[Muenchener]

I've been thinking about joining a weights gym for a while now. I don't think it will help my climbing particularly, it's more because of the importance of general strength training for the older gent - have been reading some of Mark Rippetoe's columns about this. Also because I think a double bodyweight deadlift would be a cool feat.

I haven't done it so far because of cost, and concern about the time I spend on it detracting from climbing. But now I've found a local sports club that is a lot cheaper than a glitzy gym, and the coach is a former weightlifting world champion and olympic silver medallist. Should be cool. Am going to hold off until the Autumn - because of not interfering with climbing in the meantime - but then give it a bash.

[Fultonius]

I'm really loving the fact my local boulder gym has a weights room attached. Today I was doing some very lightly weight Good Mornings (to strengthen my recovering back) and some overhead squats (with just a non-olympic weights bar) for from and hamstring/glute flexibility.

Did 120kg on the leg press machine which felt easy (a surprise). I'm guessing I could do another 30kg quite easily but I didn't want to push it (2 x BW).

Bouldered like shit though...

[mctrials23]

If you read any training stuff from the US they quite often talk about adding weights to your sessions. It sounds like its much more common to have a weights area over there than it is in the UK. I don't think I have ever been to a wall that has proper weights.

[Sasquatch]

we have a weights area at our local wall.

I'd say it's about 50/50 on the gyms I've been to in the US. 

[a dense loner]

Went into Irish Si's local gym in San Fran, after staring at the weights facility for some time I looked around the Massive lead climbing area then the bouldering areas. Then we topped it off with a sauna in the changing rooms. A fucking sauna!!!

[mctrials23]

If we had facilities like that in the UK I would never leave. It would be a day activity rather than a few hours.

[Muenchener]

Walls in Germany are like the ones in the UK - a few 5kg plates for weighted pullups, at most. As I said, the cost of another membership is  major reason why I've been holding off. But I feel rather limited in what I can achieve at home with a couple of kettlebells.

The last time I had access to a wall with attached gym was when I used to go to the Salford Uni wall. I think you weren't supposed to, the non-student's entrance fee only covered the climbing wall, but I used to "enjoy" blasting out a couple of kilometres post-climbing on the ergometer that was right outside the door.

[Oldmanmatt]

I've got full weights in my climbing gym😄.

They are under utilised.

Those that use them, are rapidly rising up through the local scene though.

They're not top quality, but they are heavy...

Toying with the idea of putting in a bench (unfortunately, this has insurance implications and would need "induction courses" and modification of staff qualifications etc etc).

Unsurprisingly, the more people are seen to use them, the more people decide to use them...

[mctrials23]

Those that use them, are rapidly rising up through the local scene though.

Do you mean that the guys using them are getting strong quickly using them?

[fatdoc]

Loving the general  strength inprovements of a few free weights in my garage.

Overall very useful for body conditioning. Just like running, swimming... Whatever floats your boat. Can then train in a more balanced way, this improves my health and climbing.

It's all about balance, and thus not getting fucked up for and by the the main event... My board.

[abarro81]

Am I the only one who thinks that weights, deadlifting, one legged squats, Bulgarian hokey-kokey-whatevers and the like are tinkering around the edges, and that 95% of climbers should worry more about getting the core of their climbing/training right and less about the tinkering? 

[Oldmanmatt]

Those that use them, are rapidly rising up through the local scene though.

Do you mean that the guys using them are getting strong quickly using them?

Yes.
They are also showing rapid grade progression outdoors.

They train together and improve together.

Great to watch.

[Oldmanmatt]

Am I the only one who thinks that weights, deadlifting, one legged squats, Bulgarian hokey-kokey-whatevers and the like are tinkering around the edges, and that 95% of climbers should worry more about getting the core of their climbing/training right and less about the tinkering? 

That's a tough one.

It's not as if you can't climb, is it Alex, so it's not easy to argue against your position or the results of your training.

On the other hand, having plonked this training facility into a area where nothing similar existed and watching these youngsters blossom so rapidly.
I'd have to lean towards, anecdotally at least, suggesting it has merit.

Weights are of course only a part of it. Steep boards etc are the main tool.

[mctrials23]

Am I the only one who thinks that weights, deadlifting, one legged squats, Bulgarian hokey-kokey-whatevers and the like are tinkering around the edges, and that 95% of climbers should worry more about getting the core of their climbing/training right and less about the tinkering? 

Its not quite that simple is it. Not all of us have the luxury of going to the climbing wall as much as we would want. Failing that, there is plenty of reason to think that the best way to improve muscular strength is not simply climbing. A lot of coaches now use weights in their training of elite level athletes. We use a fingerboard to directly target our fingers so using weights to target larger muscles is quite obvious.

