Robbie's Training/Coaching Blog

Last Time…

In the last post I proposed a few different ideas as to what creates greatness in people. When I say “greatness”, I mean those with exceptional talent or abilities in something like a sport, academics or art. For climbing I identified Adam Ondra as an example. Nobody in the rock climbing world can disregard Adam’s obvious “talent” to climb pretty much everything he puts his hands to. Many have looked on at his abilities and claimed them to be “super human”, “godly” and even “lucky” (with reference to the possibility of a climbing positive genotype).

Although many would argue genetics as a primary article in his success, I would be more likely to state otherwise, and that instead of seeing him purely as a machine built for climbing, we see another person just like any of us who unlike many others was born with some unique opportunities (e.g. his family are very motivated climbers) and gifted not with superior DNA but with an insanely high motivational drive to excel. I think these are the key bits of evidence that are noticeable from watching him in action both on the wall and in his preparation for achieving.

In the second blog post of me documenting my ongoing attempt at understanding talent and what it takes to become a “high achiever”, I would like to start off looking at what talent actually means/consists of…

What does Talent consist of?

When we see someone doing anything at an expert level, sometimes it is difficult to comprehend how they do this. It can often appear like they are defying natural laws or achieving something seemingly impossible. A climbing example could be watching a pro climbing a hard boulder or route (V16/f9b). What we often forget is the sheer volume of training that has gone into being able to reel out amazing performances such as these, a concept called the “Iceberg Illusion” (the Iceberg is massive but our minds struggle to comprehend the heaving mass that could be ten times the size underneath the water because we simply can’t see it). It doesn’t even have to be a professional climber doing something hard, its a relative concept really. We all have friends relating us to spiderman, but when they see Adam Ondra climbing its difficult for non-climbers to see the difference between him and us.

Talent in a sense could be perceived as a myth. What we often refer to as talent is simply an illusion (the iceberg) and amazing performances by individuals are subject to a lot of hard work and dedication. The term talent does have a few different meanings though, what we are talking about has a very specific meaning, one that can indeed alter peoples lives. When I talk about talent, I am referring to a perceived natural ability to do something better than others, an ability that you were born with.

But is it just down to how hard we push ourselves, the individual sacrifices we are willing to make and the dedication to training we are committing ourselves to? In climbing many climbers train hard all year round but don’t see the same results. Many mark this down as not being talented/gifted with the innate abilities or body type to achieve the best results. However, when we look at the climbers currently achieving great things, we see a very different picture…

Adam Ondra is very tall, skinny, a bit crazy looking and dedicated!

Chris Sharma is tall, kind of bulky, has a cool surfer look and is dedicated!

Ramon Julian is very short, ripped and muscly, looks like a ninja warrior and is totally dedicated!

I could go on, but there is a picture generating here. All these guys are onsighting 8c/+ and climbing 9a+/b. They all win world cups and boulder very hard! Body type may have advantages and disadvantages in certain styles but in the end of the day, everything seems to point in one direction and its certainly not at whose tallest, shortest or skinniest, its at whose dedicated enough.

Now as I said before, a lot of people are dedicated, but thats only half the battle. Being dedicated is great if your doing the right things, but what happens if your not? One thing I’ve noticed among climbers, particularly in the British, is their unhealthy addiction to simply getting stronger. In any athletic endeavour, technique and mental preparation are seen equally as important as the physical training, but in climbing these other areas are often forgot about. Think about Adam Ondra again, his amazing technical abilities to read routes and boulders perfectly and to continually maintain hitting expert performances.

If any of you have seen the “Progression” DVD with Adam Ondra, do you remember his famous claim,

“I am basically weak”

This is a laughable concept to most, however I believe him. He can’t do a one arm pull up and he struggles to perform powerful, compression moves or dyno’s. Compared to his endurance, relatively, he is one weak punter : P. What makes up for this is his unbelievably awesome technique and totally determined mindset. He will never back down from a challenge! When there is a hard move on some bad holds, he usually finds a cheeky way around pulling hard unlike a lot of his counterparts in elite climbing who may prefer to just thug their way through it. Very few climbers have the ability to action their techniques as effectively as Ondra compared to those that can pull their way through hard moves.

