Yoda

One of my favourite quotes of all time! And it is so very relevant in the world of climbing…

• Fear of a route or situation holds us back, which if we are competitive in any way, will anger us.
• The anger we feel leads to hating that climb or situation.
• The hatred of those climbs or situations forces us to avoid them at all costs which leads to suffering in the way of being held back in our strife for better performance as we are not addressing our weaknesses.

In the last blog post, we had a look at “Fear” with respect to “Falling”. What was quite rightly stated by some people on the comments is that there are different types of fear that holds us back, not just that of something obvious and tangible like falling.

Fear of Failure

I have written a lot on this subject, but it’s always something that is good to continually re-address to remind people as it is the first thing usually forgotten.

Anybody that considers him/herself performance orientated will come across “Fear of Failure” (FOF) at some point in their life. I am naturally a very competitive person and am confronted by FOF on a daily basis. It pops it’s head up in many different situations, not all climbing orientated, but it’s always in climbing that it affects me the most because climbing is what I am most passionate about.

Here are a couple of examples of FOF in action:

Example 1: I am at the wall with a bunch of friends I regularly climb with. Everybody is trying a new set of routes recently set and are all trying to onsight them. I look at route 1 thinking, “doesn’t look too bad… I know I can Onsight this”. One of my friends attempts it and fails. Instantly I am energised to get on it and prove to my friend and myself that I can onsight it.

 Competition among friends and peers can be difficult...

Suddenly, another on of my friends jumps in front and asks if he can have a shot. He gets on it and Onsights it with a bit of a fight at the top. This guy is one of the best of the group, probably a similar level to me. Suddenly I am feeling a little bit nervous, I don’t fancy trying this anymore, it looks a little tricky in that upper section, I think I will go try some different climbs… There is a harder graded route right next to it nobody has tried yet… I get on it and onsight it to the top!

If I onsighted this one, then really I should onsight the easier one as well… I’m a little tired now… I think I’ll leave it for another day J

Example 2: I have been trying this route for a few days now. When I first attempted it, it felt way out of my league! Now I am falling off reaching the last few holds but I keep failing at that section. Every time I get on it I feel a little nervous, sometimes slightly sick… I am so close to doing this climb but it just seems so far up the wall to fall of repeatedly. Why can’t I just do it and get it over and done with!

I have another attempt, I feel ill at the start, really nervous but I continue anyway. I make it past my previous high point but I fall again! AGGGGHHHHHHH!!! This is so frustrating… What am I going to do? I wasn’t even pumped!

I decide to have a rest day and try it again when I am fully recovered. All day I am thinking about the climb, re-hearsing the moves in my head… I have it dialled, I just need to seal the deal, then I can move onto something else!

I stand below the route, prepping myself to try it… I don’t feel right… I’m just not in the right frame of mind. I try it again but this time I am shaking with nerves, I fall off at the first crux – I haven’t fallen of this low on any of my redpoint tries! I am getting worse L

 Redpoint stress is a difficult opponent...

So the main thing to take away from each of these examples is that the FOF has had a negative effect on the performances. One thing to note however is that in each example, the FOF stems from a slightly different source.

Example 1 is very common and although you might be sitting there thinking “I have never experienced this”, really have a think about it! I believe a very high percentage of boys most likely experience this on a week to week basis whereas girls are probably less so (but are still susceptible to it). Example 1 is all about the FOF brought on from how you are affected by what other people think of you. If you are very self-conscious (a lot of people are), then this will affect you massively!

What you need to do is recognise that nobody actually cares how well you do on something, only you do. You are the one putting the pressure on yourself, not them, they are just there climbing, get used to it! If someone you are very competitive with is climbing with you and does really well, use it as fuel to push you harder on your attempt.