[Fultonius]

Am I the only one who thinks that weights, deadlifting, one legged squats, Bulgarian hokey-kokey-whatevers and the like are tinkering around the edges, and that 95% of climbers should worry more about getting the core of their climbing/training right and less about the tinkering? 

Alex, for those who purely want to get better at climbing I would say you're probably correct - most of the focus should be on climbing, with other climbing specific stuff thrown in (fingerboard, maybe some weights tagged onto the end of sessions). There are loads of overly-strong crap climbers around. People get focussed on these things and forget the basics. Climb climb climb.

However, quite a lot of the folks on here are getting on a bit and (at the ripe old age of 31 going on 32) I, like some of the others, are finding that "just climbing" isn't keeping the rest of the body in good shape for what we want to do. We get injured, we lose structural muscle, we get imbalances. For us, some supplementary weights at the end of a boulder session make a big difference. Also, some of us (certainly me) do a lot of other things than just climbing so having a strong body really help - this forum (while being ostensibly a "bouldering" forum) always has a lot of useful info on getting stronger without getting bugger.

Also - the Pooch and Malc Smith both love deadlifts. Nuff said. 

P.S. You'd probably have climbed 9a+ by now if you deadlifted 

[fatdoc]

Again, with a large dose of anecdote... And 30 years plus of climbing training injuries if I had my time again I'd stear a middle ground path, and actually get overall rather fit, but of course with a focus on the climbing specific core skill set as described above.

In many more researched sports e.g running and all forms of cycling base weights and improved lactate threshold are considered no brainers.

It's certainly not all about the board. Well, it can be... And after a decade the muscle imbalance, poor flexibility, poor lactate threshold all swirl up into some perverse monster that will slap the shit out of your late 20s body and fuck up progression in your chosen sport and thus you reach the plateau of all plateaus.... Eventually getting disenchanted with the whole damn thing and give up completely... Only to spend 1000s on bikes, 1000s of hours in the NHS bleeding and fractured, to then see the light and re enter the world of bouldering some years later.... Again.. Anecdotal

[a dense loner]

The pooch has never done a deadlift in her life! She may have posed for pictures but that's it. I went to the gym with her for the best part of 2 yrs and all she did was 20 mins on the bike, 10 mins running, and every few wks a few one-armers in front of the guys. No weights, nada.
Alex you're a student, ie you eat less than Paul B, you have time to train or go outside 3 times a day, you drive a shit car, you haven't (or can't have) a woman. In short you can do whatever you want. Others have more commitments thus end up looking good as an aside cos they have to wait for wife, girlfriend, whatever, to finish yoga or Pilates or other such shit so they lift weights and flex in the sauna. When wife's not looking

[Muenchener]

It's not about climbing for me Alex. I'm 53; I don't want to spend the last five years of my life barely able to move because of osteoporosis like my dad did, and I'm not convinced climbing on its own will be enough to save me.

If deadlifting for skeletal health has the side effect of turning me into Malc that would be nice, but it's not the object of the exercise.

[Fultonius]

The pooch has never done a deadlift in her life! She may have posed for pictures but that's it. I went to the gym with her for the best part of 2 yrs and all she did was 20 mins on the bike, 10 mins running, and every few wks a few one-armers in front of the guys. No weights, nada.

Damn, I've been conned    I must have seen some other strong lass doing weights on a video and got them mixed up.

[Whyatt]

If you wanna deadlift do it! If your in Sheffield there is a place of London rd called iron athlete £3 entry no sign up membership and it's a top set up

[fatdoc]

Sounds interesting....

[Oldmanmatt]

The irony of following this thread, between sets...

[Paul B]

On the other hand, having plonked this training facility into a area where nothing similar existed and watching these youngsters blossom so rapidly.
I'd have to lean towards, anecdotally at least, suggesting it has merit.

Weights are of course only a part of it. Steep boards etc are the main tool.

They're 'blossoming' because they're getting rapid strength gains from the weights, and that's having some crossover into climbing. I'm with Alex in thinking it isn't the most efficient way of getting applicable gains.

I found weights and supplemental tinkering great fun and at various points due to injury, general lack of psych, or psych towards other things, weights have been fantastic; as a lightweight, deadlifts allow you to pick up what seems to be a large amount, I enjoyed that.

People will no doubt scoff at this, but I'm heavier than I used to be, with more mass (ha!) on the shoulders. This is down to weights and will make it harder to pull on small crimps, of that I'm sure.

If you have access to a decent steep board I think the time could be spent doing better things, walk-downs etc.

[Oldmanmatt]

I think here though it's the combination that's paying off.

Everything in moderation, nothing to extreme.

Too shaky to type properly...

[Fiend]

I'd love to know what the  "JUST TRAIN CLIMBING AND NOTHING ELSE EVER" camp do when their skin is fucked or their forearms are trashed from previous days training or when they're injured or getting too imbalanced from pure climbing training and thus prone to injury......