Really? I would imagine pulling strength would be vital for climbers.
***warning jaded curmudgeon rant ahead***
Well… let’s think about this a bit. There are a lot of different climbing disciplines. Bouldering, Sport Climbing, Trad Climbing, Big Wall, Aid, Scrambling, Mountaineering, Alpinism, Ice, and Mixed Climbing. Not to mention variations on each. I would suggest that pulling strength as in the classical pull-up, has zero value for three of those. (Aid, Scrambling, and Mountaineering)
Next if we consider that the remaining disciplines have a pretty much equal proportion of attributes we find that strength (all types) is really only a third of the equation.
Now think about the actual climbing movement itself. In most instances a climber is not pulling themselves up the rock. It really is quadrupedal in nature. One uses their arms and legs. There is a lot of pushing upwards with the legs; assisted of course by the arms, (not just pulling, but pushing as well); but not that often requiring a great two arm pull-up ability. Are there climbs where being able to do a one arm pull-up is needed? Yes, but very few and far between.
One can, and I’ll argue should, rely on the technique and mental aspects of climbing before worrying about any type of strength. I know some very ‘strong’ climbers that aren’t really all that strong, because, they know how to climb. Like 5.12 climbers that can’t do a proper pull-up. I will go further and posit that an abundance of strength in some cases will actually hinder the long term performance of a climber. To a certain level one can mask sloppy technique with strength, but that will only take a person so far, often times ingraining bad technique habits that are hard to undo.
But there will come a time when strength starts to become increasingly more important, and one won’t get away without it. Is that pull strength though? My position is that contact strength (Hand and finger strength) is of prime importance once we start talking about strength training for climbing. Second to this is (and I dislike the term) ‘core’ strength. Being able to actually transfer the strength between the fingers and toes. Pretty important. This brings us lastly to pull strength. When you look at modern bouldering and sport climbing, one sees that it is typically on very steep (overhanging terrain). Keep in mind we still need to in most cases keep our feet on the rock as well. This points to a different kind of pull strength requirement. It’s more about pulling into the rock, not up it. These days the smart pull training money is on doing one arm rows; either with a weight like in the time honored dumbbell row, or by doing one arm Aussie pull-ups (horizontal rows) on rings or a suspension trainer.
What about regular pull-ups? Climbers love to do pull-ups. They have trained this way since time immemorial. I love to do pull-ups. They are very rewarding and easy to programme. Should we as climbers train pull-ups? Absolutely. They are a component of a complete training for climbing programme, just not as important as many other things…
rant over