Ryan Holmes’s Current Training Schedule: Behind the Scenes

Ryan Holmes:

I enjoy all aspects of climbing. I started off as a trad bumbly, and have also done a heap of bouldering in the past. However, my main focus and what I enjoy the most is long and difficult sport climbs. For me, there is nothing better than a long, continuous, hard single pitch sport route which challenges me not only on the strength and endurance side but also on the mental side. I really enjoy dialing in the redpoint tactics, and developing the mental control required to deal with the ups and down in intensity and focus needed to get up a long hard route near my limit.

I’ve always climbed a lot in the gym, both bouldering and routes, but I was never very structured with my training - until covid lockdown came along. Covid lockdown in a small apartment in Sydney meant that all I had available was a hangboard on my balcony. Being able only to work on my finger strength (always a weakness) in a structured way led to a jump in my performance and convinced me of the benefits of structured training.

One crag in particular has dominated my motivation and psyche for the last few years: Elphinstone. The last few years of training for me have consisted of focused, structured strength training over summer (November-February) gearing up for projects at Elphinstone in autumn and winter, and then usually an overseas trip in spring. This year was similar, except that I had a 3 week trip to Spain in April, so I focused more on endurance leading up to that trip. Now that I’ve returned and the conditions are good in the mountains, I am very much in a “projecting/performance” phase with less structured training, trying to stay fresh and perform on the rock.

General Climbing Routine

Since around February I have dropped down to working ~4 days a week and so have been able to climb outdoors one day during the week. Since I’ve been in this performance phase, my typical weeks are structured around 2 days outdoors, 2 rest days and then some training around those. A typical week might look like:

Saturday: Outdoors.
Sunday: Max hangs hangboard session (usually lifts off the floor) + some strength (e.g. 1-arm chin ups) followed by some freestyle bouldering and 4x4s.
Monday: Rest or some easy routes/bouldering. Stretching/mobility work.
Tuesday: Board session with some power endurance (simulator, circuits or 4x4s) at the end. Don’t get too tired.
Wednesday: Rest. Stretching/mobility.
Thursday: Outdoors, followed by a hangboard session in the evening if I’m not too tired.
Friday: Rest.

This looks quite different to what I would do during a proper training phase. The training sessions are shorter and I make sure I don’t get too tired. I’m not doing much, if any, conditioning work. My hangboard sessions are high intensity but lower volume than in a summer training phase (e.g. 6-8 max hangs, rather than ~15 during summer).

Primary goals: Send my project/s! Hence the main focus being getting out on rock a lot and being as fresh as possible for those outdoor sessions.

Redpoint processes: I don’t think there are any routines in particular I follow, beyond the standard stuff of working moves, then sequences, high/low-pointing etc. I’ve always been pretty good at keeping the pressure off for redpointing, and have been able to send stuff that is pretty hard relative to my strength level. Enjoying the process is key. There’s not much that is better than being out on rock trying your project - so why get stressed about it?

Warm-up prior to projecting: I usually warmup at the crag with a standard set of leg/hip mobility exercises (for maintaining flexibility, this set of exercises that I do every warmup has been a game changer for me, since I struggled to maintain long-term motivation for specific stretching sessions), warmup my fingers/shoulders on the hangboard and then do a warmup route that I know really well. For a hard long project I find that I need to get reasonably pumped during my warmup to be effective on my first redpoint attempt.

Cool-down routines: Does anyone do this? I don’t! Unless you count climbing the rungs out of Elphinstone at the end of the day, or “CARCing” in the car on the drive back to Sydney (e.g. squeezing a stress ball for ~20 mins each hand - see this recent lattice video).

Time Management

For outdoor days I typically start climbing at 12 or 1pm and climb until almost dark. Conditions are usually better later in the day (humidity and wind), although sometimes I’m too psyched to wait…

Variation and Progression

I think one key way to avoid plateaus is to vary the type and volume of training/climbing throughout the year. Transitioning between heavy training phases (including a lot of finger work and shoulder conditioning) over summer and performance phases when conditions are good have felt very beneficial to me.

That said, I do think that in the climbing training world there is too much focus on improving quickly. It is actually quite healthy to improve slowly, ensuring you have the base levels of ability and strength before jumping up the grades. I’ve been climbing for almost 20 years now and my improvement has been pretty steady - I haven’t really had any big jumps in ability. This has been healthy as far as motivation and psyche goes - I don’t have a strong expectation for improvement from year-to-year. I think some younger climbers tend to struggle with this as their rate of improvement slows.

