Climbing Training - 2025 Goals and Plan

So another year has rolled around, and while I usually have a vague idea of what I'd like to achieve climbing-wise in the year ahead, this year I'm going to take things a bit more seriously with a training program and document my progress both on the website here, and on the Youtube channel.

I have tried a paid training plan in the past, but it's been difficult to adhere to something which has a strict day 1 do this, day 2 do this, kind of regimented program. If I'm going to stick to any kind of concerted training effort then it needs to be a bit more fluid and flexible to fit around life, and work, so I'm just going to come up with my own.

Obviously, I'm not a professional coach or trainer, so what you see here is just my best go at something, and a record of how it works out for me, so I'd better start by saying a bit about my starting point and current climbing level.

Current 

The essential stats, I'm 44 years old, 6'2" / 188cm and weigh 74kg. Last year I was pretty solid bouldering V6/7a outdoors, with quite a lot of HVS/E1 trad mileage, with the odd bold E2/3. I don't really do any sport climbing.

I have climbed for about seven years now, starting with indoor bouldering, and moving into more trad when I moved back to the UK four years ago. I ticked my first V6 over two years ago now, so I've been a bit plateaued for a while, and definitely feel like I've reached a point when I can't practically 'just climb more' to improve, I need some structured training to complement the climbing.

Goals for 2025

This year, I want to focus on trad and concentrate on learning how to try hard on gear and get comfortable with working hard routes and falling safely. I'd really like to get some routes with 6a/6b UK tech grade, so E3/E4.

I'd be happy to get a proper V7/7A+ boulder ticked as well.

I don't have any weight loss or other goals, I just want to climb harder.

Training Plan

So, here is the basis of the training plan I've started with in January. I'll be doing monthly updates on how I've managed to stick to it in reality, and the progress or otherwise I've been making. The main points are :

Hangboarding

I'll aim to do some finger strength stimulus six days a week. The default is a 30-minute hangboarding routine. I use Dave Macleod's program which I'll link below. The basis of it is : 

  1. Warm up (bodyweight hangs, pull ups)
  2. 3 sets of 10-second max hangs on open/chisel grip
  3. 3 sets of 10-second max hangs on half crimp
  4. 3 sets of 10-second max hangs on three finger drag

I started the year by adding 10kg for the max hangs.

Bouldering

Get to the bouldering gym two nights in the week for minimum two hour session, and make sure to try hard

Gym

On other weekdays, do some light antagonist exercises, pushups, rows, some weighted pullups, and a swim.

Weekends

Trad or bouldering outdoors, weather-permitting. If weather doesn't allow, then indoor bouldering, 2-3 hours.

Data/Metrics

As people watching my channel will know, I bought a Tindeq Progressor at the end of the year, but I ended up replacing it with a cheaper bluetooth scale and the Climb Harder app. I'll be tracking my Peak Force metrics 

Summary

This will likely evolve over time, and I'll be flexible with elements of it, but seems good to start. I've already been running this for nearly a full month and I've some interesting results and modifications to discuss in my first monthly update which will come at the end of January. See you in February, and I hope your 2025 training is going well!.

Tafraout Granite - Crack Climbing in Morocco

One more from November's trip to Tafraout, these sunny scenes seem a long way away at the moment in a cold and icy UK January!

Crack climbing has been a weakness of mine for a long time, and I'd been putting off remedying it, but on the Wednesday of our week in Morocco, we had a rainy morning sat in the hotel, and when the clouds lifted in the afternoon we decided to head out on the local granite. One of our party is a proper crack addict, so he was happy to lead the way. Anyway, long story short, I quite enjoyed it, and we spent the rest of the week on the granite tackling one of the crack day itineraries from the Tafraout Granite book.

First up, Black Wall Crack, a soaring 30m line that varies in width all the way, with several steep sections and black faces that require you to fully embrace the crack. There is a direct finish, up a vegetated, flared offwidth section, but the topo line takes a detour left onto a line of bolts up the adjacent sport line. Coming from Peak Grit, it seemed a bit of a shame to clip bolts, as the face climbing is brilliant, on perfectly spaced positive holds, probably UK 4b/4c moves.




Next is the beautiful corner splitter of El Hachame. Sadly I made a total mess of it, there's a short section you need to layback, which I did, but then I got stressed and didn't look around for the good footholds that appear after, which would have enable me to start bridging and have a much easier time of the upper section......lesson learned!

Birthday Boulders at Newstones

It's been a pretty grim couple of weeks since I returned from Morocco, firstly with some pretty awful weather, but mainly because I came down with a nasty cold/flu, that turned into a chest infection, and laid me up indoors. I'm not full 100% over it yet to be honest, but Friday was my birthday, and I was determined to get outdoors, somewhere, and pull on some rock.

Newstones is a great spot for a short session, with a trivial walk-in, and it's exposed enough to dry quickly. When I got there, conditions were pretty marginal, no rain, but high humidity and wet, slippery grass that made for some exciting landings. Still, it was quite nice to give the drone a whirl with no-one around to bother.

So, I did manage to pull together a video, despite not managing to climb anything! Good to get some practice talking on camera, and most of all, a good excuse to get outdoors in some fresh air.