that decision...

crossfit is great for getting you in great overall shape, and like kevin said if your goals are long hard days that aren't super technically climbing specific, it could probably be a big help. particularly if you are a typical 9 to 5 schlepp and need a dense workout.

however, if you want to CLIMB hard, you would be a lot better off climbing/hangboarding, as much as possible, and resting (instead of doing crossfit) on your off days. maybe very light biking or relaxing pace on the treadmill. just enough to burn enough calories to drink one beer.

My training consists of climbing as much as I can, drinking Margs daily and avoiding work. Very much in the line of the old English hardmen. Oh Yeah, dating a wild passionate woman is a essential part of the regimen too .

Erik-Fit® Training programs now available at your local Mexican restaurant.

...just keep in mind that the "old english hardmen" climbed about 5.9 on a good day (or E3 HVS or some crazy nonsense like that).

Jason Himick wrote:Seems like the theme here is that being strong doesn't necessarily make you a better climber.

I don't know about that. I think the theme is that being able to sprint up a flight of stairs carrying a sack of flour will not make you a better ROCK climber.

Your fingers can never be too strong.

JLP wrote:being an idiot at high speed

This should be the new slogan for the X Games.

Jason Himick wrote:Someone get Mark Twight to post up and we can put this thread to rest.

Paging Jim Howe and Tom Hore (both users of this site)...

Be interesting to get their thoughts, since they've both done "it".

I agree that these type of workouts (Crossfit, Mountain Athlete, Athletic Training Center) do little for actual climbing strength and technique. However, their benefit comes in the form of more complete fitness, which helps in terms of approaches and longer days. Plus, there's something to be said for the mental toughness benefits of suffering through some of those workouts.

Then again, if you wanted to get fit in those respects, you could just go do long approaches and lengthy days. But some of us can only afford an hour or two in the gym per day...

Kevin Stricker wrote:Here's my Crossfit story: Three winters ago I did Crossfit for several months until I hurt my back doing Snatches.

One of Crossfit's problems is that it is marketed to be high load, high volume--which is a big training no-no over the long term (and often just a big training no-no, depending on your sport).

Whether Crossfit helped you or harmed you, it's all anecdotal here. The reality is that for many people, increases in general fitness improve their sport-specific performance (as long as technique is not expensed), while for others, their general fitness foundation is very high, and thus they will find much less benefit in such training.

All "good" sport performance assumes a foundation of high, relevant general fitness. But general fitness doesn't develop skill. You see, they gotta go out on a date, have a relationship, get engaged, get consummated (or if you prefer the one before the other, that's ok), join bank accounts, take care of each other when sick, finish each other's sentences, and so forth--and then a "higher level" of mutual symbiosis will evolve between them. :)