Climbing-specific WODs

In case you missed it, Rob Shaul over at Mountain Athlete has started posting climbing-specific workouts of the day:

Beginning January 12th, we started a focused, 8-week sport specific cycle to prepare our climbers for the spring desert climbing season at Red Rocks and Moab. This cycle is rock-climbing specific, and is designed to substantially increase our athletes finger and hand strength, pulling strength, power endurance and stamina.

So right now you are probably asking yourself why are we training in the gym at all then? We are training in the gym because not all of us can go climbing every day, we have to work or take care of family, and not everyone lives where they could even go climbing easily. Also it is winter so rock climbing isn't even possible at all outside of gym training or the rock gym. So this program is designed to help all of us who lead regular lives but still want to get out climbing.

Also this training allow us to break down and train all of the specific muscles that we use climbing. We are training our finger tendons, our grip strip strength, pulling strength and core strength and by training these areas when we are able to go climbing we will be stronger. The strength gained from this program will help you get back to where you were climbing in the fall quicker and as your body learns to use its new strength with the climbing skills you have you will climb stronger as well.

Finally, getting our athletes stronger in the gym allows them to dedicate most of their "on rock" or "on ice" time to the technical nuances of the sport. Their "practice" then can also be more focused and efficient, because they are more fit, and don't need to spend as much time outside developing fitness.