It seems to me that a perception commonly held amongst experienced climbers is that once they have reached a certain level, they think that they have learned everything there is to learn with technique and that the only way to get better is to get stronger/fitter. I’m sure Federer doesn’t think this, I’m positive Tiger doesn’t and I’m 110% assured Ondra doesn’t either! Someone actually said to me recently,

“I suppose at your level, technique is less of an issue and its more about getting stronger”

You know what, I love to think this sometimes. I do stray from time to time thinking that my development in climbing is solely about getting stronger, but then I realise the bigger picture. Its easy to train to get stronger, all you have to do is pull hard, fingerboard, campus board, whatever! Its difficult to get better and thats why people stray from this path.To become a better climber you need to challenge yourself in ways that don’t always appear visibly that your benefiting from it, but in the long run, its far better and more beneficial than hanging off a fingerboard or repeating your rehearsed circuit of problems down at your local wall.

Retrieval Structure (The Key to Unlocking Technique)

My thoughts return to a term I have read a number of times in books, “retrieval structure”. This is similar to the concept of “muscle memory”, it refers to the imbedded coding of skill that “laces” our brains in whatever activities we focus on. When Ondra hits a weird sequence on a hard onsight, because he has probably been on a hundred other routes of similar style, he is more likely to be able to repeat a sequence that is more efficient than any other we could come up with. This “retrieval structure” takes thousands of hours of dedicated practice to build into something that works well in any situation.

My “retrieval structure” for indoor routes is probably pretty good seeing as how I’ve spent a lot of time memorising and climbing indoor sequences (during training and setting), however, I am probably less able on balancy gritstone slabs (I have about 2 days worth of experience, most of which was spent on one problem). Again I am probably better on limestone than granite because I’ve only ever climbed on granite once, whereas months of my life every year for the last 6 years have been spent in Europe climbing on limestone.

The thing is though that in climbing, the techniques are generally quite transferrable across different disciplines and rock types (maybe not so much cracks or off-widths?). This allows us to move quite freely between different styles and learn quickly when working on a particular one.

So back to the first paragraph, when we see someone performing an act of incredible skill what often appears to be super human feats of strength or power is in fact a super efficient coding built into the athletes brain that allows them to perform top performances with seemingly un-flawed accuracy and time-less error. Athletes at this level are often quoted as appearing to “float”. This is just the nature of a highly developed “retrieval structure” at work. Its also the reason why some climbers are better at some styles than others, because they spend more time doing it and therefore benefit from increased coding of their “retrieval structure” in that style.

The cool thing about a “retrieval structure” is that we can’t simply turn it off an on willy nilly. When we do anything in life our retrieval structure is activated to a certain extent, but its not our conscious mind that controls this part of our brain, its our unconscious. Often referred to as explicit and implicit memory (conscious and unconscious). To activate our retrieval structure it needs to be through the unconscious thought processes i.e. the techniques we want are so intensely burned into our unconscious memory banks that our body follows their guidance, “retrieving” automatically what it needs for any move or sequence it comes up against. I’m not even at the whackiest part though… to develop our unconscious memory to do this, we need to use our conscious memory during training as much as possible to teach our brain to use the techniques we are focussing on in an unconscious way.

A good example of this is when working on a red-point route. When we first try it we need to use all our brain power to learn the precise techniques required to climb the route, only once we have focussed that intensely on the sequence can our brain then start processing those sequences unconsciously during our red-point attempts.

A retrieval structure is something that needs developed to become a better, more efficient climber. The only way to do this is by climbing lots of varying styles of climbs that challenge and force you to think in many different ways. This is why Ondra, Sharma and Ramon are so good. Its not because they are made stronger, fitter and more susceptible to the 9a performance virus, its because they focus 100% on everything they do in climbing they challenge themselves daily and they’ve been doing it for a very long time!

