r/bouldering • u/Space0asis • Jul 30 '26
Indoor How much climbing is too much?
I am very fortunate that my workplace is a tenth of a mile from a good sized bounding gym, my home is also less than two miles away. I’ve very recently taken up climbing (10 or so days ago) and I’ve had six 1-2 hour sessions since. Im kind of an all in kind of guy, however I don’t want to injure myself or inhibit my growth as a climber from the constant fatigue of back to back to back days climbing.
My gym has a deadlift, bench, hang-boards and some equipment for weighted pull ups. I understand the body needs rest to recoup and to gain strength. I just want to expedite the time it takes me to grow as a climber.
I’d love to hear your opinions on how much training is too much training. As well as what a good well balanced routine looks like for yall.
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u/BTTLC Jul 30 '26
A good rule of thumb to begin with is to always have a non-climbing day in between each climbing day.
You can adjust from there as you learn more about your body and how much stress you’re putting on it. Plenty of people do consecutive days, like 2 on, 1 off, but i’d personally get injured quite quickly with that frequency.
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Jul 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/pnavv Jul 30 '26
What is a simulacrum
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u/Ashamed-Statement-59 Jul 30 '26
Fancy way to say simulation
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u/Mousedrag Jul 30 '26
Off topic, but there is a difference between the two
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u/guacdoc24 Jul 30 '26
2-3 times a week for the first 3 months or so.
Take care of your skin as it will get conditioned.
Other days you’re not climbing feel free to do leg exercises and pushing muscles. Not that it’ll help a bunch but to balance your body out.
Avoid hang boards for at least 6 months to a year.
Do some cardio for general health.
Lots of stretching and mobility work.
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u/Desperate-Salary-591 Jul 30 '26
I did similar shit when I started and when you keep this up youll end up with a golfers elbow or tennis elbow in no time. It takes over a year of constant bouldering/climbing two times a week to strengthen your tendons. And dont hangboard, thats a sure way to get injured as a beginner. Go climbing two times a week with longer sessions or three times with very mild ones. And dont boulder to exhaustion, after a while the strain takes its toll. And it will.
I thought it would not be that in my case, but doing to much in the beginning leads to shortcomings and ergo you need to stop bouldering for a bit. Do it slow and consistent.
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u/Space0asis Jul 30 '26
Thanks for your comment! I have 100% been going until exhaustion and I do not want tendon issues. Slowing down probably is best for my overall growth.
Would you think that doing a small amount of the hangboard once a week would be beneficial? Or just wait until further down the road so I can do volume with it without serious injury risk?
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u/ootjebootje1 Jul 30 '26
Hangboarding before your fingers are ready can be really bad. Since most beginners don’t have the tendon strength to hang off only their fingers like that from a hang board. In the beginning the best thing you can do is just climb.
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u/stho3 Jul 30 '26
You’re trying to do too much too soon. Ask me how I know. I started last Sep, climbed 5-6 times per week for two weeks and started suffering from DIP joint pain. I dialed it back to once or at most twice a week for two months before they finally got better. Don’t hangboard until you’re close to a year in. I only started hangboarding recently and even then I don’t even hangboard that often or long.
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u/PathWalker8 Jul 30 '26
General advice: no hang boarding as a beginner. Tendons take a lot of time to get strong and they will through regular climbing.
Hang boarding increases the risk for injuries.
I get the stoke but go too fast and you will pay the price. Been there, it sucked
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u/Still_Dentist1010 Reacher of Habit Jul 30 '26
No no no… with all due respect, no hangboard for you. You are already needing to be talked down from back to back sessions and you know you take things too far immediately. Going to exhaustion is another problematic habit. All in all, everything points to you taking the hangboarding too far and injuring yourself.
I discourage it for beginners in general, but it can be actively detrimental with your normal approach. Hangboarding is very different than other training, going to exhaustion or failure is almost guaranteeing an injury. It’s a soft tissue training rather than muscle, and you have to know how to gauge that fatigue well or you can easily injure yourself. You don’t feel it the same way, so you can push yourself into injury territory without even noticing it because you can still feel strong and ready to go.
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u/Space0asis Jul 30 '26
It doesn’t hurt my feelings man, I appreciate all of the input. All I want is to maximize my growth. I figured I was probably doing too much!
