Lattice Host (00:15)
Let's start with a common story in climbing. Imagine you've just wrapped up a climbing season, you've pushed hard, tried new projects, and maybe even sent a climb you're really psyched about. But now you're looking ahead and you feel a little uncertain about what's next. What do you need to do in order to improve? How should you train to reach the next level in your climbing?

Lattice Host (00:36)
You then think about what famous athletes do from other sports or even what professional climbers are doing day to day. You think about what they're sharing online, whether you've seen it on a Netflix documentary or on Instagram. Weightlifting and strength and conditioning always seems to be included as one of those things the real elite athletes are doing to get better. But you're wondering whether that even works for you and does it work for climbers?

So what are the pro climbers actually doing and what do coaches recommend these days?

Lattice Host (01:07)
Those questions are exactly what we're going to try and answer in this episode.

In this two part series, we're exploring how strength training, especially weightlifting, plays a role in the training plans of top climbers and athletes. We'll look at how to manage your training across the seasons, how to incorporate the right strength work within a weekly schedule, and how athletes actually train week on week.

In part one, we get quite technical.

joined by Steve Thompson, an S &C coach.

and university lecturer who trains elite and national level teams in sports like diving and football.

He'll help us unpack how to structure your training with an eye on long-term progression and how the principles of high-level sport can apply to climbing, even if you just want to perform at your local crag on the weekends. Then we'll talk to Dave Mason, a really experienced climbing coach and elite athlete himself, about the specific needs of climbers when it comes to strength work and what his top exercises are for the climbers he works with. Finally, I bring back Drew Rowana.

to share his experience integrating strength and conditioning into his climbing and whether it's something he thinks every climber should be thinking about. So without any further delay, here's part one, starting with Steve Thompson.

Steve Thompson (02:18)
My name is Dr Steve Thompson, a senior lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University. I'm also a practising S &C coach so I consult to number of different organisations including the FA and GB Aquatics as part of British Diving.

I have been an S &C coach, an accredited S &C coach for sort of 10 to 12 years now with the UKSCA and have worked at Sheff Hallam for a little bit longer than

And yeah, my research sort of areas of interest really around human performance, sport, namely kind of

athletic profiling, use of technology to help enhance that, creating training solutions for different individuals and different sort of training problems and kind of more broadly just general essence and sports science kind of related topics. I'll try and get involved in whatever I can really.

Ollie Torr (03:14)
since we've met, we've been kind of working in collaboratively on some of the projects with your masters and PhD students with some pretty exciting technology. But one of the things that always interested me whenever you've come into Lattice and taught coaches on S&C was the fact that you're still a practitioner. So you're kind of ahead of the curve with the technology, but then also practicing the day-to-day stuff. So one of the questions for me

what is the current state of affairs in other sports, like the dive when you're working with the FA? Is it still playing a massive role with those athletes or has it changed over the last few years?

Steve Thompson (03:50)
Yeah, I mean, it's still really big. It's still such an important part. And it has changed in its delivery, I suppose. Strength and conditioning roles are now more apparent, there's more opportunities across multiple sports and multiple sectors. And becoming quite bespoke in those roles. Traditionally, certainly in...

In clubs it would be spot scientists being employed that would do a little bit of everything. And these days, physical performance and the enhancement of that is now becoming a little bit more specialist with certainly the teams that are privileged enough to have a wider MDT. They're able to employ strength and conditioning coaches, maybe a couple.

specific sports scientists, data analysts and data scientists, nutritionists, etc. So it creates a niche for individuals that are kind of really strong S &C coaches and perhaps that's where they hang their hats and it allows them to kind of specialise in their true best area, essentially.

And I think it's such an important part of the wider sort of holistic development of athletes. And it's great that it's now being recognized as that. I'm lucky enough to work in some really great MDTs within British Diving and within the FA and any other work that I've done previously. I've been really lucky to work with some really great practitioners and coaches that just help develop a really

kind of collaborative way of working that essentially has the athlete or the individual or team at the centre of that. And I think one of the things I really have noticed more so over the past maybe five years or so, particularly in football, but I think a lot of other sports are doing similar, is the integration of physical performance with technical coaches and technical teams.

So it's more than just now, here's your 15 minutes at the start of a session or here's your S &C session on a Tuesday. It's now how can we build a more of a holistic approach to make sure that whoever that individual is can develop maximally and optimally in all facets of their performance, really.

Ollie Torr (06:10)
Yeah, that was going to be one of my key questions actually in skill-based sports

is the different contributions and how highly different practitioners and the athletes rate S&C and weightlifting themselves.

I know you've mentioned having resistance from athletes in the past about doing weightlifting when they just want to go and play the game. But how are, like you've just said then, how are the practitioners, the technical and the S&C combining those? Is that more skill-based movements?

in the weightlifting sessions themselves or is it kind of a macro building the plan together?

Steve Thompson (06:42)
I think it's a bit of both. think the resistance, you're always going to get resistance. There's always going to be individuals that either don't value it or perhaps are just not that good at it and therefore shy away from it. I think that's natural. And I don't think that will ever change because it's not, for most sports, it's not the performance, it's not the competition. Of course there's a strength sports where it is.

most of the sports, it's a support service, an auxiliary approach that will, should, and normally does, improve their overall competitive performance, but ultimately it's not the sport. So you're always gonna get that little bit of resistance, but it's changed massively over the time I've been an S &C coach and kind of within this sector, which is great because I think the fact that the mindset and the

culture is changing for younger athletes, that's only going to continue to grow where that percentage of resistance is going to keep getting smaller and smaller. I think in terms of the approach, it's different. It's certainly different in the two main roles that I have. It's within a football setting. It's very much, let's plan the sessions together. So let's think about the overall arching theme of that particular session.

from a technical perspective, let's think about the technical drills and let's think about how we can feed into that as physical performance coaches from a loading perspective, from a session design perspective, from a movement capacity perspective and then maybe from an adaptation perspective as well. And then we kind of layer, or I will work with the technical team and anyone else that's part of that MDT to layer in

the physical complexities that we might want to try and align to that technical goal. I don't know, to give you a real simple example, it might be looking at a high press, so looking at high energy, lot of pressing from the forward players to try and retain possession further up the field. With that then comes specific physical qualities required, such as being able to accelerate, being able to decelerate, being able to change direction.

So we can then drip feed in some of those physical components into the session to help bring it all together. And I think that's from an athlete perspective, that's always much more beneficial and they much prefer that approach because it still feels like they're doing the sport and everything has an aim and a link to the technical side of things.

From some of the other sports, like the more individual sports where access to the athletes is less, there's less of an opportunity for that, it might be a case of more of holistic planning with MDTs talking about what individuals need, how that feeds into their technical.

and technical skills and where those areas for improvement are and then how we can feed into that from an S&C perspective. So still collaborative but maybe less so, still separate training with a more holistic approach in terms of the

Ollie Torr (09:46)
Yeah, you're totally right with the, when the athlete feels it directly links with the sport, like for us with climbers doing pull-ups, they suddenly go, this is exactly what I need to be doing. It's a pull-up. But then you go, well, let's do some squats. And as soon as there's not that kind of direct relation, they kind of have a little bit less buy-in. So like you say, it's about kind of making it an obvious link or as obvious as possible.

Steve Thompson (09:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ollie Torr (10:07)
And so with those sports that you're working in, what's kind of like the ratios in a training plan that you're trying to work with? you given a set amount of sessions and time? I guess there'll be an individual element to that, but say how much time are these athletes weightlifting for or doing a particular S &C?

Steve Thompson (10:26)
Yeah, completely varies, dependent on a number of different factors. Within diving, it might be two S&C sessions a week or two to three S&C sessions a week, which might be sort of 60 to 90 minutes, for example. Within sports that are more team-based, where it's certainly an international setting, where it's camp-based training. So I'll go away for 10 days, for example, on a training camp or a tournament.

