In a world increasingly full of specialists, the generalists shine through. At least that’s what I like to tell myself. I like nothing more than cruising up splitter cracks and clipping chains. Yet I also love to ski, surf, mountain bike, and trail run. This past winter, I trained for and completed my first 50k trail race, the Chuckanut 50k in Fairhaven, Washington, a mix of flat trail and long, steep climbs, demanding fitness and stamina. Throughout my training, a part of me kept asking why I was spending this much time running when climbing was my priority. In the past, I’d heard that running can hurt climbing performance, but I wasn’t really feeling that way. I knew that time spent running took time away from climbing, but running felt good for my overall fitness and health. I loved how running provided a freeform outlet for both mind and body. During my training, each day of running felt different and new. From running out my door on paved roads, to driving an hour to run trails in the Cascade mountains, and running single track trails in my local park, I felt invigorated by each workout. And so after my race, I sought answers from training experts to find out if running can, contrary to rumor, actually increase climbing performance.
There’s a myth in climbing circles that too much running will make your legs big and heavy. Steve Bechtel, a climbing coach, and founder of the coaching platform Climb Strong, said that it’s very hard and extremely rare to bulk up legs from running. “I don’t see a lot of runners who have gigantic legs. Building muscle mass in lower legs is harder than it seems,” Bechtel said. Instead, he sees many athletes benefit from regular running. “It’s a good way of trying to manage body weight and a great way to build total capacity,” Bechtel said. (Total capacity is essentially the maximum amount of training you can do and still adequately recover from. This helps build long-term fitness.)
Sam Naney, a former professional Nordic skier, founder of Cascade Endurance, and all-around athlete, believes that running can help climbers maintain fitness and will be helpful on a musculoskeletal level. “Running can help you keep a level of impact in your body that can provide good resilience with joints and the surrounding muscles and tendons that support joints,” Naney said. Having resilient joints means your body can hold up to the loads that climbing (and approaches) puts on the body over the long term. While many people complain that running hurts their knees, if done right—say running at a slower pace, with correct footwear, and on flat, varied terrain, and only gradually increasing speed, distance, and elevation—running can actually help maintain musculoskeletal integrity. In other words, if your knees hurt, you’re going too hard: tone it back and progress more gradually.
Mandie Majerus and Mitch Owens are lifelong climbers and physical therapists who specialize in treating climbers and athletes in the Seattle metro region. Both PT’s see huge benefits in their clients who love to climb and run.
“Running can be used as a base to improve a climber’s aerobic capacity,” Majerus said “This can improve the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood and help climbers develop a reserve. Ultimately, this can translate into managing your heart rate”—which can help on long, multi-pitch climbs or on days that involve longer approaches.
“Running is[also] a great adjunct so you don’t burn yourself out on climbing,” she added, “and has great mental benefits that come into play with the release of endorphins.”
But despite these benefits, there are drawbacks to supplementing your training with running. Our bodies only have so much energy for exercise, even if we target different muscle groups. If you are a newer climber looking to quickly progress in the sport, or if you’re an experienced climber who’s pushing their training to the absolute limit, focusing on climbing rather than other forms of training is likely the best use of your time. “Running too much directly before climbing can deplete your blood glycogen which can have a negative effect on your climbing performance that day,” Owens said. “[And] running too much in a given week can overload your optimal training volume, leading to fatigue and decreased immunity.”
Which begs the question, when should you run and climb and when should you stay specialized?
Most of the coaches, PTs, and climbing experts that I spoke to agreed that, in order to be at peak climbing performance, focusing primarily on climbing is key. Bechtel iterates that to perform at a high level at both running and climbing isn’t truly possible; there has to be compromise. “We have a limited capacity for work. It’s possible to improve in both running and climbing but not maximize one or the other,” Bechtel said.
“Running will take away some time from working on the technical aspects of climbing. Therefore, how much time you dedicate to it will depend on your goals,” Majerus adds.
During my training block for my 50k race, I noticed my motivation to maintain climbing strength waned; I just didn’t have the energy to go to the gym and try hard on my days off from running, even as my enjoyment and abilities in trail running flourished. In other words, my climbing did suffer when my focus swung too far away from my primary sport, yet it was worth it to me for a short period of time to reach my race goal. I wasn’t in shape to redpoint my hardest grade, but I was ok with that. I felt like my improved cardio and endurance would help me with some of my alpine climbing goals, allowing me to climb harder routes in the mountains because I might not be as tired from the approach.
And not all running needs to be extreme. Coach Naney notes that running for 30 minutes per day three to four days a week will have musculoskeletal and general fitness benefits but won’t be enough to detract from your climbing goals.
It depends. If you, like me, want to dabble in many outdoor pursuits, enjoying seasons of climbing, running, and skiing, then compromising climbing to pursue other goals might be worth sacrificing climbing gains. I love to alpine climb, and running helps me maintain the requisite full-body fitness. It also helps me maintain a healthy weight, which can help me avoid climbing injuries when I dive more fully into my climbing-specific training cycles. But if you’re training hard five or six days per week, and if climbing the hardest possible grade is meaningful to you, then running probably isn’t all that helpful. “If you’re really banging your head and feeling you’re not ready [to climb your hardest], maybe it’s time to cut away the extra stuff,” Bechtel said. “When you really want to get good, you have to specialize.”
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