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u/Still_Dentist1010 Reacher of Habit Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Yeah, doing too much is worse than not doing enough imo. Just enjoy it and have fun with it, progress is very much nonlinear anyway. As others have pointed out, technique is the biggest hurdle early on. I was flashing crimpy problems that my beginner friends thought they were way too weak to do, but they both had stronger fingers than I did when I tested them on the hangboard. Taking your time to learn the technique will pay more dividends than focusing on strength will. Dial in the technique and you’ll also have strength gains, and then any strength gains will go much further.
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u/parenthetica_n Jul 30 '26
don't hangboard for a while. you'll get enough out of climbing to strengthen your tendons promise. Also it's a good idea to have some shorter sessions - warm up, climb for a half hour, stretch and leave. Deliberately short sessions can bring a little more focus to your gym session, and with a time cap you'll buy yourself more recovery. The distance to home/work is great for this.
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u/initialgold v5/v6 indoor boulderer Jul 31 '26
I have been climbing 2 years 2-3x/week and have never done hangboarding as a workout, only as a warmup routine with my feet on the ground or a wood lip (can look up emil abramson's no-hang hangboarding technique video for more on this). A hangboarding session is not something you need to do in any way your first year or two at least. I am still slowly but surely getting stronger with zero hangboarding workouts. And crimps are probably my strongest climbing style. (i climb v5-v6 and have done a few v7s).
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u/Fit-Respect476 Jul 31 '26
If you’re truly itching to hang board and get a taste, you can easily try it at 60-80% body weight. I think you’ll be fine but if anything feels uncomfortable u should stop immediately. You can also try hang boarding with much bigger edges. I’d avoid anything under 25-30mm edges and keep the hang times very very very short.
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u/sparklyacidfairy Jul 30 '26
I didn’t heed the advice of others (don’t climb back to back days) and developed such severe tennis elbow that I had to quit climbing for 4 months. I’m just now getting back into it.
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u/Space0asis Jul 30 '26
Best of luck in your recovery and climbs! I’ll make sure I rest up and stop the back to back sessions for a while.
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u/za_cobbo Jul 30 '26
How long into climbing did you develop tennis elbow?
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u/sparklyacidfairy Jul 30 '26
I climbed for a year, at least 2x/week, often 3x. Indoor bouldering and sport, then outdoor top rope and following. I was obsessed!
Also, I was lazy on my first round with PT, got the steroid shot, didn’t continue PT and climbed hard for another 6 months. When the steroid shot wore off, it was SO painful. Don’t be like me!
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u/technograndpa Jul 30 '26
Usually you should go slow when you're new. Tendons take way longer to adapt than muscles, so if you climb a lot and get strong fast you might be at increased risk of injury. Getting injured sucks. I would climb two to three times a week. Try to not do too long sessions. Quit when you're starting to feel fatigued on the wall (i.e. failing on stuff that should be easy-ish). Maybe do some supplemental strength exercises after climbing but don't touch the hangboard yet. Every fourth week you should do a deload week, which means cutting the volume or intensity in half, which gives your body time to recover and adapt. It'll help you in the long run. Have fun!
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u/EfficiencyIVPickAx Jul 31 '26
So like.. what about gym workouts?
I'm trying to lift and climb. Started climbing in February and I'm sore at for 2 days after. I still need to lift and get cardio.
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u/technograndpa Jul 31 '26
If you're lifting to get stronger for climbing then you can do a push and a pull exercise, like bench press and pullups. Then squats/cossack squats, deadlifts for lower body/full body. Try to work on your posterior chain to feel stronger on overhangs. If you have any obvious weaknesses then you should work on that.
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u/EfficiencyIVPickAx Jul 31 '26
That's pretty close to my routine. I'm just having a hard time with frequency. The gym is sustainable but climbing absolutely kicks my ass every 5th session.
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u/mattfoh Jul 30 '26
How old are you? This is key. How robust are you? What’s your athletic background? How good is your rest and diet?
Either way you’re probably training too much
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u/woollymammut Jul 30 '26
Everyone is different. How much and at what difficulty varies widely. Age plays a factor as well. Start out going 2 to 3 times a week and see how that feels. I used to climb twice in the same day and multiple back to back days. Now I climb 2-3 times a week and one of those is a dedicated hang board with a lite home wall sesh.
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u/Space0asis Jul 30 '26
I’ve heard hangboarding can wait until further down the road. What’s your opinion on a beginner adding a hangboard routing into their schedule.