And in that scenario, it's more about the drip feeding of the physical development. there's a underpinning programming strategy called microdosing, which is where you take the weekly volume, or maybe if it's a 10 day camp, what you'd want to do across those 10 days from a...

from a sprint perspective, from a strength perspective, from the key physical component. And instead of, let's say, setting up one big strength session or two big strength sessions within that period, you might take 10, 15 minute block at the start of every session and you would just microdose in those strength elements to essentially equate to the same sort of frequency and loading that you would do if you had two big sessions within a week.

And doing it that way works from a logistical perspective much better, works from a fatigue perspective much better because the residual fatigue off the back of such smaller sessions is a lot lower. So from a recovery and a rest perspective as well, it's a much better fit. But obviously that approach would only fit certain scenarios where...

There may be training or doing something every day which is potentially quite unique to the camp style approach.

Ollie Torr (12:10)
That's interesting that, actually I feel like that matches the amateur athlete as well, who might do a bit of their sport Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then add a bit of conditioning onto the end because they don't have the Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday for individual S&C sessions. And I'm actually, I'm actually leaning more and more into that with, rather than doing.

Steve Thompson (12:27)
Yeah, yeah.

Ollie Torr (12:31)
loads of conditioning twice a week after a climbing session, just doing two exercises or three exercises and doing that five times a week because of that, like you say, high frequency, low fatigue, high execution

And with them in terms of scheduling and training in the year, one of the seasons that always fascinates me these days is the football season because it's so long. And if you, always remember an essence, my, person who told me at my master said, if you went up to a manager and said, I'm going to maintain your athletes for 10 months of the year, then they're going to fire you immediately. So.

Steve Thompson (12:52)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ollie Torr (13:05)
Like climbers who want to perform every weekend for most of the year when it's dry, how do you balance S &C and weights in the base season? Does that, in terms of ratios of training and how do you do it when someone's performing every weekend or every other weekend?

Steve Thompson (13:22)
Yes, it's a really good question and it's, you know, that term maintenance is a term that I do not like either. I think if you're striving to maintain someone then you're not striving to get them better and there's always opportunities to get someone better in whatever kind of capacity that might be. And I think that the microdosing we just described is a really good example of that. You can make progress from a physical perspective but not impact on other elements.

One way it's done really well in team sports and sports with large number of competitions, perhaps weekly, is to follow a model called sort of match day or competition plus minus model, whereby you essentially plan week to week. You would still do it in advance, but you're essentially going week to week.

You then have a, let's say you have your match day on a Saturday or your competition on a Saturday, you then go your plus one and plus two are recovery days. You then start again at minus four. That's then looking forward to the next game. So maybe your minus four is a day where you can hit some big load in. Minus three then might be a different focus, but still an opportunity to hit some bigger numbers.

your minus two and minus one then start to taper off for the week leading into the next competition. And if planned appropriately, if programmed effectively, then there's absolutely no reason that players cannot get better across the course of that 10 months, even if it is so long. It's just about being sensible and kind of trying to understand where the limiters are, where the breaking points are for those.

those athletes and understanding that everybody's going to respond to the same stimulus in a different way. Trying to utilise some of the core residency principles of individualisation of sort of variability of specificity and developing a programme that's very much in tune with what that individual needs that factors in the right amount of rest and recovery, the right strategies, the right type of training to suit their physiological makeup, etc.

I think if you get that right and it takes a good S &C coach to get that right, it's not something that you could just do day one after graduating from an undergrad for example. It takes time, takes understanding, knowledge, development and experience to do that but I think once you get that recipe it's a simple thing to do but it's a thing that's very much attainable.

for most individuals that you might work with.

Lattice Host (15:58)
Thanks Steve. I found that really interesting, particularly the match day plus or minus and how we can structure our week's climbers around that. But let's hear from Dave Mason, the climbing coach, to see if there are any parallels in climbing itself or any differences for us in our sport.

David Mason (16:14)
I'm David Mason. I guess I've been, I actually made some notes on this. I've been coaching since 2009. I coach kind of, I was a coach of GB climbing for a few years. I actually don't know how long. I first started with Gareth Parry. was his assistant manager, although I did more than Giles.

And then I ran the team for a few years with Mark Glenney. and I competed for GB beforehand, although I was never very good at competing, but I guess that's kind of what got me into then helping manage the team and do that stuff. And I've worked with kind of the junior team a little bit as well. But my main focus was the senior team.

And then now, well, now I've got kind of 20 and kind of go between 20 and 25 clients, athletes that I coach, predominantly, in fact.

all rock climbers now. I used to have a reasonable amount of comp climbers. I had about eight athletes who were on the GB team. But basically phased those out just because they didn't really, they don't kind of go quite as well with my life. And comp climbers need a lot more contact time, which doesn't fit quite as well. And I think it's best if you run it through like a squad.

and that's just not how I was doing it. I kind of, I phased it out because I didn't think I could do a proper service to any more comp climbers.

So yeah, that's kind of my background as a coach. And then as a climber, I'm predominantly a boulder boulder. If I'm basically solely a boulder, I do a little bit of grit stone trad.

which is just bouldering in the sky anyway. Kind of bolded up to 8B+. Got a pretty light pancake-like pyramid. I think I've done over 600 8As and above, but yeah, only a few 8B+. But I'm just getting round and into projecting finally, maybe in the last like three or four years, I reckon I've really like, basically just don't have very much mileage to do around where we live and therefore I spend.

all my time, projecting and actually kind of enjoying it. I think I had... I wasn't very good at projecting when I was younger because I felt like I needed to tick, whereas now I don't feel like that and therefore I can kind of push myself a lot more, which is kind of

I wish I'd been like, had that frame of mind when I was younger, but I didn't. Yeah, yeah, bolded up to 8B +, flashed E8, trad and done a...

couple of VIN or an E9 and stuff.

Yeah, I'm a dad of two kids.

Ollie Torr (18:38)
thanks very much. So in terms of athletes you work with, you got there like 20 to 25, now no longer as much in the comps. And like you said, you pretty much had half the British team under your guidance at one point, at least from what I could see. then, so now what's the kind of like split for you, female, male, old versus young, young being like teens, twenties, and then...

Like do you have, I know you have a few older athletes, kind of what's the ratios?

David Mason (19:07)
and ratios are pretty poor from a male to female perspective. I currently have...

I think I currently have five female athletes. think I've currently got like 23 or 24 clients and about five of them I think are female. I should be honest, I don't ever know if a couple have stopped recently, but then a couple of new ones have started. So maybe other than in comp times, maybe I haven't ever had more than like, you know, five to eight female athletes. Old to young.

Again, at the moment, I've probably only got one that you'd classify as young, think. Yeah, I probably only got one that you classify as young. And then I've got like bunch of like, I guess, mid 20s to...

mid thirties and then I've got a couple of older athletes in their fifties. So it's quite like a broad spectrum, you know, some kind of go from mostly they're boulders, but some of them are sport climbers or both. And then I guess they're like going from kind of seven B boulders up to kind of eight C plus boulders.

and then up to kind of 8C plus 9A sport climbers. So it's kind of like quite an eclectic group, which is nice.

Ollie Torr (20:24)
In terms of those clients then, what's kind of the spread in terms of their performance? it...

Do you have a mix of weekend warriors? Are they very trip-based athletes? Are they local kind of heroes? Like, when are they sort of trying to perform? Because it's very different from the comps where it's a very specific season. When we have so many athletes in different genres, are they season-based or trip-based or whatever?

David Mason (20:52)
So I'd actually say most of them now are not trip based. They probably do go on trips. I'm sorry, they definitely go on trips, but it's not always necessarily about peaking for certain trips. And even if it is about peaking for certain trips, they also want to perform when they're back in the UK.

Yeah, I would say, yeah, mostly they're focused around kind of always wanting to perform reasonably well. Which is kind of interesting. had a couple of people, I have a couple of people who try and like, you know, they'd like maybe training for specific routes and therefore there might be a season for those specific routes. So therefore you bring about a bit of a peak for that, for the season for that route. Or I did have one client this year who was aiming to climb like a specific grade.

on a two week trip. They had other trips to that area before, a specific grade in the two week trip. So that was, guess, bringing about a peak for that. But I'd say mostly they're people who want, mostly they're actually quite like me, I guess, in that when they go away on trips, they would like to climb well, but they also kind of want to go out on rock, you know, as frequently as the weather allows and they're

and not feel too shabby. But they're all aware that they're also training to kind of get just, I guess, progress over time. So yeah, it's very different to like that comp where it used to be, you know, like you do this training for this, these months, then you do this, then you do this, then you do this, and then you peak for a season or a certain event within a season, and then you have to maintain and like that.

