Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff
At some point we strayed a little too far from the path. Climbing used to be simpler. If you wanted to get better, you climbed more. Sure, you occasionally did pull ups, hung on the hangboard, and when your elbows started feeling tweaky, you’d do some push-ups. Training wasn’t cool, Chris Sharma didn’t “train”, so why would you need to train. Then, all of sudden, training became cool, seemingly cooler than climbing. Nowadays it seems like everyone is sacrificing their climbing time for training time. Instead of training to push their grade higher, people are training to increase their max weighted hang, pull up, and block pull. Losing sight of what makes climbing special, the movement and skills that allow you to gracefully walk up the wall. Now I want to make it clear, I am NOT anti-training, I think it is very valuable. I just think that on the spectrum of all climbing no training, to all training no climbing, the pendulum has swung a little too far to the all training no climbing side of things.
Training is cool, it’s all over social media and you can’t set foot in a gym without someone telling you about their weighted pull up or max hang routine. It is cool to see how much people value improving and climbing harder, but when does it become too much? Here are some tips and tricks for funneling out some of the noise when it comes to the training hype.
Prioritize on the wall time. Climbing is physical yes, but the movement skills are paramount to climbing success. When we climb on the wall we engage physically and mentally, both the physical and mental output is high, and that is how we adapt the skills of moving, by practicing the movement. When we hangboard or do a pull up, we engage physically, often times with far greater loads than we will ever see on a wall; but skill wise, we are doing much, compared to climbing, a single pull up or a dead hang is similar to comparing a single celled organism to an orangutan. Since climbing is skill based, prioritize your climbing session and do them first, then lift and do supplementary work outs after.
Stick with it, it seems like there is a new training plan on social media every other week. It is easy to get distracted and think you must do the new flashy shiny thing. You don’t need to. Pick a couple of things you think might work for you and stick with them for 4-6 weeks. Assess your results, and then modify your plan.
You don’t need the latest gadget, hangboard, commercial board, or app. You can gain immense amounts of finger strength without ever touching a hangboard. You can improve your pulling power without ever doing a pull up. Sure, these tools can be more efficient and easier to track progress on, but don’t let these things distract you from climbing. I’m not saying to never hangboard or do a pull up, just make sure you are climbing. Don’t sacrifice climbing time for hangboard or pull up time. The goal should be to climb harder, not to hangboard or do pull ups harder. If your goal is to climb harder, climb on harder climbs, it’s pretty simple. Side note, your body doesn’t know if that climb is a V4 or V14, as long as you are trying hard, you are improving. Don’t avoid the “easy” climbs that give you a hard time!
Stop comparing your strength metrics to others! In recent history metrics have become wildly more popular than climbing. Who cares about what grade you can climb, when your strength is scientifically “proven” to climb 6 grades harder. You did that V7? Well according to my finger strength I can pull V12, despite having only climbed V5. People think strength is a magic pill, if I could just do a one arm pull up, if I could just one arm hang the 20mm, then I could climb XYZ. The only person worth comparing strength metrics to is yourself. Test, train, retest, simple as that. For every 1 person climbing V10 with V6 finger and arm strength, there is an exponentially increasing number of climbers with v10 finger strength who have never climbed V6.
Rest isn’t good, it’s the best. Our bodies need to rest to heal. It’s okay to take a rest day, or days, or week, or weeks! You will get it back. You don’t need to be doing something crazy every day, and those active rest days? It is okay to just relax and not do anything. We will feel better and get stronger with proper rest.
Climbing is dangerous, it involves inherent and other risks and cannot be eliminated. The information presented here does not describe all of the risks associated with climbing and is not intended to replace or supersede expert instruction and training.
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