Weekend Warrior climbs first 5.14 and earns a spot on the USA Ice Climbing Team!

Tell us a little about yourself...

"My name is Ian Umstead and I’ve been rock climbing for approximately 5 years. In fact, I hit my 5-year climbiversery the week before I sent my first 5.14, Hellcat. I got into climbing through my desire to speed ascend 14ers. The mountains I tackled, the more I wanted to explore new paths and get more exposure. The natural progression from here, was to rope up! So, like most people, I bought a basic kit, and tried to make friends with some folks who would take me climbing outside. I never had a gym when I started climbing so my intro to climbing, and all my climbing the first 2 years was outdoors.

I started training early on in my climbing career on a free standing hangboard structure that I made myself. I was so stoked on climbing, but about 3 months into climbing I broke my leg in a freak snowboarding accident. Immediately after my surgery, I continued with finger strength and upper body training as to minimize the loss of my gains. 

When I was cleared to climb again, I was already starting to try to send my first 12a. It took a little while, but I was able to send it at about 11 months into my climbing career. Fast forward another year and a half, I sent my first 13a. Then I had a plateau for a couple years only sending a few 13- routes, but with a change of training focus and structure I was able to break out of the plateau and have a great 2023 climbing year sending multiple 5.13’s and my first 14a. 

I am a safety professional for a large construction company on day-to-day basis. We start work early in the mornings so that gives me the opportunity to get out of work at a reasonable time and allows me the opportunity to put efficient training sessions several evenings per week."

How do you balance being a weekend warrior with work and training to push your limits?

"This is certainly a challenge, but I learned these skills a longtime ago when I was trying to become a professional road cyclist. In college, I balanced taking 15-19 hours of college courses, training 18-25 hours a week training on the bike, plus other workouts, and working 20-30 hours a week. 

This instilled a work ethic and time management trait that has allowed me to continue to train like a professional athlete while maintaining a full-time position in my career field. Currently, I spend about 12-15 hours training between Monday through Friday and I climb outside most Saturdays and Sundays. Time management, sacrifice, and commitment to the greater goal (sending hard routes) are a few things that help me balance being a weekend warrior and a full-time safety professional."

What training, mental and physical, did it take for you to climb your first 5.14?

"It started after I finished a strength block in early 2023. Per my metrics I thought I could start touching low end 5.14a routes. There was one in particular that I was psyched to try because I felt it would fit my style. Short, steep, bouldery, not incredibly hard movement, but very sustained difficult moves with little rest. I went out to start trying moves and seeing if it was within my abilities at the time. It took several sessions, but I figured out all the movement that worked for me. However, I knew that I was not strong enough to send.

So, I put it to bed for about 6 months or so and focused on building a good 13- base and building more power endurance. During that time, I was also convinced by a couple friends to try out for the USA Ice Climbing national team. I had no competition drytooling experience, and very little dry tooling experience up until that point. I knew if I was going to try out, I needed to commit to training on tools until tryouts which was 8 weeks away at this point. I pretty much solely trained on tools in the evenings for the 8-week period. When I was training on tools, I was focusing on big pull movement and lock offs, as well as steep roof climbing with lots and lots of figure 4’s and 9’s. This helped me build on my strength, core, and comfort for climbing horizontally in roofs while simultaneously helping me become a better dry tooler too.

The 8 weeks passed, I went to tryouts, and ended up making the USA Ice Climbing National Team. After that goal was achieved, I knew it was time to get back on the horse and focus on the project. I went back out to the route the first weekend of October and re-sussed all the movement. All the moves went, and I made some good links on the first day back on it. However, I needed to build up some more power endurance to put it all together. At this point I had been doing two a days twice per week since the beginning of summer. So, I was doing max hangs in the morning before work, and then focused on 30:30’s and replica training in the evening sessions.

One thing that I believe helped immensely was doing the 30:30 protocol on a replica I had set of the route’s crux boulders on my home wall. This was essential to build strength, and muscle memory for that specific movement. Ultimately, each week I added more weight with the weight vest increasing 1lb each session until I got up to +7lbs on the weight vest for 2 sets of the 30:30s on the cruxs of the route. By this point the movement felt pretty easy and I could run lap after lap with no weight on the replica at home.

I was also having long links and slight improvement every weekend I was outside on the route too. I knew a send was imminent. I had a good weather window, had taken a rest day, and went out one day approximately 5 weeks after I had started working the route again. I warmed up appropriately, and then sent the route on my second go of the day."

What helped you the most during this process?

"Two-a-days were essential for me. I was able to have good quality workouts twice per day vs. trying to hangboard at the beginning of the session and then still having 3-4 more hours of climbing specific training afterwards. Two-a-days has been a game changer for me. 

The 30:30 protocol was also an essential step in the process as well. This protocol that Eric had created for Cam and Joe, was perfect for me to achieve my goals. It targets a specific system that is not normally trained. For the route that I sent, it was stacked steep roof boulder problems, with some very tenuous and compression movement on more vertical terrain as well.

I was able to replicate the movement on the home wall and trained that energy system to the point where I was able to climb the entire route with essentially no rest. The 30:30 protocol has been hands down the best way I’ve trained power endurance. 4x4’s are great, but they are typically training a different energy system, and don’t provide the long end power endurance I was looking for. When I switched to 30:30’s I saw big gains in how long I could climb sustained hard movement.

Consistency and muscle memory played another important role in the process. My home workouts were route specific, and I was getting on the actual route 2-3 days per week during the 5 weeks that I was working the route. I was able to maintain muscle memory this way. This was important because, I was always able to climb it the same way every time. Each time I was able to move slightly more efficient leading up to the send where I climbed straight through the multiple lower cruxes to a good rest just before the last boulder problem that guarded the chains."

Next goals 2024?

"My goals for 2024 are fairly broad, as I have hopes to send my hardest grade in every discipline. I would like to do another 5.14 either an A/B or B. I have my eyes set on some hard drytooling routes as well. There is a D14 in Colorado called Saphira, one of the USA’s hardest drytool lines. I am also very psyched to try to send a D15 in Italy called A Line above the Sky. Some side goals are sending 10+ routes that are 5.13b or harder and sending V10 or harder next year as well."

How often during the week do you train vs get on rock?

"I typically train 3 days during the week and spend my weekends climbing outside. Rest is very important for the amount of time I spend training, and that is why I have two mandatory “rest” days each week. Sometimes my rest days will include some cardio on the bike, foam rolling, and stretching. When I was training and trying to send Hellcat, I was getting out on rock typically 3 days per week with two training sessions."

__________

PhysiVāntage Shoutout

"I have to shout out the PhysiVāntage Supercharged Collagen and the Sendure-X as well. I have been using both of these products daily for over 3 years now. I think they have played a major role in my finger, joint, and muscle health, as well as providing me the extra boost of nitrates to help fight the pump. I have been using beets/beet root supplement ever since my bike racing days and think they play a key role in keeping the blood and oxygen moving to help reduce the lactic acid build up and pump. With habitual hangboarding and daily supercharged collagen intake, my fingers are always feeling healthy and strong, even after heinous days pulling on small grips, or hard hangboard workouts."