I hope you all enjoyed this guys, I’m going to be posting again quite soon on some new concepts I’ve been researching recently, but until then I’ll leave you with a little poem I just made for you to have a think about:

“Focus hard, focus deep, the more you crank, the more you keep”

ROBZ OUT

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Opportunity for Success

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them”

William Shakespeare - Twelfth Night (Quote Act III, Scene 1)

Are some of us born to be successful? Is it a natural element to the human type that some of us have greatness embedded within our DNA and others do not? I do not to believe this is the case, we are all individuals that live our own unique lives, each different from another and I won’t succumb to the thought that success in life is pre-determined by genetic factors untouchable and unchangeable by us.

My ambition to be the best climber I can be is a path that I chose, that was not pre-determined by anyone else, however, the opportunities to which lead me there where. To get an idea of why great athletes, academics, artists and in general human beings achieve greatness in whatever form, we must first look at how their paths in life began.

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”

Buddha

Paths in life always start of with opportunities. Matthew Syed, ex-world champion table tennis player and Olympiad describes in his book “Bounce” the real reasons for his rise to fame in the world of competitive table tennis:

“I was in effect, the best of a very small bunch. Or, to put it another way, I was the best of a very big bunch, only a fraction of whom had my opportunities”

“Practically every man or woman who triumphs against the odds, is on closer inspection, a beneficiary of unusual circumstances.”

A meritocracy is the idea that achievement is based solely on hard work and determination, but that is only the starting point. Adam Ondra is the worlds greatest climber, but had it not been for him being born into a family of climbers it is strongly argued that he would not have achieved nearly as much in climbing as if he was born into a family of chess players. This is one opportunity he had in his career that led him to success, but no doubt this is not the only one.

Although opportunities in life are needed to create the perfect scenario for which a person can become great, there needs to be the will and drive to give everything they have in order to then achieve greatness. Although Adam Ondra has had some amazing opportunities that have pushed him in the right direction, it still comes back to his attitude towards climbing that has made him what he is today.

Talented?

Is Adam Ondra a product of a talented genetic structure born into opportunity, or is there more to it? For years scientists have been asking the question is talent something we are born with or can it be acquired by anyone?

Anders Ericcson, a scientist researching this very subject discovered that the outcome of performance was directly identifiable with the number of hours dedicated to “serious” practice. No duh, right? If you practice at something you will get better, and I bet there are hundreds of examples you could think of where someone has outdone you when you think they didn’t practice as much as you. But note what I said in quotes,

“Dedicated to serious practice”

The “serious” part is the difference. When I was younger I hated math, I studied at it to try and get better but nothing I did worked. What I didn’t “try” was exactly that! When I was studying I would do countless equations on my own, but there was no passion or want to better myself, I simply saw it as a means to an end. Interestingly, the best I ever got out of my maths studying was when working on it with my grandfather. I enjoyed this time with him, we had fun in those countless hours and it became a part of the day I looked forward to rather than dreading. I worked hard at maths back then because I enjoyed it more, and there seemed to be a thrill in accomplishing a hard sum as opposed to my latter attitude to math which was, to quote my last blog,

“Ticking the box”

For those that read my last blog, I talked about the attitude towards a session that makes the difference between the good, the great and the best! Its all about the mental attitude towards your training that gives the greatest outcome. If you only give the very minimum to anything, you will in turn receive the very minimum. You must whole heartedly give your soul to those activities you wish to excel in for the time you work on them.

So can people be talented at something without putting the man hours in? This a definite no. Nobody can improve at anything without putting some amount of effort in. You might see people who are amazing climbers who appear not to have done much training/climbing previously, but you may not know the history of their climbing. I have met many strong climbers who appear not to have put much work in, but on closer inspection, it turns out that they actually have been climbing for a long time, but go through stints of not training or perhaps don’t train anymore (i.e. they used to).

