The youth climbing scene in Scotland has gone through a massive boom over the last 10 years with respect to high performance climbing both in competitions and outdoors. This is true in every aspect of climbing:

• Competitions
• Sport Climbing
• Bouldering
• Trad Climbing
• Mixed Climbing
• Alpinism

 As I am more involved in the training of Youth Competition Climbers, Sport Climbers and Boulderers, I am always exposed to the effects the environment at an indoor wall or crag affects their development. 

Setting the Limit

The title of the blog post, so probably a good place to start. What do I mean by "Setting the Limit"? In actual fact I literally mean "Setting" a route or boulder. How can you expect a climber to achieve the highest level they can be without them able to see it?

Route-Setting the Limit on the EICA Bouldering Walls

Climbing is a unique sport in that we can look at a wall and providing we have enough motivation and imagination, we can see ourselves climbing it. It might be a 7a, 8a, 9a even 10a, but the fact is we can see the final product of our effort long before we have achieved it. This is incredibly useful for motivation and goal setting, a big part of the training plan. 

In other sport such as Swimming, Running and Cycling, our goals are set more by what others have achieved before us. An example of this was when the 4-minute mile was finally done and within 10 years of that many runners had gone on to achieve that and better! This is no coincidence, it's just another example of setting the limit. When the limit has been set, those with the imagination and will power will rise to beat it thereby setting a new limit to beat for the next generation of athletes.

In Climbing we are lucky yet again as we can have this aspect of "Setting the Limit" as well. When someone climbs a hard First Ascent, we know it is possible now, so the ability to break this barrier is subsequently easier than it was for the first ascenisonist (who may have thought the route impssible before making the ascent). 

In an indoor wall, where 99% of my coaching and training occurs, setting the limit for climbers is the most important thing to do if we want to see the their progression in climbing occur. A friend of mine Stuart Burns is head coach at Boulders in Cardiff where the hardest route is 7c+. It's therefore natural that the youth climbers will set that as their limit to reach. At EICA, the hardest route is 8b+ (at the moment) which means the youth climbers will set that as their limit to reach. At a French wall that Nat has been climbing at, the hardest route is 8c+, meaning that the French kids will set that as their limit. 

Does this mean that all we need to do is set really hard routes and kids will climb 10a if we set that as the limit?

The Limit that Surrounds You

This is not the case, you can't simply expect climbers to rise to climbing the hardest routes at the wall simply by setting them, but it is a step in the right direction. There needs to be the element of competition surrounding you as well. It's fair enough to say, "I am going to climb that 8a there one day", but realistically, how much can you push yourself towards that goal without the thought that someonelse is trying to reach it before you? 

With an element of friendly competiton between peers at a similar level with similar aspirations and goals - this is when you will see the real gains in performance. You try harder on your climbs, train harder during the week and aim higher than ever because of the competition. As long as the competiton isn't allowed to become a negative experience, you will gain a lot from it.

I have always tried to pair up my coached kids together so as to instill this friendly competition. A few examples:

William Bosi + Angus Davidson

Angus is 2-times British Champion and in previous years Scottish Champion as well as competing at a very high level in EYC's in his first year in Youth B. William is this years Scottish Champion, as well as Scottish Bouldering Champion and 4th in the World as of Singapore 2012.

Together they are a great partnership and push each other to make the biggest gains in performance.

 Angus + William (The Champs)

Youth C/D Boys Coaching Group

4 Boys I coach that are around the same age and level of performance. Sam, David, Connor and Ewan have all go their own unique styles and strengths and can challenege each other at the wall every week. Whenever one does something hard, the others are eager to prove that they can do it too, sometimes they get shut down and other times they succeed, but it's always good fun and as long as the attitude is good they keep improving.

Connor crushing 7b!

Make it Fun and Competetive

If you want to get the most out of your sessions, adding a competetive element is important. Train with people that you are friends with and who are a little bit better than you so you can learn from them and push yoursef more. You will always climb harder with someone who is better. 

For more examples of this process in work, just have a look at the Austrian Team and French Team. The Austrians training in Innsbruck train together and see each other at the wall everyday. Because of this they push harder than ever and because the best guys at the wall climb 9a+, the kids growing up there see that as their goal.

Unfortunately, I only climb 8c so I hope my kids can have the imagination and will power to see past how bad at climbing I am and realise that the limit is now 9b+ thanks to Mr Ondra!

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

 

"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