How to get stronger at bouldering at home, with no wall

What home training can and can't do

At home you can build the strength that bouldering leans on: pulling, pushing, a core that keeps your feet on the wall, and legs that get your weight over a high foot. With a hangboard, fingers too.

What home can't give you is the movement. Footwork, reading a problem and staying on steep holds come from climbing, which is why the sample week keeps one day at the gym and puts the hardest climbing there.

The kit

A pull-up bar in a doorway and a bit of floor. A hangboard helps, but you can do without one. Nothing else in the sample week needs equipment.

The two home sessions

Monday is pulling and pushing. Pull-ups are the main exercise: straight arms at the bottom, chin over the bar, and stop each set with a rep or two left in you. Push-ups come after. Climbing works your pulling muscles every session and your pushing muscles hardly ever, so this keeps your shoulders working both ways. If you've got a hangboard, do Abrahangs before the pull-ups: easy feet-on hangs that warm your fingers up without going near your limit.

Friday is legs and core. Archer squats train the deep, one-sided squat you're in when you rock over a high foot. Hollow body holds and side planks train the tension that keeps your feet on when the wall gets steep.

Leave at least a day between the home sessions and the climbing day, so you get to the gym with fresh arms.

When it gets easy

Change one thing at a time, and only when every set feels clean:

• Pull-ups: once you can do 8 clean ones in every set, move on to weighted pull-ups. The weighted pull-up calculator works out the load. If you can't do 5 yet, start with slow negatives.
• Push-ups: pike push-ups put more of the work on your shoulders.
• Core: an L-sit, or hanging leg raises on the bar.
• Fingers: after several weeks of easy hangs, moderate hangs on a 20 mm edge.

What goes wrong

• Training every evening. You get stronger on the rest days. Two home sessions a week, with a rest day after each, is plenty.
• Going to failure every set. The last rep is where your form goes and nothing extra is built. Stop a rep or two short.
• Swapping the climbing day for a third home session. Strength you never take onto the wall doesn't turn into better climbing.

Who this isn't for

Climbers in their first year: climbing more does more for you than any of this. And if a finger or shoulder hurts right now, see a physio before you train it.