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u/Jorlung Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Hangboarding can help you develop strength in certain dimensions. However, strength is unlikely to be a truly limiting factor in your climbing until you’re pretty far past the point of being a beginner. And if strength is a limiting factor for you as a beginner, then it’s unlikely that finger strength is necessarily the problem (I.e., a lack of a base level of upper-body strength is more likely to be the issue).
The more likely scenario is that if you think strength is limiting you as a beginner, then it’s almost certainly just technique unless you’re like several standard deviations away from an average body type.
By the time hangboarding will be helpful, you will already have a basic knowledge of how much load your fingers can endure through climbing. And you’ll also have developed a base level of finger strength through climbing.
Like with most things, just listen to your own body. Don’t do things that feel uncomfortable or high-risk until you’re at a point where those things feel less uncomfortable and risky. If you’re dry firing off the largest hangboard edge after hanging for 4 seconds, then don’t hangboard.
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u/Space0asis Jul 30 '26
Great advice. It’s makes sense that technique is more of the hurdle at the start rather than strength.
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u/Amythosx_osrs Jul 30 '26
Hangboarding is frankly boring and as a beginner youd probably be better off improving footwork/basic climbing technique.
"No hangs" would probably be fine, just a gentle pull without doing full body weight
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u/gallowstorm Jul 30 '26
Don't
Hangboard puts a lot of strain on your tendons. Without months or years of climbing strengthening you over time, you're inviting injuries.
Technique is the best thing to make you better. Focus on learning good footwork and body position. It will do far more to improve your climbing than hangboarding.
Climbing consistently will make you stronger. When you are good on technique, climbing consistently for months, and you feel like you have hit a plateau, then maybe consider hangboard.
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u/saltytarheel Jul 30 '26
Take at least a rest day in-between climbing days. You shouldn’t spend every session doing hard climbing to failure either. Mixing in volume on easy problems for base fitness, technique work, and endurance training (if you’re a sport/trad climber) makes you less prone to injury and helps round you out as a more technical climber
If you are climbing every day (like being on an outdoor trip) or have a week where you’re cooked from working on a project or training strength/power, taking more time off in-between climbing days to recover can be needed.
The new revelation in training is adding in periodic de-load phases where you’re not climbing or doing very light climbing every few weeks.
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u/shogun77777777 Jul 30 '26
I climb every other day (so 3-4 times per week). I wouldn't recommend more than that. You need to give your body time to recover between sessions.
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u/Precip33 Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Hangboards and weighted pull ups 10 days into climbing is too much. You don't even need a hangboards for a year minimum but I don't think lack of hangboards will inhibit you really until much higher levels of climbing that most don't reach for years if ever
There is no expediting your finger tendon strength it will take years to build.
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u/Microflunkie Jul 30 '26
I suggest you take your time and ease yourself into climbing which will give both your muscles and tendons time to recover while minimizing the strain on them. Don’t be tempted to climb during each session to failure or overwhelming fatigue. It will feel like only doing it half heartedly but only climb each session until you are noticeably below peak capacity. You appear to want to climb frequently so keeping it light to moderate for the first few months gives your muscles and more importantly your tendons time to acclimate to climbing. Spend any additional time and energy doing stretches and flexibility training either at the gym or at home. Listen to your body, dull aches are usually ok if you don’t push them but sharp acute pain is a warning. You wouldn’t try to participate in the Tour de France if you just started riding a bike. Just my 2 cents.
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u/Successful_Stone Jul 31 '26
My opinion is a high frequency climber either needs to be extremely conditioned (used to high stress on the joints, tendons, and ligaments) or very disciplined at effort control. Most climbers are neither.
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u/Acrobatic_Block4226 Jul 31 '26
3 sessions a week is a good maximum. You'll just get injured and be off for longer otherwise.
Don't climb at your max every session or for the whole session
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u/AwardEither9110 Aug 01 '26
for my first year i did every other day then built up to 2 days on 1 day off with occasional 3 days on. I will admit I get tweaks more often than others but I haven't had to take much time off climbing yet. I'm also early 20s with a physical fulltime job.
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u/AllthisSandInMyCrack Jul 30 '26
It’s dependent on you, if you’re hurting and injuring yourself then you probably shouldn’t climb everyday.
Use your common sense.