It's definitely quite different to

that.

Ollie Torr (22:32)
In terms of within the seasons then, when do you sort of train more S&C and weight training for these type of athletes that want to like yourself, want to perform kind of all year round, but you'll still have phases where you're more bothered and less bothered and then trips. Like how do you tend to fit in the S&C work and weightlifting?

David Mason (22:52)
I guess that kind of the heavier S &C would probably predominantly come in a winter base and then maybe like a little bit ramp it up in a summer period as well. I guess in autumn, autumn and spring, the shoulder months, they're like the best, the shoulder seasons, they're like the best in the UK. So that's when people want to be on the rock. It tends to be a bit warm and humid in summer. And then in winter, you might want to be getting out on rock, but...

the weather doesn't always allow that. kind of, and normally think about November through to February as kind of like a good base building for the year. And then kind of March through to May is a bit more kind of performance orientated time, maybe into June, then kind of June, July, August, roughly, maybe like a bit more kind of.

training base and then September, October into November, a little bit more peak time for rock and then back into another kind of slog over the winter. So that's when I guess you might do your heaviest lots of conditioning. However, I have athletes conditioning, they condition year round. They never don't

Ollie Torr (24:02)
Do you have much resistance these days to getting climbers in the gym and lifting weights? Because it used to be something that I think was quite hard to get a lot of climbers to do, but do you notice that anymore in terms of doing training?

David Mason (24:17)
No, okay, I like a little bit of resistance for leg work, but that's even that I would say is with at least predominantly with the guys I coached even that's like dying out and you know, that's almost some people I've had a couple of athletes this year who've been like, what? Like maybe the ones that were slightly resistant to it and they're like, my legs are definitely stronger. can, you know, that knee bar feels way better than it felt, you know, last season or whatever.

So I'd say I don't have that much resistance to it. I think S&C stuff's a funny thing, because I feel like a lot of people maybe do too much of it, or maybe the people who don't need to do it do too much of it, because I guess they kind of enjoy it, which is fine, but maybe they don't need to do it as much. And then the kind of people who really need to do it maybe don't.

haven't done it quite as much in the past. And it's like, it's those are the guys that will benefit the most from it. So, but yeah, I would say I have very little resistance. I think that's kind of like what...

I guess I have a, probably have a reputation for giving people a reasonable amount of conditioning. I think if you just through word of mouth, most people know when they start with me, they'll put on a few kilos of muscle and therefore they're a bit heavier and that'll kind of even out over the period of time. I kind of, nearly every client I have that first three to six month period is definitely like, I'm trying to make them fit for, for what.

will become what they'll do in future basically. I feel like their overall capacity and base level just for most people isn't So.

Ollie Torr (25:55)
Yeah, you had,

there's a couple of really good points there and I can, the first one in terms of those who need it, who don't need it, who do it too much. And then the people that, I'm pointing at myself there for any of the listeners. And then the people that do need it probably haven't done it enough. I can really envision that, but can you describe those climbers a bit to me?

David Mason (26:10)
You

Yeah, I mean, I guess those climbers are probably the ones that have maybe been climbing a long time. And I'd say their background is like outdoor climbing and they might climb indoors for sure, but they climb indoors in order to get better for outside rather than I feel like maybe people who have either new people to climbing who maybe come from a gym background or people who have been, you know, climbing all their life, but started like, I guess a lot of the kind of

teens and early twenties, you now when they started climbing, even if they started when they were eight, like people knew that conditioning was a bit of a thing and we're seeing that it's not the same thing, but you know, we're seeing it in the comp kids, like comps are becoming like the winners of comps are becoming younger and younger, but it's just because they've been doing running jumps and dinos since they were three. It's just natural because that's how they were set. So I think that's similar with that conditioning.

So I think people who were like maybe born like 80s, early 90s and then any any earlier than that as well you know I guess 70s or whatever I feel like and who are predominantly rock athletes I feel like maybe haven't done enough conditioning in the past and it's like a new thing for them.

Lattice Host (27:33)
So Dave clearly, like me, is in the camp of using S&C and weightlifting to support climbing performance. One of the things we've both talked about quite a lot over the years though is how quickly climbers want to progress in their training from session to session.

overload, is the practice of progressively overloading the body. So making small and steady incremental training games week on week or month on month.

So not trying to do too many big jumps all at once. I climbers like many self-coach athletes tend to get a little bit carried away and try to progress training loads too quickly, particularly when using weights. So to bring it back to you, Steve, what kind of progress should we be expecting throughout our training period?

Steve Thompson (28:20)
It depends on where you are in your training journey. So yeah, if you're a novice, if you've been training for six months, you're going to make those big leaps really quickly and it feels amazing and you're like, wow, this, you know, certainly if you're the coach delivering that program, you're the best person in the world because you're making gains for this individual that they've never seen before. But obviously there is a shelf life to that kind of progression. I remember seeing there was a paper done on

historical powerlifting data there was, I can't remember what the app was called, but there basically an app that lots of powerlifters were using and it was like 10 year or 15 year, lots of tens of thousands of data points and they basically showed that there's a real steep curve initially and then it plateaus off and it plateaus off the majority of the time which to me highlights that there is a

there's a limiting factor to strength, which isn't a bad thing. But it's being realistic that once you become a trained individual, once your body understands about the stimulus, the impact and the progression is going to be much slower. But if you've reached a level, and I know we're kind of teetering on this idea of maintenance here, bear with me because it's not. If you reach a level that is

what you need for your sports, let's say there's a certain amount of pulling strength that a climber requires to be successful at X, Y and Z. It's then about the smaller increments in strength for that given task becomes an added bonus. And we should still strive for that because I think if you fall into that trap of maintenance, you actually fall into the trap of potentially reversibility and losing strength.

So we should always be pushing on the edge of appropriate stimulus and stress to progress and adapt. But it's interesting how in the strongest individuals, there is a steep increase and then it really does plateau off for quite a long time. yeah, I think realism, once you become trained, is an important thing or you can become quite...

dejected with the slow levels of progression once you've reached it.

Ollie Torr (30:37)
Yeah, I mean, as we both know as coaches, have to deal with that quite a bit. And I think we've just actually put a blog on our website with some basic testing parameters where it shows that.

the higher elite you get. So elite to higher elite, the less strength metrics actually make a difference and in terms of testing. However, the one thing I think people might lose by seeing that is going, well, this doesn't predict performance, but actually, no, it shows you there is a gateway. You still like, you need this to get there and then it matters less. If you don't get there in the first place, you don't get your ticket to be an elite. And that's the key component.

Steve Thompson (31:10)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ollie Torr (31:12)
So

with that progression, we know that change of stimulus and variability makes a big difference. How long would you see a movement pattern, say deadlift in an athlete just stagnate in terms of performance before you said, I will vary this stimulus and change the exercise? Do you have kind of a, know, is it just two weeks in a row? Is it six weeks to stagnate before you move on?

Steve Thompson (31:35)
yeah, I think...

I wouldn't necessarily change the exercise. The way I typically work is you go through your needs analysis as an SSE coach, as a coach, as a practitioner. You understand the key movement patterns, you understand the key intensities, durations, muscle groups, et cetera. So you kind of go through Verkuchansky's dynamic correspondence model and you tick them all off.