I have been using competitions for years as a way of training myself to deal better with nerves. When you put yourself on the spot to perform well on a route you haven’t chosen, in front of a crowd, in a competitive scenario and at a set time, you can be guaranteed a good mental challenge! The National Open Competitions are good for this, but so are the little winter bouldering leagues. With those, I tend to go around with a group of friends trying the problems. I always like to go first and avoid taking beta from people who have already tried it so I can stack the nerves as high as possible. For me going first is the most stressful, I at least like to see a few people do the problem usually, that’s why I now avoid that scenario and instead opt for the more challenging option :PCompetitions are intense mental scenarios that can train you to better deal with the mental side of climbingCompetition climbing is one of the most stressful and intense climbing scenarios around

If you look at the situation in Example 1 you will see even at the end, when he onsighted the harder of the routes, he is still wary that he doesn’t want to jump on the one that he could potentially fail on and look bad. If I was in this scenario, I would challenge myself to get on it anyway and tell myself that even if I do fall of, that there is nothing to worry about because the only thing that matters is how I felt about the climb, and that nobody else’s opinion matters. A hard thing to do, but if it’s just training down the wall it doesn’t really matter, and if it’s a hard route outdoors, then there is a million routes to onsight outdoors so blowing one is not really a big deal.

Example 2 is again another common scenario of FOF. This is Redpoint stress! I have had this many a time and still struggle with it. The source of the fear this time comes solely from your ambition to do the climb. Sometimes a spot of peer pressure if one of your friends is trying it as well (or has done it) also crops up, but keeping it separate from Example 1, in our scenario the climber is trying the route on his own.

He has been climbing the route for a few days and has in that time built up in his head that he can do it. His mistake however is getting too relaxed in thinking that the route will be sent shortly now that he has made a few high points. It is easy to get sucked into a hole of failing endlessly due to nerves if you put too much pressure on yourself to tick the route. A prime example of this is Dani Andrada on “La Rambla” (9a+). He has been trying the route for 15 years and has failed on the penultimate moves endless numbers of times! It might be now that he has developed a mental block on this route due to too much pressure - it will be a very hard wall to push through with 15 years of pressure built in front of him. But imagine the feeling of triumph the day he clips those chains!!!

SUCCESS!!!

Even after a rest day he has built the route into more of an issue than it needs to be and he ends up having a terrible first attempt. This is probably partly due to the fact that he has had a rest day and might be a little rusty on the climb – it is definitely worth warming yourself up a but by dogging the climb and brushing all the holds before your attempt. At least then you are reminding yourself of the moves and giving yourself the best chance at succeeding by brushing the holds and warming up specifically.

Some special tricks I have learned to reduce anxiety for redpoint attempts are:

• Listening to relaxing music
• Visualisation
• Positive Reinforcement

The three above all tie together. Usually I have a playlist of my favourite chill tunes that always get my relaxed and in a flowing state of mind. During my chill out period, I will be visualising the sequence both from an inner and outer view point as well as reinforcing my belief in myself as an individual climber and not as someone who is affected by outside influences such as peers, competitors or spectators.

This won’t work for everybody, but it works for me. Unfortunately it will be up to you to find out what works best, but it is worth experimenting with a few different things until you get one that sticks...

As a climbing coach I am covering the dillema of fear with climbers of all ages and abilities basically every day of the week. There is too much out there to put into one small blog, but at least I can make a start at it.

Falling

The biggest barrier I have found facing 95% of the climbers I coach is the fear of falling. For everyone the challenge to overcome is slightly different, as are the symptoms it causes and the level to which it affects them. In every single example however, fear is holdin them back from achieving their potential...

A fear of falling is something that isn't unnatural to us. In fact, it's very much a natural reaction of our minds to escape the inevitable outcome of death (or pain) when falling from a great height. The difference however, is that if we are attached to a rope, the risks are greatly reduced irrespective of whether the route is a sport climb or traditional. For the purposes of this blog, I am going to be focussing purely on sport or indoor climbing, because that is the area that most of my clients have issues with.

Why then do we struggle to overcome our fears when the risks are lowered to such a degree that really, there is little or no risks involved? This is a question I have been asking myself for years and still have yet to come up with a true solution - the best work I have done towards helping climbers overcome their fears is simply through a lot of personal involvement in their climbing, trying to make them more confident climbers in general.

Climber A has been climbing only for a short while but is improving at a steady and positive rate. He can push himself on top rope fairly hard and even on something as steep as a cave or roof (if it's high), but when it comes to something only slightly overhung or vertical/slab, there is the fear again!

Climber B has been climbing for a fairly long time but goes through phases of being comfortable to push his limits and other times when he just stops and can't go any further...

