Coordination Training to Enhance your Climbing

Written By: Dale Partridge - B.S. Exercise Physiology

There is a lofty amount of science behind the sport of rock climbing that I think most of us rarely tap into. I don't know if its the because of the "scientificness" and the energy put into understanding it may be too much for some to handle. Or if most of the tips out there are just not as applicable as they should be. Regardless of the reason the information is out there. I have been doing a little research on my own for the last few months on the topic of Neuromuscular efficiency. I studied this for about a year in school at the National Academy of Sports Medicine while working on my degree and thought it would be a cool post for a forum.

So here we go hang on tight.

Neuromuscular efficiency is the ability of the neuro-musculo-skeletalsystem to allow agonists (big muscles), antagonists (oposing muscles exe: bicep & tricep), synergists (smaller muscles that help the big muscles), and stabilizers (tiny muscles usually surrounding the joints) to work synergistically (together) to produce force, reduce force, and dynamically stabilize the entire kinetic chain.

Wow! Holy crap what the Hell did that mean?

In more layman's terms... its means coordination. Its how well your muscles, nervous system, and you brain cancommunicate. When it comes to sports whether climbing, baseball, or lawn bowling there is a certain matter of time your neuromuscular system uses to adapt to a certain movement, motion, etc. In climbing we see this all of the time. Example: You're projecting a V7 at the Tram and your first few goes are horrible but after working the moves a few more times you slowly but surely are sticking sections of your project. What is happening here is your neuromuscular system went from speaking English and Spanish to speaking Spanglish. It takes time to warm up if its not trained often.

Now the questions is... What about those climbers who flash hard problems all the time? Well they have awesome neuromuscular efficiency, and they're strong. For the rest of us who aren't flashing problems left and right here are some tips to make the time from your first go to your "send" much faster.Work your hand eye coordination, foot eye coordination, core tension, balance, body stabilization, static movements, dynamics movements.

This type of training takes a little more thought than traditional training regimens as well as the help of some cool out of the ordinary equipment. With my clients I often use a stability ball, airex foam pad, dyna disc, medicine balls, kettle bells, bosu balls, 1/2 foam roll, speed ladders, and floor markers. We have all of this equipment at our gym here in Riverside (Thresh Hold) if you want to ever stop by and try it out just let me know.

There are tons of sites on the topic as well as some articles by some of the smartest people in the world on sports medicine.

Here are some videos that show some cool exercises:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxPgXDGAzeo
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJroZI_tYO8

Try throwing it in to your regimen and see if it helps break down your project time. If you ever have any questions feel free to contact me at: dale@climbthreshhold.com

Good Luck