And then once you've found that, you then think about changing the stimulus in other ways. So if you're a power lifter, for example, you have to deadlift, you have to bench, you have to squat, you have to get stronger in order to win. So you have to find other ways of changing that stimulus and it might be doing different rep set schemes, it might be doing different durations within the eccentric.

or the isometric, it might be doing focusing on eccentric, isometric or concentric as a trailing block. It might be adding in accommodating resistance, so bands and chains. It might be focusing on velocity over strength. think

One of the potential issues with variation is if you change the exercise too much and you change the stimulus too much, you stunt the progression. And you then risk constantly being in that state of fatigue because you'll know yourself and if you do a training program for six, eight, 10 weeks,

and then you do a completely different one, you do completely different movements, those first two or three sessions, you'll feel sore after because your neuromuscular system is like, whoa, this is new, I don't know this, this is breakdown and that I'm not used to, I need to protect myself and by doing that, I'm gonna make you feel sore, essentially. So I think there's more to be said in the creative element of slightly tweaking exercises or tweaking the...

the prescriptions around that exercise to continue to progress as opposed to saying, right, you've done six weeks of deadlift, now you're gonna do six weeks of squat, then you're gonna do six weeks of leg press. I think there's probably more effective ways of getting that long-term progression.

Ollie Torr (33:50)
I'm really pleased you've said that actually. Well, I can definitely speak for a lot of athletes out there where I think it kind of gets lost in translation that, like you say, just because you're keeping the same exercise, you're progressing that inter and intramuscular coordination so much by changing the variables, which I guess we sometimes fall into a trap of changing the exercise for buy-in and sort of...

motivation and also partly like some of the like the the Olympic athletes I've worked with in particular I've I've got Erin in the gym right now and thinking about her if she's not feeling tired and sore she doesn't feel like she's working hard enough and I'm saying well all your numbers are going up you're progressing so therefore you are progressing but you're not getting the same doms from that new muscular coordination like you just said so it's good to

Steve Thompson (34:27)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Ollie Torr (34:39)
to kind of have that reaffirmed that actually progression is so much more about variables than it is about movement pattern.

Steve Thompson (34:47)
Yeah, they're challenging those types of athletes, they, that kind of need to feel tired and fatigued and domzy to feel like they're doing something. They're a really nice challenging to have because it shows that they want to work and they want to put everything into it. But sometimes pulling them back can be a real challenge to, because you know, you've got, you can see the kind of the journey and the programming path.

Whereas they just think about the now, they're like, what am doing today? Is it going to make me feel like I've left the gym and I've done stuff? And if it doesn't, and if they get that consistently, then they start to doubt the process. it's, think, I think that's where, you know, the best coaches in the world get the biggest impact because they can articulate the process in a way that corresponds and, and, and

sits well with that individual. So that even if they start to doubt it, they know in themselves, no, I know this is a long-term process. I know I'm going to feel days where I'm battered and there's going to be days where I'm going to jump out of the gym because I feel like I've not done anything, but it's all a process and it's all a system. So yeah, I think that's where the softer skills and the softer side of being an S &C coach becomes really important. How well can you rationalize and justify the process?

and how well can you build that rapport so that they trust that you know the process. And that's a really interesting sort of challenge to navigate, I think.

Ollie Torr (36:16)
Yeah, it's funny because you always think about the trust the process discussion around that to fatigue, don't you? Like I remember talking to Toby the year before the Olympics being, and he was extremely tired and was just saying like no one else should, you know, I'm effectively beaten in all practice. And I was like, trust the process. And that's kind of a normal discussion, but the vice versa the other way around. I'm about to start with it.

a new athlete where she's coming back from a few injuries, a few niggles, and I'm literally going to tell her we're going to do finger boarding every day. We're going to do this conditioning five times a week and all of it is going to be about 40 % max, which is going to be so hard for her to resist. And this is all about building that muscular coordination, building prep phase for a whole month to get back into good shape. And I think that trust the process conversation is going to be.

Steve Thompson (37:02)
Mm-hmm.

Ollie Torr (37:12)
so hard to be like if you feel tired then we've done this wrong or if you feel like your fingers are sore then again we've done this wrong because this is not the course but it's really hard isn't it for those people that want to push to the edge.

Steve Thompson (37:25)
Yeah,

yeah, and we get that in diving as well in the sense of they'll go through periods. Typically, to keep it simple, we'll kind of rag-rate our sessions of red, green. And the one way in which we might coordinate with the technical coaches, they'll rag-rate their sessions as well. sometimes we'll, if they're red, we're green to try and counterbalance it. But some weeks will both be red because we know

at that point of time, they need to feel the the the difficultness of that and the the loading and have the tired legs and still be able to perform and still go through that process. And, you know, I'm lucky, we're lucky that we have such a great coach, such a great bunch of athletes that they do trust us and they'll they'll they'll get through it and they'll do it and they're like, it's killing me. This program is killing me. I'm like, I know, but just, you know, come out of it.

and we'll taper you off and you'll be in a really good position. And we built that trust and it's great that it, nine times out of 10, it does work and we've built a good sort of formula for it to work. But yeah, I've definitely been in those conversations around just trust the process, like you said.

Ollie Torr (38:35)
What kind of rag rates, fatigue rates are you happy with in base season and say again for the person who's performing every weekend and like are there any backstops for the athletes to be personally aware of and I'm thinking about say people listening to this if they say I feel this level of fatigue then this is a sign I've pushed too far.

Like, do you have any sort of tips around that?

Steve Thompson (39:05)
That's a good question. think ultimately you want, ultimately the athlete will know themselves well enough to know where or whereabouts they are from a fatigue perspective. Yes, we can always collect objective data and I've kind of mentioned some of that monitoring strategies and using stuff like velocity. So, you know, for example, in the past we've kind of used a system whereby

Athletes might come into the gym and do five unloaded jumps using a measuring velocity and we'll track that over time. And if there is such a big drop in velocity, it might be 10, 15, 20%, we'll then use that to have a much more in-depth conversation with that individual to say, you know, how are you feeling? Your numbers are down and they've been down for the past two or three sessions. What's going on? How's training?

and kind of coordinate and bring the coach in and coordinate that way. So we try to do it objectively where we can, you know, within the of the restraints of time, resource, logistics, et cetera. But I think, yeah, to put a number on it is difficult because everybody responds differently. Everyone has different levels of fatigue. Everyone can deal with different levels of fatigue at the same time. So you might have someone that is feeling broken and yet...

will still complete the session with a smile on the face. You have the other side of that, of somebody who will grumble when they're in the gym and they're fresh anyway. So you're always going to get that spectrum of kind of feedback from individuals. It's interesting in terms of how far we can push ourselves. There's a colleague at the university who's just completed his PhD in kind of overtraining syndrome.

And interestingly, he's concluded that there is no, potentially is no overtraining syndrome, or at least there's no clear definition and there's no clear research that helps define that. And he put together a really kind of grueling protocol where participants would be squatting, I think it was five days in a row at 80 % for...

I forget, five, six, maybe seven sets to failure every single day. And interestingly, at the end of those five days, everybody got stronger and everybody improved, whereas he was actually trying to fatigue them, break them so that they didn't improve. So it's a really interesting finding of kind of like this idea of functional overreach and the ability to really push their bodies. know, anecdotally,

participants wouldn't be able to walk into the gym. They'd have that much doms that they would struggle to walk and then as soon as they started moving, soon as they got onto the bar, they were like, oh, I actually feel quite good now. And it's almost like you know, a bit of a psychological battle to get through that initial doms. And then it's a really interesting physiological kind of underpinning that allows your body to say, actually, no, you know, feel, you don't feel great, but.

from a neuromuscular functioning perspective, we're flying, we're doing well, so let's see what we can do today. So it's a really interesting idea of fatigue and how that manifests and how people respond to it. I think it's more than just a physiological aspect.

Ollie Torr (42:25)
I think that's why I'm such an advocate of periodization and mesocycle still with deload weeks because one, it's kind like a little bit with the Red S stuff where say in that scenario, the body is going for an evolutionary standpoint, I have this thing that I need to push and therefore all of my energy will go into this. But at the same time, that athlete in that training scenario might have

devalued or deprioritized some health components that are underlying sort of like fertility. So I guess, then if you find overreaching, it, if that's kind of the priority, and then if you have this periodization, this deload period, psychologically you recover, health base recovers again, and then you can keep pushing. So we're expecting to see that seesaw of health performance. But like you said, it's amazing when you actually push through what you can.

you can do in those scenarios. A funny thing we did in the office a while ago, which I think a lot of people laugh at is, so a good sign of testosterone and health in males is morning erections. And we had an off the hand study in the office where all the guys would come in and tick on the board whether they had one or not to see who was fatigued to have a week. And all of a sudden you suddenly realize, God, actually I am quite tired or I've been training hard and I recover.

