Unsent /un-sent/ 1. To have failed so badly on a route you had previously climbed that you negate your redpoint. 2. A humor column.

Training Hack #57: Hangboarding too easy? Add butter. Claire Eckstrom

Training is hard. In order to improve, you need to do a lot of stuff, and then when that works, you need to do even more stuff to get better again. It sounds like a scam. I’d rather pay someone to inject me with gorilla DNA than go to the gym three nights a week, but so far my Darkweb searches for unethical doctors have only returned extra human kidneys, which, it turns out, don’t improve performance at all. Luckily, I’ve figured out some hackz for getting swole for less work and even less money.

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Training

The three proven training methods below are hard, boring, or require expensive, specialized equipment. Here’s how to hack ‘em:

Hypergravity Training

What it is

Climbing in a weight vest to increase your training load to build power.

How to hack it

Before entering a crux, have your belayer lock off the rope. Now climb. As you ascend, you’ll lift your belayer off the ground, providing extra resistance—some belayers even do this without being asked! To increase resistance, find larger belayers.

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ARC Training

What it is

Climbing on easy terrain for up to 30 minutes to increase the number of capillaries in your forearms and thus improve endurance.

How to hack it

Climb harder for a shorter amount of time. Duh. If you can improve endurance by doing a little of something for a long time, then doing a lot of something for a very short amount of time should be just as good. I like to ARC by climbing one limit boulder problem and then napping on the pads.

Hangboarding

What it is

Hanging off a specialized board to improve finger strength.

How to hack it

You don’t need a fancy piece of wood mounted over your door—that’s just what Big Wood wants you to think. What do you do when you’re rock climbing? You squeeze rocks. So go squeeze some dang rocks—landscaping cobbles, chunks of asphalt, memorials, whatever! To make the workout harder, squeeze harder. That’s it.

Recovery

Sometimes it rains and you don’t feel like driving to the gym, which means it’s a recovery day. Here’s what to do:

Triggerpoint Massage

What it is

Triggerpoint massage releases locked up-muscles through violence. The idea is that when something hurts, you hurt it more to teach it to never, ever hurt again.

How to hack it

Go into any boxing gym and you’ll find people to soften up your muscles harder and faster. Be mean to them so they’ll punch you for free.

Eat Powders

What it is

Whey protein. Creatine. BCAAs. The sports-supplement industry has distilled our muscles’ complex needs into easy-to-ingest powder form.

How to hack it

Don’t supplement your powders with unhealthy, fibrous food. Think about it: When someone needs maximum performance nutrition, like when they’re in a coma, doctors put them on a liquid diet. It’s no-bullshit eating—only the powders you need, and none of the solids you don’t. Bonus: If you stop pooping, that gives you more time to train.

Not Climbing

What it is

One of the latest sports-science fads suggests that we get stronger when we’re not climbing—our bodies repair themselves, so we’ll be stronger the next time we go climbing.

How to hack it

Do less. Look at plants: They do nothing, and they never stop getting bigger and stronger. I haven’t moved in three years; I could get off the couch right now and climb V18, but that would interrupt my gainz. Instead, I plan to hold off another 50–60 years then climb a boulder problem so hard no one will ever repeat it, just before I die of old age. Try it and see for yourself!

Read more Unsent. For Kevin's non-humor columns, see Noon Patrol.