What makes the expert?

There has been much research gone into the area of how much dedicated practice is required to make someone an expert. Without going into too much detail, approximately 1000 hours a year for 10 years (or 10,000 hours = 2.7hours a day). This is whats required to make an expert at anything. When looking at Adam Ondra’s 8a.nu scorecard, we see very clearly a distinctive upwards progression in his total number of points from year to year. I know this isn’t exactly that scientific a measure, but its interesting to see as it clearly identifies a direct correlation to years of focussed practice and his progression in climbing. In 2010 he climbed his first 9b, 10 years after he made the scorecard (though probably not after he started climbing), this is probably todays world class level (Top 5) which therefore identifies him as an expert.

One up to the theory of “focussed” practice makes perfect!

The next logical step is to question what talent consists of? What really makes those with apparently super-human powers that enable them to be the best? This will also answer the question, why is it that those that have put in hours of dedicated training and effort years previously still maintain their ability to some extent? Many of the older generation who can’t train as rigorously as they once did due to injury, time constraints, still seem to crank out hard, sometimes as hard as they did when they were younger without putting any extra effort in! Its the same when we see people who have climbed when they were kids and return to it in their adult years. Usually within a few months of climbing, they have returned to their previous best, often overcoming it considerably!

Next week I’ll be following “Born to Succeed” with the next part, looking at what talent consists of and how knowledge equals power!

ROBZ OUT

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Something that has always fascinated me is what makes people good at whatever they choose to do. When we see amazing artists, musicians and athletes doing what it is that they do best, how is it that they came to be in this state? I’ve been immersing myself in literature recently in an attempt to find out more. As someone who is always on the lookout for anything that will give me (and my pupils) an added boost in performance on the wall, this area of understanding is of much interest to me.

My good friend and faithful photographer, Will Carroll and I were sitting down to lunch the other day discussing our next photo-shoot when he suggested a new book for me to check out. The book is called “The Talent Code” and is written by Daniel Coyle. I searched on google and came up with the authors website and blog. Intrigued to see what words of wisdom this guy may have imparted, i began to read. Not long into the blog I came across a video of an American football coach discussing his thoughts during a day of coaching with his team whilst in the gym. He says that amongst the team there on the day where a multitude of different levels, at different stages of the athletic ladder i.e. kids in their early teens to those in their early 20′s. Now everyone in the group was a good athlete, but some would fall by the wayside whilst other achieved their potential in the sport, but why is this? Many turn to science and quote superior genetics as a major factor, however the coach (Vern Gambetta) stated that the players whose focus was on the session and not elsewhere got the best out of each days training and improved the quickest.

This is something I am very familiar with now having read a number of interesting books about this particular notion of “focussed” practice makes perfect. I am also very aware of this as a coach who coaches kids and adults across a wide range of abilities and personalities.

Gambetta states that there were three main levels of focus you can have towards a training session.

Level 1: Ticking the Box

You basically do the minimum necessary by showing up, doing as your told on your training program and ticking every box as it comes along. A climbing example could be completing 20 problems but choosing only those problems that you either had totally wired or knew you could do with the least amount of effort.

Level 2: Looking for Weaknesses

You show up and do the session but actively look for areas of weakness. You structure your training to better improve these areas in future sessions. A climbing example could be doing the above but actively looking for problems in your circuit that challenge you rather than ones that you find easy.

Level 3: Winning the Session

This is again the next step up in which you do all of the above except give every performance your utmost attention, concentration and effort. You critique everything you do, analysing in depth every performance during your session to get the most out of it. You treat every session as if your goals and ambitions will be fruitless without total dedication to every facet of it. A climbing example would be to route read every route/boulder you climb, attempt each one with the white hot intensity of Adam Ondra’s tantrums until you top or fall, analyse every detail of your performance and learn from it as if its teaching you the most important lesson you’ll ever learn.

Like Daniel Coyle wrote in his blog, I really like Gambetta’s style here. He has listed the type of sessions we have into distinct levels which I can clearly identify with. I’d like to say that I am at level 3 every time, but that just isn’t true, however if we can reach this level 70-90% of the time then I think we are on for a winner.

It also highlights the one thing that I tell all my clients, the only way to get better is by “focussed” practice. Without this key “focus” any amount of practice will not make the big differences. Like Gambetta says in his video, anything you do will make you better, however its the way in which you do it that makes you the best!

Check out the video here of Mr Gambetta (Legend!)

Mental training is a massive area in climbing, yet it is all too often overlooked. You may think that your bulging biceps, massive forearms and impeccable technique will get you up the wall no problem - but what happens when fear, nerves and doubt begin to creep into the equation?

I have been competing for over ten years now and am just starting to venture into the world of outdoor redpoint and onsighting. What are the differences between these two (or three) disciplines?

Competitions

I find competitions relatively stress-free and very rarely do I give up or get psyched out. Why? I believe it is down to experience after having taken part in numerous competitions since the age of 9. However, it is also a very personal challenge which differ from person to person - some people get more excited than nervous about competing (like me) and can perform to the best of their abilities. On the other hand, some people become so fraught with nerves and doubt that their performance is severely hindered. Whether it be personal pressure, pressure from parents or team members or intimidation from other competitors, these factors can all become major problems if the competitor cannot block them out.

My experience? I have always been very competitive and will fight for what I want to acheive. Competitions can be a very selfish environment, and to a certain extent, you have to be selfish to succeed in the arena of competitions. Perhaps selfish isn’t the best word - self-assured would be more appropriate! I am not in any way saying that you need to be arrogant or consider yourself to be superior to others in a nasty or demeaning manner, rather you you have to have the self-confidence and inner belief that you are the best climber in the event. For some people, believing this proves difficult, this psychology does not work for everyone! The best way of maximising your performance in a competition is to give it everything - and in mental terms this means having the assurance in knowing that you will try your very best, and whatever happens you cannot be dissatisfied! I clearly remember almost “giving up” in a final of a European Youth Series one year - I became frustrated and tired at a hard section of the climb and rather than fight hard for a podium place, I simply slapped wearily for the next hold. I had qualified in 2nd place for the final, yet was not in the right state of mind on the final route. Was it complacency?

Dealing with Negative Experiences in Competition

I remember another event much further back in my career when I was winning in a BRYCS youth final, with just the easiest boulder problem to go. I skipped up the problem and jumped for the op of the wall in youthful exuberance - yet much to my surprise slipped off the top of the wall (a sloped edge, unlike the good edge at my local wall!) In my over-confidence I had made a silly mistake which cost me a place and made me come 2nd overall. I learnt from this mistake and thankfully it has never happened again!

In other events where I have felt as though the competition has not gone my way, I look on these as incentives to improving and working hard in my training. It is easy to bring out excuses and mull over a bad day, but the best way of dealing with failure and disappointment is to view it as a learning experience - everyone has a climbing learning curve consisting of both good and bad experiences!

Experiences of Outdoors

Due to being primarily a comp climber in my early years, I never had the time (or funds!) to spend on trips and gaining rock experience, so since finishing school and starting university (“study” leave plus 4 month summers = lots of time to climb!) I have started learning about outdoor climbing and developing my movement skills on rock. I had done a fair bit of easier climbing as a youngster - seconding routes, going to Kalymnos for a week in 2003, and two or three trips to font - but not enough to really focus on sport climbing techniques. Trips outdoors were seen as a fun event, not to be taken too seriously and having safety as a priority. My first major trip was to Ceuse for 2 weeks last summer, where I managed to redpoint up to 7c and have fun with friends. I only had 12 days, so about 7 or 8 climbing days, and not enough time to really apply myself to ticking harder routes. I did rack up some easier mileage though! My next major trip was to Spain this April/May for 5 weeks - my longest trip yet! However, in my keenness to tick hard routes, I think I started focussing on hard redpoints too early when I desperately needed to do more mileage to build confidence and be cautious with my two finger pulley injuries. I had a hard time in the first two weeks getting frustrated with the pain in my fingers and seemingly getting nothing done. I had to change tactics. So I focussed on working my way through the grades and practicing my onsighting, doing some falling practice for my head and gaining confidence in my abilities. I even opened up an 8a.nu scorecard which enabled me to look at what I had done and where the gaps in my grades were. I ended the trip with a successful 8a redpoint tick, which really inspired me for more hard outdoor climbing.

