[tehwalrus]

Lifting barbells allows you to control the weight much more than climbing or punching things.

If you read Starting Strength (Riptoe, mentioned many times on this thread) you'll learn about the recovery and response cycles to stress on the body. You should be regularly increasing the amount you're lifting regardless of your bodyweight (which is what you are always lifting in climbing,) in order to actually increase your strength over time.

Barbells also allow you to start with smaller weights at the beginning of the workout, and then move on to heavier sets when you're warm. AFAIK there's no way to do this with climbing.

Re: barbells not "natural" - firstly, more natural than most of the other equipment in the gym, and secondly it depends what you're doing with them. lifting them over and over, slowly is one way to use them (and builds strength), but speeding up your reps and/or performing power cleans will improve your power (literally rate-of-work) which is what is important in sports like martial arts and ball games. You can train for almost any sport with a barbell, with the right lift, rate, set lengths and intra-workout rest period.

[bengillies]

> Lifting barbells allows you to control the weight much more than climbing or punching things.

Ok so that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the explanation.

> Barbells also allow you to start with smaller weights at the beginning of the workout, and then move on to heavier sets when you're warm. AFAIK there's no way to do this with climbing.

So with climbing in general climbing harder problems (smaller holds, further apart, more overhang, etc etc) works muscles more, and the harder you climb, the fitter and stronger you will be.

[pvnick]

Yes this will make you stronger, but not as much as barbell exercises