Climber C is a very accomplished climber who has a long history of developing her climbing for high-end performances on rock, but struggles to push harder on terrain that she has not already climbed on top rope a number of times. And even when she has done this, she might still struggle to push it on lead until she has made it high on the route at least a couple of times on lead before shouting "Take!".

These examples are real-life people I coach or have worked with in the past (they will know who they are if they are reading this).

In each example, there is the element of fear that crops up that is holding them back from pushing themselves when they really need it - so how do they overcome this? 

Less steep lead climbingClimber A needs to spend more time on less steep walls - initially dropping the grade they climb and just leading on routes at that angle with a lot of success and no falling. Eventually, introducing a bit more challenge to the sessions by trying something harder is required. When you begin this, it will be a good idea to also start practicing lead falls on the same bit of wall with someone you trust to belay you. Start of taking small repetetive falls with your harness at the clip until you can take bigger falls with your hips just above the clip. Continue like this 2-3 days a week for around a month and you will see big gains in confidence! It's important not to let yourself slip back into fear though, keep up with the fall practice and start attempting routes at a harder level again until you feel that you are capable of pushing it on hard onsights with little fear holding you back... Climber A is going to have average progression as he has only just started climbing.

Climber B is half-way there. He has already shown improvements in his ability to deal with the fear, but it is still holding him back. He needs to keep battling it out and not lose focus of what is most likely the biggest factor holding back his lead climbing performance. Remember that although there may be other aspects of your climbing performance that need work on, your fear of falling is actually driving them back as well whenver you tie onto a rope with the intention of leading something. You climb worse, you over grip, your technique turns to crap, etc... If you are confident and free to give a lead your all, you will improve every other aspect of your climbing for lead so much faster!

Climber C has got stuck in the rut that so many climbers get into. She has been in Taking the Lead Fall!this place for a long time now and has no doubt developed her climbing style, tactics and goals based around her fear of falling. For her it is going to be more difficult than anyonelse to overcome and it comes back to the age old question of, "Do you really want to overcome it?". Is it holding her back from what she wants to achieve or is it something that she can get by with forever. In the end of the day, climbing in a way that reduces the chance at failure during a lead climb AKA "A fall", is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does seriously slow down progress and the development of good technique and style. In my opinion, all effort should be bent towards overcoming this over everything else if you find yourself in this situation, because if you do overcome it, you will get so much more enjoyment out of your climbing!

Falling is something everyone eventually is challenged by. It might be the fear of:

• Hurting Yourself
• Being dropped by belayer
• Mistrust in Equipment
• The actual sensation of falling
• The unknown... (The actual fall itself is fine but the moments before are agony)

Whatever it is, you will most likely encounter it at some point in your climbing career, the important thing to remember is not to let it take advantage of you or latch onto you for too long otherwise it can soon become a metaphorical 100kg weight pulling you off the wall! 

A recent 8a.nu forum post described the notion that if most 7a climbers climbed with the white hot intensity and fearless confidence of that of a 9a climber, then they would be hitting the 8a mark pretty soon... This isn't a rule nor is it necessarily true of everybody, but I can tell you this... I have yet to coach one person so far who I think couldn't improve their grade at least by a couple of grades with more confidence and ferlessness on the wall... 

Injury is something I have both little and lots of experience with. Throughout my career as a climber and coach, I have been surrounded by injuries, but I have yet to experience the real horror that is being injured to the point of complete shut down.

Injuries in the Blogosphere

Nat wrote an amazing blog on her experiences with injury that touched both myself and many others around the world. It told of her life of training and competing on the Youth European and World circuit whilst dealing with repetitive injuries in her fingers and abdominals.

Much more recently, Mr Macleod himself has been writing some interesting blogs on his currently unfortunate predicament – one which was suffered not due to the commonly caused over-training, but by accident, a mistake really, by falling off the end of his rope lowering from a warm up route.

