In the early days of performance-focused climbing, strength-specific training looked very different from what it does today. Look at how Ben Moon trained in the 90s, or Patxi Usobiaga in the early 2000s — strength training back then meant almost exclusively specialized tools: campus boards, spray walls covered in tiny holds, and little else.

Climbing has professionalized considerably since then, and strength training today puts far more emphasis on the overall physical preparedness of climbers — building a broader athletic base rather than training climbing-specific movements alone. This is a good development; what those early pioneers were doing was a high-risk, high-reward approach: it worked because it was incredibly specific, but it neglected the more general strength required for athleticism. Strength training focused on overall strength — not just climbing-specific strength — reduces injury risk and allows us to exceed our previous performance ceiling by building a more solid foundation (Lauersen, 2018).

Still, the training style of those early days hasn't lost its place. The key is understanding how to combine that highly specific work with more general strength training — knowing when each belongs in a training cycle, and why. In this chapter, I'll walk through how different strength training protocols can be periodized with the principle of specificity in mind, from the general foundation of the base phase to the sharpened specificity of a peak.

Specificity and periodisation in sport-specific strength training

The SAID principle

In the literature on strength and conditioning, the term SAID (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands) is often used. Strength training specifically for sport is considered effective when the adaptations resulting from that training are specific to the demands our sport imposes on us.

Climbing is a very diverse sport when it comes to imposed demands, depending on the style of climbing you're doing (bouldering vs sport climbing, for example), but also whether you're an outdoor or indoor climber, or the type of rock you mostly climb on (granite vs limestone, or slab vs overhang, for example). But one thing we can safely conclude: the high demands on our fingers unite us all as climbers. Demands on the upper or lower body, by contrast, depend heavily on the variables above.

With this principle in mind, the question arises: why do many coaches, myself included, recommend heavy compound lifts such as deadlifts, back squats, and barbell shoulder presses? Are the adaptations gained from these exercises truly specific to the requirements of climbing?

Even though these exercises aren't specific to climbing, this doesn't mean they aren't valuable. General strength training — squats, deadlifts, presses, and other compound movements that bear little resemblance to climbing — plays a well-documented role in reducing overall injury risk. A meta-analysis by Lauersen et al. (2018) found that a 10% increase in strength training volume reduced injury risk by more than four percentage points across pooled trial data (Lauersen et al., 2018). This is precisely the value basic strength training offers: it isn't there to mimic climbing, but to build the general resilience and capacity that lets the more specific, sport-focused work later in the training cycle actually be tolerated and absorbed.

Does unspecific strength training (for climbing) exist?

Does unspecific strength training truly exist? Since climbing is a sport using our entire body, it is very easy and logical to argue that performing strength exercises for whatever part of the body is going to be in some way specific to climbing. For example, although from a first glance very non-specific to climbing, performing heavy back squats will make your quadriceps, glutes, knees, and core stronger, which in turn is very beneficial for pushing out on small footholds, performing that intense drop knee, or making a big cut loose dyno.

Principles of periodisation

However, the key in implementing these basic strength exercises requires understanding the principle of periodisation. When we subject our body to heavy loads through compound exercises, our body gets fatigued and we have less room for introducing any other stressors, such as climbing. Since our goal is to perform better at climbing, we therefore have to be strategic when to perform compound exercises.

When we are in a period where we want to perform more, feel stronger on the wall and actually capitalize on the investments of basic strength training, we have to let go of a certain amount of basic strength training. The amount we have to let go of is really dependent on your training experience. If you've been doing a lot of basic strength training, then there is no need to spend a lot of effort trying to maintain it. If your numbers are still weak in a lot of compound movements, it makes sense to sacrifice a bigger amount of climbing performance in order to spend more time strength training.

The general idea is that the further away we are from our period if expected performance, the less specific the exercises should be, and the more they should develop our overall strength. The closer we come, the more specific it should be. When we talk about "overall" strength, we should not forget that fingers are being included here. The only that changes is the type of stimulus we provide to our fingers. Here the same applies, the further away, the less specific the stimulus will be and the more the stimulus will be applied for overall health vs performance of your fingers.

Periodisation in practice

Now that we have established the importance of specificity and periodisation, let's go over some concrete examples of how we can implement different protocols and exercises depending on where we are in our training. I'd like to do that by using the categories of lower- and upper-body movement and our fingers.

Periodisation for lower-body movement

In climbing, we use our lower body a lot. Whether it is performing an aggressive heel hook or stepping out on a high foot, it demands a lot from hamstrings, quadriceps, glutes, and knee stability. The exercises that we should do, and the protocols we should follow, highly depend on what phase we are in.

