TRAINING...

Winter Climbing Training

The routes in the Alps are generally long, often requiring up to 15 hours of pretty much non stop climbing. This will test every muscle in your body, and even your mental skills. Everyone knows its when teams are tired they start making the wrong decisions and mistakes occur. So the fitter you are the safer you are. What is required is a high level of fitness, skill and a good functional team. Most of the routes will be at altitude too, thus placing an even higher demand on your cardio system. The key areas of training are:
• Cardio endurance training, to ensure you can keep climbing all day
• Arm strength, for pulling up on axes on steep ice
• Calf strength, for standing on your front points all day.

Here are a few suggestions for each of the areas.

Cardio training
Circuit training is a great way to train for cardio strength. Most gyms will run a class, I use my University gym. Here we do advance circuits which last for about 1 hour 15 and 3 times a week. There is a whole group of young (fit) people which can really help motivate you when you’re feeling down. It also helps that the people are young and fit, and many belong to clubs (like rugby and rowing) which again drives you. There is nothing better than showing other sport clubs that winter climbing really is the toughest sport there is.

A normal session will generally include exercises which involves every group of muscles you have. Exercises include press ups, sit ups, sprints, chin ups, lifting, side steps over a plank and many more. Normally we have mini circuits where you have three exercises at a station.
E.g. the three exercises are press ups, chin ups and telemarking jumps. You do as many as possible press ups you can for 45s, then a 7s rest to move to the next exercise, 45s for as many chin-ups/jump chins, 7s for a rest, 45s for as many telemarks you can. Then you get 15s to move to the next set of three exercises.

Running and swimming are also great ways to train for cardio. Running is good as it gets you outside, which is where most climbers prefer to be. But running is a city can be hard work without someone else to run along side you.

Arm strength
The last time I went away to the alps for a winter season I was really working on this area. My friend suggested this method, and I have found it to work the best. Find yourself a nice door frame to hang your axes on. And the plan is to do 300 chin ups on your axes in 2 hours. This sounds like a crazy high number, but it really is the best way to improve. You do 10 chin ups and once you have done them, start a timer of 2 minutes. When the timer beeps do another 10 chin ups, and then start the time again. If you do this for 2 hours you will have done the 300. When you 1st start you will not be able to do this, but at every beep of the time just do as many as you possibly can, and you will soon be able to crack the 300. And ideally you would want to do this at least once a week, not too much to allow yourself some recovery time.

The good thing about this method is that you can watch TV while you do it, thus reducing some of the boredom of just pure chin ups! Also, it is a lot easier to train inside in a nice cosy place, rather than having to brave the wet and cold outside sometimes.

The other aim we had before one of our seasons was to be able to hang on the axes lease less for 4 minutes. This is really good as it gives you so much confidence on tricky moves on mixed pitches. Also, you feel safer holding your axes while trying to place gear.

Obviously bicep curls and weights at the gym will help on this, but remember you want to train your climbing muscles, and not vanity muscles! So really the best way to train is by climbing. Dry tooling can provide a very good option for this. Also, this can increase your winter skill on mix pitches. In Dunkeld in Scotland, where Scott Muir has set some of the hardest drytooling routes, the easier route there is D5 and this roughly converts to Scottish tech grade 6.

Another nice place to train is the indoor ice wall in Kinloch leven. Here if you climb on the indoor ice you are using the muscles you will be using on a bigger climb.

Calf Strength
Standing on your front point all days is always what causes more pain when ice climbing. So it is important that you work on them before you are stuck on a route with a steep ice pitch, and you feel the burn! Again, this method was suggested by a friend. You want to do lots and lots of calf raises. This is where you step up on your toes from standing flat. He suggested, as this is a very boring thing to do for a length of time, do it when your brushing your teeth. Dentists say you should brush for 4-5 mins two times a day, and this is a good time to do the Calf raises. If you adopt this into your daily routine you wont even notice your doing an essential part of your training. Also if you want to add to this, it is a easy exercise to do in the office of just standing in the lunch line!

Also running is another good way to train your Calf, every step you take is contraction of your Calf.

Again it is important to keep forced while training, so you train the right muscles. The Chilean army swear by the motto; what you sweat in the gym you save in blood in the field. This is very true. Being a bit fitter could save your life one day - especialy one long day.

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