Now I am in Ceuse and and after a week and a half am trying to get out of the desire to get on hard routes and spend all my time on trying to tick a couple of 8a’s - I have realised what I need to do is get on lots of different routes of lower grades first to build my confidence up, before moving onto the harder stuff. I am agonisingly close to my current 8a project, so I will keep trying it alongside my mileage routes, just to keep my head in the game. A major problem for me at the moment is fear of falling - I am normally ok indoors, as long as I have been training leading. For the last 9 months or so I have been purely bouldering, which has caused me to lose confidence on routes. I am currently pretty strong from bouldering but my endurance is not quite what it was, but my plan is to build that up through doing lots of mid-grade routes. I know that if I focus on gaining experience in this way, my projects will be realistic goals in the last two weeks or so of the trip! At the moment it is frustrating not feeling 100% on harder routes, but I just have to be patient and I know I can do it if I take it slow and put my mind to it

ROBBIE PHILLIPS’ EXPERIENCES

Mental training is such a big facet to a climbers performance. My experiences of competition, outdoor sport, bouldering and trad climbing have all taught me this. When I was younger, all I was focussed on was competing, trying to be the best, wanting to be the best and thats all I had on my mind. When you get older and more mature, you realise that that is not what its all about. I used to get so nervous going in for competitions, I would put myself on an impossible pedestal of achievement and if I didn’t achieve my expectations, I would be destroyed mentally and emotionally. Its hilarious thinking about it now, to get so worked up on a little performance on one or two climbs in a day, comparing yourself against other climbers, etc… but I guess its a similar story to my life now as a climber who now focusses on outdoor pursuits? I am constantly challenging myself, building new pedestals in which to reach, the difference now is that I can deal with failure a lot better, I know that one failure isn’t the end of the world and that its only strengthening my climbing in the long run.

Competitions

My competition career was very different to Nats. I started a lot later, 8 years later to be precise, when I was 15 years old! My approach to competition climbing was very different to Nats since I hadn’t benefited from years and years of competition experience. I had been thrown into an environment of other kids who had been brought up in climbing competitions from a very young age and I had only just started climbing myself. Nat talks about different peoples ways of dealing with competition e.g. Nat is very cool and collected,

whereas I like to get psyched out my mind and ready for battle! When I started doing better in competitions, it was actually the moment that I realised that competitions weren’t really about beating everybody-else (for me) and more about improving on past performances and developing myself as a climber overall. I started to see climbing competitions as times when I could meet up with friends from around the UK (or world), go climbing and push my mental and physical boundaries to thelimit. Really, my best experiences in climbing are when I climb for myself and not for others or in an outwardly competitive way.

Outdoor Climbing Experiences

My biggest achievements in climbing haven’t been in the competition circuit (unlike Nat), they have been on rock. When Nat talks about believing in yourself at the competition,

“to a certain extent, you have to be selfish to succeed in the arena of competitions. Perhaps selfish isn’t the best word - self-assured would be more appropriate! I am not in any way saying that you need to be arrogant or consider yourself to be superior to others in a nasty or demeaning manner, rather you you have to have the self-confidence and inner belief that you are the best climber in the event.”

