Training for Climbing, 2nd: The Definitive Guide to Improving Your Performance (How To Climb Series)

feelings of imbalance, tension, awkward movement, and sometimes even growing stress and anxiety. And since it takes just one botched move, one piece of gear to pop out, or one burst of adrenaline to knock you way out of center, it’s essential that you are aware of this dynamic and able to respond quickly with countermeasures.
    The ANSWER Sequence is a powerful means for returning yourself to center in just a few seconds. The ANSWER Sequence involves deliberately redirecting your thoughts inward for a moment (usually at a rest on a climb) to modulate your breathing, level of muscle tension, posture, and mental attitude. Make its use as regular and automatic as chalking up, and you’ll find yourself climbing more efficiently and consistently.
    Tips for Controlling Tension and Anxiety
     
    1. Practice progressive and differential relaxation to develop the ability to relax individual muscles on demand.
    2. Strive for constant awareness of growing tension and anxiety. Take a tension check at each rest on a climb and intermittently throughout the day.
    3. Target relaxation in antagonist muscles—this will improve your climbing economy and enhance flow and fluidity of movement.
    4. While you climb, employ the ANSWER Sequence at each rest position to regain your center and optimal performance state.
     
     

Visualization Training
     
    Let’s start off with an example of visualization. Sit back, relax, and vividly imagine the following scene as if it were a movie playing out before your eyes.
    You are attempting to redpoint a route you have worked on before. You have just successfully climbed to the rest position that precedes the route’s crux sequence. You are relaxed, calm, and confident as you shake out and rechalk. You feel a cool breeze blow across your body, and it seems to enhance the light, centered feeling you already possess. You gently grip the starting hold of the sequence, a sharp, positive fingertip edge. With steady breathing, you flash a smile and continue climbing.
    You match hands and pull the fingertip edge to your chest. You then high-step your right foot onto a tiny crescent-shaped flake. You’ve hit it just right—it feels bomber. You rock over that glued right foot, spot, and then grab a matchbook side-pull edge with your right hand. You flag your left leg across and below your high right foot to shift your center of gravity over the right foot. You then extend off the right foot with a smooth, steady motion. Your left hand reaches up to snag a two-finger pocket—it feels solid. You move your left foot up to a high smear on a small dish hold, and, with relaxed breathing, take aim on the final lunge. Then, with your mind locked on to the next hold, you throw the lunge and easily latch on to the mini bucket hold that’s been so elusive. You clip the anchors and feel the rush of having ticked this personal best route.
     
    This sequence exemplifies a fundamental and important exercise used by all the world’s top athletes. Although similar to the mental rehearsals performed by some climbers, visualization goes beyond the simple task of reviewing route sequences. As in the above example, visualization involves making and playing a detailed mental movie, one with touch, sound, color, and all the kinesthetic feel of doing the moves. These mental movies enhance your climbing by helping to hardwire sequences (moves, body positions, and “feel”), increasing memory, and fortifying confidence. For this reason, use of visualization is as important to your success as your use of climbing shoes and a chalk bag. Don’t leave the ground without doing it!
    Many studies have shown that the brain is not always capable of distinguishing between something that actually happened and something that was vividly imagined (Kubistant 1986). (Déjà vu is such an experience—you can’t always recall if the clear mental image that just surfaced is an actual memory or simply something you’ve thought about or dreamed.) Therefore, repeated visualization can trick the mind into thinking you’ve been there and done that before. Think of these mental movies as a blueprint for future actions—with this perspective, you should understand why visualization must be as detailed and accurate as possible. Any bad coding (wrong moves) or fuzzy detail (uncertain sequences) may lead to a botched sequence or fall when you climb the route for real.

Types of Visualization
     
    There are two primary modes of visualization: