Season Starter

Yesterday we had our first day outside climbing on real rock for the 2012 season. This winter I climbed regularly on my home climbing wall - doing intervals and HIT strips 2 to 3 times a week, plus lots of pull-ups, finger curls, and heavy strength training. After reading a bunch of training books, I tried, as much as one can on a small home climbing wall, to focus on my weaknesses not my strengths. Out of all this, I had hopes of noticing some difference when finally outdoor climbing season came.

A few years ago, I joined a women's climbing club at the local climbing gym (now closed) and spent three hours twice a week being (supposedly) coached and climbing at the gym. My goal was to push my lead level up. Come spring, I noticed zero improvement in my overall ability and my lead level had not budged.

While disappointed, I wasn't surprised. As each week of the coaching/training passed, I came increasingly to realize that the coaching was haphazard, lackadaisical, and completely unrelated to our individual strengths and weaknesses. There was poor motivation among the group - all of whom, including the instructor, appeared to be there for the social and coolness aspects and not the climbing. As the sessions wore on, the entire group required more and more pushing by me to actually start the training sessions and stop gossiping - something which made me increasingly an outsider. By the end of the season, I was pretty sure the entire effort had been a waste of time and money. Tellingly, a few years later, I am the only one still climbing except for one woman who gets out perhaps two or three times per year.

To say the entire season was wasted is perhaps too strong. I learnt to train alone, so I could focus on my own goals and strategies for reaching those goals without being distracted by someone else or finding myself in the invidious position of trying to motivate another person. Training alone, I have been able to focus all my energy on working my weaknesses, which is surely one of the best ways of improving performance. After all, it's not our strengths that hold us back, it's our weaknesses.

But, the truth as the old saw runs, is in the telling, and, the only way to gauge the success of my winter season training programme is to measure it against how I was climbing at the end of last season. That measurement is likely completely subjective, but I felt I was climbing stronger and leading more confidently my first day out compared to my last day out the previous season. Instead of neurotically focusing on getting to the anchor and having the climb over, I was focused on the moves and working out the sequences. It felt, to a completely biased observer (myself) like my best first day of the season ever.

Doug on Muglugs Goes Climbing