We climbers are always looking up. To the next hold, to the next grade, or even to nab some beta off the squad kid flashing our project.
That’s why we’ve put together a few quick tips to help your climbing progression, whether you’re looking to hit a new grade or improve an area of weakness. Enjoy!
Repeat your climbs
Let’s be honest – the first send on any new problem can get a little messy. Whether you’re looking to flash a tough climb or finally bagging that multi-week project, it’s easy to touch the top hold and think, “thank goodness I don’t have to try that crux ever again”.
But, how good would it feel to repeat that hard climb and make it look easy? Repeating climbs is a good way to practise technique and make yourself a more conscientious climber.
Plus, with the mental battle already won (you can do this climb!), it’s easy to focus more on the movement and identify the moves that could be more efficient. How much are you shuffling your feet? Where are you getting most pumped?
There’s always room for improvement, and repeating climbs helps identify them and build your skillset for future sends.
Spend sessions climbing below your grade
As a follow-on from the last tip, it can be worth dropping down a grade or two, to grade band that you can comfortably repeat over and over.
We tend to zoom through these lower grades during our warm-ups, forgetting that they are the perfect setting to practise footwork, body tension, efficiency, and route-reading.
Want to set yourself more of a challenge? Change things up by “eliminating” holds, throwing in dynamic movement, or climbing with no foot or hand adjustments once you make contact with a hold.
Get creative! And remember – not every session needs to be at the limits of your ability.
Get pumped
Once you’ve incorporated the above into your regular climbing sessions, you should be feeling comfortable in your middle-range grades. So, it’s time to make yourself uncomfortable again…
One way to do this is to climb while pumped! Think about it like this: if you can do a problem when you’re at your most tired, you’ll be cruising it when you’re fresh.
“Pump”, if you don’t know, are what we call the build-up of lactic acid that leaves our forearms feeling heavy.
Some climbers will deliberately (but safely) induce pump in order to practise climbing at their limits. This drill is called “4x4s”, and you can read more about how to do them here.
Change how you define progress
Yep, this one sounds like we’re skimping on you. But there’s something to be said for climbing happier, before you climb harder. Instead of counting grades, try measuring progress in terms of…
- How comfortable you feel on the wall & how using good technique starts to be second nature.
- Love slab but hate overhangs? Crush caves but struggle in corners? Focus on developing your climbing across the board, rather than crushing your speciality.
- How you are overcoming your fear of heights, volumes, hold types, or wall angles.
- How good you feel after a climbing session, and how excited you are to come back.
It feels awesome when you break into a new grade, but every climber will experience a plateau at some point in their life.
During this plateau, you may feel disheartened, or wonder why you’re even bothering to come back. You can avoid this feeling altogether by changing how you define progress.
Hopefully there was something here to get you psyched for your next climb. What are your favourite drills to improve technique? And what does “progress” mean to you?