Discover How to Stay Motivated and Improve Your Climbing Strength While Stuck at Home Using Minimal Equipment

At-Home Climbing Training Program

This at-home training ebook is a simple but effective program for people who want guidance on how to continue gaining strength at home while the climbing gyms are closed. Written by trainer Matt Pincus, it provides three finger strength protocols plus a wide selection of strength conditioning workouts to choose from, all depending on what equipment you have available. This program will keep you busy and productive, even if you only have a single edge to pull on and your bodyweight to train with.

Here’s What You’re Going to Get

• A training ebook that you’ll be able to access on any device. Smart phone, computer, iPad… you name it. You’ll be able to use this at home and even take it to the gym on your phone whenever it opens up again.

• 3 different finger strength protocols to choose from that are good for any level climber. You’ll be able to use these to build beastly finger strength in a safe and calculated way, even if you’ve never used a hangboard before.

• The “Simplest” finger training protocol you’ll ever find, designed by Dr. Tyler Nelson

• Strength circuit workouts to get your heartrate up and strengthen your climbing muscles while you’re not able to get to the gym or crag

• Strength training workouts so that you can stay fit, even if you don’t have a hangboard or any weights to use

• A flexible training schedule that you can do in under an hour 2-4 days a week

What equipment do I need for this program?

We recommend you have some sort of finger training device or edge to hang from, but you’ll be able to do all of the other strength exercises with just bodyweight alone.

No fuss, no excuses – love it. 

“I just downloaded the ebook over breakfast, glanced over it quickly and then logged a strength training circuit before noon. Thank you so much! I love how simple the exercises are, and organized by equipment available. Very streamlined and little orientation needed (then again, I am familiar with many of the exercises). No fuss, no excuses – love it.”

-Paula

Definitely Feeling It

“I am really enjoying the training book. I am on day four and definitely feeling it. Thanks so much for putting this together. It is easy to follow and has great information. Loving it so far.”

– Chris

About Your Trainer, Matt Pincus

Matt is a boulderer and a sport climber from Jackson, Wyoming. He is the head climbing trainer and content manager at TrainingBeta, and he’s been helping his clients reach their climbing goals since 2017. Matt is available to help you personalize this ebook to your situation (see pricing options).

Matt is a seasoned climber, having traveled around the world to climb, sending up to 5.14a and V12. And he’s a remote coach who can provide you with a climbing training program from anywhere in the world, based on your goals, your abilities, the equipment you have, and any limitations you have with time or injuries. Find out more on his coaching page on TrainingBeta.

Have questions? Email us at info@trainingbeta.com or call us at (650) 731-5615.

FAQ

If you have other questions, please email us at info@trainingbeta.com or call us at (650) 731-5615.

If you don’t have anything to pull on for finger strength training, you can still use this program for the circuit training. It will give you guidance on how to structure your circuit workouts and we provide a bunch of different exercises, whether you have just bodyweight, weights, or a suspension system (TRX) to work with. We’ve provided sample workouts for each of those pieces of equipment and one for a mixture of equipment. Also remember that there are many DIY’s out there for making a finger training device, including just a simple wooden edge you can hang above a door. We would strongly advise against hanging from doorway trim or anything in your house, unless you know it’s structurally capable of bearing your weight.

If you follow this program consistently, it will help you to maintain the strength and fitness you have, and depending on how much strength training you were doing before, it could make you stronger. Some people, including the author of this program, train like this all the time because they don’t have gyms nearby. The program will not take the place of climbing in terms of skill building and mindset training, and we assume that when we get back to climbing there will be some make-up time necessary to rebuild those.

The 3 finger protocols we outline in the program are:

  1. Max Hangs, which require weights or pulleys
  2. 15/45 Repeaters, which you could do with or without weights/pulleys
  3. The Simplest Finger Protocol by Tyler Nelson which doesn’t require any weights or pulleys.

So depending on what equipment you have access to, you’ll be doing one of those protocols for fingers.

