Adam Ondra on Training and Diet, a fun Crossfit Workout...

For those of you who don't know, Adam Ondra is among the very best sport climbers in the world. In terms of climbing the biggest collection of very hard routes fast he is arguably the best. In any case, he's damn good. Here are his thoughts on training for climbing and eating for the same, lifted from the baurock.ru web site. I often talk with people about how to become better rock climbers; some get it, but most don't want to believe the path forward for pure rock climbing technical performance is to train either in the climbing gym or on the rock by climbing. I train for a range of sports and my training reflects that range, but if you want to climb harder then climb rock, pretty much everything else is a waste of time. Or you can argue with Ondra's success... Do check out the whole interview if you're into hard rock climbing, it's an interesting look into a prodigy's mind.

10. Obviously, sending of the hardest routes in the world on natural rocks and victories in World Cups’s require hard training. How and where do you normally train? Do you have any special training programs or you train more by intuition? What is your typical training schedule and what do you pay the most of attention?

I train more or less just by climbing. How simple! I train on couple of small bouldering walls, where I train endurance and bouldering power as well. I rarely climb indoor with rope because there are not good walls enough in the city. The way I train depends on what I am training for. If I am preparing for bouldering, I do just lot of hard boulders. If I train endurance I do laps. I figure out usually 20move lap and try to climb 3 times. 60 moves are usually more than enough. Good trick how to become stronger is to use ONLY micro footholds for your feet. You work on your power and precise footwork at the same time. I do not train more than 3 days in a row.

11. Do you follow some certain nutrition diet or restrictions in your food?

I care about what I eat and try eat in some healthy way and to get enough proteins and vitamins, try to think what would be good dinner for fast recovery and so on, but I do not restrict myself in amount of food. When I am hungry, I eat. I have advantage that I can really a lot and I do not put on weight.

So, eat well, and train specifically for specific performance. Works for me; I'm in a "general" stage of my training, looking forward to tomorrow's Crossfit workout, Tabata this. If you've never done CF it's not a bad workout to start with if you drop the rounds to 16 or even eight instead of 32, or pay the price. If you've never done air squats before click this link. Main points: Weight on heels, everything lined up from your toes through your femurs, stick yer butt out, stand up fully. Go. You can even download an ap for your iphone for the Tabata intervals, and if you've never done squats remember that you do one every time you get on and off the toilet, nothing new.