My friend and boss at EICA, Nic Crawshaw relates to Dave’s predicament with a funny story in which he was lowered off the end of the rope whilst climbing at Cascade sector in Ceuse. Anyone who has climbed there knows what it’s like being lowered over the edge of the main sector – it’s a little hard to judge with the ground being a further 5-10m lower than the point where you climb and belay from. The funny side of the story being the bit where he described crawling back to the campsite to get an ambulance as he couldn’t afford Mountain Rescue having taken out no Insurance! This always makes me think twice…

And finally, what has made me think more clearly about injuries is the very sad and thought provoking blogs of Ailsa Graham, an English lass who started her first blogs and quickly made a very powerful message amongst young climbers out there which was – A tweek might take 6 weeks to recover, 6 weeks might feel like forever, but it doesn’t feel nearly as long as a fully blown rupture when you’ve pushed despite the pain. Listen to your body!

My Life of Injury 

I have yet to suffer something as terrible as what those above are experiencing now. When I first started climbing at 15 I would climb everyday god gave me. I remember being told to stop and rest but like a stupid little kid I just kept pulling until one day I felt a pain in my back… This knocked 3 weeks off climbing, 3 weeks that still I remember feeling like the longest time on earth, but I recovered and have not felt a pain quite like it since…

During my higher exams I remember feeling a slight twinge in my finger – it hurt whilst writing more than climbing, but after a couple of weeks, it was fine…

Last year during a period of very intense finger strength training I noticed a pain once again in my fingers. I was lucky enough to be hitting rock within a couple of weeks of feeling the pain knowing full well that the release of high intensity training would do it good, a couple of weeks of peak training and 4 weeks on rock – I haven’t felt a pain since…

Now, as any of you who follow my blog will know, I have a gammy knee… This isn’t the worst possible injury I could have but it does affect me and my training. First of all, it is painful just to walk on… Secondly, I can’t climb using my right leg without experiencing pain and I certainly don’t want to make it worse so I am avoiding using it in any way that is going to cause aggravation to the damaged ligament.

Frankly, I am incredibly lucky to have had such an amazing run in my climbing career so far without so much injury. I do think that I am incredibly careful with the way I train and have always prepared my body for the excess training and stress I put it under.

Emotional Injury 

Reading Ailsa’s blog, she is incredibly brave to write about her injuries in such an emotive way. To be honest, when I first read her blog I was both saddened by it and slightly put off, simply because of the intense emotional element to the writing. Obviously she is in a great deal of pain both physically and emotionally.

Since reading her blog however, I have been thinking more seriously about the implications of serious injury and how it would affect someone whose life revolves around a sport. Personally, I don’t know how I would react if I had such injuries that stopped me from climbing fullstop… I hope that it would be easier coupled with the fact that I have a strong connection with climbing more than just the physical aspect i.e. my entire social life is based in climbing as is my work.

Me socialising at the crag with fellow... errrrr... climbers?

With Ailsa, she is still very much involved in climbing to a great deal which I think is fantastic and also shows her passion for the sport – it also identifies strongly that climbing is a lifestyle and not simply a hobby for most of it’s partakers.

A Message to Climbers 

In the ending paragraphs of Ailsa’s blog she quotes Edward Whymper, the first ascenionist of the Matterhorn and also a celebrated author and illustrator:

“Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.”

Scrambles Amongst the Alps

As someone who strives for excellence and improvement daily, this quote hit me hard. Remembering the fact that knowledge of what you are doing and why you are doing it forms the base of effective training, forgetting this is the first step to failing at what we are striving for and risks far more than not achieving. We climb because we love it, that’s how we started and it never leaves us. Never forget that whilst you may lose sight of it for a moment, climbing is something that enriches your life not through achieving, but simply through doing. When the endeavour for success makes you forget why you started and forces you in haste to take risks and badly placed steps, try and remember the beginning… think what may be the end…

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!

People often ask me how to go about mixing your working life with the training plan. Is it possible to work full-time and continue to see improvements in your climbing through training? The answer is Yes, but it's certainly no easy task. It requires:

• Organisation
• Dedication
• Motivation
• Recucitation (On occasion)

I have coached and provided training programs for a lot of climbers who have busy work schedules. To say that you have to sacrifice one for the other is crazy, but to make it work you may have to make a few scarifices on both ends.

A Rig Life

A good example of someone who has made sacrifices is Phil Jack (a good friend and follower of one of my programs). He works off-shore 2 weeks on and then has 2 weeks off. 

This (as you can imagine) eats massively into the amount of time he has available to climb and train. The other issue being that when he gets back after 2 weeks of hard work on the rigs, he is pretty tired and requires a good few days to recover first. 

