By Steve Bechtel
One of the hallmarks of a developing sport like rock climbing is the quest to optimize training for the sport. We look at how we fail to execute the tasks of the sport and then try to reduce the occurrence of those failures. We start with the simplest level of thinking first: If I have a hard time pulling on small holds, I build a replica of those holds and pull. If I get sweaty and breathe hard, I do more of whatever makes that happen in training, regardless of mode. In effective preparation for sport, though, we slide along the continuum between simply exercising, general training, specific training, and simulation, all in an attempt to make high performance less taxing and more frequent.
Early on in my career, I remember trying to do a climb that had a hard section of sloping sidepulls. I tried it just as the season was shutting down, and in order to be prepared for it next year, I thought doing dumbbell chest flies—back flat on a bench and moving the arms down to the sides and then up (imagine clashing two cymbals together)—would be good preparation. As silly as it seems, I hadn’t quite thought through how movement specificity works, nor how specific movements cause improvement in the chain of muscles involved. It wasn’t the chest muscles’ ability to contract that was limiting me, but the whole of the movement from my midsection to my fingertips.
It turned out that when I got back to the route, I felt no better prepared than I had the previous season. Was I wrong to train off-season? What did I need to do differently? Should I have built a replica in my parent’s garage?
I remember, too, how the campus board became the weapon of choice for a few years and then our years of climbing on a fixed 50 degree board and not quite getting why it wasn’t perfect training for the technical limestone projects near home. Each session was leaving my fingers sore, my muscles tired…so what wasn’t happening?
We sought influence from anywhere: runners, skiers, weightlifters… and eventually found sports better to learn from, like wrestling and dance and martial arts. We were not skeptics, we were scientists. And the greatest leaders in preparation for hard climbing today remain so. Stepping back and trying things that are not the accepted norm in training might not help me, but it can help all of us understand the whole process of training for climbing just that much better.
What if it’s not the details so much as the principles that matter?
There is a trap in climbing training these days, and that trap is called “evidence based” training. For a person in this trap, every part of their training has to be proven and written up in a peer-reviewed journal. If they are looking to get stronger fingers for climbing, they’re going to have to stick to the protocols suggested by just a handful of studies.
Building strength for climbing? They have to follow only protocols in “the research.” But the greatest athletes, artists, and thinkers know that even with all the research in the world, practice can’t wait for the lab results.
Louie Simmons never built a double-blind study of untrained college males to compare the effectiveness of two different squat protocols. He took the strongest powerlifters in the world, played with different ideas, and developed the Westside Barbell Conjugate Method. He had no degree. No research funding. Just a gym in Ohio and the knowledge of what elite performance looked like. Then, the scientists tried to figure out what was happening.
What does elite performance look like? Performing better than average for longer than average.
How do I know if my training is producing the desired results? I have to start with what those results truly are. And that is where we get to values.
Valuing Performance
I think that many people want to have performed. That, or they would like the recognition of attaining a certain level of performance, such as a send of a soft route, high performance in preparatory activities such as strength training or Moon Boarding, or flat out lying about sending. At this point it is no longer about wanting to do a thing, but rather to be seen by others as a person who does a thing.
Do you want to be a climber that did ________, or do you want to be the kind of climber who can do _________? We can’t allow ourselves to climb for recognition. We have to seek ability. This is the trap of long-term projecting. It’s the trap of “cusp” grades. A quick search of the 1000th or so ranked climbers on 8a will show you a badly imbalanced logbook, with grades like 12a or 13a emphasized, but with a desperately low volume of redpoints. As you get closer to the world’s top performers, you’ll see a huge volume of routes and boulders supporting their top sends. The question is this: Were they handed these sends because they are elite, or are they elite because they get after it and do a lot of climbing?
Aiming toward consistent performance is the key. It’s not uncommon at all to meet a climber who only feels “in shape” a couple of weeks a year. This is an error in preparation and in expectation. To perform at our best, we need to quit over-focusing on physical preparation as much, and remember that this is just one factor among many that we need to monitor. Are our tactics and preparation up to par? What goes through our minds when we’re on the rock? Is fear a limiting factor, or nervousness, or distraction? How well do we move? What about economy?
When a climber gets “good enough” at these factors and a handful more, that climber is going to be able to send near their limit. They need not top out any specific value, but they also must not let one fall way behind. We see this play out all the time: the climber who can toprope 5.13 but is a totally different animal on lead. The one who warms up badly and wrecks the day. The incredibly strong boulderer who has no ability to loosen up and recover on routes.
So how do we know what to do?
As Richard Feynman quipped, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
- Watch video of yourself climbing. If you just can’t stand to do that, well, there’s a red flag right there.
- Ask a friend what they see in your climbing.
- Look at performance across different rock types, problem styles, and movements. I, myself, tend to like steeper routes with bigger holds than lower-angled routes without. It’s a liability.
- If you consider yourself a boulderer but have vague aspirations of longer climbs, go get on some routes sooner than later. Or vice versa.
- If you’re just not strong enough yet (in your mind), you might just try leaving the training area of the gym completely for a couple of months and just go climbing.
Performance is a moving target. It’s more than just being strong. It’s more than “just climbing more.” It’s stepping back more often than you’d like and looking at the big picture of “am I doing this right?” As Mark Twain reminds us, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” If you’re just sure you’re doing everything right, you’re in trouble.
Hold Fast,
Steve
ABOUT STEVE BECHTEL
Steve is the founder of Climb Strong, and is proud to be the worst coach on the Climb Strong team. A climber for nearly 40 years, he has traveled to globe bouldering, sport climbing, and doing first ascents of some of the world's biggest walls.
He is co-owner of Elemental Performance + Fitness, and is the author of several books on training for climbing. He lives in Lander, Wyoming, with his wife Ellen, children Sam and Anabel, who are closing in on the $100 pull-up challenge.