A couple of weeks ago, I arrived at the crag in Sweden and set myself the goal of sending a 7C+/V10 in a day. This has been a goal of mine for a while, but never yet realised to send this grade in one day. The conditions were perfect; I had slept well, and my skin felt good. After warming up on a neighbouring boulder, I started trying the stand start, which goes at 7A+/V7. The intro moves felt doable, and I quickly arrived at the crux of the boulder. A dynamic move starting from an awkward position, where you really have to do your best to try to generate momentum. After figuring out the position, it took me another 15 tries over the course of 2 hours to finish the stand start.

I grabbed a bit of lunch and relaxed a bit. I knew the day wasn't over, and I wanted to proceed with the sit start. I quickly figured out the moves into the stand start and knew I would stand a chance. At the same time, however, I was already 3 hours into the session, and I noticed my energy was dropping slightly. I did one attempt. Failed at the second move, which is a hard move with a delicate and crucial heel hook. In my second attempt, I stuck the move and found myself getting through the stand start and facing the crux move. I stuck the dynamic move but didn't catch the hold perfectly. I was hanging there for maybe a second, readjusted, and fell off. That was a bummer. But I knew it was possible. I rested for 15 minutes and made another attempt. Same story. I didn't catch the hold perfectly and fell off again. The sun was setting at this point and I wasn't sure I had another attempt in me. I tried again, but this time I fell again at the second move.

The truth is, this happens to me a lot. I get really close to sending something in a day, but I most of the times end up empty handed because I cannot give solid attempts for a long period of times. This a common problem in climbers. Tactics play a role, obviously, but also the amount of capacity we have to execute quality attempts over a long period if time. In a perfect world scenario, we could perform endless quality attempts without fatigue creeping in. In reality, however, this is not the case. On each good attempt fatigue creeps in and our quality reduces.

What Is Capacity Training

More quality attempts

Capacity training is a specific training cycle in which we aim to increase our physical capacity to be able to handle more volume, with a more consistent quality. In literature, it is also known as General Physical Preparation (GPP) (Duncan & Liebenson, 2019) or the accumulation phase (Issurin, 2010). The capacity phase has the "over-arching theme [..] to increase general strength and develop “work capacity” (the ability to perform work repeatedly)" (Duncan & Liebenson, 2019).

For climbing, this can mean different things depending on whether you are a boulderer, a sport, multipitch, or trad climber. But in general terms, the goal is to be able to do as many quality attempts as possible in a session without the loss of quality of attempts. On top of that, if we are on a climbing trip, we want to come in the next day and be recovered enough to do another set of quality attempts. This will increase our chances of sending our project or onsighting/flashing as much as we can.

Reduce Risk of Injury

Risk of injury increases with a low chronic workload and a high acute workload. Using capacity training, we can build chronic load systematically. Gabbett (2016) found that athletes who had developed high chronic workloads over time were at reduced risk of injury, while sudden spikes in acute load relative to that chronic baseline were strongly associated with increased injury risk.

When we jump straight into high intensity work (high acute load) without a proper base (low chronic load), we increase our risk of injury. The goal of the capacity phase is build up our chronic load in a systematic way using moderate intensities.

Why Moderate Intensities

The goal of the capacity phase is to build volume with an equal amount of quality. It is not to increase strength or power. Moderate intensity is the practical vehicle for this — it sits in the window that stimulates adaptation without outpacing the body's ability to recover and remodel. Progressing load too quickly at this stage has been shown to negatively affect load tolerance, increasing the risk of overreaching and overtraining (Soligard et al., 2016; Gabbett, 2016).

Capacity Training For Climbing

During capacity training for climbing, we should aim to increase our volume using moderate intensities. On top of climbing-specific volume, we should also look at doing capacity training with overall strength and conditioning and finger strength programs. Here again, we use moderate intensities with an increase in volume as the goal, and not intensity per se.

An Example Capacity Training Program

This is an example capacity training program for a boulderer. It is a very generic approach and does not consider any specific weaknesses.

