There’s nothing like a title almost everyone disagrees with. It’s a sure-fire way to make sure people at least look at the article. So, now that you’re looking, I’ll be more clear. If you’re interested in actually improving your climbing ability, you’d be wasting your time if pull-ups were a major part of your training. It’s not that the movement is inherently bad, it’s just not specific enough to what we do on the rock to justify spending valuable training time developing it.
Think about it a little. The pull-up is biomechanically a “vertical pull” movement, one where resistance is encountered along the same vector as the vertical torso. When this vector is encountered in the real world it’s on vertical or slightly less-than-vertical rock, a situation where (if you’re any good at all) the much stronger legs are doing most of the work.
When rock gets steep (and routes generally more difficult), the vertical pull is vastly diminished. Rather, the movement of the arms becomes that of a horizontal pull, or a rowing motion. Force is directed perpendicular to the torso, and the use of the legs is somewhat compromised. In climbing, this scenario plays out multiple times on each route. Try this: set up an Olympic bar in a rack and do a horizontal pull-up a.k.a. inverted row (like in the photo below, except with your shirt on. When you get to the top, release one hand and see if you can hold the position. If you can’t…well that’s something you can work on that really will help your climbing.
Now, think about this: Its rarely the raw strength of the lat and arm that fails a climber anyway. When a climber can’t pull a move, more likely than not its a neurological inhibition of that muscle group, which can’t be overcome no matter how strong your pull is. Since the nervous system will only “allow” the body to work up to the strength of its weakest link, the hand (and the hold it is using) determines how much you can actually pull.
Now lets talk about time. Unless you’re some rich trust-funder sponsored by The North Face, you probably don’t have a lot of it. With a sport as complex as rock climbing, building raw strength in an arguably non-specific movement should be considered a waste of this resource. Outside of general work capacity training, then, we can see that running, weight lifting, and the like are not good uses of our training time. Climbing is a performance sport and the only measure we really use is how well a climber performs. It’s not like we’re all sitting around the crag watching some dude flail on “The Madness” thinking, “Wow, he sucks at climbing, but you should see him do kipping pull-ups.”
I’d venture to say that anyone who even talks about how many pull-ups they do is trying to cover up for knowing their climbing is weak in a major area. It’s like the crappy father who always counters with a comment on how much money he makes…lots of dough, still a shitty dad.
The advice always goes the same way: assess what’s really holding you back, and get after it. 999 times out of a thousand, pull-ups won’t be on the list.
Hi,
Interesting. Reasonable. Not discussing my climbing style and abilities, I do a lot of pull-ups, but I tried to mix them into my training regime to kind of fill empty gaps, than to make them art for art’s sake. For instance, after ~3 months on fingerboard, I’ve started adding weight toi my max strength workout on fingerboard. First, I warm-up, so I do 5-6 sets of 3-4 pull-ups and 5-6 stets of 3-4 chin-ups on bar with the weight on. This warms up most of upper body muscles and I assume it also improves general strenght ability of those. What you think?
I think the pull-up is one of the best single upper body exercises. If you were to do only pull-ups, dips, and push-ups, you’d have a really good upper body program. It seems like your pull-up program is a good one….sure to make you stronger.
Nice article. I’ve noticed that regardless of my current climbing level, whether I be fit or a little bit weaker, my max reps of pullups rarely changes, or if it does it is quite negligible. That being said, what is your opinion on using gymnastic rings to supplement climbing training?
Hi Pat,
If you can’t climb, I think rings or a TRX-style suspension trainer are a great tool. These are versatile pieces of equipment, and can be used effectively for a lot of exercises.
Hey! Dont dis pull ups! I just did my first set of 15 and Im pretty dam proud of it!
_palo
Hey RP.
Man, I love pull-ups. Just not for climbing.
Steve
Very interesting article – I like the mention of the inverted row. I’ve used them in the past with great success. I’ve also performed a modified version on rings where I pull one ring in close and lock it off, trying to reach up to an imaginary hold above my head. What are your thoughts on low rep/very high weight pull ups (2 reps@ 90-95% of your max)?
Hi Aaron,
I really like the 1-arm lock on rings (or a fixed bar) in the horizontal position. It’s a good exercise for anybody, and a really good one for climbers. The big value is in integrating the kinetic chain – rock climbers are always integrating the muscles of the legs, upper body, and core, so we really like to see them doing this in training. The top rule for exercise selection outside real climbing is that the movements should be biomechanically specific and metabolically specific. Your ring lock-off meets both of these well, and preserves the fingers / skin.