Lower body exercises during the base phase

During the base phase, we load the lower body with heavy weight. We strengthen our lower body with compound movements using a low rep range, or in some cases heavy isometrics to strengthen the tendons. Some example exercises are:

1. Romanian deadlift, loads the hamstrings and glutes through hip hinge, directly relevant to the pulling force needed in an aggressive heel hook.
2. Barbell back squat, builds quadriceps and glute strength, supporting the driving, pushing force used in high steps and standing up through your feet.
3. Bulgarian split squat or lunge, trains unilateral leg strength and knee stability, which mirrors the single-leg loading climbing constantly demands (one foot on a hold, weight shifting, torque through the knee).

Lower body exercises during the peak phase preperation

During our preparation for a peak phase, we let go of the heavy lifts, as they interfere with the increased volume of climbing we're doing. Instead, the focus shifts from maximal strength to power and rate of force development, as we want more in reserve for our climbing-based training, and the exercises we do are there to sharpen performance rather than build raw capacity. Some example exercises are:

1. Box jumps or depth jumps, trains explosive rate of force development in the lower body with minimal fatigue cost, translating to the quick, powerful drives needed on dynamic footwork and steep terrain.
2. Jump squats (bodyweight or lightly loaded), keeps the neural power developed in the base phase primed and expressed, without the recovery cost of heavy compound lifts.
3. Single-leg or lateral bounds, trains reactive, unilateral power and quick weight transfer, directly mirroring the rapid foot-to-foot shifts and heel-hook transitions climbing demands under fatigue.

Lower body exercises during peak phase

During a peak phase, it really depends on the climber whether lower body strengthening exercises should be programmed. If someone is prone to injuries in the knees or hamstrings, or weak in particular lower-body exercises, continuing exercises makes sense. If not, there is no need to keep doing lower body exercises and thereby save energy to actually perform.

Periodisation for upper body movements

In climbing, the upper body carries much of the pulling and stabilizing demand — locking off on a small hold, pulling through a roof, or controlling a wide reach all place heavy demands on the lats, shoulders, biceps, and scapular stability. As with the lower body, the exercises and protocols we use depend heavily on what phase of training we're in.

Upper body exercises during the base phase

1. Weighted pull-ups, loads the lats and biceps through a full pulling range, directly relevant to the sustained pulling force needed to move through steep terrain.
2. Barbell or dumbbell rows, builds back and scapular strength, supporting the pulling and stabilizing demands of locking off on a hold or controlling body position mid-move.
3. Overhead press or weighted dips, trains shoulder and triceps strength, mirroring the pressing and stabilizing demands of mantling or pushing through a high foot with an extended arm.

Upper body exercises during peak phase preperation

During our preparation for a peak phase, we let go of the heavy lifts, as they interfere with the increased volume of climbing we're doing. Instead, the focus shifts from maximal strength to power and rate of force development, as we want more in reserve for our climbing-based training, and the exercises we do are there to sharpen performance rather than build raw capacity. Some example exercises are:

1. Explosive pull-ups or muscle-ups, trains explosive rate of force development in the pulling chain with minimal fatigue cost, translating to the quick, powerful pulls needed on dynamic moves and dynos.
2. Medicine ball throws or plyometric push-ups, keeps the neural power developed in the base phase primed and expressed, without the recovery cost of heavy compound lifts.
3. Lock-off holds at varying angles (low volume, high intensity), trains reactive strength and rapid stabilization, directly mirroring the sudden control climbing demands when catching a hold mid-dynamic-move.

Upper body exercises during peak phase

For the peak phase, it is all about maintaining some level of upper body strength, but the efforts we are doing shouldn't intervene our performance. As a general advice, I would keep some level of maintenaince through our warmups. For example, several maximal efforts on lock offs or speed pulls can go a long way and are a great to prepare us during warmup.

Periodisation for finger strength exercises

There are a large number of exercises that we can do to increase our finger strength, but they differ from each other in how specific the adaptations are to the demands of our sport and thus when they should be periodised.