I do track some metrics, in particular with hangboarding. However, climbing performance is so multi-faceted that simple metrics such as the weight lifted on a 20mm edge can’t really paint the picture of your current ability. So if my numbers are down, I don’t let it get to me.

Recovery and Rest

The quality of my rest and recovery is a bigger focus of mine now. 10 years ago I used to be able to shrug off a week of bad sleep without it affecting my climbing that much. That is no longer true. I’ve noticed in particular that work stress causes a drop in my climbing performance and energy levels. So I reduce it in any way I can.

A few specific techniques I use:

Light cardio (e.g. a ~30 min run) on rest days keeps the blood flowing and seems to aid in recovery.
CARCing (squeezing a stress ball for ~20 mins each hand) likewise seems to help with forearm muscle recovery.
I try to use deload weeks (~50% volume) every ~3 weeks or so to flush out residual training stress (this is more important during my summer training blocks).
Trying not to do too much “junk volume” (a phrase from Doug, meaning random, relatively low-intensity freestyle climbing without a specific purpose).

Nutrition and Hydration

I don’t follow any specific strict diets or nutrition plans. However, I do try to eat healthy. To me, this means minimal alcohol (which negatively affects my sleep and recovery), avoiding eating massive carbohydrate-based meals unless straight after a heavy training session, and a focus on consuming high-quality protein, such as eggs, salmon and red meat. During outdoor climbing days I tend to snack steadily throughout the day (fruit/carb snacks). When trying long endurance-based routes I find this is really important in order to keep up the energy levels and make the most of the 3rd and 4th tie-ins.

This summer I experimented with consuming a decent amount of protein powder, as well as creatine (along with a lot of upper body conditioning work). I gained quite a lot of muscle weight, which meant my endurance took a big hit. However, it felt quite healthy in terms of shoulder conditioning and overall body strength and resilience. My endurance built up again over a few months of endurance training/outdoor climbing in February and March, and I lost about 2/3rds of the extra weight. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll do the same thing next summer.

Challenges and Adaptations

In the past I’ve struggled a bit with getting consistent time outdoors on projects to send hard routes, given other constraints on my weekend time. However, at the moment I’m getting out during the week so that’s not a problem. Actually sending the route is my main challenge at the moment!

I have been relatively lucky with injuries. I’ve been able to climb through most of the injuries I’ve had by adapting the intensity and type of climbing I was doing (usually, giving the 2016 moonboard set a break for a few months…). Climbing is a great sport in this respect - there is so much variety that there is always something you can do to scratch that itch!

Mental and Emotional Aspects

Motivation always came naturally to me. I don’t think I have any particular recommendations here - I just love climbing and trying hard! That said, I think climbing outdoors regularly is quite important to maintain motivation for training. Also, not putting unrealistic expectations on myself with regards to my rate of improvement, or sending a particular project in a specific time frame, has helped.

Additional Activities

I don’t do much cross-training - occasional light running and ocean swimming (when the water is warm). As a kid I was extremely active and I think the aerobic fitness that I developed then, maintained through sporadic periods of heavy aerobic activities (e.g. I did a lot of road biking for the 4 years I lived in california) has carried through to my later life.

Advice and Insights

I think the most useful advice I could give is the idea of “training with purpose”. If you really want to get better you need to work backwards from your goals (or your failures to achieve said goal). This means actively thinking through (e.g. writing down!) what specific skills or aspects of strength you are lacking and then figuring out what key, sustainable, long-term changes you can make to your training routine to address them.

A long-term focus is key - improving at climbing is a long game, the more sustainable you can make your training and mental approach the better. I do think that there is too much focus in climbing training on improving as fast as possible. I think many climbers would get more enjoyment out of climbing if they focused on the process, rather than just the improvements they get from training. The best way to get injured or to struggle with motivation/enjoyment is to jump up the grades quickly.

As far as resources go - I love Dave Macleod’s stuff (both his books and his youtube channel). I also got a lot out of the beastmaker book from Ned Fedhally - keep it simple!

Extras

Nothing specific. I guess I’d like to hear a bit more about Ben Cossey’s crazy sounding finger pocket training routines. It would be interesting to hear from someone close to home who has gone deep into the grip-strength training world.

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