Free climbing training plans for bouldering
Each one is a four-week training program for one goal, the last week lighter, with 60-minute sessions you can make 45 or 90. Pick what's stopping you and how many days you can train.
Base
You want to get better all round. Lots of easy climbing, good movement and aerobic fitness.
Strength
Small holds are stopping you. Stronger fingers and pulling, with weight you control.
Power
Big moves are stopping you. Explosive moves, momentum and coordination.
Power Endurance
You run out of power halfway up. Keep your power through one hard move after another.
Endurance
You pump out before the session ends. Climb longer before you pump out, by moving efficiently.
Performance
You've got a trip or a project to peak for. Peak for a trip or a comp: focus, reading problems, trying hard.
How these plans are built
The same plan generator as the app builds every one, and it keeps to these rules:
- Each session follows a recipe for its training period: which exercises, in what order, and a lower-risk swap for the risky ones.
- The hardest days, with limit bouldering, max hangs or campusing, are at least 48 hours apart.
- Hard hangs come straight after the warm-up while you're fresh, and limit bouldering comes after them.
- No exercise comes up more than twice a week, warm-ups aside.
- Pull-ups on two days a week at most, and never fast or heavy pulling on a campus day.
- Campusing is once a week at most, and only in the Harder version.
- Week four is always lighter.
- Weeks two and three repeat week one's sessions, and each plan says how to make them harder.
- From the quiz, first-year climbers and anyone with a niggle get plans with no hangboard and no added weight.
The hang protocols come from the people who made them: max hangs and minimum-edge hangs from Eva López, and easy daily hangs (Abrahangs) from Emil Abrahamsson.
Not sure which one? Seven questions tell you what's stopping you, then build a plan around your answers. Free.
Take the quiz