today is january 28th and I think SCS regionals are in a few months. Part of the regional competition is speed climbing.

I've always been pretty fast. But i recently took a long break and now i'm as slow as a turtle!

What can I do to build back my speed before this upcoming comp?

Well if you need speed, use speed! Available at your friendly neigbourhood drug dealer. It'll make you climb very fast. Coke is good to.

that is good advice but don't forget a big breakfast with lots of twinkies and redbull. see ya at the E.R.

Practice?

yes john, I have been practicing for several weeks now. But what kind of training should i do becides practice. ex: squats?

Yeah. I would definitely do lots and lots of squats. Maybe around 500 a day. That would make you climb really fast.

wdf 500 a day? Looks like somebody just wants to get rid of the competition...

wdf 500 a day? Looks like somebody just wants to get rid of the competition...

thanks Jo. I appreciate you trying to help. Too bad I can't ski in florida!

I apologize in advance for not having any witty but useless advice (trust me, there will be times when I will be useless in the future, and maybe even witty).

Hans Florine in Speed Climbing (p90) says "...when you train for particular motions...you should exaggerate the speed of the motion to recruit fast twitch muscle fibers." He also suggests a VersaClimber if you have access to one and skate skiing using longer than normal poles.

Mark Twight recommends small sets where you focus everything you have on pulling (or pushing) as fast as you can (lower slowly to avoid injury) and resting 2 to 3 minutes between sets. (Extreme Alpinism p47) This book has what seems like a lot of really good training info, but I have not taken enough time out of my busy drinking schedule to implement enough of this to give my personal recommendation, but Twight's resume makes it pretty likely that this is not just esoteric hypothesizing.

J

Have you competed in this type of speed climbing comp before?

It appears to me that the most critical pieces of it are hand/foot eye coordination/being able to know where the big footholds are when you don't have time to look down at them and route reading and being able to execute that read at (relatively) high speed.

Like I said before, I want to be prepared and train hard for the comps, that way I can do the best I can.
Thanks for the advice btw.
The routes are generally easy and fairly straightforward but as with any timed sport, even minor mistakes make the difference between finishing places.

well Im no comp climber, shit I just started in a gym. hehe. but.... some of the 5.9-5.10+ routes at my gym have a big pad under them so I solo up the first 30-40 feet up then down/up/down/up etc. until I cant feel anything. break. repeat.

my partner and I also let each other do laps of 5 - 10 on some routes sometimes.
good luck in the comp. I hope you win a pair of mad rocks or a sick beanie and chalk bag.

Amazed your gym lets you solo that far - how big a pad are we talking here?! Or is it a rope solo...

There are 2 main styles of speed climbing: the paddle and the frog (think free style and butterfly in swimming). Most Americans use the frog style.

To train for this, you need to work not only on speed, but power, specifically explosive power. Here are a few suggestions for training.

Squats
Swim the breast stroke
Jump rope
Sprints (working on that explosive power)
Run stairs
Climb a jug haul while smearing
Sit -Ups
Push -ups
Closed leg knee tucks
Open leg knee tucks
Up-downs
Jumping Jacks
Any sort of polymetrics
Practice deadpoints
Practice dynos

Hope this helps!

Make sure you are registered for USAC and competing at locals if you want to make it to regionals.