Professional climbers are the best of the best. Getting to that level takes a lot of time, dedication, and natural ability. To stay at that level, professional climbers need to continue to put in long hours and train hard. But just how much do professional rock climbers train?
On average, professional rock climbers train between 30 and 40 hours a week. They will typically train 6 to 7 days a week and their sessions can last anywhere between 45 minutes and 3 hours. It is common for them to increase training frequency and intensity to prepare for climbing competitions and trips.
While most climbers are consistently putting in this effort, some prefer to train a lot differently than others. There is no one size fits all training routine. This article compiled a few examples of how different professional climbers train.
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Training Routines of 3 Professional Climbers
Each professional climber likes to train in their own way. All of them are training for their individual goals and working on their own abilities. This leads to a wide variety of different training programs.
Instead of just taking my word for it, let’s take a look at what a few professional climbers have said about their training routines.
Alex Honnold’s Freerider Training
Alex Honnold is without a doubt the most famous rock climber of all time. His awe-inspiring free solo climbs are that of legend. They are so incredible that they are borderline unbelievable. Well, luckily the documentaries and films are there to put any notions of doubt to rest.
Perhaps his most famous free solo (El Capitan’s Freerider) required incredible amounts of both physical and mental endurance. In his interview with Men’s Journal, he shared what he did to physically prepare for his ascent.
“I just started by building an enormous base by doing a tremendous amount of volume. I was training somewhere around 40 hours a week. Getting up at 4 in the morning to get a full day of climbing in.”
Alex Honnold, Interview with Men’s Journal
While Alex goes to climbing gyms, the majority of his climbing and training take place outside on actual routes. This is quite different from competition climbers who spend the majority of their training time in gyms.
Instead of focusing on his ability to perform ridiculously hard moves, Alex drills down performing hard route-specific moves perfectly.
In his line of work, it doesn’t matter if you can do a move 6/10 times, you need to be able to do it 100/100 times.
Failure is not an option for him and his training style reflects just how precise he needs to be on each and every move.
Adam Ondra’s Olympic Training
Adam is one of the strongest climbers of all time. No doubt about it. Unlike Alex Honnold, he loves to train ridiculously hard moves.
Adam was interviewed on the Training Beta podcast in which he discussed his training routine. In it, he states that he typically trains 6 days a week with only 1 rest day.
He is a big advocate of splitting his training up into multiple sessions throughout the day. It is typical for him to train 3 to 4 different sessions everyday. This allows him to focus on different styles and techniques in each session.
“…in this short period of time, I get tired and at the same time the quality of training is pretty high and pretty intense but during the next two or three hours I can recover a little bit and I can be pretty much ready for the next session. Whereas if I did a two-hour session I would pretty much be done for the day.”
Adam Ondra, Training Beta Podcast
By keeping each session relatively short, he is able to maintain a high level of intensity throughout the entire day of training.
Adam posted a YouTube video in which he takes us through what his typical training day looked like while he was training for the Olympics.
Alex Megos’ Training Routine
Alex is well known as being one of the strongest competition climbers for the past decade.
He was interviewed by EpicTV Climbing Daily and in it he discussed his training routine.
As seen in the interview above, Alex is constantly training but does not go 100% all out all of the time on a climbing wall. He is frequently working in mobility, cardio, and cross-sport strength training into his routine.
“I do train everyday. I rarely have rest days. Which doesn’t mean I go climbing every day. So, training as well means going running or doing antagonist training or doing all sorts of different stuff as well. Because I think that training lots of different things is important to keep the body in balance.”
Alex Megos, EpicTV Climbing Daily Interview
Back in his younger days he would do less of this cross-training. A much larger component of his training back then was hard climbing on a 45 degree wall (almost every day). His body was unable to support that training intensity and frequency as it eventually led to him developing multiple finger injuries.
Training Session Frequency and Duration of Professional Climbers
A common thread throughout the training routine of professional climbers is the frequency. Every climber is climbing almost everyday and are typically working in some other non-climbing specific training on off days.
The most common training session duration is typically between 1 and 2 hours. Most climbers are getting in multiple sessions each day.
For climbers like Alex Honnold, longer sessions (3 hours or more) are needed to build the endurance necessary to complete the incredibly long climbs. I would not be surprised if there were days where Alex climbed for over 8 hours straight.
What a Typical Training Session Includes
It is hard to say exactly what a typical training session includes because they change from climber to climber and day to day.
Every climber has a different set of skills and different goals. A typical training session for a competition climber is going to vary greatly more than that of a free solo climber like Alex Honnold.
That being said, there are specific components that most of their training sessions include. Before any intense training session, they will warm up to get their muscles ready. This warm up primes their body for what is to come and helps prevent injuries.
After their warm up, they will spend the main portion of that session actively training on something with a plan in mind. None of the professional climbers are training without a specific goal or purpose in mind for that session.
Common training session focuses include:
- Raw Power
- Endurance
- Mobility
- Dynamic Movements
- Static Movements
- Specific Techniques
The Bottom Line
Every professional climber is constantly training and working on their individual goals. Their training sessions are highly specific to them and no one is training the exact same. It is common for professional climbers to work in non-climbing specific cross training while they give their climbing muscles a rest.