The Rock Climber's Training Manual

This book finally helped me organize and better understand my training and I'm getting good results without injury. Hey, that's the gold standard right! It's thorough and provides enough of a basis to form a basic program that can be modified with experience. You can read enough to get started then review each chapter as you come to that training block. I highly recommend it.

I just thought I'd add a different perspective. I'm 63, female, and brand new to rock climbing. I'm also a Type 1 Diabetic on insulin pump. So I have kind of freaked out my family (and myself) with this sport, but having now climbed in Joshua Tree 6 or 7 times, I'm hooked. I decided I needed some fitness to really do my best, so I hired a trainer at my gym, but I could tell that what we were doing wouldn't help much on the rock. So I found this great book... and the thing I like so much is that it is a training manual for all levels of skill, including mine (which is about "none"). I don't know that my goal is to climb Denali. I'd be happy just to feel competent indoors and out on crags that inspire me... and I'd like to see my body lean and strong. And free. I see nearly everyone 'my age' just falling apart. Sitting. Getting fat. It's easy to do. But there is not a muscle in the body that doesn't get worked when you climb. Your core strength has to be incredible. Your fingers and toes have to be strong. And I never knew how to develop my forearms... now I do. I'll plan out my 17 weeks of training, and it may not look like anyone else's, but this book gives me all the tools I need to make it 'mine'. What I'm hoping is that when I return to Joshua Tree in the fall, there will be looks of wonder and amazement on the faces of the guides who just saw me a few months ago. (not laughter... 'wonder' :-) )

This is the definitive guide for training for climbing performance. I own Horst's "Training for Climbing" as well as Hague's "The Self Coached Climber" (along with a ton of other climbing books that at least pay lip service to climbing training.) I've also been training people and groups in various aspects of fitness, from Parkour to general fitness, and from race training to Olympic Weightlifting for over a decade. From my viewpoint this book does the best job I've seen both explaining the benefits of training, the nuts and bolts of what training entails and how it works, as well as the best way to develop a training program for yourself and individualize it over time. This book is worth every penny, though I would suggest buying the hard copy so that you can bring it with you to the gym (it also comes with a great training log that helps you keep track of all of the hard work you'll be putting in.) If you're interested in taking your climbing to the next level and don't want to just leave it to chance, buy this book now!

From detailed instructions on how to perform specific exercises to scientific explanations of how our muscles work, this book is the most thorough book on the topic I have read. The layout is beautiful, with many great pictures, helpful insets and examples of workouts and schedules for beginners and advanced climbers alike. I love the explanations of our physiology and how nerdy the Anderson brothers are in their approach to training. Their work allows climbers to gain strength without spending all day in the gym and they address skill development and specificity of training to the projects one wants to climb. I am empowered to take my training into my own hands and tailor it to my goals. Furthermore, the website provides lots of additional material and Mark and Mike are actively adding advice and answering questions, so the resources they provide extend beyond this book. I cannot recommend this book enough!

This book was recommended by a friend, whose climbing skill recently went up by a few grades thanks to this book. When I first opened the book I was amazed. It is extremely well put together, and has so much great information about training for climbing. There are also plenty of awesome color photographs, a ton of charts, and even a log book for you to fill out while training. I could not be happier with this. I just got it, but I am already so excited to start the training program. My friends refer to it as "the Bible" and now I understand why. Written by two brothers who are climbers, one of whom has a PhD in sports science, this book is a great resource for improving your climbing and covers every aspect of the sport including diet, training, and technique.

