By Ken Klein
Coaching youth climbers is the most rewarding work I have done in my life. It just so happens that it may also be the most exhausting as well. When I started coaching Team Whetstone in Fort Collins, Colorado, there were 17 kids on the team. When I left that count had jumped to 46. That gave me 46 opportunities three times a week to instruct, to guide in both climbing and life, and to show up and be consistent in my coaching and enthusiasm for the sport.
46 opportunities to be their friend if they were made fun of at school or to be a drill sergeant when they were screwing off and not paying attention. What I got in return is way too much to list. When you are in charge of 46 climbers ranging from just starting out to being able to send three double digit boulders in a session, you learn and you learn quickly. I also acquired the skill to take what these kids taught me and apply it to the climber who has been in the game for twice as long as these kids have been alive. Below is a list of things that really stand out to me and I want you to consider how each of them play a role in your own climbing.
1. Write it down
I learned early in my youth coaching career that the single easiest way to get the kids to focus and get the most out of a climbing session was to hand them a piece of paper. I tested this out several different times, running the exact same workout on consecutive Mondays, the first without paper, the second with. The results weren’t even comparable. The level of engagement that follows when the climber knows they have to document what they are doing and how well they are doing it can be profound.
Documentation on what really happened is also important because our minds often don’t remember the details. At the beginning of my most recent trip to Lander, I was quite bummed during the first few climbing days because I just didn’t feel like I had hoped I would. My mind kept going back to, “gosh, last trip up here you felt amazing right from the get go.” It wasn’t until I went back through my notes that I saw that wasn’t the case at all. The first few days of that trip were rough too.
If you are not keeping notes on your climbing and training sessions somewhere, I would argue you are missing out on one of the easiest and most effective things to do that will aid in your progression.
Not sure where to begin?
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2. Have Confidence
We know it when we see it, and definitely feel it when we ain’t got it. No amount of climbing or training will make all that much of a difference if you simply do not have confidence in yourself and your abilities.
Here’s a story of two youth comp climbers.
Youth kid #1 is just straight up good! An amazing climber and one you often find yourself saying, “wow.” Their footwork is impeccable, they move well on all types of terrain. Their route climbing is spot on: perfect clipping stances, good flow and pacing, proper breathing and a lead head so solid that most climbers would pay big money for it. They come in and never miss a workout, are engaged during their sessions and work their butts off. But this is all at practice. Come game time (whatever your game time is— in this case competition) this climber performs far below their capabilities. Why? There is no self-confidence. Even with all of these things going for this climber, they still just don’t believe in themselves.
Then there is youth kid #2 who is a fairly decent climber. For the most part they know what they are doing on the wall but to say they have “mastered” climbing
would be a far stretch. They are strong, but sometimes use this to their disadvantage and being a little weaker would potentially make them a better climber. Their route climbing has
a ton of gaps: they over-grip, clip in
all the wrong spots and their feet cut when they should stay on. Sometimes their head is in practice, sometimes not. They sometimes work hard, but not the way youth kid #1 does.
But here’s the thing with youth kid #2, they have unrelenting confidence in themselves. They are what I would call a “gamer” and the bigger the occasion, the more confidence that is required, the more they shine. Whether we would be climbing inside, outside or are at a competition, youth kid #2 is going to outperform youth kid #1 every single time.
Ask yourself how much self confidence you really have. If the answer is "little to none," I would suggest moving this to the top of the list of things to work on. This change won’t happen overnight but we are in an age where professional resources are available if need be. Having a 60 minute conversation with someone like Alex Bridgewater, who specializes in the mental side of sport performance, may be more beneficial than a year's worth of hangboarding if you are self conscious about your climbing and abilities.
3. Attitude
Simply put:
Great attitude=great results.
Good attitude=good results.
Poor attitude=poor results.
The most important thing to remember about attitude is it’s one of the few things we have 100% control over. At practice and competitions I would remind the kids to focus on three things all of which we have total control over. These were their actions, their effort level and most importantly, their attitude. Our attitude tells the world what we expect in return. I feel most climbers don’t even think about their attitudes and therefore they let it be determined by the external environment. If the stimuli they are receiving is generally good then their attitude for the most part is ok.
Flip it around, however, and we then have a problem. If a team kid had a poor attitude about learning and in practice we were trying to teach them how to toe hook, this climber would not acquire the skill. Not because they couldn’t physically do it, but simply because they had a poor attitude when it comes to learning new things. The kids that continued to progress at a rapid rate were no smarter or more talented than the others but they simply had the right attitude. We can alter our climbing by altering our attitudes. How do we do this? Just like anything else, PRACTICE!
