Most sample training weeks online are written for nobody in particular. A real week depends on your grade, the days you can climb and what's holding you back.
Here's a sample bouldering training week for a V5 climbing three days. Wednesday is the hard day: one boulder at your limit, seven good tries. Monday is volume and skill, 10 boulders around V1 to V2. Saturday is recovery climbing. The other four days are rest, and there are no finger lifts: at V5 the planner holds them back.
It's week 5 of a 12-week plan from our free bouldering planner, built for one climber: five-plus years in, working on crimps and slopers, with a hangboard it chose not to use. Yours would look different. Change the grade, the days or the two things you pick to work on, and the week changes with them.
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Where does week 5 sit in a 12-week plan?
Each block adds one thing. Build is climbing only, opening with an intro week two grades down. Strength adds limit bouldering, plus a low dose of finger training for climbers past V5, so week 5 is where the limit days start. Perform adds the board, or power moves on the wall without one. Every fourth week cuts volume and keeps intensity (the lighter week our deload post argues for), and week 12 is a retest.
What does each day of the week do?
The plan calls itself skill and volume led. At this grade strength plays a smaller part, and the hangboard sits unused even though it was ticked: finger training waits until you're past V5.
Only one of the two picks made it. Crimps go on Wednesday's limit boulder. Slopers rode on the focus drills, and those didn't fit three days, so the plan lists them under What didn't fit for all twelve weeks. Adding a day brings them back. Monday is 10 boulders around V1 to V2, each one climbed well, with dyno commitment as the skill, and it's where your conditioning goes each week. Saturday is easy climbing well below your limit, enough to get the blood moving.
What does the hard session look like, set by set?
Week 5 · Wednesday
Limit bouldering Hard
Full warm-up first. One boulder at your limit, V5 or harder, on crimpy boulders. 20 minutes and seven good tries each.
1 boulder, 7 tries, 3:00 between, 20 minutes each
Boulders logged this day
- V6 Crimpy · fell, 7 tries
- V5 Crimpy · sent, 4 tries
Sample from the planner, for a V5 climbing three days a week.
After a 20 to 25 minute warm-up, the timer runs it: seven tries with 3:00 of rest between them. Tap Sent or Fell and the try is logged.
What does the planner do after week 5?
- A session timer. Steps count down and advance by themselves, with rests set per session. Sent or Fell logs the try.
- Week tracking. Days marked done, partial or skipped; a finished week shows sessions, boulders and sends.
- A block check-in. Three taps at the end of a block (how it felt, your fingers, your first focus), and the next block repeats, holds the finger dose, swaps focus or moves on.
- A weakness check. Your send rate by style against your overall rate, so what you fall off can become the next block's focus.
- A finger benchmark in week 1 and at the retest, as a share of bodyweight, which can set your lift loads. It's for climbers the plan gives finger training to, so this V5 doesn't get one.
- Project mode. Give it your project's grade, angle and holds, and the next block shapes around it.
- Saved on your device. No account. A backup file moves everything to another device.
Where do these numbers come from?
Seven tries in twenty minutes, 3:00 between tries, 10 volume boulders: we set those as a starting point. They don't come from a study. Your log is how you find out whether they suit you.
Questions about a bouldering training week
How many days a week should a bouldering training week have?
The planner builds around the days you give it, and never puts two hard days in a row. How often fingers can take hard loading depends on total load, not a fixed rule.
Does every climber get finger training?
No, and this climber doesn't. Finger training waits until you're past V5, and it won't appear in your first two years of climbing at any grade. That's the training-age argument applied a little stricter. Once it does, a three-day plan puts it first in the hard day, the session order our hangboard post argues for.
Is the planner free?
Yes. There's no sign-up, and your plan and log are saved in your browser on that device.
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