Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Roundup

Hi everyone. Once again, I’m going to have to start this post with an apology. When I set out on this climbing improvement plan, I told you that we would set ourselves goals and assess our gains by the beginning of February. When I made that (very bold) statement, I didn’t consider the following factors:

1. Christmas (I lost at least a couple of weeks and gained a few pounds).
2. Work (I have been exceptionally busy at work which has made it difficult to put in the time required to research and write training material without sacrificing quality).
3. Snowboarding (I become completely obsessed with snowboarding at this time of year).

That said, I have been training and I’m interested to know if anyone out there has used any of the advice I have provided in this plan. If you have, how did you get on?I did a review around week 7, and I’m not sure I have made a great deal of progress since then:

Goal: I would like to lose around 5% body fat
Current status: I have definitely fallen short here. Heavy strength training and Christmas eating has left me 2kg heavier than I was when I started! I have packed on a fair bit of muscle, but the extra weight is putting extra stress on my fingers. I have just started on a body composition workout, coupled with very healthy eating, to lose that weight. I’ll post details of the workout asap. I’m hoping that in 4 weeks I’ll be super lean and stronger than I was before.

Goal: I want to improve my hang times on the fingerboard by 30% – 50%
Current status: I haven’t been as scientific as I could have been in my measurement of this, but I have definitely improved even with the extra weight. Plus I’m climbing loads better on crimpy holds.

Goal: I currently lead around 5b (F6A+ / F6B) indoors. Outdoors I consistently lead HS, and have managed a VS. My climbing goal is to lead climb at 6a (F6c+ / F7a) indoors, and E1 outdoors.
Current status: I’m leading up to a 5c, I have still to manage a 6a. I haven’t climbed outdoors yet this year so there’s still time to get my game tight before the weather improves. My brother David and I have started really pushing ourselves by climbing on mainly overhanging routes and practicing difficult techniques like hand jamming.

I’m actually going to take the SPA (Single Pitch Award) training in a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to picking up a few new tricks, which of course I will share with you. I’ll be posting ful details on how to become a climbing instructor for those interested.

If it’s OK with you I’m going to extend the improvement program timescales until the end of April. I’ll post my weight loss workout and any tips that I pick up from the SPA training.

I’m really interested to know if anyone has been working on their climbing improvement over the last few months, and how you have got on.  Drop me a comment below.