In 2018 we have teamed up with Spit Magazine to bring you training beta – articles, photos and video clips to motivate and educate climbers about training tools, methods and offer some training inspiration for your own sessions.
In this one, Volume 2, published in Spit Magazine n.5 March/April 2018 we highlight the Campus Board, or Pan Güllich board.
Campus Board, Pan Güllich, what does that mean?
The Campus Board, is named after Wolfgang Gullich who developed the first board in the early 1990s to train for his cutting edge climbs, and that is why we also call it the Pan Güllich board sometimes. Nowadays the campus board is nigh ubiquitous at all major gyms and for a good reason: it is a very simple and very effective tool for training contact strength and power.
The concept is simple. Columns of wooden rungs and, also halfmoon slopers, spaced at regular intervals on which the user can pull up, drop down, dyno and deadhang to train.
Important Notice
Training on the Pan Gullich without feet, Campusing as it is called in the climbing world, is very hard on the finger, elbow and shoulder joints and is not recommended for beginners who do not have the requisite strength or tendons, nor for under 18’s who are still growing and on whom the impact of campusing can have detrimental effect on their developing bones and joints. For those users we recommend doing exercises that have the support of footholds.
Suggested Guidelines
Beginners:
We recommend that beginners (less than 2 years climbing) use their feet on the wall when training. True novices would benefit more from just climbing or hangboard training than potentially risking injury with foot-free training.
Warm up properly.
Make sure your fingers, arms, shoulders, and stabilizers are well warmed up before beginning your session.
Use good form.
Always always always use good form. Correct shoulder posture, tensed elbows, use the half crimp, not the full crimp, nor lax open hand grips.
Quality over quantity:
To maintain form do your campus training while you are still fresh and take ample rest between sets.
Campusing is not a year-round activity. Try phasing your campusing into a 4-6 week cycle.
Grip Form
The Open Hand Grip
The Half Crimp
RECOMMENDED
The Full Crimp
Campus Exercises
For novices we recommend using your feet for all of these exercises.
One hand off: Ideal for beginners and warm up
Start with both hands on the same rung and feet on the wall, evenly spaced in a frontal stance. Focus on your form, correct grip and posture, while removing first one, then the other hand in repetition.
The Campus Ladder
The traditional campus exercise is to ascend rung by rung (or skipping rungs) without matching hands on the same rung and without using your feet, like this: With both hands on the bottom rung, pull yourself up and latch the next rung with one hand and then pull up and reach to the next, and continue. To increase the difficulty try to skip rungs for longer movements and/or use a smaller rung to train more finger strength. Using the largest rungs, this is a good exercise to begin the campus session with for warm up.
For more power emphasis do bigger moves and less repetitions and for more endurance you may try to do as many ups and downs as you can, including with the use of feet.
Repeaters
Start with both hands on the same rung and then reach as high as possible, controlling that upper rung, and then returning to the starting rung with the same hand and immediately re-launching for the upper rung. Perform until you can no longer reach the upper rung. Rest and do it again with the opposite hand. Repeaters are good for building contact strength, your ability to grab a hold and stay from a dynamic move and power, through the plyometric action of descending and re-launching as fast as possible.
Bumps
As the name suggests, keep bumping your top hand. Start matched on the bottom rung. Pull up and grab a higher rung with one hand and then keep bumping that hand higher and higher until you cannot reach. For a more power endurance workout try bumping up and down multiple times until you fail. Rest and repeat with the other hand.
Offsets
Start with hands on different rungs. Remove the lowest hand and pull up as high as you can reach, grabbing and controlling that rung. Match and drop. Repeat for other hand. This workout is useful for training one arm lock off strength and for dialling in the push-pull arm movement required for bigger moves.
Double Ups
Like doing the ladder, but with both hands. It works both the explosive dynamic power and also coordination. Start with both hands on a rung, pull up and launch both hands simultaneously to the next rung and continue. For added value try to skip rungs, dyno up 1-3, then down to 2 and up to 4 etc.
Elite level climbers can try to do offset double ups, starting with hands on rungs 1 and 3, campus up to rungs’ 2 and 4.
Dial up the difficulty
To make the training harder you can do one or many of the following: make longer moves with bigger spaces between the rungs or use a smaller rungs. Weight can be added, though we recommend only the most experienced and advanced climbers add weight due to the forces at play on the finger, elbow and shoulder joints.
Number of repetitions and sets per work out
There is no general figure for the number of campus exercises and repetitions within those exercises one should do. It all depends on the number of exercises you will perform in that session and also on whether you will climb or perform other strength workouts later. A typical workout could be 3 sets of 5 different exercises performed with 2-3 minutes rest between each set.
Happy Training!
