Al, feeding his rat

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So who is Al Alvarez anyway?

Al Alvarez is formally a poet, writer and critic, who was influential in championing the new poetry (he knew Sylvia Plath) and had a meteoric rise in academia before throwing it all in to write freelance and for newspapers so that he could play poker and climb mountains to his heart’s content (I am paraphrasing but I hope he will forgive me).

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How did you come across him?

I came across Alvarez at university.  I was doing a masters degree in a subject I won’t bore you about.  Having stayed on an extra year, most of my friends had left and so I found myself increasingly at loose ends.  At some point, I decided to start buying a newspaper to read at lunchtimes because there just wasn’t anyone to talk to.

However, buying a newspaper in the UK is more than just buying news, it’s making a declaration of who you are.  Having spent four years already in academia, there was no choice open to me with integrity other than the Guardian.

The Guardian is a liberal broadsheet, beloved of champagne socialists, students and academics and it often has book reviews.  Around that time, Alvarez had just released his autobiography, Where Did it All Go Right? and, being a man of letters, he was awarded a significant chunk of the paper to wax lyrical.  I was completely captivated and started working my way through his opus.

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And what’s he doing writing a book about climbing?

Well, the book is not so much about climbing and more about one particular climber (Mo Anthoine).  Alvarez often climbed with Mo Anthoine, who was a pretty decent climber, although not a professional like Chris Bonnington.

Alvarez wrote the book as Mo was diagnosed with cancer and Mo died shortly after the book was published.  In many ways, it is like an extended epitaph, or an appreciation.

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What’s the book about, then?

It varies (do you ever get the impression I like books that are hard to pin down?).  It rambles through climbs that Alvarez and Mo did together in Wales and the Dolomites.  It covers the big expedition that Mo did with Chris Bonnington and Doug Scott on the Ogre in the Karakorum.  It covers Mo dragging Alvarez up the Old Man of Hoy, a sea stack off the coast of Scotland.

It covers Mo’s commercial ventures: how he founded a company called Snowdon Mouldings to make climbing helmets and ended up making all manner of outdoor clothes and accessories.

It talks about Mo’s experiences as a camera rigger for the various flims, including Highlander, Rambo 3 and The Mission, which was filmed at the superlative Iguazu Falls in Argentina.

Iguazu Falls with a Rainbow by jimmyharris

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Why is it interesting?

Ultimately, the book is about what Mo called “Feeding the Rat”.  “Feeding the Rat” was apparently Mo’s description for what drives climbers to experience extreme discomfort in the pursuit of their sport.

The need to feed their inner rat is why they drag themselves high up mountainsides, eat nasty local curries and court dangerous squits in the search for that rarely attained route to the summit that few, if any, have trodden before.

Paraphrasing, because Alvarez doesn’t elaborate much on the phrase, I think that you “Feed the Rat” when you endure temporary discomfort in trying to achieve your goal.  You bend your will to force your body to do what you want it to.  You test to see whether you are capable of what you imagine you can do.

We all have ideas that if we put our minds to it we could be one of those people who can pull 500lbs, squat 400lbs, bench 300lbs, do a handstand push up, do a one-armed chin up, stand on stage at a ripped 180lbs, lead E3, compete in lightweight strongman or complete a triathlon without dying of boredom (OK, maybe that last one was a bit much).

But sometimes we never find out if we really can do any of these things.  Sometimes, we give up because we get injured, or something else crops up or we just don’t have the focus.

When we really go for one of those goals, we start feeding our rat and he doesn’t get sated until we discover just how far we can go.

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Why should I buy it again?

Alvarez is a professional writer.  He was teaching people about writing at Oxford before you were born.  He can turn a phrase that will make you realise just how much you need to get your rat fed.

What climbing kit do I need?

There are a few pieces of essential kit.  For me, these are:

• a few carabiners – these link everything together, like robust safety pins
• a few slings – you attach your weight plates together using these
• a harness – you attach slings with weights to yourself with this
• a pulley – this is great for taking weight off rather than adding it on

Apart from the harness, which set me back about £40, you should be able to pick up most of these for a couple of quid each, depending on the brands you choose.

What exercises can I do?

There is so much you can do and so much that climbing kit can help you with.  If you start with a basic full body programme, it might look something like this:

• Weighted pull-up or chin
• Weighted dip
• Weighted pistol
• Assisted glute-ham raise

Climbing kit can help you with each of these exercises.  But this is just the tip of the iceberg!  You can also use it to help with:

• hanging leg raises
• assisted one-arm pull ups
• rope upright rows
• seated cable rows
• face pulls

I’ll look at these latter five exercises another time but for the time being, here are the basics…

Weighted pull-ups

I could bore for England on the subject of weighted pull-ups but in brief:

• Put the harness on
• Loop the sling through some weights plates and connect the ends with a carabiner
• Attach the carabiner to the harness
• Do a pull-up off your pull-up bar

If you can get to the point where you are putting a weight roughly equal to your 2/3 your bodyweight on the harness, you’ll find that you may start to feel that the weight is pulling your lower back into lordosis.  You can get around this by using a harness with belt loops and using one of the belt loops at the back to hang about 15 – 20% of the weight.

If you can hang your bodyweight off the harness and do a good, clean chin or pull up, I’d be interested to compare notes as to how you got there to see whether it was similar to my journey.

