Are Climbers Wasting Their Time Training Core? (A Measured Argument)
Hooper’s Beta Ep. 123
INTRODUCTION
What does “core strength” mean? According to a recent survey we conducted, core strength means a lot of different things, from “the strength in the muscles at the back of your body” to “the strength of your abs.” But by far the most common answer was, “the ability to create body tension on the wall.” And to train core strength, answers varied even more, from planks to deadlifts to leg raises to front levers and everything in between.
But here’s the problem: most of those answers are wrong… at least, in my opinion, though within the timespan of this video I think I can convince you to see it my way. Using a little survey data, some principles of biomechanics and climbing, and my experience as a physical therapist, we’re going to highlight four mistakes climbers are consistently making when it comes to core strength and body tension, and then at the end I’ll provide recommendations for how to train them. Some of the things we discuss might have you reassessing a lot of your training decisions, as well as your answer to the age-old question: “How do I get better body tension?”
Mistake 1: Defining Core Strength However We Want
The first mistake is really no one’s fault in particular; it’s more so an issue the climbing community faces as a whole: we use terms that aren’t clearly defined. To understand why this is such a problem, consider the following sequence:
To avoid this, we should adopt a single definition of core strength. We can avoid arbitrarily making up a definition by basing it on existing anatomical literature. So, the definition of core strength would be: the strength of the structures that compose the 3-dimensional space in our middle section, with the upper boundary being the diaphragm, the front and sides being the rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, and oblique muscles, the rear being the paraspinal and gluteal muscles*, and the bottom being the pelvic floor and hip girdle [1, 2, 3, 4]. So basically it’s a cylinder of meat around our middle.
*sources vary on the inclusion of the gluteal muscles as part of the core.
Now if for some reason you think this definition is dumb and you refuse to use it, well… that’s fine because the other mistakes we’re discussing will still apply.
No matter how you define your core, obviously we need to strengthen all those muscles to help us climb better, right? Like, how can I have epic body tension if I don’t go ham on core strengthening? This leads us to our second mistake.
Mistake 2: Thinking Body Tension Only Depends on Strength
This one always seems to lead to a lot of confusion and wasted training time. Just because you have good strength, whether that’s strength in your core or your fingers or anything in between, does not mean you will have good body tension.
Here’s an example: Imagine you’re on an overhanging climb and there’s a move that requires a lot of body tension. “Body tension” is a broad term, so for simplicity let’s just say it’s “the ability to maintain control while doing a move.” If you have no body tension, you’ll flop off the wall like a wet noodle.
So, we need to find a way to create body tension so we can temporarily unweight our hand and move it to the next hold without falling. To accomplish this, we’ll need 1) to identify a body position that allows us to unweight the hand as much as possible, 2) to engage the right muscles to achieve and maintain that position temporarily, and 3) enough strength in those muscles to make it all possible in the first place. In other words, to achieve body tension, we need 1) technique, 2) coordination, and 3) strength. Clearly, strength is not the only factor. If we’re severely lacking in one of those categories, our body tension will suffer.
Of course, there will be some overlap and interplay between these categories. For example, training a muscle can improve our “mind-body connection” to it. So certain strength training exercises can improve our coordination. However, it would still be a mistake to think strength training is the only thing that matters for body tension.
Here’s an example. This climber clearly has strength, but lacks a bit of technique and coordination to climb with good tension throughout his body. The glassy footholds only highlight this common phenomenon. Physical weakness in the back, core, or legs is not the problem.
Still don’t believe body tension is more than just strength? Check this out. If I catch a hold with elbows straight and shoulders disengaged, I can’t control the momentum at all, so I fly off. If I catch the hold with bent elbows and shoulders engaged, now I can easily control my momentum and generate great tension. My muscles didn’t get twice as strong in between attempts, I just improved my technique and coordination. Presto, body tension!
So if you feel that you’re lacking body tension on a climb, don’t immediately assume you’re too weak. And if you think your issue is specifically your core, realize you might have a perfectly adequate core that just lacks coordination rather than a weak core that needs tons of strengthening.