Despite this, he has equipped himself with a decent fingerboard and a plan to follow that he completes everyday he's on the rigs because he knows that his time spent training will go to good use when he hits the rock.

Phil's sacrifices for training are largely time based - he gets up extra early in the morning to make sure he can get a fingerboard session in before work as well as putting any extra time available during the day to good use.

I think that out of all the work shcedules I know off, none can be as hard on training as what Phil does seeing as how physcially and mentally draining his work on the rigs actually is. It's not just a 9-5 job either, as long as he is on the rig he isn't going to be getting the best recovery he could get because he simply isn't at home, in his own bed, eating his own food. Not to mention the hours he works are long and hard!

Thankfully most of us aren't in the same situtation as Phil. 9-5 jobs are a lot easier to work with, but many people still struggle balancing their climbing with their work/social lives. I am lucky as the two coincide together, but even I find it increasingly hard to find the time I need to train. 

9-5

For those working something along the lines of a 9-5, you need to figure out your weekly work pattern (if you can get it in advance) and plan out what days of the week you can climb/train.

Your training schedule has to fit in around your work and social life initially, then any sacrifices you are willing to make can come afterwards one bit at a time. It's not worth it to make something that is so radically packed with hard training and volume that you can't possibly fit it into your lifestyle - you just won't do it then...

That's a lot of training!

Realistically, this is the length of time you are looking at for a good session in each training area:

• Fingerboard (30mins if added to a boulder session - 1 hour if on its own)
• Bouldering (1.5 Hours)
• Anaerobic Endurance Sessions on Circuits (1.5 hours)
• Anaerobic Endurance Sessions on Routes (2.5 hours)
• Any Aerobic Endurance Sessions (1.5 - 2.5 hours if on boulder or routes respectively)

A fingerboard session can be done before work, during a lunch break (as long as you get enough time and have access to a fingerboard) and easily in the evening straight after work or at anytime that suits.

Bouldering is quick and easy and can be done after work with relatively little hassle.

Anaerobic Endurance Sessions on a circuit board (bouldering wall) can easily be done after work in relatively quick time, however a route session will take at least an hour longer to get the same quantity done providing you have to belay your partner too.

Aerobic Endurance Sessions on a board are quick and painless but a route version of this can take anywhere from 2.5 to 4 hours depending on the type of session. Lapping routes just take a lot of time, especially when you have to belay your partner on another set after your own!

Squeeze in the Training

If it's impossible to get in that extra session at the wall, then it might be a good idea to invest in a handy home training setup? With something to do at home you will save a lot of time. A fingerboard or set of rock rings could be a good option? I use the Beastmaker Fingerboard and Crusher Rock Rings (for when I'm travelling and warming up at the crag). Because they are both made out of wood it is a lot friendlier on your skin.

There is also the issue for those who can't drill into the wall to set their fingerboard up. In this case it would be an idea to look into something like this for your fingerboard! 

With this fingerboard mount you don't actually have to drill anything to the wall and it can easily be taken down after training in a few seconds. There is also the ability to hang a pulley system of the bar in the middle as well!

Many climbers I coach (mostly youth climbers) now have their own woodies in their house to train on. For a lot of the kids, they're busy school lives and other commitments means they can't train at the wall four days a week, so their parents have built them their own walls! Edinburgh now has a fleet of Malcolm Smith wannabies :P There is a replica of "Splinter" in every comp climbers household from here to Inverness!

Motivation

You can't train like this without the proper motivation. Climbers that benefit from the household training scheme have to be motivated enough to put in the hours on a weekly basis and see it through to the end. Thats why you have to have goals (Check out my UKC article)!

Recucitation :P

Training is hard work. Work is hard work. Together it's a lot of hard work. At the beginning you might find it impossible to do both together, but if you start of adding a little bit at a time, slowly you will become more used to the training and you should find it easier.

Scott Keir doing a session on his fingerboard (behind is his home woody)

When I started training before work I found it impossible! After a month of doing it I was in a routine that worked well for me and I saw noticeable gains in my performance. I then went on a climbing trip, came back and was back to square one, training in the morning felt really really hard! But guess what, after only a week of getting back into it I was into my old routine and feeling the gains after every session :D

My Advice

If you want to climb harder you have to put the hours in. A couple of extra hours a week (if you aren't already a professional climber) is usually all it takes to see some big gains. Experiment with some morning/lunchtime sessions or look into a home training setup and you might be pleasantly surprised with how you can squeeze in an extra bit of training to your weekly routine.

