Written by a professional trainer and climber, this guide is intended for climbers of all skill levels who want to move up a notch. It provides tests for assessing personal strengths and weaknesses; exercises and programs for improving strength, flexibility, and technique; and strategies for overcoming psychological barriers. Developed from an extensive database of climber-fitness tests and with the premise that all climbers are different, this guide allows each climber to tailor a training program to his or her specific needs.
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"Training weaknesses is crucial to becoming a well-rounded climber. Heather helps you pinpoint your weaknesses and provides focused exercises for improvement." -Tommy Caldwell, recognized as one of the best all-around climbers in the world. "Training was one of the hardest things for me to get motivated for. Heather's specific exercises helped me achieve great performance in a fun and effective way." -Beth Rodden, world-class climber.
About the Author
Heather Reynolds Sagar holds a masters degree in kinesiology, specializing in exercise physiology, and is a full-time climbing trainer and coach. She has written for Climbing, Rock & Ice, and Indoor Gym Climber.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Im sure Ms. Sagar is an excellent and knowledgeable climber,
By A Customer
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This review is from: Climbing Your Best: Training to Maximize Your Performance (Paperback)
...but it doesn't come through here. First, this is a pretty hefty book-164 pages with long sections of unbroken text, small print, and narrow margins. About half is repetition, then there's the twenty-odd pages of kind of pointless anecdotes about friends and climbing areas, and a total of about five pages of reasons why you might not want to do the things the author prescribes. So what's in the remaining fifty-seven pages? It starts with a physiology discussion that is either so oversimplified as to be meaningless, or just plain wrong (my favorite: `VO2max [is] the maximum amount of air your lungs can hold') and which illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of muscular vs. respitory function on the part of the author. In her defense, though, some of these concepts are extremely complicated, poorly documented, and in some cases virtually unique to climbing. The book then goes into a bunch of tests to determine your weaknesses based on the grade you climb. Interesting in an `I'll show you mine if you show me yours' kind of way, but it seems to me that anyone reading a book that uses the words `creatine phosphate system', would already know their weaknesses. Having said that, the advice `train your weaknesses, not your strengths' can't be stressed enough. Then we get into specific movements on a campus board (a device you shouldn't get within ten feet of unless you consider .12a a warm-up grade) and a system board (something you probably won't ever run into unless you live in Boulder.) The prescribed workouts are kind of obvious-basically simple strategies to climb harder or longer or more (e.g.: climb a route until failure, then lower quickly to an easier section and get back on.) There's no discussion of how these individual workouts should be combined to create a coherent daily schedule. The section on the extremely important concept of periodization is so convoluted that it confused even me-and I read the Journal of Applied Physiology for fun. The author finishes up with a discussion of individual moves (with photos,) a section on injury prevention that doesn't really go anywhere, extensive advice on motivating, a huge photo spread on stretching, bad advice on taping, a glossary that looks like it was copied out of an old textbook and doesn't seem to track back to what's been discussed (though I can't be sure because, inexplicably, there's no index), and so on. As much as I hate to give a fellow climber a one star, I can't figure out why this book was written-it covers no new ground, and the ground it does cover is unclear, incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate. Maybe a lot of this results from the author trying to create a book that would speak equally to an unmotivated 5.9 climber and a .15a hopeful, I don't know. My advice to you? If you're trying to go from 5.10 to 5.11: climb a lot and focus on your technique; you'll get there. 5.11 to 5.12: Buy Eric Horst's much more straight-forward `How to Climb 5.12.' Beyond 5.12: Get Dale Goddard's `Performance Rock Climbing.'
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A decent guide,
By Robin "blackhowler" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Climbing Your Best: Training to Maximize Your Performance (Paperback)
This book is a fairly decent guide to training for harder climbing. The best part about this book is the tests for grip strength, flexibility, shoulder power etc. it gives guidelines for each and for where a climber should be at various skill levels. if you fall below the recomended number in a certain category it gives you things to do to improve in that one category. all in all i'd go with the much superior "how to climb 5.12" or "flash training" both of which are also cheaper. this book has few pictures and diagrams and is fairly redundant, but the tests and charts are useful.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Suitable Only for the Most Advanced Climber (and PhD),
By A Customer
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This review is from: Climbing Your Best: Training to Maximize Your Performance (Paperback)
I was very disappointed in Ms. Reynolds-Sagar's volume. If you're not already climbing at very high levels of performance this is not the book for you. That her advice targets a small elite audience is hardly the only short-coming of her work. She is obviously an academic at heart. This is clear from her unnecessarily obscure language and tortured style of communications. So, if you're a PhD in exercise something or other and are pushing to improve from 5.12 to 5.13 snap up this work. Otherwise, save your money.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
A number of variables determine how the body will respond to the various stresses of climbing-the nature of the work, your personal level of fitness and strength, your flexibility and mental tenacity. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
high power endurance, climbing session, periodized plan, interval plan, climbing performance, campus board, rest twenty minutes, boulder problem, passive flexibility, climbing days, closed skill, contact strength, active flexibility, rest fifteen, rest two minutes, body weight men, repeat weeks, knee bars, open skill, core tension, sport scientists Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Smith Rock, Boulder Rock Club, Tommy Caldwell, North America, Performance Rock Climbing, Red River Gorge, Weakness Signs New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
A number of variables determine how the body will respond to the various stresses of climbing-the nature of the work, your personal level of fitness and strength, your flexibility and mental tenacity. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
high power endurance, climbing session, periodized plan, interval plan, climbing performance, campus board, rest twenty minutes, boulder problem, passive flexibility, climbing days, closed skill, contact strength, active flexibility, rest fifteen, rest two minutes, body weight men, repeat weeks, knee bars, open skill, core tension, sport scientists Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Smith Rock, Boulder Rock Club, Tommy Caldwell, North America, Performance Rock Climbing, Red River Gorge, Weakness Signs New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 9
books:
See all 9 books this book cites
1
book
cites this book:
- Performance Rock Climbing by Dale Goddard on page 75, page 90, and Back Matter
- Thinking Body, Dancing Mind: Taosports for Extraordinary Performance in Athletics, Business, and Life by Chungliang Al Huang on page 113, and Back Matter
- How to Rock Climb!, 4th (How To Climb Series) by John Long on page 90, and Back Matter
- Nova Scotia by Jones in Back Matter
- Physiology Coloring Book, The (2nd Edition) by Wynn Kapit in Back Matter
See all 9 books this book cites
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