Steve Thompson (43:32)
Nice.

Nice.

Ollie Torr (43:42)
The

another thing with the like you said I was talking to three literally speaking about this for three athletes the other day professional climbers of using a 10-decker force plate to to warm up and they all had three responses of If I hit my numbers as part of my warm-up pulling on this 10-deck, it might be 50 kilos 60 kilos one said I know I'm gonna have a good day one said Sorry if they didn't hit the numbers one said

know I will have a bad day. The other said I'll see how I feel and the other one said it doesn't really matter for me. And again that's kind of having that subjective component with the objective measure isn't it before and during sessions.

Steve Thompson (44:20)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think...

Most athletes are less bothered by the data. It's normally us that need the data and need that for some kind of egotistical validation, I don't know. But I think the objective element that comes with that kind of approach can be really useful, but ultimately, and it goes back to what I said previously, the athlete will know themselves well enough to know

yes I can do this no matter what or yes I need that validation from some kind of objective data and I think really all we're trying to do is create the best training environment for the individuals that we work with and if someone is hell-bent on the data then give them the data. If someone doesn't care about it and just wants to crack on and knows how they feel then let them go through that process too.

As S &C coaches, need to remember that we're a support system. Ultimately, we're supporting the athlete first and then the technical coaches second. We should have flexibility in our systems to accommodate what those two key stakeholders need. If we don't, I think we're failing a little bit because we then become too rigid.

and it becomes too much about, this is what we need to do. In order for you to progress, you must achieve this. And I don't think it is that black and white. I think that's a really good guide. And I think it's great for the novice who says, well, I don't know when I should progress. OK, well, here's a process you can follow to help you make that decision. But if you're working with a GB athlete who's been doing it for 10 years, they're going to tell you when they think they can progress.

and it's going to be a collaborative decision as opposed to you saying, now you're going to go up because they might be like, well, hang on a sec, I'm not comfortable with that. So I think we have to be flexible and we have to be able to adapt to the person in front of us in order to get the best out of that process, really.

Ollie Torr (46:27)
And how would you adapt, so if we just take it back to basic weightlifting in S&C, do you adapt what you would give out based on female versus male athletes and also older versus younger? Sort of younger being late teens, twenties, and then older being thirties, forties, fifties and so on.

Steve Thompson (46:46)
Yeah, I think you should. I think you should always adapt to the individual in front of you. That's not to say that... I I suppose firstly we have to recognise the different physiology that is within those different groups of populations that you've just mentioned. And I think to ignore that would be naive and would be doing a disservice to each of populations and those population groups. But I think...

Similarly, it's not.

we need to try not to group them because even within those populations there's such vast differences in terms of response to stimulus. And I think that's where, you know, not to keep quoting kind of those typical S &C principles, but if we don't individualize it then we're not doing a good enough job and I think that's such a key part of it. So, yeah, to answer your question, absolutely, I would adapt for any individual based on

a multitude of factors to make sure that the training program they have is optimised. And I think that's where working with professionals, working with qualified SSE coaches and coaches that have been doing it a long time and clearly understand that process is a real benefit to individuals wanting to improve their physicality.

Ollie T (48:06)
So Dave, do you tend to use the same sort of weightlifting programs or movements between boulders and sport climbers and different athletes? Or do you tend to change the movements depending on the discipline, such as like steep bouldering, compression bouldering, or really long route climbing, for instance?

David Mason (48:24)
I don't think so, not for me personally. I feel like, to be honest, if anything, most boulderers are slightly, I would say if you're predominantly a boulderer, you probably are. You've maybe done a bit more conditioning. think route climbers maybe steer away from it because they have to carry more muscle over more moves and stuff and things. So I feel like route climbers, if anything, need it more as much.

And also depends like what your route climbing is. Are you doing like 50 meter limestone routes that are just off vertical or are you like climbing in flat anger? mean, flying was basically boulders. You basically do a boulder and then you kind of get a really good rest. You have to recover. So as long as you've got good capacity and can recover in that rest, you then going to do another boulder problem. And it's really steep and barely. So you might as well try and like a boulder. So I think for me, it's again, I, I do have people, I do have

a couple of route climbers, but I don't have my experience within route climbing is definitely less. Having said that, every route climber I've ever given stuff to has always benefited from it.

Ollie Torr (49:30)
They're usually more, like you said earlier, the people that maybe don't do as much, but probably need it a little bit more. In terms of the, you mentioned muscle mass before, what's kind of been your experience with giving weights out, S&C, and then the different responses in terms of muscle mass and weights, and then also the pros and cons of that, because that's obviously a massive topic, kind of what's been your experience as a coach, and then also you as an athlete, because I know you've changed.

weight not massively over the years, you know, have increased muscle mass over the years and like, how's that affected you?

David Mason (50:03)
Yeah, it just, I guess it can just make you a little bit of a different climber when you put on muscle mass. So I think from a...

Ollie Torr (50:09)
Thank

David Mason (50:16)
I mean, I think from a client perspective, my feeling is that putting on a bit of muscle mass for most people is pretty useful and it might mean that their fingers feel a bit weaker for six months, maybe even a bit longer, but in the long run, it means they'll be able to put more load through their fingers because the rest of their body is stronger. So.

Yeah, I would say, as I said, I think most clients that start with me put on a bit of weight and then it settles a little bit. I just don't, I don't really see an issue with it as long as they're aware that that's going to happen and that their fingers might feel a little bit kind of weaker or, you know, they might not want to pull on the very smallest holds for a few months or whatever. Yeah,

kind of one client, think he, I think in the first six months put on seven kilos with me and it took him about, I think it took him.

think he says maybe it took him a year and a half, but it definitely took him about definitely a year for his fingers to catch up. And he was, you know, he was a skinny kid, good technical climber, kind of reasonably strong fingers on the rock, not super strong off on like finger boarding or whatever, but reasonably strong fingers, good climber, but skinny kid. So he wanted to climb as hard balled as he could. So, but he just trusted, he basically just trusts what I tell him to do and he...

you know, like he would feed back that he might feel a bit weak in the fingers and stuff, but in the long run, you know, it paid off and things. That's like an extreme example, I guess, but that's because he was started with me at a period of time when that might happen, you know. I think, I also, as we all get, I think as we get older, we all get heavier as well. It's just a natural thing. Like I remember like,

Ollie Torr (51:52)
Yeah, that's an important part actually.

David Mason (52:00)
I remember being 70 to 72 kilos and then I remember I'm always 72 to 74 and then I'm always 74 to 76 and then I'm always 78 and you just, you just get a bit heavier but also you learn to climb in different ways and you know, I look back on videos of me in like 2012 or something, I'm so skinny, like, and my fingers were maybe strong in certain ways but I don't think they were actually stronger than they are now and I was skinny.

and I couldn't keep my feet on very well and stuff and I couldn't use my like heels. I mean, I'm still not great with heels, but like I couldn't use them that well and stuff. So you just evolve as a climber and you get, you kind of, I think you just learn, you learn kind of how to use your new body and.

how that'll work for you. Like I'm a much better climber and I think I'm climbing better than I was in 2012 and 2016 and stuff. There might be the odd move where I feel worse, but overall I'm much better. And yet I'm probably six or seven kilos heavier than I was in 2012, 2016.

Ollie Torr (53:11)
Yeah, and I think it's really important, the bit, the starting point of what you said, like, I imagine as soon as you said earlier, he put on seven kilos, there's gonna be a lot of people going, whoa, I mean, like, and then you go, actually, he's really skinny. He was looking for long term gains. And like you saying, talking about putting on six, seven kilos, but you also six, two, you know, that's over a decade. Like a gymnast puts on one to two kilos every year.

David Mason (53:33)
Yeah, yeah.

Ollie Torr (53:38)
as they're growing and then continues putting on that muscle mass and it just, it's just slow and steady, isn't it? Which is ideal, but like you said, you do adapt to it. And I think a good example for you at the moment is, which we talked about a lot, is you've put muscle on your hamstrings recently and you trad a hamstringy problem on the moon board pre-leg training. And then your ability to pull on the same holds seemed to improve pretty dramatically.

as the legs got stronger which is really cool to see.

