A climbing training app that makes the plan for you

What a plan made for you should include

Whoever writes it, a plan is more than a list of exercises. Before you start one, check it for these:

1. One main focus for the block. Strength, power, power endurance or endurance, with one other thing trained next to it. A week that tries to train everything ends up training nothing hard enough.
2. Hard days kept apart. Limit bouldering, max hangs and campusing need at least 48 hours between them.
3. A cap on finger work. Hard finger work twice a week at most, and never on two days in a row.
4. Lighter weeks. Every fourth week has fewer sets, so the weeks before it can be hard.
5. The right order in a session. Hard hangs straight after the warm-up, limit boulders after them, and pump work last, if there's any.
6. Built on your week. It fits the days and minutes you actually have.

The free plans on this site follow all six, and the page lists the rest of the rules their generator keeps to.

What to tell it

The quiz asks where you fall off, how often you climb and whether anything hurts. Answer for the week you'll really have. Two sessions you do every week beat four you keep skipping, and a plan built for four leaves two of its hard days out when you miss them.

Be honest about what's sore, too. A plan can only leave out the hangboard if it knows your finger is grumbling.

Free, or Pro

Three ways to get a plan without writing it yourself:

• The quiz: seven questions, then four to eight weeks of sessions. Free.
• The ready-made plans: four weeks each, by goal and by days a week. Free, and you can read every session before you add one.
• Pro's plan generator, in the app: a new block whenever you want one, for your goal, your days and your session length.

If you only want a session for today, the session planner builds one for your goal and the time you've got.

How to tell if it's working

Run the whole block before you judge it. Test something at the start and again after the light week, like a hang on a 20 mm edge or your hardest send of the month, and compare. If nothing's moved after a block or two, try a block with a different focus. More on that in how to know if your training is working.

When it's the wrong pick

• Your first year of climbing. Climbing lots of different problems does more for you than any plan. The quiz gives first-year climbers plans with no hangboard and no added weight.
• A current injury. See a physio first.
• You keep falling off and can't say why. A plan can't watch you climb. An hour with a coach who can will tell you more than any app.