There comes a point in every climber’s journey when yesterday’s training routine just isn’t cutting it anymore. Maybe you’ve mastered the moves on your go-to V4/6b boulders and feel ready to push into V5/6c territory. Or perhaps you’ve been climbing the same routes for months, and you’re not seeing the kind of progress you’d hoped for. Whatever the case, climbing isn’t static—neither should your training plan be.
As you improve, you need to refine the balance of on-the-wall climbing, off-the-wall strength work, and rest. It’s a process of continuous tuning. By understanding how to adjust your weekly schedule as your goals evolve, you’ll be better prepared to tackle higher grades without burning out or getting injured.
Embracing Change in Your Training
When you first started climbing, simply getting on the wall and tackling problems was enough to make gains. But as you approach harder projects, you’ll find that what once propelled you forward starts to level off. This is natural. The harder the grades get, the more specific and intentional your training needs to become.
Think of your training plan as a living blueprint. The framework you used as a beginner might involve mostly casual climbing days and minimal off-the-wall training. As you progress, that framework needs updating. You’ll be adding sessions, varying intensities, and strategically placing rest days to ensure quality remains high as the difficulty increases.
Recognizing Progress and Plateaus
The first step in adjusting your training is knowing when and why to make changes. Are you steadily sending harder problems, or have you plateaued at a certain level? Tracking your performance over time helps you see when it’s time to dial things up.
Tools like the Climbing Profile Score (CPS) can offer insights into session intensity. Even simple personal benchmarks—like noting how often you send a particular grade on your “average” climbing day—can tell you if you’re moving forward. If you’re stuck on the same grades month after month, it might be time to introduce progressive overload, tweak your session distribution, or emphasize certain skills, like lock-off strength or endurance.
If you notice that you’ve been consistently achieving your target V4/6b boulders and feel ready for a new challenge, that’s a sign you can tweak the load. Conversely, if you’re hitting a wall and not improving, it might mean you need a change in approach, whether it’s more rest, a different style of climbing, or additional off-the-wall conditioning.
Increasing Session Volume Wisely
Progressive overload is the concept of gradually increasing training stimulus to prompt your body to adapt and get stronger. Without it, improvements stall. But going all-in too quickly can lead to injuries or burnout, so it’s about adding just enough challenge, bit by bit.
Here are a few ways to up the ante without overdoing it:
More Challenging Problems: If you’ve been tackling mostly moderate problems, try peppering in one or two tougher ones each session. If you’re climbing at V4/6b comfortably, spend some time working a V5/6c project. Even if you don’t send it immediately, the effort of working harder moves pushes your adaptation forward.
Extra Off-The-Wall Session: Suppose you’ve been doing one off-the-wall strength and mobility session per week. You could add a second short session focusing on a key weakness. For example, if you struggle with steep roofs, add a core-focused workout or extra pulling exercises to support power on overhangs.
Periodized Intensity: Consider ramping up your training volume over several weeks. For instance, spend three weeks gradually increasing difficulty or volume—maybe by adding an extra problem to your project circuit—followed by a lighter week to rest and consolidate gains.
Balancing Hard Efforts and Recovery
As you move into higher grades, it’s not just about pushing harder. It’s also about being smarter with rest. Intense sessions break down muscle and tendon tissue, and you need rest to rebuild stronger. When you start adding more volume or higher intensity, you have to balance it with adequate downtime.
If you’ve been climbing three days a week and resting one, and you decide to increase intensity, you might need to insert an extra rest day. Or shift one of your climbing days to a lighter endurance-focused session instead of another limit-bouldering day. The goal is to ensure that as you push your limits, you’re not also pushing your body into chronic fatigue or risking a finger injury because it never had the chance to recover.
Don’t forget active recovery days: easy mobility work, light stretching, or a short walk can keep blood flowing and help clear metabolic waste, setting you up to tackle higher-intensity sessions without feeling fried.