David Mason (54:10)
Yeah, I mean, that kind of thing is and maybe I guess maybe leg strength is slightly less important in a route climbing again, depending on what routes you're on. let's say a stereotypical going to Spain and doing some limestone routes. Maybe it's a little bit less important, but I think in bouldering and definitely in comp climbing, like leg strength is just is so important nowadays. And it's just

You do see people who don't have any leg strength, their fingers are just ridiculously strong and they're good at climbing and they get up stuff. But like watching them climb isn't necessarily the nicest thing I don't think. Whereas you, I really love watching someone who can like really connect with their, like through their body and stuff and...

And for me, that's like, it's a really cool way of climbing and it's like how I want to be able to climb. I remember always wanting to climb like Jimmy. Like I was like, right. I love how powerful he is, but I also love how well his heel hooking isn't the very best, but it's pretty good. But I love how well he can use his like feet for a big guy and his fingers are really strong, but they're not like super, super strong. He uses everything.

And I always, just wanted to be able to climb like him. And I was like, right, okay, I'm going to learn how to teach myself how to climb like Jimmy. And it took me like six or seven months of incorporating that style. And obviously I wasn't Jimmy by the end of it, but like, you know, staying open and being able to connect and pull through my toes was so much better. And that's what I like really. That's why I really like about climbing and for me having strong legs, you know, that helps you do that stuff.

And I also think in hard bouldering, unless you're really light, I think in hard bouldering, you have to keep your feet on. And if you can't keep your feet on, then you're gonna fall off. Like my fingers again, aren't weak, but they're not super strong and they're never gonna get super strong, especially now. They're just gonna be what they are and maybe get a bit better, but hopefully not get any worse. And so I need to have everything else working as well as it can. And you know, I can get my legs stronger.

And therefore my fingers maybe need to take half a percent less because my legs, my feet can stay on. So that's like, that's a win, isn't it?

Ollie Torr (56:20)
Yeah, and I think the, like what you're saying there as well, the variety of movement it allows you to be better at is so much bigger. And I guess one of my question then is like, kind of play devil's advocate is that's like really good in terms of building a huge base. And like you said, your pancake, which is like, it's definitely aspirational for me and inspiring, but say the kid out there or someone out there is going, I just want to climb.

8c it doesn't matter what it don't want to climb anything else 8c boulder and Do you think you would negate a lot of the basic? S &C work in just the goal of them having no muscle mass and no general strength in the goal of that

David Mason (57:04)
Well, depends what 8C Boulder is for a start, but no. Right, now it's just like, for me, like, it massively depends on what 8C Boulder is, but...

Ollie Torr (57:08)
Okay.

David Mason (57:13)
Yeah, in my opinion, in terms of if they want to try an 8C boulder and let's say they come to it and that's, know, I want to climb an eight, it's an aspirational goal. Therefore they're to have to put a lot of effort in to climb it. Then they need their body not to break and your body is more likely to break if you've got really weak muscles. Like, because then you're going to put more weight through your fingers or you're to put more weight through this particular muscle that's strong and the other muscles aren't supporting it well.

and you're probably more likely to break or your sessions have to be much shorter. Whereas if your body is strong, you can have much longer sessions. You can have longer sessions. You can work more of the boulder or the route and therefore you're more likely to do it more quickly. I think it's just, it's just a no brainer. I also think it just works, doesn't it? Like there's only so much finger boarding you can do within a week. There's only so much climbing you can do within a week. So just do a bit of conditioning after each of those climbing sessions.

It doesn't even need to be a huge conditioning session, but just do a little bit. And overall, that'll add up. Over the years, that'll add up. And it just means that suddenly you're like, your capacity is so much bigger. And yes, you might climb that 8C boulder, but also you might be able to climb that other 8C boulder and that other 8C boulder and all. You might enjoy that AA boulder while you're at it.

Ollie Torr (58:13)
Yeah, I

Yeah, totally. mean, like you say, I mean, that's always been the biggest theory, isn't it? Your skin and fingers, the small joints, soft tissues, will give up before your big muscle mass. So why not go and do a bit extra? Because the person who's effectively putting 200 more reps every session into their body is going to be getting stronger and fitter than the person who just finishes climbing and walks away.

David Mason (58:53)
Yeah, I think most people who don't do conditioning have either done a lot in the past and therefore actually do have a really good base probably and maybe it help them to do a little bit but it's not the utmost thing but they don't tell you they've done loads in the past or they're a bit of a genetic freak and they just don't really need to do loads they're just really strong and they don't maybe need to do loads.

Yeah, and I think other than that, you should do it really. It's just like, it's... I mean, even those people probably should do it, but maybe it's less important for them.

Ollie Torr (59:27)
Yeah, because you never know whether they are, say like Drew Ruana, who actually does the lifting and is probably a bit of a genetic strength freak as well, but then it clearly makes a huge difference because he's just able to capitalize on the genetics there. Same with, I guess, Alex Puccio and people like that that are just over powerful.

Lattice Host (59:47)
Drew, you told me last time we spoke that you've been just weightlifting loads recently. What does that actually look like for you and do you find it makes a big difference in your climbing?

Drew (59:57)
I think with the way I climb specifically, I've noticed over time that, ⁓ like the more time I spend conditioning in the gym, like whether it's weightlifting or calisthenics or anything, like I climb way better. I just, I think it's just, it has to be like the way I climb. I can be like wrecked from a session the day before and I don't know. It's like, everything's like connected better. ⁓

So that was like pretty nice to know. At least like if I am not as psyched on climbing or something, I can like tone it back a little bit and focus more on the training side of things. And so recently that's been, yeah, kind of mostly everything like just focusing on school and polishing up like a lot of other skill sets that might be like related to climbing or would help climbing, but aren't exactly just climbing. I got pretty psyched on board climbing recently, so I feel like it's time to just lean into that for a bit.

Ollie Torr (1:00:56)
So I have to ask, and this is totally biased for me personally, what movements are you doing in the gym and what are you actually lifting? Give me some numbers if you don't mind saying some. I'm so fascinated by, because your style stands out to me and I want to compare that to the people I know of a different style of main head.

Drew (1:01:06)
Are you on numbers?

So full disclaimer, I'm probably, this is probably gonna make people laugh. I'm literally like not even lifting anymore to get better at climbing. Like I'm straight up only lifting to get better at lifting because I really enjoy doing it and it's fun and currently at this moment in my life right now it's just more fun. Like I don't know. I never really have been through burnout before and.

kind of like, well, I don't want to lose my love of climbing. I do love climbing, so let's just take a step back. But then even if I'm more psyched on lifting, then my climbing side comes back and I feel better. So it's kind of a win-win.

Ollie Torr (1:01:56)
I think what is a massive thing that people overlook is mental fatigue, burnout and stuff. Make the movement simple but the effort still just as hard. like even just a board compared to an outdoor session or a gym is 2D. And then like lifting a weight. Like you can always just grind out a bicep curl.

even when you're feeling like mentally burnt out, because you're not coordinating, you didn't have to think about foot slip. So I think it's a huge thing that people don't do. So yeah, well done. of just lean into it, it's great.

Drew (1:02:26)
I mean

it's better than nothing like you know for me if I go outdoor climbing and I have to like you know drag myself outside I'm like like it's a beautiful day out amazing weather like why don't I want to climb like I don't want to you know like

I'll just go to the gym instead. I don't even want to do that. But then I get there and I'm like, ah, this is fun. OK, it's better than nothing. And I finished the session. I'm like, all right, that was good. I did something today, you know.

Ollie Torr (1:03:00)
Yeah, yeah.

Drew (1:03:01)
It's I don't know. It's just really weird like going through it because on one side like Part of me wants to just you know What happens if I just stop for like a couple weeks and like fully reset and then let all the site come back? But I also don't want to do that either

Ollie Torr (1:03:20)
Well, you'll be kind of riding, you know, you'll need those endorphins and you know, your muscles feel good training anyway. So I think to fully stop, kind of, you know, you end up in a bit of a spiral of finding it harder to get going. So change the stimulus, change the mindset, great stuff. So talk me through a session then. What does weightlifting for weightlifting sake look like for you at the moment?

