Training…in the Summer?

As summer has shown up quite early this year, things are full steam ahead for after work cragging on the local cliffs. But after reading Sonnie Trotter’s excellent piece about how simple training for climbing really is, it got me thinking about the idea of whether or not to train during the summer. In the winter, we have to climb inside during the week, but from May to September, it’s possible to leave work at 5 and get a bunch of quality pitches in before the sun goes down.

One one hand, there’s no question you’ll get stronger by training indoors. And I’m not talking about showing up to the gym and randomly doing a bunch of climbs. I’m talking about focused training: ARCing, hangboard workouts, 4×4’s, etc. Working specifically on your weaknesses in order to send hard on the weekends. Core exercises, antagonistic muscles, the works!

However, I generally find that when May comes around, I’ve put in plenty of indoor time for the last six months, and I’m ready to be outside enjoying the world. Even though I know I could keep training and working on weaknesses in a more focused way than I can outside, a big part of why I climb is to experience the incredible surroundings that we so often find ourselves in. For me, that far outweighs any gains I might make in personal performance, no matter how far I seem to have turned to the dark side.

So what do you think? Stay inside and get stronger? Or go outside and have a blast?