your coaching questions answered

Over the next few weeks, The Approach will be focused on answering YOUR questions in detail!

I get a lot of great questions from the coaching Q&As I do over on Instagram, and I'd like to dig deeper into a few of my favorites. Here is our first question for this series:

Here are two thoughts right off the bat:

1. Energy is a finite resource. You must choose where you'd like to invest it.

2. Strength is a worthy investment. (Especially if you've identified it as an area of development)

If you are trying to optimize climbing performance, you are investing your energy into being as physically primed as possible for your goals. This means prioritizing your recovery in between performance sessions and keeping any strength training in a maintenance mode.

On the flip side if you are focusing on building strength, you'll have to deprioritize climbing performance in some capacity.  You'll have to take some of the energy (and/or recovery) you would have dedicated to performance and invest it into strength training.

Especially if you are new to lifting, your body is going to take time to adapt and you'll be more sore and fatigued at the start.

During this strength adaptation period, you may need to be patient and keep climbing at a lower capacity until your body adapts to the new training stress. This can look like focusing on technique practice on easier climbs and cutting down the volume on your projecting sessions.

If you decide you'd rather split the difference and sacrifice less climbing performance, you'll have to decrease the volume and frequency of your lifting sessions and be alright with some slower strength gains.