Both leg strength and arm strength are essential to speed climbing. Without either, your ability to traverse the wall will be significantly hindered. And since climbing is a full-body activity, you probably already knew that. However, what you might not know is that legs are more important and are around 65 – 70% of speed climbing.
Arms certainly play a significant part in speed climbing, particularly for steering. Your legs provide the power to jump up the wall while your arms direct the jumps in the right direction. Additionally, arms are essential for catching your body during slips and emergencies as your legs will not catch you after a slip. Additionally, foot placement is most often the reason for a slip during a speed run.
I think speed climbers often train their arms too much. I focus 66% of my training on my legs. While most track sprinters have strong arms to balance their muscles, they spend most of their time on their legs, which is what results in your ability to accelerate and run fast.
There are many different types of leg exercises from training pure strength to dynamic and functional training. I do both of these forms of leg exercises every week. Strength training allows your muscles to exert maximum effort and increase your speed, while dynamic training allows for the explosiveness necessary for climbing.
Some of the exercises I do are:
Strength training:
- Barbell deadlifts
- Hex-bar deadlifts
- Squats
- Calf lifts
- Hamstring lifts
Dynamic:
- Two legged box jumps
- One legged box jumps
- Weighted pogo stick jumps
- Sprint starts
- Vertical jumps
- Pistol squat jumps
- Box step ups
- Farmer’s walks
- Standing frog jumps
- Jump rope
- Agility ladder
- Play basketball