A little extra is better than none in most cases...

You will often hear climbers/coaches going on and on about the importance of good footwork, but to be frank, I don't think many of them actually know why it's important and what good footwork actually looks like...

 Heel-Toe on a lip - I'll need to position my foot perfectly to rock up onto the lip

Good footwork doesn't mean that your feet never pop off, nor does it mean you will have imaculate climbing shoes with no holes for the rest of your life, and it definitely does NOT mean you don't make a sound when you climb :P

When you first start climbing, your footwork is the first thing you learn to improve. The instructor will say:

"Try not to make a sound when you place your feet"

"Take a few seconds to place each foot before you let it touch the hold"

Although these are great to think about when you are a beginner, there comes a time when it simply becomes inefficient to climb like this and realistically, your ability isn't governed by how quiet you can be. You certainly don't see Adam Ondra moving slowly up the wall taking extra care on every foot placement. That's because it is inefficient and he has learned foot techniques that are far beyond what we learn as beginner climbers. 

Fast Foot (Not Food!)

The placing of your foot is imperative to the efficiency of your technique. A precicely placed foot will mean maximum range of movement throughout your leg from the pivoting ability of your foot which in turn gives your whole body more range of movement. As a beginner you learn to place your feet accurately, so as you progress as a climber, you now need to learn how to accurately place your feet quicker so you save more energy.

"Speed is a fundamental skill necessary for top performances!"

If you can learn to accurately place feet quickly and precisely, then you could increase efficiency of your climbing multiple times! The best way to learn this is simply to practice during your warm up moving quicker whilst have to place your feet on smaller footholds. You can also include practice on this whilst trying hard routes and boulders but by focussing on moving quicker for maximum efficiency.

On the Pull...

As a beginner we learn how to place our feet then push, but rarely do we think that they can do any more than this... Why then are performance climbing shoes downturned by nature? This is to allow them to act like Talons, to hook and grab at a foothold to allow us to pull in on them as well as push for better grip and manoeverability. 

Pulling down on the toes takes weight of your arms and can provide force for powerful moves

If you can learn to pull with your feet, you can shift your centre of gravity inwards and even take massive amounts of weight off your arms! Pulling with your toes can allow you to move in several different ways:

• On a severe overhang you can bring your body closer to the wall for maximising reach to the next handhold.

• Whilst turning a lip, pulling with your feet will allow you to shift your centre of gravity over your toe and thus allow you to more easily make the move.

• Whilst moving side-ways to a hold, pulling with a toe can aid in the rock-over by pulling you towards the handhold you are aiming for.

• On any wall, whilst moving upwards, pulling in on the toe can aid in making a deadpoint by giving you a split second longer to make the move.

• During a dynamic move, pulling in on the toe can allow you to increase your maximum dynamic force before converting your pulling force (through the feet) to a pushing force for the dyno.

 On "Mescalito" (7c+) at Malham I am using my left toe to pull my body weight in for the rock over

"A foot is for life, not just for Christmas..."

You can imagine what a climber might say to this:  

"Increased muscle recovery after sessions as well as weight loss! JACKPOT!!!"  

BCAA Molecule with Branched chains that aid in the buildup of muscle tissue Well I really only started looking into them recently for use with my own training and it was only a couple of years ago in Spain that I first came across them being used. Two friends of mine, Ross Kirkland and Alex Barrows were supplementing their daily food intake with them, both for different reasons. Ross was eager to bulk up (having often been mistaken for a large stick insect whilst climbing) whereas Alex I assume was mainly using it for recovery methods.

After doing my own research, I read some very interesting studies concluding some outstanding results that, if true, could be the miracle supplement climbers around the world have been waiting for.  However, what I have learned when reading studies is to check (when possible) where funding or research is conducted. For example, if it's research being financed and controlled by the company hoping to sell the product, don't be surprised when life-changing results pop out of nowhere.  