Okay, now you might be thinking, “I get it, I get it. I know what core is, and I know body tension isn’t just about strength. But I’m pretty sure my technique and coordination are fine, so it must be core strength that’s my issue, right?” Not so fast!
Mistake 3: Thinking Body Tension Comes Mainly From the Core
While core strength definitely does play a role in body tension, it’s not the biggest contributing factor.
Now, if you define core as something other than my proposed definition, this mistake may not apply to you as much, but it’s definitely still worth considering.
Using our previous example, we can see that to create tension we will need to engage our upper body, using our fingers, arms, shoulders, and back to put ourselves in the right position. Then we can use our feet to press on holds, with our leg and butt muscles helping us stay in line with the wall. Finally, the core will provide assistance in bending and rotating our trunk and legs, and will help us translate force across our whole bodies from fingers to toes.
All three regions, the upper body, lower body, and core, can play key roles in body tension, but don’t be fooled into thinking they play equal roles.
Just because all these muscles are being used to create body tension, does not mean they’re being used the same amount. Our fingers, forearms, shoulders, and back are usually being heavily taxed, meaning they’ll often be the first thing to fail or hold us back. On the other hand, our calf muscles are also being used, but they’re being taxed relatively little compared to our upper bodies. Our hamstrings are being used, but usually they’re far from maxing out. And our core muscles are being used, but they’re almost never under so much stress that they’ll become a point of failure. So all these core and leg muscles are definitely being used to help create body tension, but that doesn’t mean strengthening them would help us get more body tension.
In summary, we can clearly see why core strength is not the primary factor in body tension, despite playing an important role. So now you might be thinking, “Ugh, okay I get it. I know core strength isn’t the end-all be-all for body tension, but I still think I should train it. Even if it might not be holding me back, I might as well train it just in case, right?” The answer lies in our final mistake.
Mistake 4: Ignoring Training Priorities
One thing I found particularly interesting in the results of the survey was that very few people thought “core strength” was one of their top three weaknesses, and yet about two thirds of people said they have been doing core strength training to improve their climbing. There could be many reasons for this discrepancy, and I’m not saying they shouldn’t be doing that, but it does remind me of another really common mistake.
Climbers often think we “should” train core strength just because it sounds important or because we hear people talking about it. But since we all have a limited amount of time and energy to spend on training, we need to be more strategic with our training choices. If we spend a bunch of time doing exercises and drills that don't help us reach our goals, we’re either wasting time or we need to reevaluate our goals. So before you start core training, ask yourself:
What is my main goal with training?
What do I think are the best steps to take to accomplish that goal? (Priorities)
Is core strength high enough on that list to warrant training?
To make this easier to understand, let’s use a common example:
Say Climber A’s main goal with training is to increase their body tension for climbing
They suspect finger strength, technique, and shoulder strength are the main things that will help them accomplish this, so those are their top training priorities
They have enough time after their sessions to also add in core strength training, but after some experimenting they find core training makes them more tired the next session and they can’t complete their other training as effectively
Therefore, core strength training for Climber A is probably not a good choice
Another example would be as follows:
Say Climber B’s main goal is to lose weight and increase their general athleticism as broadly as possible, with climbing as a fun side hobby
They’ve never done much training before, so they start by hitting as many muscles as they can with compound exercises
Core strength training with compound exercises is in line with their goals and they enjoy doing them
Therefore, core strength training for Climber B is probably a good choice
As you can see, everything depends on your goals and your resources! But if you decide you do want to train core strength or body tension, how should you go about it?
Climbing-Focused Core Strength
For core strength that’s still functional for climbing, you should focus on the cylinder of muscles in the middle of your body with a bias toward the obliques more than the rectus abdominis. There are a million different ways to hit these muscles, but my personal favorites are the following variations [list on screen]. These exercises were choosen because they are approachable and progressable for pretty much anyone, and can benefit other areas of your climbing training such as improving shoulder stability!
For obliques, I like side planks and Copenhagen planks, both progressed with hip dips and added weight.
For rotational core strength, I like band-resisted trunk rotation, progressed with thicker bands.
For the anterior chain, I like plank shoulder taps, progressing to plank rows with dumbbells.
For posterior chain and a little extra spice, I like Offset or Fulcrum deadlifts, progressing with added weight.