Weighted dip

For the weighted dip, you basically follow exactly the same routine as for pull-ups but using your “dip station” instead of the pull-up bar.  I use inverted commas around “dip station” because I keep meaning to sort a proper one out.   I have been using the bar on my squat rack plus a kitchen stool for 3 years now and I’ve got up to a bodyweight dip with that set-up.

Weighted pistol

I hate holding dumbbells when I do pistols.  I don’t know why but I prefer to use 10kg (22lb) plates in my hands and then strap whatever extra weight I need to my upper body with a couple of slings and carabiners.  As I’ve mentioned before, I tend to do my pistols off a 12″ box for the following reasons:

• the inactive leg can hang down a bit, which decreases the amount of rounding that my lower back does and therefore reduces the stress
• I can hold weights where I like and not hit the ground with them
• I can balance more easily

If you look carefully, you can see a blue sling hanging over my back with a carabiner.  Then there is a 2.5kg weight hanging down behind me.  When I stand up, it looks like this.

Assisted glute-ham raises

With your pulley, a sling, two carabiners and a bit of gear cord, you can create a glute-ham raise.  I’ve written about this in detail before but I’ll cover it again here for completeness.  As well as your shiny new climbing kit, you will need a spare pull-up bar to hook your feet under and a pad to protect the backs of your ankles.  It looks like this:

Close up, the pulley system looks like this. 

The pulley itself is attached to a carabiner.  The carabiner is attached to the pull up bar using a short length of gear cord.  I have probably tied off the cord is with an overhand knot but really you should use a double fisherman’s if you have the length for it.  You should also leave a longer tail than I have left.  You really don’t want your assistance weight crashing down on your undefended feet as they lie pinned underneath the other pull up bar.

The cord on the pulley is then run through and tied off in a loop, again using an overhand knot on a bight.  But again, you should probably use a figure-of-eight knot on a bight for added security.  The bight is then clipped into another wiregate carabiner.  The weight plates are then looped onto a sling and clipped together with a third carabiner.

Wrapping up

Well that’s four basic exercises, a pull, a push, a lower quad-dominant and a lower-ham dominant that only require a few bits of climbing kit and some ingenuity.  If you find some small inspiration here, I’m glad.  If you have any other ideas to share, I’d be delighted to hear them.

For those of you who don’t know, climbers are some of the most brutally strong individuals around. 

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John Gill

John gave this interview about training.  Some of the highlights are: 

• When asked which of his strength tricks he considered the most difficult to repeat for others, John replied: “the one-arm front lever, the one-finger pull-up, and the one-arm pull-up on a ½ inch ledge. Take your pick.”
• When asked about his general advice on training, John said “Each of you is unique. Experiment and find what works best for you. Don’t think that the one-size-fits-all approach of some books or gurus will necessarily be best for you. And have some fun training.  Be sure to have frequent rest days, and don’t overstress those small tendons. Gain your strength gradually and safely.”

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Jerry Moffatt

I grew up looking at Jerry’s face on the front of climbing magazines in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  At the time, people were raving about him being the best climber in the world.  To be fair, I don’t think he did much to discourage them.  Jerry did this interview about training.  Some of the highlights are: 

• Jerry describes the seasonal aspect of his training as follows: “in the winter I train power, for three reasons: Firstly, an increase in power leads to an increase in endurance — it doesn’t work the other way around.  Secondly, you retain power longer than endurance… Thirdly, you make smaller power gains, and power is much harder to get than endurance.”
• Jerry explains “Training power you must be totally committed and give it 100%. That’s what power is all about. If you give it 90% you’re not really training power.”
• Jerry sums it all up “I would say this: Enjoy it. If you’re not having fun with your training, then something is wrong.”

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Will Gadd 

I only really became aware of Will Gadd when I got more into ice climbing and I only discovered he had previously been a holder of the world paragliding record when I looked him up on Wikipedia.

Will has written a book on ice and mixed climbing,with a whole chapter on strength training.  I find his very sports specific approach interesting.  He doesn’t just revert to the traditional exercises, like squats, deadlifts, pull ups and dips for strength gains, although those do play a role in his programming.

Some people will say that training strength is not movement specific, i.e. that a vertical pulling motion is a vertical pulling motion.  Will concentrates on replicating the exact moves he does on the crag in the gym.  These include:

• One arm pull downs (to mimic pulling on ice tool)
• Dumbbell hammer swings (to mimic swinging ice tool)
• Staggered pull ups (to mimic offset pull ups)

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Mark Twight

I’ve mentioned Mark Twight before when talking about the 6 sets x 2 reps scheme.  Mark is probably best known for training the actors for the film 300.  Nowadays, he runs a gym called Gym Jones in Utah but he used to be quite a prolific climber. 

Mark has also written a book on climbing, called Extreme Alpinism, which includes a chapter on training.  What I like about Mark’s discussion of training is the way he talks about the small details like he knows them intimately.  Which, of course, he does.

Mark has a number of articles on the Gym Jones website about training and, specifically, training for climbing.  They are all written in Mark’s inimitable style.  If you need a firm kick up the backside to get you moving, check them out. 

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Other resources

The most comprehensive book on training for climbing, or about the training that climbers do, is Performance Rockclimbing by Dale Goddard and Udo Neumann.  It’s a bit dated now, in looks and some of the descriptions, but I don’t have a better text in my bookshelf when it comes to gaining strength in the ways that climbers do.

If you know of some good strength training resources for climbing, please do let me know.  I’d love to hear about them.