How to plan your bouldering training without a coach
Plan in blocks of 4 to 6 weeks, each with one goal, like finger strength or power. Train 2 or 3 days a week with at least a day off after your hardest session. Give every session the same order: a 15-minute warm-up, your hardest work while you're fresh, then climbing volume, then strength and mobility. Make the last week of each block a deload with about half the volume and nothing at your limit. Test at the start and end of the block, and only change the plan then, not every week.
In Blok Sessions you lay out the weeks yourself in training periods, like Strength or Deload, and the plan stays as you set it.
Start with the free six-week strength plan: a file for the app and seven short emails on how to run it.
Or start planning in your browser with a free account.
Why generic plans don’t stick
A plan you download doesn’t know which days you climb, what you’re bad at or how you recover. So it asks for a session on the day you’ve got football, trains the thing you’re already good at, and doesn’t care that your ring finger hurt last week. A plan that shuffles its exercises every time you open it is worse: you can’t tell whether anything worked, because nothing was repeated.
Your own plan can be simpler than either and still do better.
1. Pick one goal for the block
One, not three. Examples:
- Finger strength: you fall off small holds on boulders you can otherwise do.
- Power: you can do every move on its own but not the big one.
- Power endurance: you do the crux and fall off the top.
- Base: you’re coming back from a break, or you’ve never trained on purpose before.
2. Lay out the weeks
| Week | What it is |
|---|---|
| 1 | Build. Learn the exercises, leave a bit in the tank. |
| 2 | Build. Same exercises, a little harder. |
| 3 | Build. The hardest week of the block. |
| 4 | Deload. Same days, about half the volume, nothing at your limit. |
For a 6-week block, build for 5 and deload in week 6. Keep the same exercises all block. That’s what lets you see progress.
3. What goes in a session
Same order every time:
- Warm-up, about 15 minutes, ending in the style you’re training today. A wall ramp does this.
- The hardest work, while you’re fresh: max hangs in a strength block, limit boulders in a power block. Both are high injury risk, so do them only after the full warm-up and stop at the first sign of pain.
- Climbing volume, like 4x4s in a power endurance block.
- Strength and mobility, at the end, where being tired costs less.
On a 2-day week, put the hardest work in both sessions and keep them at least two days apart.
4. Deload on purpose
A deload isn’t a week off. Climb on your usual days, do fewer sets and fewer boulders, and stay away from your limit. It’s where the first three weeks turn into strength instead of tiredness. If you skip it, week one of the next block feels like week four of this one. More in how to do a deload week.
5. Test, then change
Test at the start of the block and again at the end, after the deload, the same way both times: the same edge, the same warm-up, the same time of day. A max hang on a 20 mm edge or your hardest boulder repeat are both fine. Change the plan based on that, not on how one Tuesday felt.
Where it goes wrong
- Changing exercises every week because they got boring.
- Adding a session instead of doing the existing ones better.
- Copying a strong climber’s plan built for twice the hours.
- No deload, then a finger tweak in week five.
Who shouldn’t plan like this yet
If you’ve been climbing for less than a year, climb a lot, on lots of different walls, and skip the hangboard. If you’ve got an injury now, see a physio before you plan anything around it.
Questions
How long should a training block be?
4 to 6 weeks. Shorter and you don't see a change before you switch focus. Longer and most people get stale or tired. Three weeks of building and one of deload is a good first block.
How many sessions a week?
2 or 3 for most climbers with a job. A third session helps only if you're recovering from the first two. If your fingers are still sore on the day of your hard session, drop a day before you drop the rest.
What is a training period?
A stretch of weeks with one focus. Blok Sessions has seven, Base, Strength, Power, Power endurance, Endurance, Performance and Deload, and every exercise says which periods it's for.
Can the app build the plan for me?
The plan generator is Pro. You give it your goal, your schedule and how long your sessions are, and it lays out a full training block. Pro is €2.99 a month, €14.99 a year or €24.99 once. Laying the weeks out by hand is free.
What if I miss a week?
Repeat the week you missed instead of jumping ahead. If you miss two or more, restart the block from its first week.