4. Try Hard
Like confidence, this attribute can either make or break you. Over my youth coaching career there was at least one athlete that always made Nationals in both bouldering and sport climbing. I have known this kid since he was 8 years old when he first joined the club team and then fast tracked his way to the competitive team. That was in 2016. Since then I have seen him warm up for practice, climb at practice, warm up for comps, climb at comps, climb outside, warm up and climb on his own, you name it.
I can say this with the utmost honesty, I have literally never, NOT ONCE, seen this kid drop off a boulder or climb, regardless of difficulty. He will fall off, but he will absolutely NOT quit, or drop off. This kid climbs at a very high level and, if during a flash challenge he is on a grade he usually does with ease but is struggling, he drops into this mode of “it-absolutely-matters-that-I-send-this-thing-right-now.” In these situations most climbers quit, drop off and simply move on to something different. Not him, he will be up there violently shaking as if this was boulder #4 in the final round at nationals.
Why is this important? Because trying hard is something that takes time to cultivate and if you think you can just “turn it on” when you need to, you’re just plain wrong. This kid has been doing it consistently since 2016 and it’s just now a part of him. How long have you been practicing it? (thinking of adding this because I can already hear it -And I can already hear some of you saying, “well it’s sometimes advantageous to drop off or I don’t want to get flashed pumped” or any of the other 100 excuses you have for not giving it your all. If that’s where your mind goes you’re completely missing the whole point here and it also tells me that I struck a chord and that you probably need to hear this over everything else.
5. Thinking outside the box:
If there is one thing that just makes me cringe in youth climbing, it is the coach who is out on the mats just spoon feeding beta to the kids and thinks they’re great for it. “Show them where to look, but not what to see” has always been a philosophy of mine when it comes to giving beta. But after a while I began to question if I should even be taking it this far? The reason being these youth climbers aren’t set in old, outdated patterns of thinking and behaving. Where adults see one way of doing something, they see six.
We see this all the time in world cups where the setters are confident there may only be one, maybe two, ways through a section and then the boulder is done with methods that were nowhere near what they envisioned. I sometimes think shorter climbers are just better because they know they aren’t going to use the 5’11” dudes beta so right from the get go they are looking at the climb differently. In an age where you can pull up seven different videos of the climb you're about to attempt and watch the beta over and over we have to ask where the growth is in this?
6. Volume
This is a tricky one because I feel that most youth kids are probably climbing way too much. It warms my heart to see quality coaches and programs out there that understand the role of strength training, mobility work and things like mental training as part of the practice schedule for the simple fact that it gets the kids off the wall for a bit. Climbing is fun, kids like to have fun, so this is something that just needs to be constantly monitored. However, the reason I have it on this list is these kids have spent so much time climbing they can go for days.
I get that they are young and recover quickly, but if you (as an adult) go to the gym on Tuesdays and Thursdays and climb for two hours straight on each day you are simply going to tank on your week long trip to Red Rocks. Time is precious and if it’s an issue you need to carefully examine what you are doing in the gym and probably substitute more time on the wall in place of other things. At Climb Strong we adhere to the 75/25 rule where 75% or your time should be spent with climbing shoes on. If time is short I would urge you to keep track of actual climbing volume (total number or boulders/pitches) and be sure this value is changing week over week.
If it is not you may want to adjust your percentages to allow for more time on the wall. When it comes to volume the first piece we need to sort out is the total amount of time we have to devote to climbing in addition to all the other stressors life brings. Next, really think about your goals and what you want to accomplish. Based on these two things you can start planning out your climbing intensities and the time spent at each to help you accomplish your goals all while being able to recover from session to session.
This list doesn't end here, this is just the top six that come to mind in a long list of things I have learned from coaching and watching youth climbers. The youth competition season starts in October and will run all the way to July if the participant makes Nationals. Yes, 10 months…(and strength training is bad for youth kids??) For those of you who don't know this, all USAC youth comps are run by volunteers, from the judges, belayers, check in personnel all the way to the regional and divisional coordinators and everyone in between. I cannot urge you enough to find a local competition in your area, sign up to volunteer and I think you will be shocked at what you see and learn by doing so. While there, keep in mind my list and expand yours through observation and your climbing will improve because of it.
ABOUT KEN KLEIN
Ken is a National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) Certified Personal Trainer and Certified Performance Climbing Coach. His climbing travels have taken him all over the world from the amazing limestone walls of Spain and Mexico to the expansive boulder fields of the Rocklands of South Africa.
He has coached and instructed rock climbing in every capacity: from youth teams to accredited college courses. His passion for coaching is matched by his ability to connect with climbers of all levels. Ken is constantly evolving as a climber; whether he is repeating a climb in Rocky Mountain National Park or working on a project 9,000 miles away, he is always learning to look more closely at himself and his own climbing, while consistently trying hard and having fun.
Ken is the High Performance Director at Climb Strong.
Tags: Assessment, coaching, effort, ken klein, Planning, Volume, youth