I really enjoy this book. It is very well written with great graphic design, content, and layout. It very much so focuses on training and goal-setting. This book does not cover technique. The authors are up-front with this. When they touch on topics such as grips, they specifically cite other books that have adequately touched on those topics. Instead, they narrow the content to only examine their particular training program and any research or biology that plays into and supports the program. For me, I am a very new climber with less than 6 months of experience. I was worried that this book may not be applicable for me and that it would be shelved for a few seasons, but it is laid out in a way that its content is broadly applicable. It seems as though it will be similarly applicable for many advanced climbers that do not have a training plan or system driving their daily and weekly climbing. On the flip side, the book has advertisements scattered within it. They are somewhat places as you would expect in a magazine, although far less frequent. Still, there unexpected nature makes them bothersome and inappropriate in my mind. More importantly, the book is printed quality it poor. Ironically, this book is not suitable for reading out in the sun, at the crag, or even at your gym. It is printed on gloss paper that is difficult to read due to glare. Further, it feels harsh and synthetic when reading or handling the book. The binding is also quite cheap. The book arrived with a crease in the spine that I feel was partially due to the fragile nature of the binding. I also partially split the pine from one of the packets of pages the first time I opened it. Because of that, I ended up breaking in the book by slowly flipping through the pages several times, increasing the amount that I bent them over each time to set a crease. So far, that has been ample to keep the book intact. Still, I truly love this book and have found it has helped to accelerate my skill as a climber. I use it guide my time at the gym and set a trajectory for my time there, with larger goals that will take 3+ years to obtain, smaller goals that can be met within a year or even a season, and very specific objectives for each day at the gym. As a very new climber with somewhat experienced friends, this book seems as though it will help significantly with more rapidly building skills and strengths.

This book is a game changer as far as giving you a very clear and well written guide to training. It's not easy to do the whole program. ARC training can be mind numbingly boring and the lengthy period of time doing certain types of training can mean you aren't climbing with your pals as much. To put it very simply it works. The modulated training regimen will make you strong as heck and that strength will definitely apply to routes even though much of the training is not actually spent leading. Just one word of advice / caution. The authors emphasize this over and over in the book but sometimes people think that it is just them being overly cautious. You really need to listen to them on this point, particularly if you're on the older side of climbers. You have to moderate the training. The book basically considers any climber that is leading less than 5.12 a beginner. That leaves many people in a large range that would consider their beginner workouts. Considering that the base workout can be quite hard, you really need to listen to your body and modify as needed. You may think that you can just do them anyway but the training gets progressively more difficult. Moderate and modify as you need, you'll still get a ton out of the training. If you're plateau'ing around the high 10s to low 11s range and aren't improving like I was, get this book and do what it says. Read the whole thing and get to work.

This book focuses on "peaking" your performance to meet specific climbing goals. It is very thorough. It discusses damn near everything you'd need to know - muscular physiology, mental preparation, recovery, setting goals, and of course: training regimens. One of the sections mentions "The Self Coached Climber" by Hague (http://www.amazon.com/Self-Coached-Climber-Movement-Training-Performance/dp/0811733394), for references on balance and some other material. I found the two books to be very complementary, despite the overlap in material. One of the interesting details, is how specific training needs to be. For example, isometric (static - not moving) finger strength is only gained within about 10 degrees of the angle used in training. For a less detailed approach I'd recommend "The Self Coached Climber" for training plans, but I'd recommend reading both for details on what works and what doesn't.

One of the best climbing training book on the market. Useful, easy to understand, nice pictures. And yes, it works.

Great service very happy with my order will use them again, thank you

It was a gift for my son who is a Rock Climber - Boulderer He requested it for Christmas and he loves it/

Muy bueno para escaladores avanzados

ne ho letti molti di manuali di allenamento per l'arrampicata, questo è il migliore. è basato sull'esperienza diretta dell'autore come climber, che sulla sua pelle e muscoli ha provato i sistemi di allenamento che qui propone. Non è un libro per beginner ma solo per super appassionati di arrampicata che hanno fatto di questo sport la loro passione praticamente agonistica. A patto di allenarti tanto , questo è il libro giusto, perché appunto ti fa allenare tanto. ottimo l'approccio sulla resistenza aerobica di base degli avambracci. super la parte di lavoro al trave. secondo me doveva sviluppare più la forza dei muscoli grossi , qui è carente. decisamente fatta bene la parte di power endurance, la migliore di quelle che si possono trovare in libri simili. nel complesso un libro super giusto oer un serial-climber.