The first in a forthcoming series on analysing and training your weaknesses to improve your overall climbing. This article will help you spot the gaps in your performance whilst the following ones will give you some hints on how you can train them away.
From birth we are conditioned to develop our strengths and discard our weaknesses and the things in life we enjoy most are usually the things which we are good at. It is this simple aspect of human nature which causes so many of us to fail to achieve our ultimate potential in rock climbing. Even those who specialise in specific areas of climbing must accept that the rock or route setter will invariably throw things at us which we don't like and these are usually the things which we can't do. Whereas the weak minded will retreat in search of something more suitable, the more stubborn will seek to address the balance. Rather than blaming your boots, the conditions, or last night's beers, the answer will always be to swallow your pride and search within.
Climbing performance is best regarded as a chain or system who's weak links invariably cause the whole side to be let down. Spotting these links can be hard enough, let alone doing something about them. The all-round climber faces a daunting task of balancing a long and complex list of performance variables, many of which are in direct conflict with each other. The specialist sport or trad' climber deals with a smaller more manageable chain yet one who's weak links are more subtle and hence can be more difficult to detect. The secret is, first of all, to be aware of the vast number of sub-components which contribute to our climbing performance so we can then determine which ones are failing to pull their share of the weight.
The idea of breaking climbing down into it's component form not only goes against the grain to many traditionalists, it can also be both conceptualised and misleading. Nonetheless it is by far the best approach when it comes to self-diagnosing our performance. Sports researchers and Coaches always identify 'Specificity' factors for a given sport which can be used as a diagnostic tool for training. Below is a list of Specificity factors which have been compiled for rock climbing, based on the assertions of numerous top climbers and training experts. Work your way through them, starting first with the most basic differentiations and moving on to the more in-depth analysis. You can try giving yourself marks from 1 to 5 for each one so you can then look back and make an overall assessment of yourself. Remember all the time that you must prioritise your strengths and weaknesses by offsetting them with your goals and objectives. It may be the case that certain weak points are irrelevant to the type of climbing that you wish to improve.
Score system:
1 - v.poor,
2 - poor,
3 - satisfactory,
4 - good,
5 - v.good
1) Physical, Psychological or technical?
Are you failing on routes because you are genuinely unfit or weak or is it a fault in your climbing style which is causing you to expend unnecessary energy, thus causing you to 'think' that you lack strength or fitness? Alternatively, are you failing to put into practice the things which you can do at ground level or on a top rope because you can't get your head together for leading? Give yourself a general overall score for each of these three basic variables.
2) Surface angle
Do you find that your grade is consistent for slabby, vertical, gently overhanging rock and rooves? I doubt it. If so could this be a technique thing, or is it because you lack either the foot and leg strength for the slabbier stuff or the finger and upperbody strength for the steeper stuff? Score yourself for the four options and suggest a reason why.
3) Rock or surface type
Do you find yourself being drawn more towards certain crags and cowering away from others. I know the feeling and, if so, score yourself out of five for the following: Grit, Volcanic trad', limestone trad', Limestone sport, Sandstone, Slate (and any others which I've left out).
4) Climbing style (technique breakdown)
Can you only get by if it's a basic 'pull-down-on-an-obvious-hold' indoor style of climbing or can you cope equally well with so called 'features', i.e: cracks, aretes, bridging corners and gnarly chimneys? If there is a technical fault, is it more to do with a general inability to use spatial awareness to interpret the rock, or is a specific aspect of technique to blame such as control of posture, coordination, balance, or facility (the ability top use your flexibility). Pick out the ones which you would score as low as 1 or 2 and add any additional technique weaknesses which you can think of.
5) Intensity (energy systems breakdown)
The intensity of climbing is the relationship between the difficulty of individual moves and the number of those moves. Different intensities of climbing tax different physiological energy systems within our bodies. Understanding which of these systems are under or over-developed within ourselves is one of the most important concepts in physical training for climbing. Short powerful boulder problems or mini-routes which involve no more than 10-12 very hard moves and which take less than approximately 50 seconds to complete require predominantly strength and power. Middle distance routes with between 12 and 25 sustained hard moves and which take 1-3 minutes to complete require predominantly anaerobic endurance. Routes which are longer than 30 moves and which take anything in excess of 3 minutes to complete usually require a blend of aerobic and anaerobically produced energy and the ability to tolerate copious amounts of lactic acid; this is called stamina by most climbers. However, a very long and easy climb will require predominantly aerobic energy or S.A.C.C (Specific aerobic capacity and cappiliarity) as it is correctly known. Which of the four intensities and their appropriate energy systems is best developed for you?
5.i) Strength & Power breakdown
Within the area of high intensity climbing, various sub-divisions can be made to isolate more specific aspects of performance. Score yourself for each one:
Firstly, is it strength or power that you lack? Strength affects: a) the ability to hold static positions (isometric strength) or b) the ability to move up, but in slow control? Alternatively power involves the ability to move super-fast and explosively. Assess yourself for each of the three.
Secondly, do you fair better on a) fingery moves, b) juggy/locky moves which require arm and upperbody strength or c) synergistic moves which require an even blend of arm and finger strength?
If your weaknesses are in the finger department, are some holds harder to use than others and if so, which ones? Crimps, half-crimps, slopers, pockets or pinches?
If arms are your weakness then which positions do you find hardest? - undercuts, sideways facing holds, downwards pulling or pushing/pressing moves?
Do you have good body tension? ie: strength in the abdominals and lower back muscles which hold the torso rigid in moves where you are stretched out from your footholds on steep rock.
5.2) Anaerobic endurance and stamina breakdown
You can attempt to analise anaerobic endurance and stamina according to most of the criteria which are given above for strength & power. Ask yourself questions such as 'is your stamina better on steep juggy routes or lower angled fingery routes?' and so on.
With stamina routes, do you perform better on the ones which have hard moves interspersed with easier sections or good shakes on which to recover, or are you more suited to routes of a more even and sustained intensity?
5.3) Session endurance and recovery
Some climbers find that their level of performance tapers off quickly during the course of a climbing session whereas others find that they can sustain quality activity for longer. Similarly some climbers feel they can only perform well if they have massive rests between efforts whilst others can make do with only the briefest rest intervals. Which of these applies to you?
6) Psychological breakdown
If your head isn't together for routes then why? The first step is to decide whether you are experiencing fear of falling or fear of failing? If it's fear of falling and it's on a Gogarth 'chop-route' then it's probably a healthy thing, but if you lose it as soon as you move above a bolt at Malham then clearly your 'bottle' needs some more work. If it's fear of failing then you should look more deeply into methods of coping with anxiety and experiment with relaxation and concentration techniques such as meditation and focusing. The overriding factor is motivation; do you have too much so you get psyched out, or not enough so you can't get psyched up. Use these basic variables along with the scoring system to write your own psychological profile for climbing.
This D.I.Y guide to weakness spotting is a crude and simplistic model of a very complex topic. Depending on your own standpoint as a climber, you may wish to alter or expand on some of the specificity categories as you see fit. In your quest to bring the gaps in your performance up to scratch, the most important skill is the ability to be objective; and if you are still genuinely struggling to assess yourself then try asking a regular climbing partner for some honest feedback. Beware also, the pitfalls of being over analytical and becoming so obsessed with minor areas of your performance that you lose the ability to view the whole picture. Continuously reassess yourself over time so you can see whether your attempts to balance your climbing have been successful and in turn, how your performance has evolved.
Having dug out your weaknesses, the next step is to plan a sensible approach to setting them straight and with any luck, the next few articles in this series will help you do just that.