Before You Start Your Training Plan, Do This

This article is the second in a series of  four. Read part one here. Check in next Tuesday for part three.

Part 2: Self-Assessment to Optimize Your Training

Developing an effective climbing training program begins with an accurate self-assessment of your strengths and weaknesses on the wall. But gaining a clear understanding of your weaknesses is easier said than done. For example, many climbers conclude they aren’t strong enough because they get pumped quickly on a near-limit climb. But perhaps they fatigue prematurely due to “energy leaks” caused by their lackluster footwork, poor movement skills, and fearful mind. In this case, leveling up technical and mental skills will yield a quicker increase in climbing ability than, say, engaging in a block of dedicated finger training.

Obtaining an accurate assessment of your climbing could be as easy as scheduling a session with a veteran climbing coach. A professional’s well-trained eye will quickly point out the critical flaws that are most holding you back. Align your training program to address these technical and physical weaknesses and you will be on a fast track to improvement.

Many climbers, however, don’t have access to a veteran coach to highlight their flaws. This is where the magnifying glass of a multi-pronged self-assessment comes in handy.

Conducting a Detailed Self-Assessment

As I described in the first article in this series, our sport is uniquely complex for both athletes and coaches because we have so many performance variables at play. It is therefore difficult to outline a self-assessment protocol that sleuths out your critical weaknesses—but it can be done. Who knows, perhaps we can even identify an unknown Achilles’ heel.

Your self-assessment must examine four primary areas: technical skills, mental and tactical skills, physical fitness, and recovery/nutrition practices. Each of these four areas is quite complex on its own and worthy of deep analysis not possible in this article’s word count. So consider my instructions as a starting point for examination of each area. Hopefully, you (or a qualified coach) can continue to drill into each area in the seasons to come.

1. Technical Skill Assessment

Self assessment of your technical and movement skills is best accomplished via video analysis. Make a habit of setting up your phone on a tripod to capture footage of every near-limit boulder problem and route you attempt. Do this for a few weeks, being sure to sample a wide range of climbing styles, wall angles, hold types and, if climbing outside, rock types. The goal is to gather dozens—if not hundreds!—of boulders and climbs. Capturing failed attempts is as important as the glorious sends. Save them all.

The large screen of a laptop is much better for detailed viewing, so move all of the files from your phone to your computer and organize them into folders according to route type and style. Now, get to work with your sleuthing for technical flaws and common themes of your flailing, failed attempts. Disassociate from the climber on the screen and analyze what you see without emotion—this way you can be brutally honest in your assessment.

Focusing mainly on the episodes of “failure,” ask yourself a series of probing questions:

1. How would you score the climber’s footwork on a scale of 1 to 10? Consider if it’s decisive and precise, or unsure, noisy, and/or sloppy.
2. How would you score ease of movement? High-quality movements tend to look smooth and “easy,” even on crux moves, whereas tight and jerky movements are generally inefficient and low scoring.
3. How would you score the pace of climbing? Of course, the optimal pace varies by route, so this is a bit more tricky to judge, especially on slabby climbs when you can stand on your feet for a long time. Overhanging routes, however, generally have two speeds: slow while at rests on larger holds, and faster when the holds get smaller and the wall steepens. Given enough video in your collection, you may be able to score technical skills in various subtypes of climbing, such as cracks, roof, slabs, and such.

2. Mental Skill Assessment

The mental domain is the most challenging for a coach or climber to assess, and an in-depth assessment is beyond the scope of this article. But here are two tips to get the process started.

1. After every boulder or climb (success or failure), take a moment to turn your thoughts inward. Reflect on the critical moments of the climb—what thoughts and emotions did you feel? What thoughts helped or hurt your performance? In what ways could you have improved the quality of your thinking, self-talk, and fear management? Take notes and look for common threads that connect your successful ascents and distinguish them from unsuccessful attempts.
2. Use video analysis to revisit past climbing struggles. If it was a safe boulder or route, did you fall trying, or “take” quitting? In reviewing the video, try to remember how you felt, what you were thinking and, if possible, what issue was holding you back from making a better effort. Now, consider how you could have reframed your struggles and thoughts in more empowering ways.

3. Physical Fitness Assessment

A veteran coach can put you through a variety of tests to assess many aspects of climbing-specific and generalized strength, power, and endurance, as well as mobility and flexibility. I’ll provide you with five simple tests to measure a few key climbing-specific metrics. All you need is a pull-up bar and hangboard. Repeat these tests every few months to gauge your progress.

To get the most accurate results do a thorough warm up before every round of testing, and be sure to rest at least 15 minutes between each test.

1. Max pull-ups to failure. The benchmark exercise for strength-endurance of the pulling muscles. Test using a pull-up bar with a palms-away grip and hands about shoulder-width apart. Do a full range of motion—no half reps and no resting mid-set!
2. Weighted pull-ups (five-rep max). This test is an excellent measure of pulling strength, without the stress of doing a true one-rep max strength test. You’ll need to do a few sets with increasing weight to determine your five-rep max.
3. Max weighted hang (five seconds). This is the benchmark measure of maximum finger strength. Use a 20mm edge in a half-crimp position. Like the previous test, you’ll need to experiment with increasing the added weight to determine your max weight.
4. Body weight hangs to failure. This test is one way to measure the anaerobic endurance of the finger flexor muscles. Use an open-crimp or half-crimp grip on a 20mm edge and hang until you can’t hang anymore!
5. Five seconds on, five seconds off repeater hangs (to failure, 20mm edge). This test is a good measure of your finger flexor muscle aerobic endurance. Precise intervals are critical—strive to hit the five-second hang and five-second rest intervals spot on. I recommend using a stopwatch app on your phone. Since each hang+rest interval takes 10 seconds, you will do six hangs per minute. Continue as long as possible—channeling your redpoint mindset!

4. Nutrition and Recovery Practices Assessment

Nutrition and recovery are rich topics requiring a book of their own to adequately cover. But suffice it to say, even with the best training program you can fail to benefit fully from it due to inadequate sleep, poor-quality nutrition, and not enough rest days. My advice: strive to get more educated and be on point with your sleep and nutrition—they are both powerful levers for multiplying your efforts at the gym and crag!

Conclusion

You’re now armed with a self-assessment protocol to identify the key constraints on your climbing performance. Narrow the aim of your training on these critical areas, and you’ll begin the leveling-up process! Remember to physically assess yourself (in the above categories) every couple months to gauge your strength/endurance progression.

You can also perform these assessments at the beginning and end of a training block to test the effectiveness of your training. For example, if you realize one of your individual weaknesses is strength and power, and spend a month trying to increase this through vigorous hangboard, bouldering and pull-up protocol, then you should see your weight for the max-hang and weighted pull-up (five-rep max) increase. Or if climbing-specific muscular endurance is your weakness and you spend a month or two trying to train it up, then by the end of the training block you should see your ability to do body weight hangs to failure and body weight pull-ups to failure increase. The next two articles will provide training templates to help you get the job done right.

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