Practice
Some Specifics about Specificity
Tags: climbing, Fitness, Practice, Specificity, Tactics, Ty Mack
By Ty Mack A Cautionary Tale My good friend and longtime climbing partner Kirk Billings used to spend his winters bouldering in Hueco Tanks and cooking at Todd Skinner’s training compound. He got to climb with many of the top climbers of the era and witness all manner of novel approaches to climbing and training….
The Rapture of Performance
Tags: climbing, Micah Elconin, Performance, Practice, Tactics
By Micah Elconin The season is changing. As temps drop and days shorten, I feel a sense of urgency ignite inside me. It’s performance season. For better or worse, cool dry air tends to make rock a bit stickier. So most of us count on the Fall for creating conditions that support big goals. Yet,…
Partnership
Tags: climbing, Fitness, Micah Elconin, Practice, Tactics
By Micah Elconin Whether you like it or not, climbing is generally a social activity. Someone has to hold the other end of the rope for those redpoint attempts and my guess is you’d rather have a few extra pads and a spot when topping out that high boulder problem. Finding a climbing partner can…
Becoming the Practitioner
Tags: climbing, Fitness, Micah Elconin, Practice, Tactics
By Micah Elconin “What is the difference between practicing and being a practitioner?” Ido Portal poses this question in a recent blog posted to his youtube channel. Ido teaches a system of physical training that he calls “movement culture.” His methods pull from a variety of sources integrating the martial arts, yoga, dance, strength training,…
Fundamental Skills: Precision, Execution, and Balance
Tags: Andrew Caraballo, Balance, drills, execution, Practice, Skills
by Andrew Caraballo, PCC, NSCA-CPT These days, a simple Google search will bring up every climbing skill drill imaginable, but there lacks a framework for progressing those skills over time. In this article, we’ll discuss three major overarching climbing skills that will build on each other. These are balance, precision, and execution. Some famous…
5 Biomechanical Tips to Improve Your Climbing Technique
Tags: activation, breathing, Movement, Philip Ferrara, Practice
by Philip Ferrara At every level, rock climbing requires strength and the application of that strength through efficient technique. Efficiency, however, is determined by proper biomechanics. This means using interdependent muscle systems to apply force at the right time and in the right direction using as little energy as possible. To a new climber, getting…
Don’t Train – Practice.
Tags: Feedback, Habits, Planning, Practice, Quality Training, Skills, Talent, Training
by Steve Bechtel “You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way.” – Michael Jordan The term “training” is over-used. People refer to any and everything they do in climbing as training, yet training is a very specific…
Get It Exactly Right
Tags: Assessment, Habits, Movement, Planning, Practice, Skills
by Steve Bechtel You’ve heard it many times – when someone sends their hardest it feels effortless. We talk about it as the “flow” state or as having an out-of-body experience. No matter what you call it, it’s a performance state you’d like to recreate as often as possible. We usually see ourselves get to…
Don’t Train – Practice, part 2.
Tags: Motivation, Planning, Practice, Progress, Quality Training, Skills, Talent, Training
by Steve Bechtel The first article on practice covered the general idea that you should consider your climbing practice, and some general ideas on what that meant. In this follow up, I’ll answer questions that the first article raised, and give some specifics on how to re-structure your training sessions to include a focus on…
Training Age
Tags: Assessment, Change, Expertise, Feedback, Practice, Progress, Training
by Steve Bechtel Want to get good at climbing? Be patient. Every month at our gym, we have a training meeting with the entire coaching staff. These meetings range from exercise technique to invoicing to habit change – basically everything you can imagine when it comes to training athletes. A few years ago, I talked…