Drew (1:03:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, mostly psyched on bench. Um, got so far, I feel like this is all I talk about on like other podcasts too. Um, but, uh, yeah, bench is my favorite. I love that. Um, getting more psyched on deadlift again. Um, I just don't know that exercise as well. And I think I'm at a point where I need to get my legs a lot stronger to get my deadlift higher and I don't really like squatting, but I'll learn to like it.

Ollie Torr (1:04:14)
yeah, definitely. So in terms of doing those, are you doing like standard lifts just multiple times a week or are you doing like kind of bodybuilder style stuff? Kind of what's...

Drew (1:04:22)
Yeah, I guess more stand,

like powerlifting style.

kind of just play it mostly like focused on just like the kind of upper body and chest.

Ollie Torr (1:04:32)
weightlifting? Do you think transfers so well in terms of that body tension? I'm 5'7 as well, so I feel like that kind of weightlifting, deadlifting, just, it means you can drive into that foothold so much longer, as soon as I've recruited in that pattern. And then if I'm not doing it, I feel kind of slouchy.

Drew (1:04:37)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, like I guess my theory with lifting is like, you're kind of just making all your virtual parts as strong as possible. like in theory, you should just be stronger and be able to pull harder and try harder. And I don't have like numbers to back anything up with like rate of force or anything like that. All I have is like, I literally just like feel stronger and I have more energy and I could climb for longer.

Ollie Torr (1:05:14)
say. We have obviously loads of athletes that train with us all year round, is, depending on their lifestyle, is a real pleasure. if anyone has like, wants to try cycling it, they can go through that phase of build the base, full body.

Drew (1:05:15)
you

Ollie Torr (1:05:27)
build the mileage, get your rock acumen up, and then go really specific, try your best on something. And your body will break down because of that specificity, and I think you kind of get that mental burnout a little bit. So then go away from the real specific coordination, go back to the absolute basics. What's the minimum I can do is the weightlifting. My mind's recovered, my shoulders, all the smaller muscle groups start to rebuild, start to even out again, and then go back to the cycle.

Drew (1:05:53)
And then your floor is just a little bit higher for the next time and your ceiling is a little bit higher too. So, yeah, I don't know. I always look at like training stuff, like stock market, just like this. And then over time goes up and then you know, got your downs, but I don't know. It kind of helps me a lot.

Ollie Torr (1:05:59)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's like

a progress chart where it's all just a spiral. As long as the line's kind of going upwards, it's all good.

Drew (1:06:19)
Yeah,

it only matters when you look at it long, long term. you know, it like right now, I'm probably physically, I'm so much stronger than I ever have been outdoor climbing. I don't I don't know. Maybe I have no clue. Like.

Maybe I'm a couple grades lower and it's gonna take a little bit of time to like snap back there. But I also think that like in a couple years or a year or whenever I'm done, I don't even know when I'm gonna finish with the cycle. Like I might do a really long one with this. But it's just really cool to be like, where's the ceiling and where's the floor now? Cause I kind of know what my ceiling was last time. Got pretty close to that. So.

Ollie Torr (1:07:06)
So your weightlifting body strength this cycle, is this the peak you've ever been at in terms of the basic stuff?

Drew (1:07:14)
Overall, yeah, like I, I'm still getting back into it. like I was really psyched and then like I had a pretty hectic, like Christmas ish time. Like, even right before, like one of my teammates passed, ⁓ Michael Gardner on the artterics team. was, in Nepal. was pretty gnarly accident. it's like, that was the thing. And then athlete trip and then.

like cram for finals and then go to Vegas. It was just like, got super, like I was doing really good with the cycle until like all that, which is fine, you know, happens. And then now it's like kind of rebuilding back in, but the floor is already higher than it was like six months ago.

Ollie Torr (1:08:00)
So the next phase, we talk about, okay, you're going out and you want to tick a lot or do more, might get your rock acumen up, what does progress look like for you now? Like, if you looked back and you're like, now I'm better, what does that actually look like?

Drew (1:08:15)
So I guess the most abstract way I could put it is just by how strong I feel on the wall. A good measure. used to, back when I was doing all the Colorado stuff, and if I'd go to other areas too, there was, I'd say, probably a 40 % chance, 50 % chance I could just do any V14 in a day. Didn't matter the style.

short, crimpy, sloppy, long. It's like, I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna shit on this thing today. And I think for me, to know that I'm another level higher to have to be able to do that on V15, like...

I don't know. It seems kind of logical. it was, V15 was at the point for me where I could get really like, I'd done some in a day, maybe done like five or so in a day or something like that. Like get really, really lucky sometimes. We like, that was perfect. Like suited me really well. ⁓ felt good, good weather, good skin, good mind, like everything.

But also it's like any sort of like V12 or something like that, you know, it's like, okay, this is so far under where I'm at right now that like realistically, unless this is like super Morpho, like this shouldn't really be that hard for me to like put down. Like, I mean, yeah, I'll probably get like pumped or tired or something, but I can expect to like do this in a sesh pretty handily. And so I'd say like for outdoors, like knowing that I'm at another level is like, what's, yeah, just.

what's above where I'm at right now, or where my peak was. So I'd say yeah, just by literally climbing harder because it's a pretty easy way to tell if you're doing better or not

Lattice Host (1:10:01)
Dave, the range of athletes you work with is obviously quite broad, but what's the kind of normal S&C inclusion in a Dave Mason training plan? Is it like three sessions a week? Is it a little bit after every session, kind of like that microdosing? Kind of what's the ratio of climbing to conditioning like for the average climber? If you can say anything like average climber.

David Mason (1:10:25)
Yeah, it's pretty hard. Again, it depends massively on the athlete, but I mean, I'd always try and have people should climb more than they condition for sure. I mean, that's why you do it. A, you'll enjoy it more, but so.

Yeah, if you climb five sessions, if you have five climbing days a week, you probably, I probably wouldn't get you conditioning five days a week. I mean, maybe I would, depends how much you can handle. But I guess I used to be pretty standard, three conditioning sessions, four exercises each session. I'm definitely let way more kind of all over the place now. So I have some athlete, and again, it depends what time of year it is.

I think some form of arm can, like arm, shoulder.

work kind of somewhere between two and three times a week is good potentially four if you've got the time. I think some leg work I think once a week is okay for a climber like and then it might be that they do some extra core work as well. I'm not super into giving loads of big core sessions I'm just not. I do give core work but I feel like a lot of

exercises, you can get a core element in there from that, it might be like working on some shoulders, but you actually might have a core element in there. And then for me, I'd way prefer to get them thinking about tension when they're on the wall and stuff like that. Having said that, some people really, really do need some core. So I would give it to them. But yeah, so I guess like maybe two, two to four times a week of conditioning somewhere between two and four exercises in each of those sessions.

so I guess for me, not many, not many of my athletes condition as little as I do. So I do at the moment, I've been doing three upper body sessions a week, two exercises in two of them and three in one. So I've been doing seven upper body exercises and I've been doing one leg session, which has had three exercises in. So that's probably the minimum I would give someone.

Ollie Torr (1:12:32)
And you're probably, it's probably worth saying, is that you're splitting into more frequency in short sessions, partly for spreading the stimulus and then partly because of convenience of having kids and work and all of that, is that right?

David Mason (1:12:47)
Yeah, I mean, I just don't have the time to, again, because climbing should come first for me, I don't have the time to do that many exercises within a session. know, most of my, climb like, mostly I climb three times a week now. Occasionally I can climb a fourth time. So therefore I just try and do a couple of exercises each time I climb. And then I tend to do my leg session with some lifts.

because I can do a lift, do a leg exercise, do a lift, do a leg exercise. Again, it's just time efficiency.

Ollie Torr (1:13:19)
What about minimum dosage? Say athlete's going on a long trip is in a long peak season, I want to climb or swim along, like priority is climbing outside. Do you believe in that minimum dosage, maybe dropping it down by half and just doing a couple of key exercises? Do you have a couple of key exercises?

like some athletes might do, one or in particular athletes during that time.