I think she is right! Some may disagree with this, but my experiences of pushing boundaries both in competition and on rock encompass this idea that I am good enough to do what I am setting out to achieve. When I confront a hard rock climb, I always have a routine, the most important of which is when I psyche myself up! I have to believe that I can climb the route beyond anything else, I build my confidence upwhilst going through all the moves by splitting the route into sections and visualising myself climbing through each of them with ease and in a strong style.

By the end of my visualisation process, I believe without a doubt in my mind that I can climb the route no matter the grade and will be ready to fight “A Muerte” for the send! If I don’t do this, I feel a little empty in my performance and will be lucky if I can properly give a full “Sharma style” effort to any climb I attempt.

Negative Experiences

In terms of performance, negative experiences can do two things:

1. Hinder you
2. Make you stronger

I always opt for the latter of the two, but you need to be strong minded to do this and not let the experience get the better of you. If you have a failure attempting a hard route, you need to walk away having learned more from that experience than when you had stepped onto the wall in the first place. If I fall off, I am instantly hauling my way back up the rope to my failure fall point to try and work out why I fell and how I can improve my sequence or strategy to better my performance next round. Yesterday I fell of a 70m 8b+ on the last 5m of climbing… It took me a while to come to terms with what had just happened, but I still got back on the rope and learned a new sequence for the high crux so that I can do it better next time round. I also used the time to look at other parts that I thought hadn’t been executed as well and tried some new beta for them which worked better, thereby making my next attempt a higher percentage success rate.

If you let the performance get to you and make you feel bad, then you will struggle more than ever to do the route in future attempts. It will affect your nerves, your confidence and even your physical ability to climb the route. If you are nervous you are less likely to be dynamic and trust smaller footholds which will hold you back massively. I was doing this a bit on the easier sections of “The Black Bean” (8b+) yesterday and noticed it, so I know for next time not to do this and be more relaxed.

Conclusion?

Experience is everything! Build up the mileage over the years and you will see the advantages. Both good and bad experiences will aid your progress to being a well rounded, confident and successful climber in any discipline whether its sport, bouldering, trad, winter, alpine or competition. Most importantly, enjoy what you do, if your not having fun then your obviously doing something wrong…

Keep it real

ROBZ + NAT

Climbing is an incredible sport for the simple reason that it incorporates so many different areas of performance. You have to be strong, fit, light, confident, aggressive, relaxed, prepared and precise. If you lack in any one of these areas you will surely not get the best performance out of yourself. Something I have worked on in my own climbing as well as with all the people I coach is aggression! In this blog i want to look in particular at it’s uses whilst climbing. For example, I work with a lot of young climbers between the ages of 7 and 18 and it’s very noticeable that at certain stages of development, the kids get more aggressive on the wall. This is much less common in girls (sometimes non-existent) but it’s certainly something I emphasise a lot to try and encourage them to become more aggressive.

I suppose I am going to have to explain a bit about what i mean with “aggression”. I’m talking about the attitude of the climber whilst on the wall. It’s very easy to be complacent and not give a climb your best effort, to just let go or not fight to stay on the wall, but if you are like this on a boulder problem you won’t get far. On routes it is easier especially if it’s an endurance route, but not every route is going to be sustained easy moves to the top. I can tell you from experience, as i used to be that climber who couldn’t fight, that you need to start learning to be aggressive to get the best performances.

It’s amazing how much more power you can get out of being aggressive. I can’t imagine doing any of my hardest climbs without it. Watch all the top athletes and you’ll see them using aggression techniques to better their performance. In tennis they are encouraged to scream when they hit the balls for more power (ref: William’s Sisters). I have even heard of athletes who would make themselves believe horrible stories about their advisory in order to collect the anger inside to give them power to defeat them. Maybe not a real-life example but the only one I can think of at the moment because I just watched the movie about 10 minutes ago:

William Thatcher from the movie “A Knights Tale” is told by his team that his next match in a game of medieval jousting has looted and pillaged his own people in order to scrape up enough money to pay for entry into the jousting event. This sends Will into a rage and he defeats the opponent (even though it was all a crop of lies).