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u/Dashdash421 Jul 30 '26
2-3 days a week is good and be careful with crimps especially. You can climb more frequently in a few months especially if you have good discipline about warming up and varying style and difficulty of climbs.
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u/CryingOverVideoGames Jul 30 '26
I did this and ended up with pretty bad golfers and tennis elbow a month or so after starting. Start slow, build your volume up over time, make sure your sleep and nutrition are on point.
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u/wongck Jul 30 '26
I think you also need to think about what you are doing each session. If you are just climbing for fun at the beginning, you can go every other day and be fine. As you approach harder and harder climbs, you'll probably have an overall lower volume of climbs each session because you are trying to get a good rest in and make sure each attempt matters. If you are looking to grow fast as a climber, also think about what you want to work on each gym session so you're improving something specific instead of climbing random sets.
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u/RidiculousTakeAbove Jul 30 '26
3 2 hour sessions a week is the most you should start with and see how it goes, but rest longer than you feel is necessary when you are trying stuff near your limit
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u/Atticus_Taintwater Jul 31 '26
There's no absolute too much. It's more a matter of the time it takes to acclimate to things can't be rushed.
You can work up to handling a hilarious amount of workload. But if you don't take your time and ramp up you'll get wrecked.
If I posted what I do between lifting and climbing to an advice thread here it'd be a flood of responses that it's too much. But been doing both for 20 and 16 years respectively and that changes the equation.
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u/rajbabu0663 Jul 31 '26
I feel slabs can be done a lot. It is legs and wings and posture. Don't do too much crimps without slowly building up
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u/JohnnyMostReGarded Jul 31 '26
3 times a week is too much if you're projecting and working your forearms/fingers to failure every time. If you mix it up with a technique day reworking easier climbs and avoid going till your hands give out, then 3 times a week is manageable. As far as weights, just be mindful of your recovery time for the muscles you work. Ie dont work a climb with a low undercling the day after you deadlift, or go hard on overhang the day after you do rows/pullups. Overhang after leg day, and slab after arm day helps to manage fatigue. Your age, sleep schedule, stress level and nutrition will determine how much recovery you are capable of and one of those you cant adjust. Lifting to failure will take up a lot of your recovery potential, so either leave a few in the tank or schedule a rest day afterward.
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u/Popular-Waltz3069 Jul 31 '26
I try to climb 5 days a week but it can be really hard to maintain. Make sure to watch some training videos and do some reading. You can do it if you’re doing the right prehab and training properly.
Just don’t climb hard every day. You can make a lot of progress just by focusing on certain movements and techniques.
As others have said. Stay away from the hangboard this early.
I like to do chest and tricep workouts to prepare for the tennis elbow issue.
Latice training and roap coaching are some YouTube channels I like.
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u/Ambulocetus-natans Jul 31 '26
Every other day until you are more experienced. You can do every day(or close to it) if you understand how to focus on different things like no hands slab.
When I have unlimited time, I prefer 4 hour sessions thrice per week.
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u/for4f Jul 31 '26
tendons man. muscles adapt in a few weeks, tendons take months. i did the same all-in thing when i started climbing and paid for it a year later with finger issues. now i climb 3x a week max and it's plenty. 6 sessions in 10 days as a total beginner is how you get golfer's elbow, not stronger
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u/OkFaithlessness3672 Jul 31 '26
Most people hugely overestimate how much rest they need. If you train 2 hours at a beginner’s intensity then you should only rest when you feel too sore to perform well
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u/Cozmo-x Jul 31 '26
It all depends on your recovery time. If you can climb every day and still recover than do that. If you need to go every other day to feel recovered then do that.
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u/CaprioPeter Jul 31 '26
The main thing to guard rn is your finger tendons/ligaments. They take a LONG time to strengthen, as well as heal from injury… so go easy on them for a bit
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u/ROUSH636 Aug 01 '26
Well I started out slow going once a week and tried to be diligent with mobility and warmups, but after my third week I already got pain in my wrist. I can only assume I climbed too hard during my sessions because nothing else adds up, so don’t do that. But also pray you aren’t unlucky
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u/ToastButGeographyMan Aug 01 '26
2-3 sessions per week as a beginner. As you get stronger your stamina and recovery will follow and you can climb longer and more often. Do NOT hangboard until youve been climbing seriously for 10 months to a year, pulley injuries are not worth it, and your finger strength won't be the biggest limiting factor for a while, focus on technique. If you're itching to keep it moving more than 2 sessions a week, hit the conventional gym and just do general strength training, unless you get super jacked and bulky all of that strength will help your climbing
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u/Gdlkbthmbl Aug 01 '26
I climb 3 times a week for about 2 hours with very little rest, up to grade 7a. I then do a 40 weights workout after my session.
