Help on a Routine, Please

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

So here’s the deal. I rock climb 3 times a week and do ‘cardio’ 2 or 3 times a week as well. I used to weight train 4 to 5 times a week until very recently getting burned out. I can barely motivate myself to go the gym and it sucks.

I am definitely needing to get back into the gym, but I can’t/don’t want to train weights at the frequency I used to until I get my motivation back, so I was thinking of doing a 2x/week workout, focusing on compound movements and and emphasis on body-weight movements.

So far, I was thinking on doing a vertical push-pull split paired with squats and lunges on the first day, and the second day doing a horizontal push-pull paired with dead-lifts.

My only problem is with Vertical Push/Pull, I can only think of Pull-ups, lateral raises, upright rowing, and pull-overs. Am I missing anything? Are dips vert. push/pull, or are they horizontal?

Any rep/set suggestions would be useful too. I was thinking a 5x5 program would be pretty decent. In case you are wondering, my goals for this are to increase my strength (not my mass), and to lose some fat.

2

For vertical push:

Seated military press
Standing military press
Push Press

Vertical Pull:

Power cleans (not too sure on this one)
Bent over rows
Pendaly Rows

I think dips can be considered a vertical push.

I have no idea what would make up a 2 day/week plan. All I can guess at is a ridiculously intense routine due to all the recovery you will have.

There is a legs program on here that was done on monday and thursday of every week and consisted of some really intense exercises.

3

This is a 3x5 strength program

This is a 5x5 strength program

The difference? Two extra sets. They are both designed to be done 3x/week, but there is no reason why you couldn’t change it to two. Both programs are proven to give results, followed properly.

Other vertical push/pull:

deadlift
military
squat
dips
barbell rows
clean variations

4

It sounds like overtraining to me.

Take a week off from lifting. If you already have, good. You may want to cut back on the cardio as well. Climbing gets your heart pumping anyway.

Doing a beginner 3x5 or 5x5 is probably not what you want. As a climber, you don’t want massive legs. That’s what you would wind up with. You want a strong upper body and reasonable lower body strength.

For upper body concentrate on pull ups, overhead presses, grip strength. Do lots of volume. For lower, deadlifts and squats, high weight, low volume. 2 days/week is probably enough. I’m sure there are some climbers here that can be more specific.

Stu

5

Vertical push:
dips
militaries
jerk press
push press
does high incline press count?

verticl pull
chins
pullups
shrugs
cleans
snatches
deadlifts

6

Thanks for all the replies guys. I really appreciate it.

Stuward-You are probably right about the overtraining and right about everything else. I’ll search through the forums and see if there are any climbing-related threads.

7

I don’t consider myself a real climber, but I’ve lead 5.10s and never really bouldered outside. I’m from Ohio so most of my climbing has been at the Red River Gorge and I’ve climbed a lot in gyms. Keep this in mind as I reply.

I found this site last Winter, joined up in recently and was primarily focused on losing weight. I was basically doing circuit/interval training to lose weight and get back in shape. I started WS4SB last week, but have been bastardizing the hell out of it so I am pretty much off of it.

My current goals are to get lean and get relatively strong for my bodyweight. I’m not at the level of climbing ability, where 5 to 10 lbs of muscle mass is not going to hurt me, plus I’m a little fat so I think the weight difference will take care of itself as I lean out/add lean mass.

I started doing deadlifts, front squats and backsquats. Usually I do a lot of front squats, working up to 2-3 reps, then do a couple sets of heavy back squats. I’ve been working on OH squats, which I think are good for climbing because of shoulder stability and core strength. Either way, the front squats and OH squats are good for athleticism without adding too much mass.

I ordered a dip belt and started doing weighted pull ups and dips. It hasn’t got here yet so I’ve been putting dbs between my feet. I can do 20 strict pull ups but when I add weight I feel weak. I can do sets of 4 with +45 lbs and if I do a set of 6 to start with I’m pretty much done with pullups for the day. I think that will really help with climbing though.

I’ve been doing a lot of OH presses and will bench/incline bench with dumbbells as a supplement. Good opposition work for climbing, and then horizontal rows are important to for the vertical/horizontal opposition. You program seems to have this incorporated the opposition work well. You might want to consider switching it to a horizontal push/vertical pull and a vertical push/horizontal pull split as well. Its just an idea though.

My favorite lifts are the olympic lifts. I downloaded this climbing video of Spanish female climbers called escaladoras. There was a segment in there with this girl training, and she was doing power cleans. She was climbing hard 5.13s and maybe even a 5.14 so if she trained with them I don’t see anything wrong with it. I’ve been working on getting full squat cleans and snatches but taking it slow. These are good full body, athletic movements that I would add to any training routine. Deadlift high pulls are another good vertical pulling exercise too. I think these will get you stronger all over without adding too much mass.

For cardio, I’ve been jump roping with a timer usually 2 min jump + 1 min rest x 12 rounds, which I really like. The only problem is my shins get sore and I have to force myself to do something else. I’ve also been doing crossfit.com workouts, check it out if you’ve never seen it because its great for overall fitness. Other circuit intervals are fun too, and I’ll just make em up for whatever day.

Now that I think of it, gymjones.com has some good training and some of those guys are good climbers, not just mountaineers but good rock climbers as well. Thats a cool site and I’d recommend anyone to check it out.

Thats it for now. I’m new to this but thats some of what I’ve been doing. Its not climbing specific, more focused on overall athleticism, but I think it will carry over well to climbing.

Another thing, beastskills.com has some cool bodyweight training stuff to. I built some of the parallette bars and have been working on some gymnastic stuff too which will definetely help with climbing.

Anyway, good luck with your training and I hope my ramblings at least gave you an idea for something to add to your workouts.

8

its crazy how you climb but had trouble with vertical pulling. i wouldnt lift so much if i climbed. i thought i had strong forearms until i tried it.

9

[quote]stuward wrote:
Doing a beginner 3x5 or 5x5 is probably not what you want. As a climber, you don’t want massive legs. That’s what you would wind up with. You want a strong upper body and reasonable lower body strength.
[/quote]

Yeah, that’s why I mentioned to do it only 2x/week like he wanted. It’s still possible to do either but progress much slower.

10

I don’t get why people are saying go go light on leg work, it’s not like your legs explode in a few weeks by doing a few squats. Maybe if someone was squatting 400+ then I can see backing off especialy if they are light. BUt cmon it’s rediculous.