As far as the 2RM pull-ups go, I actually think these are more useful than regular pull-ups. I’ll argue against high-rep pull-up training any day; it’s not very specific to climbing, probably promotes hypertrophy, and it’s more metabolically damaging than helpful. Heavy pull-ups are different. They develop maximum strength without adding bulk. They follow our rule of “intensity first.” Most importantly, they are self-limiting, you won’t end up with a bunch of junk reps at the end. Do 4-5 sets of these and you’ll know you’ve done your work for the day.
By the way, I checked out your blog. Really liked the technique stuff.
Take care,
Steve
Steve,
After a climbing session in a gym, what are the 3 or 4 most important lifts that a person should do to round out their training session?
thanks,
Chris
Hi Chris,
I have an article coming our the beginning of next week covering exactly that. I am not convinced every climber needs to do supplemental weight training, yet if we look at elite professionals in every other sport, we see that as a common trend. I talked a while back with Mark Twight about how climbers at both the novice and elite level benefit more from supplemental training than do people in the “middle” range. I feel like climbers that have minimal athleticism can benefit from just plain getting stronger, and people who have held a plateau in ability might be able to break that plateau with an organized resistance program.
The lifts I cover in next week’s article are all about developing strength, but the general rules still apply. I like to see climbers do 4 movement patterns at a minimum:
1. Upper Body Pull – This is usually a rowing motion. Pull-up type exercises also qualify for this group, but I think they are inferior to the row for rock climbers.
2. Upper Body Press – This can be a bench press, push-up variation, dip, or an overhead press.
3. Lower Body Multi-Joint – For climbers we like lunges, step-ups, and single-leg squats. Bilateral exercises such as squats and front squats are fine, but harder to do correctly and are somewhat less specific; you very rarely press with both legs on the same plane at the same time.
4. Hip Hinge or Posterior Chain – These exercises help balance the strength of the quadriceps, as well as developing the strength of the low back and hamstrings. We like deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, and even some kettlebell movements for this part of the workout.
The take home on how hard you should lift is to make sure the lifting supports your climbing…training should never hinder performance.
Chris, I appreciate your stopping by my site. I am really impressed with your program at Earth Treks, as well as your proud personal resume.
SB
Steve,
Thanks for your reply. It mimics, with some important differences (like your preference for the lunge over the squat) what we’ve been thinking. We’ve been debating the subject of “weight training for climbers” for years. Our first major investment in strength equipment in our climbing gyms was in 2002. Since then all three of our climbing gyms have received big improvements in the traditional strength equipment resources. We just dramatically expanded, remodeled and re-equipped the fitness center in our Rockville, MD gym (while expanding the size of the climbing walls to over 38,000 sq. ft). And we’ve found that you can never build the walls or fitness centers big enough. Climbing has come so far, so fast and we have to look everywhere for insight or we’ll be left behind.
We believe that weight training needs to address several user groups, but perhaps most importantly are the over-enthusiastic recreational climbers that push themselves so hard and so fast that they wreck their shoulders and elbows. I’d love to hear your thoughts, when you have time, on a simple post climbing weight routine for that group.
Hi Steve, great site! I would be interested in your view of the pull up based training regime of Dmitry Sharafutdinov, Russian climber who won the 2007 and 2011 World Bouldering Championships. It is on a thread at 8a.nu now (sorry can’t link directly but on the main page at http://8a.nu/) titled 1000 pull ups a day.
That guy is a badass. The problem with such a plan is that it relies heavily on two things most of us don’t have: plenty of training time and the athleticism to handle it. My feeling is that most climbers interested in training lack the time to climb full-time. We look for the most fundamental parts of a training plan, and strip away all unnecessary elements. There’s nothing wrong with pull-ups. They just aren’t fundamental to climbing performance.
We know there is no single best way to train. We simply have to look at the rules that apply of most of us, and make decisions based on them. One of my athletes can do 10 or more one-arms on each side and can do probably 20 muscle-ups. Seems like someone who should crush on the rock. He doesn’t.
There’s no compelling argument for vertical pull training in a normal training plan. Same for biceps curls, same for running. Every training decision has to pass through the twin filters of metabolic specificity and motor specificity. You can make a pretty strong argument for the metabolic part – pull-ups are similar to climbing in their use of the body’s energy systems. Motor specificity is weak, though, as I said in the article.
It’s easy for us to confuse causal versus correlational relationships in training. I breathe hard both when running and when climbing endurance routes. Therefore, running is good training for endurance climbing, right? Is endurance climbing good training for running a 10k? It makes sense that being able to do 1000 pull-ups in a day would correlate well to one being a good climber. But whether one has to do that kind of volume to boulder well is unlikely.
SB