Once, months ago now, when I mentioned to a climbing friend that one of my training goals was to be able to do a one-arm pull-up, their dismissive response was, “And that’s going to help your climbing how?” I looked at this person with incredulity, thinking, “And I can even begin to explain it to you how if you don’t get it already?!” To me, this type of attitude typifies the belief or just lack of understanding about how to improve at climbing efficiently that seems prevalent among many climbers, even those with abundant experience and apparent knowledge and expertise about their practice. There’s still as serious lack of comprehension of all of the elements that go into making a strong, top-notch climber, as well as a scanty, skeletal awareness that after a certain point in a climber’s development, just climbing ceases to be the best training for improving climbing (hence the phenomenon of plateauing).
But instead of going into a long-winded scientific effort at explaining why a one-arm pull-up would be a valuable tool for any climber to have in his or her arsenal, I’ll share a story with you that I feel answers the question “And that’s going to help your climbing how?” more conclusively and summarily than any such explanation could.
A while back, I was out at a crag on belay duty for the day, just hanging out and belaying my climbing partner on his project at the time. Some other climbers showed up at the same area, including a guy who had been dispatching all of the area’s open projects (we’re talking 5.14+ routes here)—but I didn’t know him by sight or by name at that point. He seemed like a nice, soft-spoken guy, and we talked about how to correct some of the rather shaky bolt placements on the undone project he was planning to attempt on that day.
Somehow, he lost his warm-up or wasn’t warmed up enough—I think he was climbing in a group of three—so while everyone was hanging out and talking and belaying and climbing at the base of a particular set of routes, he discreetly snuck off around the corner, pretty much unseen and unnoticed, and alone, to another set of routes. Curious, I edged my way out from the base of the crag to observe what came next, unbeknownst to him.
Turns out he’d gone around the corner to warm up for his project. His warm-up involved campusing (climbing without feet, in case you’re not a climber) two-thirds of the way up a seriously overhanging 5.12c (a challenging route for most climbers even using their feet)—but that’s not all. His campusing was completely slow and controlled, so he would pull up, lock off, and then reach up statically with the lead arm to the next hold, and then do another slow-motion one-arm pull-up to the next hold, and so forth. He was utterly and completely in control the entire time. When he got about two-thirds of the way up, he then reversed the entire process, down-campusing the route, again with the slow-motion lock-offs. As many people know, reversing moves like this tends to be even harder than going up.
What was so striking about this warm-up was his total control of his movement the entire time—not to mention that even doing a single move or two of this warm-up would be impossible for many climbers, even good climbers, and for those who could do it, for most the effort required would likely cost them their day of climbing. I thought to myself in that moment, “Now that right there is a great argument for why to train to be able to do a one-arm pull-up!” After all, if doing a series of one-arms and lock-offs is your warm-up, power is not likely to be much of an issue for you at all. And to have such total control! I was wickedly impressed, especially because it was not done to show off or to display anything to anyone—it was simply a climber warming up, and I’d just happened to sneak over to watch it.
For me, that is conclusive evidence that working toward being able to do a one-arm pull-up is a valid and valuable goal to aim towards in order to improve one’s climbing ability, especially if one regularly and consistently fails at powerful single moves. The key to improving at climbing efficiently is always to identify the point(s) of greatest weakness in one’s total climbing, and then to strive to improve that or those area(s) until they’re rendered into strengths. My weakness has long been power, which goes hand in hand with dynamic movement and contact strength and power endurance.
With every increase in my power, I get noticeable gains in dynamic ability, contact strength, and power endurance—all other areas that I’ve been notoriously poor at. The stronger I get, the more force I can exert in a dyno and thus, the farther I can throw. The stronger I get, the more control and precision I have in timing my contact with the next hold. The stronger I get, the higher my power threshold becomes, and therefore, it takes harder moves to push me out of the level of endurance and into using power endurance.
In no other athletic practice do athletes just solely do their activity to train for that activity—and climbers who want to get better should take heed. This information is out there. So I believe, and so I’ve seen the results and continue to witness them with every gain I make. The fastest way to improve at climbing, once you’ve mastered most movements and techniques, is to isolate and train specific areas of weakness, and then integrate those gains into your climbing practice. You’ll continue to learn more subtle techniques, sure, but you’ll make more gains by pushing your body to be stronger in isolated, climbing-relevant movements, whether your weakest link is in your ability to pull down hard or to hang onto small holds, or something else entirely.
In addition to my professional rock climbing career, I have also worked as a succesful freelance writer for more than a decade. See 
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