Finger strength exercises during a base phase

Off-season or base phase finger strength exercises are there to develop the muscular and soft tissue structures. Such as all base phase exercises, they more fatiguing as they provide more mechanical stress and as a result, they will not make you perform better necessarily. Instead they will provide a strong foundation on which you can build on in later stages where we aim for neurological recruitment. We could use the following exercises to increase our capacity of our forearm muscles and soft tissues and tendons in our fingers:

1. Long duration max hangs (15 seconds or more), increases time under tension for the finger flexors and connective tissue, building the tendon capacity needed to eventually tolerate shorter, higher-intensity loading later in the training cycle.
2. Density hangs (30 seconds or more), a lower-intensity, extended-duration hang that builds tendon resilience and capillary density in the forearm musculature, often used as a lower-risk entry point for climbers managing or returning from finger injuries.
3. Low intensity, high rep count 7:3 repeaters, repeated submaximal contractions that accumulate volume and mechanical stress over time, building general work capacity in the forearm flexors without the joint and tendon strain of near-maximal loads.

Training specific grip types during base phase

For some climbers, it could be worth considering training for specific grip types already in the base phase, especially if the specific demands of the type of climbing you're doing reveals a weakness in one of your grip types. Or you're in general weak in a particular grip type.

For example, let's say you climb in an area where open hand climbing isn't very obvious, it is still helpful to develop a strong open hand if you're particular weak in that area, as it opens up a lot of opportunities in maybe different areas, or maybe some niche boulder in the area you climb at.

For me personally, I have a particular weakness in my right hand where I'm not able to actively use my pinky in an active half crimp position. As a result, the other fingers have to work harder and they have to be stabilised more. I've always gotten away with this issue since the nature of the climbing I used to priortise - limestone sport climbing - didn't had such specific demands on this grip type.

When I moved from Italy to Copenhagen, I transitioned from almost solely limestone sport climbing to granite bouldering. Here, the climbing demands more strength in that active half crimp position. I'm therefore actively working on this particular grip type, even in my base phase.

Finger strength exercises during peak phase (or build up to)

Where we built the foundation in the base phase, we are now going to leverage that foundation by increasing our neurological recruitment of the developed muscles. This can be safely done if the tendon structure is capable of handling those higher loads we're going to put on it. We reduce our volume and aim for sets with maximal stimulus and efforts with higher velocity.

Comparing base phase efforts with (build-up to) peak phase efforts, we can see that working at efforts above 80% of our 1RM increases our neurological activation and neural efficiency (Jenkins, 2018). This can be translated to the following exercises:

1. Short duration max hangs (5-10 seconds), near-maximal load for a brief duration, targeting maximal motor unit recruitment and neural drive rather than tendon capacity, since the short duration limits mechanical stress while still demanding peak force output.
2. Maximal effort isometric holds on a training board (spraywall or moonboard, kilter or tension board), holding your hardest usable edge or hold size at true maximal effort, reinforcing the nervous system's ability to recruit finger flexors at high intensity in positions that closely mirror real climbing holds, rather than a standardized hangboard edge.

Rate of force development

Besides the maximal force of our fingers, another aspect very specific to the demands of climbing is the rate of force development (RFD), which is the speed at which we can generate force in our fingers. In order to improve our rate of force development, we have to perform our exercises with the intention of moving fast. Similar to maximal strength training, we have to be close to our 1RM max to realise adaptations in this area. A study on maximal strength training (MST) found that training at ~90% of 1RM with maximal intended velocity increased both maximal strength and RFD almost twice as much as lower-load training at 65–75% 1RM (Heggelund et al., cited in the SERCA/neural drive paper).

Campus board training is the clearest example of a finger exercise built around this quality — the explosive, contact-based nature of campusing trains the nervous system to recruit finger flexors rapidly and forcefully, rather than simply strengthening them under sustained load.

Some example exercises that work on RFD:

1. Campus board laddering (small movements, max effort), short, explosive campus moves (skipping one rung, double-dyno touches) that demand instantaneous grip engagement, training the fingers to generate maximal force in the shortest possible time window.
2. Limit bouldering on small holds, boulder problems that require sudden, forceful catches on marginal edges or crimps, replicating the unpredictable, split-second grip demands of dynamic climbing moves.
3. Campus board doubles or bumps, dynamic, two-hand movements that emphasize explosive pulling power and rapid grip closure on contact, directly training the finger flexors' ability to fire quickly under load.

Conclusion

General strength training for climbing is good, but being specific with your efforts when you have to is crucial. The key is to find a balance between the two and understand when to spend more time building your general strength and base, and when to dial down to allow for more recovery to happen.

If you need help figuring out what to do for strength training to improve your climbing, feel free to book a free consultation with me.

Citations

Jenkins, N.D.M., et al. (2017). "Greater Neural Adaptations following High- vs. Low-Load Resistance Training." Frontiers in Physiology. PMC link

Lauersen, J.B., et al. (2018). British Journal of Sports Medicine. "Strength training as superior, dose-dependent and safe prevention of acute and overuse sports injuries." PubMed