David Mason (1:13:47)
Yeah, I would definitely keep an element of conditioning in all the time, but what I'd probably do is, as I said, drop the volume within the session.

increase the intensity and yeah, drop the volume, but they might still do something two to three times a week, maybe one to two exercises, two to three times a week, but like good rests, low volume.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's good. It's again, it depends a bit on bodies, doesn't it? Like, for example, I think my body personally, it doesn't really like not conditioning. I tend to get a bit tweaky. I tend to feel lethargic. whereas if I'm doing a bit of conditioning, even if it takes 1 % off me from a fatigue perspective, I feel better and it gives me that, like, those endorphins. It gives me confidence. So it's knowing the client that you're working with as well a little bit.

And also knowing how conditioning affects that client have some clients who, you know, conditioning, even though they've done a reasonable amount, it really affects them. And I think it's just that they try so hard in it. They're not very good at kind of being like, okay, this is RP seven. I'm going to do that. They actually go to like nine or 10 or whatever. And you're like, well, that's obviously going to fatigue you more. So it's knowing the client, but there would always be some, even in a peak season, I would always have some form of conditioning in for sure.

In terms of like exercises, I would always have some form of shoulder work in there. I would always have some form of pull work. I'd probably drop off leg stuff unless the climb they were trying was particularly leggy and we were kind of almost doing it as a, either as part of a warmup so that their legs are really firing from that when they get on the climb or part of a like, I guess a kind of warmup, but maybe a little bit as injury prevention as well.

But yeah, there would just always be some shoulder work in there. Yeah, normally a pull one. I really like, and this is actually originally from Huffy gave at me age. I just really liked that from a shoulder perspective, that a bottoms up kettlebell, like shoulder press. I think that's really good. And it works quite a lot because you have that grip and stability aspect of it as well. But you're also not then shifting the biggest weight. You can, but.

think it worked really well from a neural aspect during a peak time.

Ollie Torr (1:16:00)
Any other favourites? Any other favourite exercises? Because I can imagine everyone's listening and screaming, going, just give me some of your best ones.

David Mason (1:16:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean that cowbell thing I really like

As I said, I have some form of pull work in there. So whether it's like wide pull ups, but just drop the reps or I really like one arm lower downs again. like a slow lower down, just one rep, adding some weight if possible. I really like that.

Hmm, yeah, yeah. It's interesting that. And there would always be some kind of like work on rotator cuffs or like, just cause I think that's useful and I like, I like that stuff and I think it's useful. And then like, yeah, warming up the legs and stuff I think is really useful. Pre-climbing like a banded donkey kick or something like that think is really good from that perspective. Copenhagen's is probably actually, I really love Copenhagen's.

Some people, think you see, they're a bit Marmite, aren't they? You either love them or you hate them. I love Copenhagens in any form of variety. So most athletes will always get some form of Copenhagen and some of them hate them and some of them love them. I actually had a client ask me for them. I took them out and he was like, can I have some Copenhagens back in please? I was like, yeah, you can.

Ollie Torr (1:17:12)
That's a love of a school board climber isn't it? Towing in, just clawing in on the felt.

David Mason (1:17:16)
Yeah, well, think actually,

be honest, he was actually was like, I think I think I think I'm missing them in terms of not like he was like on the wall. He was like, you know, I think this move, they would be really helping for that. So kind of coming put them back in. So.

Ollie Torr (1:17:31)
One of the big questions that actually I just thought of was how often do you ask or specify that your athletes go to failure or try 10 out 10 RPE? Because we both have the issue of this is seven or eight RPE and then so on. You see them completely maxing out. So in weightlifting, how often are you getting people to max?

David Mason (1:17:42)
⁓

I never do, I never get a 10 out of 10. Nine out of 10 for me is like the most.

whether you love it or hate it, do a lot of seven to eight. And even sixes, it depends on again, it depends on what the phase is. But yeah, I never, never.

It's interesting because also when you're looking at a failure, and I know there's a lot of like, people won't agree with this, but when you're looking at a failure, are you looking at an absolute or are you looking at a technical failure? And they're different things depending on what you're trying to work within the exercise. And I would say again, most of the stuff I give out, I like, much more into like the technical aspect of that exercise.

Ollie Torr (1:18:12)
⁓

David Mason (1:18:32)
I want it to be done in a specific way and normally the muscle that we're trying to target will probably fatigue before the absolute failure comes in but then that's not what I'm trying to do with that exercise.

Yeah, I also think if you give people 10 out of 10, I also think people go to 10 out of 10, whether you give it them or not, a lot of people go to 10 out of 10. So there's no point in giving them a 10 because they'll get there with a nine, but hopefully they might be like, I'm not supposed to be failing kind of thing.

Ollie Torr (1:19:05)
Yeah, and you've even given me an example of one of your athletes recently who follows the training to the book. Probably takes it a little bit too easy on certain training stimulus in terms of like RPE, maybe goes six instead of seven just out of trying to have that safe buffer. And they're just consistently making gains because you don't need to push your body every session to the max.

David Mason (1:19:30)
Again, as well, yeah, that's totally true, isn't it? For me, that person's been training with me for a few years now and they've had a couple of very minor tweaks, but for the level they climb at, they've basically been not injured and they've never trained before in their life. So it's not like they had this good training base. They've climbed a lot, they have a good climbing base, but they've never trained before in their life. He's never been injured, but he's consistently got better.

Whereas I think people who really push it do tend to, you know, all my elbows have started agging or I've got this shoulder strain and we all get little strains and tweaks that happens when you're pushing your body. But like, it's definitely interesting to see. I think also for me, everything in climbing, we go to our max, you know, not every session potentially, but like we go to our max. So for me, S&C and finger boarding or

lifts, they should support going to max. They don't need to be max as well. Because if you go to max on everything, you're just going to be knackered and your climbing is going to be worse. that's not, that's not what we're trying to do. Like you want your climbing to be the most purposeful it can be. And if you're supposed to be trying like really hard moves, then you want to have as much energy on that is my opinion. And everything else supports that.

Lattice Host (1:20:52)
Thanks Dave. We're going to wrap up part one there on that really important point. Some of the key takeaways I'd like everyone to think about from this episode or this part of the episode is one, using S&C training to support your climbing doesn't mean it needs to be too complicated or as Dave has just rightly said, does not need to be done at a maximal effort. It's there to support your climbing if that's why you're using it so you don't need to go to max all the time.

Two is weightlifting can be fun in its own right. I'd really recommend adding more focus to this part of your training. If you're sort going through any sort of burnout, you're feeling demotivated on the climbing itself, or you're just not feeling like you've got the sort of mental energy to focus on the technical elements of the sport. Just like Drew's done at the moment focusing on his weightlifting. It'll keep you in really good shape and it's far easier to see gains.

and have the right headspace for compared to climbing at certain times in the year. And then three is consider how you fit your weightlifting into your training week. Steve mentioned near the start about match day plus or minus. Think about using your outdoor days like this. So a good example would be for a weekend warrior who wants to perform on Saturday is you might do some heavy training on Monday when your skin's quite bad. So you might do S&C training then.

You might do some really heavy climbing training on Tuesday. And Thursday might get a bit easier because that's match day or outdoor day, ⁓ minus two. And then minus one, you'll be fully rest. And then it's match day, outdoor day. So you want to feel really recovered. It's kind of good way to see how your weekly training will be structured. in this episode, you've heard some strong evidence on why you should be lifting weights to support your climbing.

But what happens when some of the world's best climbers don't necessarily follow a strict weightlifting routine or don't even use it to support their climbing in the middle of their performance season, which lasts a lot of the year? In part two, we're going to dive into the training philosophies of Aidan Roberts and Will Bosi who both have experimented with weightlifting, but like I just said, don't use it currently. We'll also hear from two leading coaches, Jemma and Jesse, who specialize in working with different athletes.

climbers, how they use weightlifting to benefit shorter climbers and help their performance and develop power, well as increasing longevity within the sport. I hope you've enjoyed it and I'll see you soon.