When you really think about it, in climbing situations where you are doing a motion similar to a pull-up (vertical climbing), your legs are actually probably doing most of the work.
This article by Steve Bechtel from his site climbstrong.com explains why focusing on pull-ups as part of your climbing training, may not be the best use of your time.
“When rock gets steep (and routes generally more difficult), the vertical pull is vastly diminished. Rather, the movement of the arms becomes that of a horizontal pull, or a rowing motion.”
Interesting point.
He suggests setting up an Olympic bar in a rack and trying a horizontal pull-up/inverted row (like the picture above). Try to release one hand when you get to the top of the pull-up and see if you can hold that position.
If that feels hard to hold, it may be something you can work on to really help your climbing….
CLICK HERE: Pull-Ups Are A Waste of Time
(photo courtesy of climbstrong.com)
To hear more from Steve Bechtel, listen to our podcast interview with him here.
The link is an Error-Link:
Should be replaced with:
https://www.climbstrong.com/education-center/pull-ups-waste-time/
Thanks! He recently changed his site, so we’re still catching up with all of the link changes. I’ll change it now.
Interesting article. Totally agree with the basic point that pull ups aren’t the number one thing that can improve your climbing. However there are some misconceptions in here about how the lats are recruited and about the basic idea of strength. The big things that will improve your ability as a climber (footwork, body position) are difficult to train after your forearm’s go and pull ups, or cardio is a good way to improve the power of, or O2 efficiency of, some commonly used muscles. Lats are used more then the article leads you to believe, and if they are better at performing you will have more O2 and less H+ in your system to inhibit forearm recruitment. So not the most important thing to train, but certainly a helpful supplement.