Train-Cap: A Model to Guide Training and Reduce Overuse-Injury Risk

It is so tempting, when approaching physical training in climbing, to think more is, well, more. Train more, climb more, achieve more. But everything has it’s breaking point.

Injury is the evil to the good of training. Pick whichever good and bad metaphors you like here, the fact is that training is great up to a point. One of the most common types of injury, certainly indoors, are overuse injuries (Quarmby et al, 2023; Jones, Asghar and Llewellyn, 2008; Leung, 2023) and we see this often with intermediate climbers. They’ve caught the bug, go more and more and then the pain sets in.

So how do we manage to stop before it becomes too far? Well, I have built on the established ideas of others and developed a new concept: Train-Cap.

A Quick Note Before We Begin

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*Boards such as the Kilter can often present a fairly high intensity session*. *Too many of them, though and we risk getting broken*

Introducing: Train-Cap

If you’ve ever looked into training for climbing, you have probably come across terms like aero-cap or an-cap (on the Crimpd website/app for example). These terms refer to one’s capacity for either aerobic or anaerobic exercise. It’s very sports-science, quite complicated and for many, a big turn off.

But what if we were more hollistic? What if we looked at our capacity to train during the week? As in, how much training/climbing can we fit in before we manage to get broken? That’s where the idea came from: Train-Cap is literally the amount of training we can fit into any given week.

In hindsight, perhaps this should be Climb-Cap but it isn’t solely climbing. Our climbing sessions will count, obviously, and for many will form the backbone of most of our ‘training’. However anything supplementary also counts too.

The concept of Train-Cap is such that we can keep going climbing as much as we like but crucially adjust the intensity across the week to allow for recovery. In other words, we don’t keep putting ourselves through high intensity sessions, time after time. We find our capacity in any given week and then use that as a target for ourselves moving forward.

IMPORTANT NOTE: this is NOT a version of a typical periodised training plan. Train-Cap is designed to allow recreational climbers to climb as they wish but without inducing overuse injuries. More discussion on this below

Method

So how does a Train-Cap work exactly? Well, as with much in the physical training sphere, it is laid out quite clearly. Here, I’ve reduced it to five simple steps.

Step 1: Calibrate your Current Weekly Capacity

You’ll like this Step. All you have to do is go climbing. Do whatever you like, any type of session you want to do (while keeping an eye on not overdoing it and risking injury). Try to do your normal number of sessions with a typical intensity.

There is one catch: record your sessions giving each session a score, based on the RPE for the session overall. This isn’t straightforward but should be fairly possible, especially when the scores are either:

3 (relatively easy session, little need for rests),
6 (mid-intensity session, maybe getting a bit of a pump in the forearms or a handful or fairly hard climbs)
9 (max effort, absolutely spent, needed a lie down)

Whether it’s a spreadsheet or a notebook, log the day of the week and the score for that day. Continue this for a few weeks, preferably including a week where you try really hard.

Tip: if you have a regular session each week, make this the last day of your week, to allow you to be able to adjust easily before the new week starts again.

Step 2: Find Options for Each RPE Session Score

The next step can be a little tricky. We need to know what kind of sessions score either 3, 6 or 9. Some things should be fairly obvious (a max effort on your project is probably 9) but others less so.

The key here is Options. What happens if you’ve completed your project and can’t find another you like? What happens if they’re resetting the routes in the wall on your chosen session? It’s good to have other things up your sleeve if you need them, in the same way I suggest selecting 6 climbs to do 4x4s [CITE] so you have alternatives if someone is on your fourth climb.

You then want Options for anywhere you may end up climbing/training. I suggest developing Options for:

On the wall – what types of climbing sessions achieve each score? Check out this article on different types of session to achieve the required score
At the wall – still in the centre but utilising things like Systems Boards (Moon, Kilter, etc), fingerboards, gym or so on
At home – there is much climbing-specific training you can do at home; check out this piece on Foundation Strength for more info
Elsewhere – there may be other places you can get some training in that are specific to you

*For more information on these session structures, click here*

One quick note is that there is a significant difference between climbing indoors and outside, in terms of the effort required. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether you wish to split these out, depending on your experience, outdoor sessions, etc.

There is more discussion on how relative your sessions need to be to each other below.

Stage 3: Design Weekly Training

Now that you have an idea of your typical sessions, it’s a case of having something to aim for. Go through each week and total up the score for each week. This gives you your Train-Cap.

Depending on your circumstances, you may wish to pitch it slightly above or below your existing Train-Cap. Remember it will be possible to add in some other training, for example at home.

Personally, being as each session is rated as a factor of three, I would encourage you to pick a Train-Cap value that is also a factor of 3. See below for breakdowns for a Train-Cap of either 24, 27 or 30.

Step 4: Adjust Training to Reach Desired Train-Cap

The good news is you can still go for as many or as few sessions as you like! All you need to do is adjust the intensity of the sessions to achieve the same score over the week.

The beauty of this system is it easily allows you to either add or remove sessions over any given week without missing out on training. Essentially, it is deliberately flexible, specifically designed to allow you to, you know, go climbing!

IMPORTANT NOTE: it is NOT RECOMMENDED to have consecutive days with high RPE scores. Consider spreading these through the week if possible.

Step 5: Recalibrate Regularly and Adjust Accordingly

Of course, any system of this nature relies on a solid data set to begin with. Unless you’re going to spend an awfully long time calibrating to begin with, you’re not going to have a large data set.

The key is to check in every four weeks to see if your Train-Cap is still attainable. Feeling exhausted at the end of any week? Maybe your Train-Cap is a bit high so drop it slightly. Finding that you’re not working hard enough? Consider raising it slightly.

This is particularly relevant for beginner climbers. As you go climbing more often, your capacity should increase and therefore, recalibrating regularly will allow you to slowly add in more capacity.

Notice that THIS IS NOT GRADE RELATED. The entire system is built on RPE and therefore, as you get fitter and stronger, your grade will likely increase BUT YOUR TRAIN-CAP REMAINS STATIC!

Tip: consider using your recalibration week as a deload week, allowing yourself to recover

Train-Cap Values and Session Options

So we have the idea: our Train-Cap is the cumulative number of RPE points our body can withstand in any given week. It might be very low, it might be very high, our Train-Cap is very personal and represents our capacity to work (climbing or training) before our body starts to complain.

Train-Cap then allows us to spread out our effort over a variety of different days through any given week. Less session in a week mean we have the opportunity to work a bit harder (we have more rest time) and an extra session means we need to accomodate it somewhere.

I have yet to roll this out with many people but – given RPE scores of 3 for an easy mileage session and 9 for max effort – I estimate that the majority of us will likely sit in the mid-20s to low-30s. Now I can already hear people complaining ‘but I don’t like maths!’ so fear not, I have a plan.

Options for Various Train-Caps

I’m going to make life a little easier for you. I’ve selected three different Train-Cap values (24, 27 and 30) below. For each Train-Cap I’ve then gone through and given Options for a weekly breakdown.

The concept here is that you can see how many sessions you have in any given week and select an appropriate breakdown, depending on what you wish to achieve.