This is not the best podcast in the world – the guest says “like” too much – but, if you can get past that, there is some interesting stuff on the use of visualisation in climbing. Hodgin’s reports that, as part of her training for Necronomicon, she visualised herself climbing the route every night before she went to sleep. There is some pretty reasonable evidence that visualisation actually produces physical changes. I’ve dabbled with visualising before. Specifically, I did exactly what Hodgin’s did which was visualise myself climbing various routes before I went to sleep. Problem was, I was visualising so well that my body was rigid with body tension and I couldn’t fall asleep. You could have bounced a penny off my belly my abdomen was that tight.
After listening to the podcast, I tried it again, this time, concentrating on keeping my body loose while I visualised the climbs. I could fall asleep which was nice, but how well would this actually work? As usual, I don’t have conclusive evidence – and we should all remember: “nothing is proven in biology” (Peter Attia) – but, I can say, visualising helped me – a terminally nervous lead climber – feel much more relaxed when leading. This is one of those things that costs nothing to try so you have nothing to lose.
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