Climbing pills from the best...

Katharina Saurwein

Every athlete is different and has different motivations. My tip is to find out what motivates and drives you, then use the energy you generate from it. Like this you’ll be a 100% psyched and motivated for training and you’ll give everything you have while exercising. For me that motivational factor is ‘fun’. I’m not a training-machine, I’m not that focused on success, but when I have fun during training, when I’m surrounded by friends and when we are laughing a lot, I can get the best out of myself, my training and my climbing.

Stefano Ghisolfi

The most important part of every training is motivation: starting with the right type of energy makes every workout more effective, having clear goals helps consistency, which is another key trait: the last decisive element for me is creativity and fun, which allow you to tackle even the hardest training sessions with a smile.

Mina Markovich

I think precious warming up and injury prevention excercises makes my training maybe 'a bit special' or let say just an essential part of it. (it probbably takes around 30% of my training and i also constantly like to search, thinking, read and try out diffefent excercises and thing i can do veside climbing)

It maybe sounds weird, but on other hand it is, i believe, one of the reasons how i could stand and keep it up with worlds best over almost 10 or even more years already (first WC finals i made in 2005). without andy serious climbing injuries!

Don't get me wrong, climbing sure is essential part of my training and i do it most, but 'a little' extra spice is this and i found it really beneficial.

Other way, as those excercises are good for my body, rock is another essential and necessary 'relief', love and a must have for my head.

Anna Sthoer & Kilian Fishhuber

When Anna and me go to train in the gym it's important to have a brief outline of what's ahead (know your goals). We ride our bicycles to the gym (20min general warm up) and then do a short warm up session on big holds combined with some stretching (specific warm up). We increase the difficulty of climbs until fully warmed up.

We usually set a time limit to our climbing period in the gym (about 3 hours). We don't want to "waste away" time in the gym, we want to use it effectively. This way we can keep not just the quantity but also the quality.

Sometimes, although training is process oriented, we switch to goal oriented content. That means that we want to achieve certain goals in a session, let's say a cerntain number of tops of hard boulders in few attempts. This way we increase the pressure (e.g. "you have only one attempt") and learn to cope with pressure also in the training process, preparing us for pressure later in real events.

Jorg Verhoeven

Never forget what you’re training for! It’s important to keep the goal in mind you are trying to achieve. This will make it easier to stay motivated, and adapt your training to what you’ll need. Finding others with a similar goal you can train with will make everything more fun and helps both to become stronger.

Paige Claassen

Here’s to not needing the fanciest gym in the world, or even a gym at all to train for your goals. Motivation is sometimes all you need.