Lattice Training | How to: Train for Trad Climbing
Trad climbing is a unique challenge that tests your strength, endurance, technique, and mental resilience, making it deeply rewarding. British trad climbing is steeped in history, with a strong emphasis on ethics and the adventure of onsighting—starting from the ground with no prior experience or information.
Trad formed the foundation of my climbing journey, and some of my proudest moments, like onsighting Ghost Train in Pembroke, stem from this discipline.
This blog isn’t about destinations or gear but about preparing for the climbs that inspire you. British weather doesn’t always cooperate for outdoor practice, so off-crag preparation can help make the most of good weather days. Training for trad not only enhances your climbing but also builds transferable skills like identifying strengths and weaknesses, setting challenges, building confidence, and staying process-focused.
How can you tailor your training to trad climbing?
In this blog I am going to cover 3 pillars that I think are crucial when it comes to training for trad climbing:
- Endurance
- Flexibility
- Mental resilience
1. Endurance: Build fitness for spending a long time on the rock
Trad climbs often involve sustained efforts, which requires robust endurance. Even if the routes themselves are not that long, placing gear takes time which adds up. Training endurance means improving your muscles' capacity to produce energy and manage byproducts. It also provides an opportunity to practice technique and efficient movement. Training endurance systematically does not mean getting very pumped, over and over again. There is a smarter way that targets the adaptations necessary for endurance without getting unnecessarily tired, which can reduce consistency, motivation and your climbing quality.
How to Train Endurance:
Continuous Training: Spend 10–30 minutes climbing continuously on easy terrain, focusing on smooth movement and staying relaxed. You should not have a feeling of pump. This is important to target the adaptation of building capillary density. This could be doing laps on easy routes, or continuous time on the wall on a circuit board or bouldering wall.
Interval Training: Alternate between moderate efforts on a wall and either complete rest or easier climbing to actively recover. This helps mimic the energy demands of varied trad pitches. An example of this is climbing half a moderate route, then switching to half an easy route, completing the route four times in a row, resting for 10 minutes, and completing three sets in total. You will build pump during the moderate climbing but should not be near failure, and then you should be able to recover during the easier climbing.
If you want to know more endurance training check out this course.
Top Tip: Practice relaxing your grip on holds to save energy, and learn how to recover in rest positions mid-route.
2. Flexibility: Unlock Efficient Movement
Flexibility is key for trad climbing. Wide stems, high steps, and finding stable body positions to place gear require us to get into a broad range of positions and be strong in these positions. The approach to flexibility that we adopt at Lattice Training involves using passive and active, static and dynamic stretching to open up a large range of movement as well as strengthening your muscles in a broad range of positions.
How to Train Flexibility:
Passive Stretching: Passive stretching is when you stretch muscles whilst they are relaxed. The aim is to hold the stretch for around 60 seconds so that the stretch sensation in the muscle reduces. A good example of a passive stretch that is useful for trad climbing is the frog stretch.
Active Stretching: Active forms of stretching are when you stretch a muscle whilst it is working. Active stretching can either be static (holding a stretched position using your muscles) or dynamic (moving in and out of a stretched position using your muscles). A good example of a static active stretch for trad climbing is the Horse stance. For more information check out this blog.
Top Tip: Incorporate a stretching routine into your warm-up to open up the range of movement at your hips, that you can then use in your climbing. Check out this follow along.
3. Mental Resilience: Your Ability to Stay Calm
Trad climbing is a mental and cognitive challenge as much as a physical one. Therefore, training your mind is as vital as training your body. Staying focused requires the ability to stay calm and in the present, focused on the task at hand. This isn’t a mental training blog (if you want to learn more then check out specific resources on this area), but we are going to look at how mental training can be done alongside physical training in a cohesive approach to preparing for trad climbing.
How to Train Your Mind:
Build Awareness: If you want to change anything, you first need to be aware of it. Reflect on your mindset and current ability to manage your psychology whilst trad climbing. What thoughts do you have when trad climbing? What do you feel in your body? How do you feel about the idea of falling? You can ask trusted climbing partners what they think about your ability to stay calm and focused. Using a journal to keep track of physical training is useful, and you can also reflect on your state of mind during your training or climbing. Climbing is never only physical or psychological, so it makes sense to think about both together.
Fall Practice: Fall practice is the process of gradually exposing yourself to falls in a safe environment (often an indoor lead wall) so that you can learn to manage your fear and build up a positive experience of falls. Strategies for managing the fear of falling often translate into improved focus and flow while climbing, as they help minimise the distracting thoughts about falling. Transferring this to your trad climbing takes experience and I suggest seeking professional guidance from an expert in this area if you feel you need it.