A climbing example is Adam Ondra, who you will see power screaming his way up every route and boulder. When he fails there is a momentary burst of aggression (probably due to it having been built up on the route), but it certainly does show the passion that goes into sending some of the hardest climbs around.

For those if you who are female climbers, coach female climbers or young girls, it is really important to look into the area of aggressive climbing early on as it’s something that girls find very unnatural to do. Boys on the other hand are the complete opposite, you will find it much easier getting them to fight on a climb. My best examples being the team of youth boys training in Edinburgh.

Angus Davidson (12) will fight until he explodes, he can switch on his aggression very easily now becoming almost machine like on the wall leaving only devastation and a trail of bloody finger prints on every hold : P

Sam Harlend-Sendra (10), one of my newest recruits is an absolute beast on the wall showing up everyone when he switches on the animal inside.

Rory Whyte (8), probably the next Sharma, will power scream his way up any boulder problem in Ratho with sheer determination as if his life depended on him matching the final hold!

Obviously, it’s apparent that boys in general harbour a more adrenalised nature compared to girls, however, when girls do show this quality, they outshine everybody and will show performances on a climbing wall that you will not believe. You don’t see these qualities in girls often, but when I have, it’s from world champions and women climbing in the upper echelons of female performance.

In the past few years, I have run a number of sessions specifically on coaching this including one workshop for kids, and the things I have found to work really well for coaching this are:

1. Bouldering

2. Angry Face

3. Group Power Scream Sessions : P

The last two are not jokes. Bouldering is super intense and if you challenge yourself regularly on problems at your limit, you will develop automatically a more aggressive style. The key to this though is making sure you are trying problems that suit an aggressive climbing style I.e. Overhanging and dynamic. I forced myself to venture outwith my usual bouldering scene of EICA: Ratho to climb at the dedicated bouldering wall Alien Rock 2 in the centre of Edinburgh where the problems tend to be more basic in style on steeper boards. In Ratho there are just too many features and vertical panels to learn proper aggressive climbing styles. When I started climbing at A2, I quickly learned to have that aggressive style otherwise I would get totally schooled and fail miserably on everything.

“Angry Face” is something i brought into sessions with the EICA: Ratho Youth Team after watching my friend Eddie Barbour climbing. He looks like he’s off on every move but somehow doesn’t ever let go… On closer inspection, it appeared that he was gripped out of his mind and so determined to succeed that it overcame any pump or strength issues. His face contorts a bit and creates a kind of angry face : P reading up a bit on how your body language and facial expressions can associate how you feel at a given time, I also learned that they can affect how you feel. So by getting your “angry face” on whilst climbing, you will naturally become more aggressive! It’s a fun session to have with a big group of kids, they learn a lot from it but it’s also hilarious watching everybody’s angry face on the wall.

Group Power Screaming sessions are definitely one of my favourites and can turn into a bit of a nightmare in a smaller wall or church halls that echo, but luckily at Ratho screams just die out in the sheer volume of space, plus people are accustomed to hearing the screams of the public as they take the initial jump of our aerial assault course above the climbing arena. Treat these sessions similarly to the angry face ones, even better, just combine them, make it a bit of a laugh but also stress how it is important to climb aggressively on the wall during hard bouts of climbing. Some kids will pick it up immediately whilst others will struggle, this is where your work as a coach needs to shine through. Take the extra step to watch your kids at the wall even outside of their sessions with you and see if they are making use of these new aggression techniques (as long as they aren’t using it against their parents or other kids).

Some climbers aren’t into the whole being openly aggressive on the wall, but that doesn’t mean that aggression isn’t a part of their climbing e.g. Natalie who is generally a very static and quiet climber might look like this on the wall, when actually she is digging deep and in a whole world of rage in her mind to never let go!

The mind of a climber is a complex one indeed, but why complicate things by thinking to much? Just get angry!!!

HULK SMASH!!!!!!

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