Campus board power

Strength and power are different

Strength is the most force you can produce. Power is how fast you can produce it. Rate of force development (RFD) describes how quickly your muscles get from relaxed to near their maximum.

On a deadpoint or a dyno, the hold is only within reach for a moment. A climber with high RFD latches it; a climber with the same maximum strength but lower RFD arrives too late. That's why someone can hang a lot of weight on a hangboard and still struggle on powerful moves.

Is campus training right for you?

Campus boards put high, sudden loads through your fingers, elbows and shoulders. They suit climbers who already have:

• a few years of regular climbing and a solid base of finger strength
• no current finger, elbow or shoulder injuries
• finished growing, since young climbers' finger growth plates are vulnerable to this kind of load

If that isn't you yet, steep limit bouldering trains the same quality with less risk.

A basic campus session

1. Warm up properly: 20 minutes of climbing, building to near-limit moves.
2. Ladders: move hand over hand up the rungs, one rung at a time, without matching.
3. Skips: as you improve, skip rungs, for example 1-3-5 or 1-4-7.
4. Max reaches: from matched on a low rung, reach as high as you can with one hand, then swap sides.
5. Rest 2 to 3 minutes between efforts, and stop when your movement gets slower or sloppier.

Keep sessions short and sharp. Campus work is about quality, so a handful of fast, controlled efforts beats many tired ones. Leave at least 48 hours before the next hard finger session.

Measuring progress

Power is harder to measure than strength, but three things are easy to track:

• Reach: the highest rung you can hit from a fixed start.
• Sequence: the biggest skips you can complete, such as 1-4-7 or 1-5-9.
• Speed: the time it takes to complete a set sequence. Film it and count frames if you want precision.

Use the same board, rung size and warm-up every time so your numbers are comparable.