I’m really struggling to gain upper body strength for climbing, even by lifting weights for 10-20 minutes every day and upping protein intake. Anyone got tips for building strength quickly? Do I want more reps or more weight? Is there something in my diet I should make sure I cut or include?
More weight, fewer reps. If that doesn’t help, try eating more.
active recover for a week. sleep well and check nutrition same week. then switch to push/pull from upper/lower and pick up whatever program makes sense. progressively load to fail
Pavel Tsatsouline’s “grease the groove” Do 5-10 push-ups / 1-3 pull-ups each time you walk through the door to your kitchen (or some such trigger)
Pushups and dips. Ideally in interspersed sets, with at least 1x to failure every few days.
Lifting every day might be over doing it, the body needs time to recover. A couple training routines I (very roughly) follow are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHHEKcfVIsg&t=1276s (less weights, more pullups) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkhYCgJ65lg&t=560s (deadlift, bench, etc.)
read ‘training for climbing’ by eric horst, lots of good info
Heavier weights with lower reps (6-8 reps) is what builds strength.
Esp for rocklimbing this is a matter of endurance strength. Try slowing down your reps and focusing on the eccentric movements, especially with pullups. Doing slow negatives on those will definitely build strength
This got me stronger faster than other workouts. https://stronglifts.com/5x5/
Gonna suggest just going ham on pull-ups/ chin ups. If you can’t do those look up progressions. Once you can do 10 comfortably, start doing extended/controlled eccentric and concentric phases I.e. 10 second rep, then 20 sec. etc. good luck, do something every day.
Frazerfitness.com. Been working with Todd remotely for years. He’s great.
aim for .75 g of protein per KG of body weight per day consume protein in 30-40g increments
After all this discussion, I did the smallest first step I could last night and did 5x5s of lat pulldowns, bench press, cable rope curls, and leg raises. It’s a start - thanks all!
how long you been climbing? if not so long, then climbing more is the best thing you can do + a small amount of finger boarding. If at least a year then maybe consider getting a plan from https://latticetraining.com. Really detailed personalised plans. So stoked to see the climbing maxis on FC!