My gym offers bouldering and its really fun...

My gym offers bouldering and its really fun, but im curious about how often i should do it and if it interferes with my strength training. I do strength 3 times a week, can i do bouldering on the same days after finishing my workout or will it be too much?

you have to atrophy your legs as hard as possible to get good at climbing/bouldering

Not sure if bouldering after strength training is a good idea. I'd lean towards no but just try it and see if it is too much. You should never forget the fun, probably the most underrated motivation.

That's utterly irrelevant below the professional level. Climbing is great for your entire body, especially upper body strength and core. Also good for flexibility which is barely covered by regular training.

I boulder 3x/week and lift 3x/week. U wont get max aesthetics, but its a ton of fun and a great thing to progress at - plus theres a lot of grills to talk to :^)

i dont personally do it for very long, maybe 40 minutes including breaks. But it is quite exhausting for my shoulders and arms.
Should i possibly do it on rest days instead? Will give me a reason to go to the gym more often at least.

and you're right about the girls, plenty of qt's, and they're all easy to ask for help, alas my autism wont net me pussy

Hi guys,

I wanted to incorporate bouldering into my routine so I came up with this program. Full disclosure: I was and still am a total newbie dyel so I'm no expert on fitness. I just developed it based on this:

1. Climbing would be considered my "pull" workout
2. I want a big chest
3. Accessory exercises to prevent common climbing injuries related to wrists and shoulders

ABAxBAx

A -
3x8-12 db press, db fly, db incline press, db incline fly
3x7-10 db lateral raise
Resistance band rotator cuff exercise

B
45 mins bouldering
3x8-12 bulgarian split squats
3x10-20 hanging leg raises
3x15-20 reverse wrist curls

What do you guys think? Suggestions on things to add/remove?

Long time boulder here. Best advice I can give is to focus on one, like user bouldering to build upper body if you want >aesthetics. Or use weightlifting to build strength for bouldering. Drop squats and deals for power cleans. Got to V5 in a year.

>Got to V5 in a year.
That is really slow, I think I could do the "easy" V5s that suited me in about 3 months.

Anyway a great thing about bouldering is the super noticeable progress, especially at first there are huge steps every week. A problem you couldn't even stick the first move is suddenly doable 4 sessions later.

If you have any strength at all it won't be a significant pull workout.

At best it'll be a forearm workout That you get accustomed to.
Yeah, I would always boulder after training. The only thing it torches is your forearms, and that's only for novices. It's not going to interfere anymore than running a mile will affect a guy on leg day.


You get used to it, and it's great for work capacity.

As far as preventing wrist injuries you should stretch them and do extensor training. I figure you mean hand injuries and don't know quite what you're talking about. Don't do holds you know you can't do (one handed crimp/ledge holds) or you'll hurt your hands. And by that I mean your tendons. Even a light injury means you aren't climbing for a while.

Wrist curls are largely useless for you with rock climbing.

When I go bouldering my arms are toast for the rest of the day. I mean seriously useless. I cycle home and can barely pull the brake son my bike.

Literally how? I've been going about 2x a week for almost a year and can still barely climb V3s. I've also been bulking and gained about 40lbs. since I started, but still.. I feel like my finger strength is lacking especially on crimpy holds

>Wrist curls are largely useless for you with rock climbing.

A lot of people at my gym do them - one of the instructors said it prevents muscular imbalance in the forearm that can lead to injury. Same deal with the rotator cuff exercises

Well for me it's probably because I focus on bouldering and do basically no lifting, went climbing 5 times per week for about 2 months and my finger strength improved a ton really fast. Bodyweight and % bf are pretty crucial to getting stronger at rock climbing so bulking is bad if you only care about that.


Never forget to warm up before, it's EXTREMELY important.

Wrist and hand size?
Sounds like you have bad genes for this sport

Do you have tragically low self esteem?

Extensors are a higher priority for ancillary training than torsion training. You could skip wrist curls completely and be fine.


The rotator cuff work is a pretty solid general recommendation.

That makes sense. I do 45 mins per session twice a week - most of my time and energy is spent lifting. Still, I was hoping to at least be climbing V4s by now. Oh well..

My wrists and hands are both tiny, but I'm long and lanky so it's easier for me to send routes than most I think.

It is training the extensors. It's a reverse wrist curl - palms facing down

nah i wouldnt say so really, im not good at making convos with strangers though truth be told

Small wrists and hands both cause strength/stability issues

So why don't your just fucking try it and see if it works for yourself

I thought it clever to ask my good friends on the Veeky Forums board of Veeky Forums™ because i thought perhaps that someone there had experienced similar things. And i was mostly right, except for you, you grumpy fuck

You don't happen to live in Chicago do you? I'll be your climbing buddy

Thank you for the offer but I live in Norway so it doesn't seem very possible

The time it takes you to get from v0 to v3s, Is the same from v3 to v4.

Shoulder was funded all summer, got impaled by a stick, only been climbing again from v0 to v5 in 4 months

It'll only interfere if you over work a ligament or tendon p much. Which is to say it probably won't do shit. All the same I would suspect if you're worried about it lifting before climbing is better than lifting after.

There are some great unilateral and grip exercises for climbing crosstraining too, like the one arm deadlift.

Squats are great because they hit the posterior chain. Any squat variation other than back or front does not do that. So I recommend doing some actual squats.

SSfag detected

If you enjoy it do it. If you feel exausted or weakend, take a rest day after. It is obviously doing you some good. If you want to do it regularly and notice certain muscle groups are strained by it, just ajust your lifting routine accordingly.

You can do both. I boulder or climb 3-4 days a week and lift three days a week.

You might just want to reduce volume. When it's warm and I can climb more I tend to drop down to 3 x 5 on compounds instead of 4 or 5 sets.

Also, you can be big and still climb hard. It's not optimal, and you're better off cutting weight, but I'm 27 BMI and can still climb 5.12a (real route, because every gym grades their hard routes way too low) and V6s or 7s.

>bouldering

Or someone who works out. Do front squats like once a week and you won't those big ol muscles my little twink.