There are two traditional answers to this sort of question, which people will tell you on bulletin boards: "The best training for climbing is climbing" and "Unless you've been climbing for at least several years, the limiting factor is probably technique rather than strength."
Both of these are sort-of-true, which is unhelpful.
Climbing really is the best way to strengthen the muscles you need for it, in ways which are quite tricky to replicate.
But there are things you can do to get more mileage out of your sessions. If you're not bouldering as well as doing roped climbing, start! Bouldering is a great way to build power. And if you're not going to the climbing wall that often, you can afford to completely trash yourself. Spend the end of each session doing some training work -- something like laps on lots of relatively easy problems, with minimal breaks, until you are lying on the mats dead. Then you can spend the next few weeks recovering. *g*
Stuff you can do outside the climbing wall that won't substitute for climbing, but will help: pull-ups (or assisted pull-ups, if you're not there yet) -- and make sure it's pull-ups (with your palms facing away from you) not chin-ups (with your palms facing towards you). Pull-ups are harder, but much closer to the movement in climbing.
If you can get hold of a kettlebell, they're awesome for improving grip strength, and let you do a lot of good shoulder mobility/stability exercises.
Yoga is wonderful for climbing, and flexibility (especially hip flexibility) and balance can be huge assets, so definitely keep working that.
Re: technique, and really, this is the important bit of this comment -- if you haven't got them already, grab a copy of the book The Self-Coached Climber and the DVD Neil Gresham Masterclass, and study. They are both fantastic guides to the different movement techniques in climbing, how to work out what you need when, and how to use them to minimize your need for strength, which is what technique is all about. I learned the majority of what I know about movement technique from those two.
There is actually a huge, HUGE advantage to being really weak when you start as a climber, and I can say this because I was incredibly weak (by standards of ordinary human strength) when I started, and am still relatively weak compared to most other people climbing at the same level as me.
The advantage is that you have to learn technique in order to get anywhere. And then you get very efficient and inventive and creative in how you move, and you discover that you can sometimes out-climb people who are stronger than you and then you have to remember not to crush their egos too mercilessly.
I also rec watching climbing films as a too -- DVDs and downloads, but also clips on YouTube and so forth. Watching really good climbers is a way to saturate your brain in examples of really good movement technique.
Claimed (but other people, please feel free to answer as well!)
There are two traditional answers to this sort of question, which people will tell you on bulletin boards: "The best training for climbing is climbing" and "Unless you've been climbing for at least several years, the limiting factor is probably technique rather than strength."
Both of these are sort-of-true, which is unhelpful.
Climbing really is the best way to strengthen the muscles you need for it, in ways which are quite tricky to replicate.
But there are things you can do to get more mileage out of your sessions. If you're not bouldering as well as doing roped climbing, start! Bouldering is a great way to build power. And if you're not going to the climbing wall that often, you can afford to completely trash yourself. Spend the end of each session doing some training work -- something like laps on lots of relatively easy problems, with minimal breaks, until you are lying on the mats dead. Then you can spend the next few weeks recovering. *g*
Stuff you can do outside the climbing wall that won't substitute for climbing, but will help: pull-ups (or assisted pull-ups, if you're not there yet) -- and make sure it's pull-ups (with your palms facing away from you) not chin-ups (with your palms facing towards you). Pull-ups are harder, but much closer to the movement in climbing.
If you can get hold of a kettlebell, they're awesome for improving grip strength, and let you do a lot of good shoulder mobility/stability exercises.
Yoga is wonderful for climbing, and flexibility (especially hip flexibility) and balance can be huge assets, so definitely keep working that.
Re: technique, and really, this is the important bit of this comment -- if you haven't got them already, grab a copy of the book The Self-Coached Climber and the DVD Neil Gresham Masterclass, and study. They are both fantastic guides to the different movement techniques in climbing, how to work out what you need when, and how to use them to minimize your need for strength, which is what technique is all about. I learned the majority of what I know about movement technique from those two.
There is actually a huge, HUGE advantage to being really weak when you start as a climber, and I can say this because I was incredibly weak (by standards of ordinary human strength) when I started, and am still relatively weak compared to most other people climbing at the same level as me.
The advantage is that you have to learn technique in order to get anywhere. And then you get very efficient and inventive and creative in how you move, and you discover that you can sometimes out-climb people who are stronger than you
and then you have to remember not to crush their egos too mercilessly.I also rec watching climbing films as a too -- DVDs and downloads, but also clips on YouTube and so forth. Watching really good climbers is a way to saturate your brain in examples of really good movement technique.