If you find any of these exercises to be extremely hard, even in their base form, it may indicate you have some weakness there.
Body Tension
For body tension, we now know it’s a combination of technique, coordination, and strength. We know the coordination aspect involves engaging muscles throughout the body, including the core and legs. But we also know the strength aspect is mostly facilitated by the fingers, shoulders, and back. We can target all three categories of body tension by climbing on overhangs with holds that require precise footwork, consciously trying to keep our feet on when possible. This is in my opinion the simplest and broadest way to increase body tension. However, if we want to train the strength aspect of body tension off-the-wall body, here are a few of my favorites:
Max hangs on a hangboard
Weighted pullups and one-arms (or assisted pullups if you can’t do bodyweight)
Inverted rows, progressing to toes on a box, then one arm variations or feet off variations
Campus boarding. (Not so much I for strength, but to help you practice coordination and joint engagement. Use feet if regular campusing is too hard.)
Face pulls with overhead press. (To encourage good scapular mechanics.) For extra fun, do them on a single leg.
Final Advice
My final advice is to remember that having a strong core for climbing is necessary, but that doesn’t mean your core is currently too weak and needs training. You don’t need to be able to plank for four minutes to climb V5, or deadlift your bodyweight to have good body tension for climbing, or do 50 leg lifts to be able to keep your feet on in the cave. On the other hand, if core training effectively helps you reach your goals, then it’s a great choice!
So, did I convince you? Do you think I’m right about core strength and body tension? Let me know what your favorite ways of training those are, and if I didn’t convince you, let me know why! Until next time: train (based on your goals), climb, send, repeat!
RESEARCH
Huxel Bliven KC, Anderson BE. Core stability training for injury prevention. Sports Health. 2013;5(6):514-522. doi:10.1177/1941738113481200
The “core,” also referred to as the lumbopelvic-hip complex, is a 3-dimensional space with muscular boundaries: diaphragm (superior), abdominal and oblique muscles (anterior-lateral), paraspinal and gluteal muscles (posterior), and pelvic floor and hip girdle (inferior).2 The inherent nature of these muscular boundaries produces a corset-like stabilization effect on the trunk and spine.
Akuthota, Venu1; Ferreiro, Andrea1; Moore, Tamara2; Fredericson, Michael3. Core Stability Exercise Principles. Current Sports Medicine Reports 7(1):p 39-44, January 2008. | DOI: 10.1097/01.CSMR.0000308663.13278.69
“The core can be described as a muscular box with the abdominals in the front, paraspinals and gluteals in the back, the diaphragm as the roof, and the pelvic floor and hip girdle musculature as the bottom”
Hsu SL, Oda H, Shirahata S, Watanabe M, Sasaki M. Effects of core strength training on core stability. J Phys Ther Sci. 2018;30(8):1014-1018. doi:10.1589/jpts.30.1014
Core muscles including the transverse abdominis, multifidus, diaphragm, and pelvic floor muscles are thought to contribute stability of the spine1). Reports have shown that transverse abdominis contracts first to contribute to stiffness as a feedforward function during upper limb activities2) and standing tasks involving sudden perturbation3). The other core muscles (i.e., multifidus, diaphragm, and pelvic floor muscles) are supposed to perform the similar functions to transverse abdominis. These four core muscles contract first to increase stability of the trunk during extremity exercises and have been considered to help prevent injuries from sports
Akuthota V, Nadler SF. Core strengthening. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2004;85(3 Suppl 1):S86-S92. doi:10.1053/j.apmr.2003.12.005
In essence, all terms describe the muscular control required around the lumbar spine to maintain functional stability. The “core” has been described as a box with the abdominals in the front, paraspinals and gluteals in the back, the diaphragm as the roof, and the pelvic floor and hip girdle musculature as the bottom.
DISCLAIMER
As always, exercises are to be performed assuming your own risk and should not be done if you feel you are at risk for injury. See a medical professional if you have concerns before starting new exercises.
Written and Presented by Jason Hooper, PT, DPT, OCS, SCS, CAFS
IG: @hoopersbetaofficial
Filming and Editing by Emile Modesitt
www.emilemodesitt.com
IG: @emile166