Examples:
Scenario 1: Moving from V4/6b to V5/6c
Original Routine:
Monday: Climbing (On-Wall, mixed styles)
Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: Off-The-Wall (Core + Pull-ups)
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Climbing (On-Wall, moderate intensity)
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Rest
Updated Routine:
Monday: Climbing (On-Wall, power-focused, attempt V5/6c projects)
Tuesday: Light Off-The-Wall (Short core session + fingerboard at low intensity)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Climbing (On-Wall, endurance circuit on moderate problems)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Off-The-Wall (Add shoulder mobility + a few extra pull-up sets)
Sunday: Rest
In this updated routine, you’ve added an extra off-the-wall session to build strength, introduced more focused project attempts, and shifted one climbing day toward endurance to avoid burning out on all-out power sessions. You’ve also increased total sessions from three to four (plus one rest day), but with varied intensity. This structure encourages adaptation without overstressing your body.
Scenario 2: Breaking Into V6/7a
Original Routine:
Monday: Limit Bouldering (Short, intense attempts on hard projects)
Tuesday: Rest
Wednesday: Off-The-Wall (Core + Mobility)
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Climbing (Mix of moderate and challenging problems)
Saturday: Off-The-Wall (Fingerboard Protocol)
Sunday: Rest
Updated Routine:
Monday: Limit Bouldering (Focus on a small number of V6/7a attempts)
Tuesday: Active Recovery (Easy yoga, light stretch)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Climbing (Endurance-focused, linking moderate boulders)
Friday: Off-The-Wall (Core + Shoulder Stability; add slightly heavier pulling exercises)
Saturday: Climbing (Power-Endurance session: medium-hard circuits)
Sunday: Rest
Here, you’ve added a day to include active recovery, distributed your climbing sessions so that not every session is high intensity, and tweaked off-the-wall work to specifically target weaknesses (like shoulder stability for dynamic moves). By adjusting volume and variety, you’re targeting the skills and strengths needed to push into a new grade.
Staying Flexible and Open to Feedback
No two climbers are the same, and no single template fits everyone. The key is to stay responsive to your body and your results. Check in every 4–6 weeks: Are you feeling stronger or more worn down? Are you sending harder grades or stalling out? Use that feedback to tweak your plan.
If your fingers start feeling tweaky after upping the intensity, consider adding an extra rest day or replacing one climbing session with a lighter off-the-wall workout. If you’re breezing through your new harder schedule without fatigue, maybe it’s time to try a slightly tougher project or add a few more intense attempts on your limit day.
Community Support and Idea Exchange
Don’t feel like you have to figure it all out alone. Our community can be a great source of insights. Other climbers may have already struggled through similar transitions. Maybe someone found that alternating power-focused sessions and endurance-focused sessions got them past a tricky plateau. Another climber might share how adding a fingerboard session after a rest day helped them tackle crimpy V6/7a problems.
Ask questions and share your own experiences on the forum. What volume increases worked for others? How did they juggle rest days and active recovery sessions as they pushed into harder grades? By learning from the collective knowledge of the community, you can shortcut some trial and error.
Putting It All Together
Adjusting your weekly plan as your goals evolve is an art and a science. The underlying principle is straightforward: as you get stronger, you need to give your body the right balance of challenge and recovery to reach the next level. That might mean more intense on-the-wall sessions, additional off-the-wall training, or better-timed rest days.
The payoff is real. With careful tweaks, you’ll not only break through plateaus but also arrive at your climbing days feeling more prepared, more confident, and ultimately more successful in tackling those harder problems. Instead of spinning your wheels, you’ll have a roadmap—one that grows and changes with you, guiding your progress as you rise through the grades.
By recognizing when to up the intensity, how to distribute different types of sessions, and when to scale back, you create a dynamic, evolving plan that mirrors the demands of harder climbing. As long as you remain open to feedback—both from your body and the community—you’ll keep moving forward, one well-structured training week at a time.