Change is in the air.

Everything is about to change for us—Kim and I are expecting our first baby any day now. Perhaps I’m delusional, but I think I can keep training during my transition into fatherhood. In order to maintain this fantasy and maintain control (even if it’s just perceived control), I prepared for battle and built a training facility in my garage.

My master training plan.

In the past year or so, since I decided to focus on training for climbing instead of just climbing, I have become okay with spending less time at the crag.

With just two hangboards and a campus board, I can do over half of my training at home. Instead of going to the gym 2-3 days per week, I’ll be able to stay home and help around the house. (Sometimes you have to get creative to maintain a consistent climbing/training schedule, but that’s all part of the fun, I think.)

This is going to be fun!

I’ve actually come to enjoy training at home. For me, it’s a journey of continuous improvement that inspires me to be creative as I figure out how to simulate hard moves. I have been establishing habits for the long term and developing a program that I can maintain.

I’ve calibrated my training into a series of protocols, intervals of progressively loading my muscles and resting to achieve the strength gains required to send my projects. It may not look like climbing, but if you saw the same strength and power gains in your training data and during your (admittedly reduced) time at the crag, you’d be okay with the tradeoff too.

The big takeaway:

The secret to effective training is consistency, a relentless persistence. Like a metronome, you just keep pounding away, keeping time, keeping the momentum you’ve created.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Gains are steady, but often slow, which means that if improving your climbing is a part of y long game, consistency is key.