4 Training Tips for Older Women Climbers
Hi Steph,
I’ve enjoyed checking out your website over the past year, and have a question for you. Do you have any specific training trips for women who are older climbers? I have been climbing since 1991 (sport, and originally trad), and have gone through spurts of intense climbing throughout the years. However, over the past few years I’ve had to put climbing aside, and now want to get started with a smart training program, to avoid injury and surgery 😉 I’m fit and lean naturally, so weight isn’t a problem. I’ve got a good diet, and mostly eat fruits, veggies, fish, and occasionally lean meat. I used to enjoy bouldering more, but have always preferred long, endurance-style routes, outside. I haven’t had access to a decent gym over the past year, but soon will have access, as well as a good crag to try and re-redpoint old routes, and try new ones (classic sport climbing crag close by). Am I nuts for wanting to continue climbing at my age? I see all sorts of people climbing into their 60’s, but mostly guys. And most of the advice I see about older climbers refers to men, not women. Not that gender should be an issue, but I’m lighter, leaner and don’t have as much muscle mass. Still, I’m strong from lots of hiking, walking, yoga, and swimming, when I have the opportunity. Would you suggest light bouldering? Light weight workouts and longer training sessions in the gym? As much as I love yoga, it doesn’t give me the kind of overall strength that I used to get from a good weight workout, combined with climbing and cardio. Can you refer me to any specific training programs? I know there are a few new books on the market, but not sure if campus training is that good for me at this age- LO! I’d greatly appreciate your advice!miss climbing 😉
Susan
Hi Susan,
Thanks for writing, and you are definitely not nuts for expecting and planning to climb (and climb hard if you choose to) into your 60s and beyond! This is really common in Europe, and the US just hasn’t had as long of a history of rock climbing, so we are having to be our own role models, as usual 😉
In fact, based on what I know about muscle building, bone density, body weight and cardiovascular fitness as they relate to health and longevity, I think anyone would be nuts NOT to climb and train throughout their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.
Right now everyone seems to be losing their internet minds as soon as anyone talks about gender in relation to climbing. But this, as always, comes back to the current trend of assigning subjective meaning of difficulty, “achievement” and value to humans climbing up rocks, which we don’t bother with here.  So we are free to discuss physical gender differences in relation to climbing with no losing of minds (at least not our minds, can’t be responsible for anyone else). Male and female bodies are different in a few ways, and this does frequently have a significant effect on physical activities that involve those non-identical body areas, like for example, having babies or bench pressing.
All women, regardless of age, do not naturally build muscle in the upper body like our male counterparts do. This has no bearing on slab climbing, and in fact is probably an advantage, but does have issues for vertical or steep climbing, which includes a huge portion of most rock climbing that most of us do.  For climbing that’s not slabby, we need more upper body strength and a higher strength/weight ratio which makes us prefer to have more muscle mass in the chest, back, shoulders and arms. We also need strong fingers and tendons. So for vertical or steep climbing, any training that you do for extra upper body strength, especially as a female starting with less of that kind of muscle, is going to give you noticeable results.  And in fact, it’s not going to hurt for slabs either.
1: Pull Up Workouts
I would suggest that you think about building upper body strength, and a good, climbing-specific way is with basic pull up workouts. When I say basic, I mean it can be 3 sets of 1-3 pull ups (depending on your base level–it might even be 3 sets of 1 assisted pull up, where you push a little with your feet on a stool to complete the pull up). If you’ve been doing pull ups for years and it’s easy for you to crank out 5 at a time, then do 5 sets of 5 pull ups to start. Just figure out where your base level is and try to start doing a few sets and gradually adding. You can do this 2-3 times/week. As you continue on, you may want to start trying uneven pull ups (one hand higher than the other) and frenchies, where you hold yourself in 3 different lock off positions throughout the pull up.
2: 10 Minute Hangboard Workouts
In addition, I highly recommend you check out the Metolius 10 minute hangboard workouts: the entry level workout is a great place to start, and you can do this 2-4 times/week especially if you put a hangboard in your kitchen or living room.
3: Yoga + Core
I think yoga is really good to keep in the mix. I find that the more strength building I do, whether climbing specific or leg-oriented, the more my muscles get tight and reduce the benefits of my training. Since it’s hard for me to make time for everything in life, I’ve had to adopt a pretty disciplined approach to yoga stretching, which is to spend 10-20 minutes first thing in the morning to make sure my hamstrings, shoulders and soas muscles stay pretty flexible. At the end of this, I throw in a quick core workout to make sure that gets done too.
4: Gym Climbing/Linked Boulder Problems
At the end of the day, simply climbing in your new gym regularly, when you weren’t doing that before, is going to be training in itself. If you really get fired up about the training stuff, doing linked boulder problems in the gym (4 sets of 4 problems, 2 minutes rest between sets), seems to give excellent results for power endurance.
And of course, keep it up with all your cardio activities! Lap swimming is a phenomenal cross training activity for climbing, I’ve found.
All climbers and all people will improve and gain strength if they train at all. Since you’ve been climbing for so long, you have years of technique and body awareness that will never go away. If you just bump it up very slightly with your upper body and finger strength, you’re going to really notice the results 🙂
Enjoy!
Steph