As for general strength training, some of the exercises are overhead presses, push-ups, chest presses, kettlebell swings, TRX glute bridges, pull-ups (on a hangboard if nothing else), flys, squats, ab rollouts, planks, and much more. The program focuses on the 5 basic movement patterns: pull, press, hinge, squat, and core, and we provide exercises for each movement with either weights, a suspension trainer, or bodyweight.

During your first session with Dr. Chris, you’ll share your story about your background, your current situation, and your goals. In subsequent sessions you’ll review your Mindset Assessment, identify and address your primary concerns, and connect you to clear strategies to help you succeed. That could look like talking through how to design a systematic plan to achieve big dreams and bold goals, how to use tools to navigate nerves and peak under pressure, or learning different ways to cope with adversity with teammates, coaches, friends, or family.

To sum, what you talk about is based on your unique experiences, personal knowledge, and Mindset Assessment so that you can co-create a comprehensive plan to reach your health and performance needs.

Matt Pincus is the author of this program, and he does remote climbing coaching at TrainingBeta. He has been honing the craft of at-home training for as long as he’s been climbing, and he creates protocols for people around the world who don’t have access to much equipment. He has sent up to 5.14a and V12 using these at-home training tactics himself.

It’s not any number of weeks specifically; it can be done for as many weeks as you need. The finger training protocols are progressive, as are the exercises for strength training (meaning you can make them harder when the time comes), so you can keep doing them indefinitely.

Yes, absolutely. If you’ve been financially affected by the pandemic, just email us at support@trainingbeta.com and we’ll hook you up. Please keep in mind that we need to make ends meet over here like everyone else, so we have to reserve our free copies for people who’ve been financially affected by the pandemic. Please let us know in your email briefly why you need financial assistance with this program.

After you purchase the program, you’ll immediately be sent to a confirmation page and soon after you’ll receive an email with the download. You’ll be able to access it in your library in your “My Account” area on TrainingBeta.com going forward. You can start training immediately after purchase.

The finger training workouts last about 30 minutes per session, and the strength training circuits last about 25 minutes, so if you were to do both things in one session, your session would be about an hour long. You can increase or decrease your reps and sets, and therefore the time it takes to complete the workouts, depending on your experience and fitness level.
At the very least, you need to have an edge to pull on. We recommend a mounted hangboard, but you can do one of the finger training protocols with a no-hang board, such as the Flash Board by Tension. If you only have one edge to hang on, you can make it work for sure. You’ll just have to limit your grip positions to what you can do on an edge, instead of a full hangboard with pockets and slopers, etc. Other than the fingerboard, you don’t need any equipment because you can do all of the strength workouts with bodyweight at minimum. If you have dumbbells, kettlebells, a suspension system (TRX), a pulley for the hangboard, or any other equipment, that will definitely allow you to mix things up quite a bit more.
This program is literally for any level of climber. The hangboard protocols are self-regulating, meaning you’re only going to try as hard as you can try. For instance, nobody is going to ask you to add weight to your body if you can’t already do that. And as for the general strength training, this is the kind of exercise that would be done at a CrossFit gym, and just about any person–no matter if they’re a climber or not–can do CrossFit. You can adjust the intensity and difficulty of the exercises depending on your ability to make them challenge you just the right amount. We would feel confident asking our non-climbing mothers to do this program.

We provide sample calendars and some guidance on this topic in the program, but you can do a variety of things with scheduling. If you want to do the finger strength and the general strength workouts in one session together, that’s totally fine. If you’d rather split them up and do them at separate times, that’s also totally fine. The only thing we advise against is doing too many finger strength sessions in one week. Hanging isn’t equivalent to climbing, and it can be hard on your body if you do it too much. So we suggest giving yourself at least 2 days of rest between hanging sessions, but you can do up to 4 strength workouts per week.

We recommend doing 2 finger strength sessions and up to 4 strength sessions per week, but you can vary that as needed. Those are our maximum recommendations. Guidance is laid out clearly in the program.

Enjoying Every Piece of It

“The training program is great and I’m enjoying every piece of it…even when muscle soreness comes to pay a visit. 🙂 I’m fairly new to this climbing world and I still have a long way ahead of me, which is making the whole thing even more exciting.”

– Raul