2 x sessions of volume bouldering and routine with supplementary strength exercises

1. Volume Bouldering: 15-20 boulders, 40-60% intensity, 2-minute rest between boulders. Build up in volume of boulders over time.
2. Supplementary exercises: any routine including non-compound exercises, focusing on shoulders, forearms, legs, and core.

1 x session of finger strength and routine with compound strength exercises

1. Finger strength: a program with relative short rest times (1 or 2 minutes) with relative high volume hangs (10-15 seconds). Build up in volume using more sets and weight)
2. Compound strength routine: a routine using compound exercises (deadlift, bench press, squat, shoulder press, glute bridge).

1 x session on the minute boulders and mobility work

1. On the minute boulders: on every minute climb a boulder (roughly 20 seconds of climbing) and rest the remainder of the minute (40 seconds). Repeat for 5 minutes (5 sets). Build up with sets. Intensity should be at 60 to 70%.
2. Mobility work should focus on weaknesses in mobility.

Measuring Success of Capacity Training

An important aspect of capacity training is understanding how me measure success of it. Success in a capacity phase is defined by the measure of quality retentation over more volume and increase recovery rates. The right question is not how hard can I go? It is how much quality work can I sustain, and for how long?

Quality retention

Quality retention with higher volume is a main driver for the success of a capacity training phase. In strength and conditioning research, performance degradation, which is typically measured as velocity loss in barbell movements, is a well-established measure for understanding quality loss.. Jukic and colleagues (2023) demonstrated in a systematic review that velocity loss correlates strongly with mechanical, metabolic and perceptual markers of fatigue. For climbers, there is no barbell to track, but the principle translates directly. Are your later attempts on a boulder as precise as your first? Is your body position on the fifth set of repeaters as controlled as on the second? Is your footwork still deliberate at the end of a long session? If the point at which quality deteriorates is consistently moving later into the session across the phase, the adaptation is real.

Recovery rates

Although similar to quality retention, recovery rate measures something subtly different. Quality retention asks whether your output stays consistent across a session. Recovery rate asks how quickly you return to that output between efforts. In climbing this is acutely relevant. The time between attempts on a boulder problem, the rest needed between repeater sets, the number of days required before you feel ready to train again — these are all expressions of your recovery capacity. A climber who needs 20 minutes of rest between attempts at the start of a capacity phase but only 12 minutes at the end has meaningfully improved, even if their maximum hang force has not changed at all.

Citations

Bohm, S., Mersmann, F., & Arampatzis, A. (2019). Functional adaptation of connective tissue by training. Deutsche Zeitschrift für Sportmedizin, 70(4), 105–110. https://doi.org/10.5960/dzsm.2019.366

Duncan, F., & Liebenson, C. (2019). General physical preparation: The big rock of fitness. Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, 23(2), 372–374. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbmt.2019.02.023

Gabbett, T. J. (2016). The training–injury prevention paradox: Should athletes be training smarter and harder? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(5), 273–280. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2015-095788

Issurin, V. B. (2010). New horizons for the methodology and physiology of training periodisation. Sports Medicine, 40(3), 189–206. https://doi.org/10.2165/11319770-000000000-00000

Jukic, I., Pérez-Castilla, A., García-Ramos, A., Van Hooren, B., McGuigan, M. R., & Helms, E. R. (2023). The acute and chronic effects of implementing velocity loss thresholds during resistance training: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and critical evaluation of the literature. Sports Medicine, 53(1), 177–214. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-022-01754-4

Soligard, T., Schwellnus, M., Alonso, J.-M., Bahr, R., Clarsen, B., Dijkstra, H. P., Gabbett, T., Gleeson, M., Hägglund, M., Hutchinson, M. R., Janse van Rensburg, C., Khan, K. M., Meeusen, R., Orchard, J. W., Pluim, B. M., Raftery, M., Budgett, R., & Engebretsen, L. (2016). How much is too much? (Part 1) International Olympic Committee consensus statement on load in sport and risk of injury. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50(17), 1030–1041. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2016-096581