NEWSFLASH!!! "BUY BCAA'S FROM US INC" HAVE JUST RELEASED A PRESS STATEMENT SAYING THAT ONDRA, SHARMA, ODDO AND DIGIULIAN HAVE BEEN TAKING BCAA SUPPLEMENTS TWICE A DAY FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS GIVING THEM INCREASED ENDURANCE, STRENGTH AND POWER!!! PURCHASE THEM IN 10,000 PCS BULK ORDER NOW (INC FREE SHIPPING)  

Do they improve recovery?  

Well all the literature certainly suggests it does improve recovery. Studies have proven that increasing consumption of BCAA's (in particular Leucine) can make muscles grow faster...

How you ask?

Well as we all know, our bodies require protein in order to successfully repair our muscle fibres after a hard workout. This protein can come from our natural diets or through a more concentrated form such as a protein shake. Protein is only the beginning though, as it's really the Amino Acids, the building blocks of protein, that are important to us. In particular, BCAA's, as they are the main Amino Acids involved in protein synthesis (the construction of protein and hence our muscles).  

These BCAA's are called Leucine, Isoleucine and Valine. In particular, Leucine has proven its effectiveness at stimulating muscle cells to put more energy into repairing the muscle after a strenuous workout.  

Although no conclusive evidence is really out there, the majority of studies do agree that BCAA supplementation does improve recovery and thus will give an added boost to performance over the period of a training cycle.  

My Experience:  

"Since I started taking BCAA's, I haven't noticed a wild increase in recovery rate, but that might be because I do take a protein shake (Cookie's + Cream Flavour) before/during/after training to aid in my general protein consumption throughout the day. Also depending on how I feel, if I would rather have something tastier than a protein shake , I use Stoats Recovery bars after training instead. So I do get a good supply of Amino Acids into my diet, whether or not the extra BCAA's make a difference is arguable. One study I read suggests that it is worth it to supplement with extra BCAA's, so I think I will continue to use them for another month or two and then test the water without them to see if there are any noticeable differences."      

Can BCAA's help you lose weight? 

There are also a number of studies (and big companies) preaching that BCAA's can help you lose weight. Recently, researchers discovered that the BCAA Leucine actually increases your body's metabolic rate as well as lowering the athlete's general hunger throughout the day. With this in mind, supplementing with BCAA's might prevent you from snacking unnecessarily at times?  

Isoleucine (after a Japanese study looked into it) was found to have some effect on sensors in the muscles and liver that then induce a reaction in cells to absorb and burn more fatty acids. Isoleucine like Leucine is also known to increase the metabolism.  

My Experience:  

"Interestingly, like what many athletes have confirmed, I have also noticed a loss in body fat as well as losing weight since starting them. I don't think it's a coincidence either, I have been 75-76kg on average for the last 3 weeks and the last time I remember being under 77kg was when I was 18 (4 years ago). I haven't changed my diet apart from adding BCAA's to my morning breakfast and after training."

Can BCAA's make training easier?  

During training, the body will use amino acids (as well as fat and carbohydrates) as a source of energy. It will take the most easily accessible forms of amino acids first, which are in fact BCAA's thanks to their molecular structure including handy attachable branches for cells to grasp onto. Unfortunately, thanks to a decrease in the BCAA's in the bloodstream, another well-known Amino Acid called L-tryptophan is absorbed by the brain cells in excess and converted into the well known neurotransmitter, Serotonin (the drowsy pill). This then causes us to become tired and fatigued (a common experience after a hard session at the wall/gym).  

This can be avoided however. With a higher concentration of BCAA's in the bloodstream, L-tryptophan won't get absorbed as much by the brain and in it's place BCAA's will be used. This then lowers the production of Serotonin in the brain and thus we won't become as tired after training.          

At the moment my daily supplement intake includes 6xBCAA tablets (3 in the morning and 3 after training) as well as two whey protein shakes (each with two 50g scoops). If I don't have a shake after training, I will have the much tastier option of a Stoats Recovery Bar. For the amount of training I put in on a weekly basis, it is important that I get the best from my recovery. For adults who train their bodies a lot, it might be an idea to think about either adjusting your diet to increase protein intake or include some supplementation. For after training, it's also important to include some carbs to the equation for replenishment of Glycogen levels which stimulate better recovery as well. For this, either a sports drink, piece of fruit, or something sweet can be enough.       

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