Mindfulness Techniques: We can use mindfulness techniques to help us stay present in the moment. We can also use them to calm ourselves down and reset on a climb. Breathing is something that can be harnessed here… and it is something we do all the time anyway! Practice deep nose-to-nose breathing with long exhales to keep or regain calm concentration. Bringing attention to the sensation or sound can further help. Remaining present helps us focus on the challenge in front of us; needing to place a piece of gear, commit to a move or unravel a climbing sequence. During endurance training you can use breathing during climbing or whilst ecovering on the wall.
Top Tip: When you are pumped and reach a rest, consciously aim to bring your breathing to nose-to-nose breathing with longer exhales. Focus your attention on the sensation/sound of your breathing whilst your arms recover. Check out this podcast if you are interested in mental toughness.
How do I apply this information to myself?
No matter where you are in your trad climbing journey, developing these 3 areas will help you. However, we don’t all have endless time and resources! We need to be selective with what we choose to do.
When it comes to choosing what training to do you need to consider the following things:
What do you want to prepare for? You need to find what goals are truly meaningful to you, based on your motivations and what you value in climbing.
What attributes are important for your goal? You need to define what attributes/skills are important for your goal. In this blog, I have highlighted 3 for trad climbing. There are of course more, and you need to go through a process of analysing the demands of your goal compared to your current climbing.
What exercises develop these attribute? You need to choose an appropriate exercise for your level that will develop the important attributes you have highlighted.
Top tip: Whatever you choose you need to make sure you can be consistent with it week on week. The number 1 mistake climbers make when it comes to training is choosing exercises that they can’t be consistent with. You will want to complete your training exercises for 6 weeks minimum and monitor how this is impacting your climbing.
I am going to summarise this by giving some rough guidelines for beginner, intermediate and advanced trad climbers. These are not hard-and-fast rules! Training for climbing requires an individual approach, but these might get you thinking about what holds you back and ways to work on it.
Beginner: Prioritise endurance and build an awareness of your mindset and mental state when you are climbing. In your endurance training practice smooth movement on easy terrain. Try to use nose-to-nose breathing with long exhales when you want to relax on the wall.
Intermediate: Work on refining rest positions in endurance training. Incorporate flexibility training to allow you to access a broad range of body positions on the wall to stabilise yourself whilst placing gear.
Advanced: Once you have a good foundation for trad climbing, hone in on your specific weaknesses, whether it’s endurance, mental training or flexibility for specific movements. If climbing in an indoor lead wall is possible, incorporate fall practice to build your experience. For this, I suggest checking out specific resources and expert guidance on fear of falling if this is something that is holding you back.
Tips for trad climbers:
As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog - training for trad climbing can be a learning process in itself. There are a few things that climbers often neglect to do, that can help with this learning process.
Not Perfecting Climbs: Practice precision and efficiency. When you complete a route or boulder indoors, try and master it. Reclimb it trying to be smooth and minimise the energy needed.
Not Warming Up Your Lower Body: Trad often involves high steps and bridging; a proper warm-up helps prepare yourself for the demands of the climbing. Your warm-up should include static and dynamic lower body stretches.
Not Working Rest Positions: Learn to recover mid-route by finding and using rests effectively. It can take perseverance to find a stable position for gear placement or a worthwhile rest position. Challenge yourself to find the most restful position possible on an indoor climb, or during your endurance training.
Neglecting Breathing Techniques: Your breathing can help you stay calm under pressure. This requires two things; firstly that you recognise you are scared or feeling the pressure, and secondly that you know how to harness your breathing to manage it.
Always Training to Full Pump: Many climbers believe that to train endurance you must get hideously pumped over and over again. But there is another way based on how our physiology works (too much detail to go into here!). We can train our endurance very effectively by building up time on the wall at low levels of pump, where we never fail. This helps us build capillaries and also means we don’t get as tired, which can help with consistency, recovery and injury risk.
Ready to start your training journey?
The BMC is thrilled to partner with industry-leading training provider, Lattice Training to bring you an incredible offer on their flagship course: A Climber’s Guide to Training.
For a limited time, BMC members can exclusively access this comprehensive online course for just £99 (RRP £145). To access the discount code please email office@thebmc.co.uk. Hurry - offer ends Monday 3 March!
Built by climbing experts with years of coaching experience, their flagship course gives you the knowledge, tools, and confidence to design and implement a training plan tailored to your climbing goals.
Here's what you'll get:
- Step-by-step guidance on planning your training
- Tools to translate goals into actionable sessions
- A library of effective, tested exercises
- Insider tips from pro climbers and coaches
- Exclusive video explanations to boost your knowledge
Not yet a member? Join the BMC starting from just £40.11 today.
Unlock your potential with BMC membership
The BMC supports life-long participation in climbing, with membership you'll unlock a whole host of benefits to support you on your journey. Join our community of 82,000 members today!