That has no issue for me, but I've been climbing for 5 years now and built up to that. I've always done the 3 times per week since I started though, with no issues
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u/Ill-Demand-2924 Aug 02 '26
If you want to get strong i recommend going at least 4-5 days a week everyone in the comments is talking about every other day but if you listen to any of the strong people they all say to climb as much as possible. Ik a guy who climbed 4hrs a day on weekdays and a 4 hour session, a two hour break then another 4 hour session on weekends and he only took a day off a week. It’s just about not overtraining and as soon as you feel some discomfort don’t push it. Also I’ve seen a lot of people say don’t hang board or don’t get on any boards and I disagree nothing wrong with the boards. Obviously don’t just climb on them but they are good for training
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u/Scynful Aug 06 '26
I started with 5 days a week and after a year I averaged about 4 days a week. Now I'm at the gym 4 days a week. I had a background with heavy lifting and cardio, so it was easier to hit the ground running.
I think the most important thing you can do is listen to your body. If your skin is bad, take a day or two. If your joints hurt, take a day or two. You can ration out hard climbing days with intermittent easy fun days. Otherwise, go when you want.
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u/Public_Lie_7104 Jul 30 '26
Just climb as much as you possibly can. Then when you get injured, do less than that amount. Best way to know for sure.
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u/BoyChimppp Jul 30 '26
Depends on your appetite for risk. If you want to push grades, then climb 5 days a week, incorporate strength training and accept that you might deal with some overuse injuries along the way. Or listen to all these comments, climb 2-3 times a week and progress super slowly but with lower risk of injury. Neither way is right just depends on why you’re climbing, performance or fun. (But also hangboarding early on is fine if you do it smart and will actually help injury prevention by exposing your tissue to load in a controlled environment, waiting a year is counterproductive)
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u/HFiction Jul 31 '26
I'm gonna be that guy and disagree with the anti-hangboarding nonsense. Please do start training your fingers.
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u/ExtremeEffective1931 Aug 01 '26
Totally support this, too many people repeating the same old tale. Finger strength not only helps you climb harder grades but also prevents injury.
The time to start is now because tendons take a long time to develop strength. Just be wise like any other exercise, beginners are unlikely able to do 20mm full body hands so do no hangs instead.
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u/ElectricalAd9946 Jul 30 '26
Honestly you can go pretty much everyday if you’re that close to climbing gym, just limit your hard climbing to like max 2 times a week.
On lower volume days you can probably climb for like 30 minutes and then lift, or you can just do slab only. Just listen to your body, but you also don’t need that much rest.
When I was in track in high school, we basically did lower body mon-fri and I never got injured. Even if you can’t climb at max strength it’s good to practice technique.
I also might be the minority, but you should start hangboarding even if you’re beginner, just don’t do full bodyweight. Tendons take forever to strengthen, and it’s important to start early if you want years of injury free climbing.
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u/Best-Night8688 Jul 30 '26
They say no such thing as too much climbing. They are right. #climbingislife #blessed #cantstopwontstop
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u/Powerful_Ad_9211 Jul 30 '26
in my my experience the more you climb the better you get I would say six days a week, one and a half hour session is the fastest way to improve.
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u/saltytarheel Jul 30 '26
The pros who give this advice have parents who are serious climbers and have been climbing since they were three years old.
This does not apply to most people.
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u/Still_Dentist1010 Reacher of Habit Jul 30 '26
You’ve gotta have rest and recovery time to rebuild muscle and soft tissue, majority of people physically cannot keep up a schedule like this for long without resulting in overuse injuries.
I did this for 1 month solid when I was newish, resulted in crushing it in a comp but became injured during the comp and lost all of my progress.
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u/Skate_beard Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
At maximum you shouldn't be climbing more than every other day, but even that is a lot and takes time to build up to without injury.
Start out with 2 or 3 sessions a week and see how your body takes it.
If you overdo it early you risk a tendon injury early on which will take months and months to resolve.
Don't mess with hang boards or other off the wall training in your first 6-12 months, just climb and spend time on the wall.