Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game (and mine)

Following a really bad climbing session last weekend at my local wall, I have decided to embark on a climbing improvement plan. My under-par performance was probably due to being over-tired and starting to come down with a cold.

It has, however, served as a useful motivator for me to raise my game.

It also occurred to me that there are probably lots of other climbers out there who have hit a wall in their rock climbing progress.

So, if like me, you would like to improve your climbing and scale the higher grades, buckle up and get ready for some serious training (and hopefully some worthwhile improvements).I’ll be breaking this plan up into 4 distinct areas:

• Nutrition and weight management
• Strength conditioning and grip improvement
• Core climbing techniques drills
• Psychology / mental strength

Before we embark on our journey to climbing excellence, we need to decide where we want to go. Any athlete, personal trainer or fitness coach will tell you that you need to set goals. Just saying “I want to get better at climbing” is not a goal, we need to ensure our goals are:

1. Specific:

Here’s what I’m going for -

I would like to lose around 5% body fat

I want to improve my hang times on the fingerboard by 30% – 50%

I currently lead around 5b (F6A+ / F6B) indoors. Outdoors I consistently lead HS, and have managed a VS (I have only been climbing around 18 months, so don’t judge me too harshly).

My climbing goal is to lead climb at 6a (F6c+ / F7a) indoors, and E1 outdoors.

2. Realistic

If I had told you that my short term goal was to climb 8a, that would have been completely unrealistic and would have ended in disappointment. I aim to go up by 2 grades which will be tough, but is plausible. If I do reach that goal, I’ll set a new one and work out a strategy to achieve it.

3. Measurable

I plan to keep a training diary to measure my progress. Without measurement, how will you know how you’re doing against your plan? View the improvement plan as a journey, with the goal being your final destination. You need to make continual progress to reach that destination.

4. Timed

Goals need a timescale or they just don’t happen. If you have a deadline you will push harder to try to reach it.

For this challenge, let’s use the winter period as our training timescale. We’ll start the plan next week and aim to have the final “weigh-in” in 3 months (let’s say February 1st 2010). By this point we’ll measure against our goals.

Obviously you can set your own timescales – whatever works for you. Just make sure they’re long enough to be realistic, but not so long that you’ll lose interest.

What’s next?

OK, here’s where the work begins. Next week I’ll post the nutrition and weight management information. Until then, set some goals and get ready to make some gains.

I would love to hear what your personal goals are, and how you do on this plan. Drop me a comment below if you have a spare minute.