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

movement, speed of detection and correction of minor errors, and the sensitivity of the performance to anxiety, doubt, and so on. These things are obviously less available to conscious awareness or control and are thus acquired only through dedicated practice and the chase of perfection.
    In this stage the goal of action becomes more refined and demanding. The moves must be done efficiently with strength to spare, not eked out in desperation. Early, crude success should not be accepted as “good enough” since this will not lead to the best ultimate development of technique and efficiency. Having demanding goals has been shown experimentally to produce both better performance and faster gains. The goal should be to perfect movement and dominate at a certain grade (say, 5.10a or 5.12a), not just get by at it.
AUTONOMOUS STAGE
     
    The final stage of learning is called the autonomous stage. At this point the actions are automatic and require almost no conscious attention, because movement has reached a stable and polished form. You can often do other things while in this state: For instance, you can carry on a conversation while driving a car. Or, like a chess grandmaster thinking six moves ahead, you can decipher and send a crux sequence in perfect form, on-sight. This is also the elusive flow state or zone so often touted by elite athletes. In climbing, it is reached only through dedicated, disciplined, long-term practice.
    On the rock this stage can be experienced on a successful redpoint, but it more often occurs on the umpteenth repetition of a route that you have absolutely wired. You may also experience this flow state while on-sight climbing just below your maximum ability, and on rare occasions you’ll feel the rapture of the zone as you send a personal-best project or float up a competition route.

Components of Skilled Performance
     
    Despite being as intuitive and natural as walking or running, climbing can be a remarkably complex and demanding activity. Consider that the climbing gyms and crags of the world offer a playing field of infinite variation and demand for skilled performance. Compound this with the potential for adrenaline-releasing risk and the perplexing challenge of ascending a gigantic wall, and it becomes apparent that climbing is indeed a complex sporting activity.
    The goal of this section, then, is to provide a primer on the theory of skill acquisition as well as introduce you to valuable practice strategies. While many climbers stumble through the maze of trial-and-error learning, you will be empowered to practice more effectively and thus obtain uncommonly good results and rate of improvement.
TYPES OF SKILLS
     
    Motor learning scientists define skill as the ability to bring about an end result with maximum certainty and minimum time and energy (Schmidt 2004). In climbing, these skills possess cognitive and motor components. For example, perception and decision making precede physical execution of most on-sight climbing movements; even a well-rehearsed redpoint ascent relies on memory, focus, and sensory processes to bring about successful execution of a motor skill. Clearly, technical rock climbing will test your prowess of both mental and physical skills.
    Another important distinction is that between discrete and serial skills. A discrete climbing skill is a single movement with a definite beginning and end—such as a mantle, lunge, high step, down pull, lieback, deadpoint, and the like. String many discrete skills together, however, and you now have a more complex skilled action called a serial skill. Like a gymnast performing a routine, a climber must successfully execute specific moves, but must also possess the skill to link all the moves into a complete ascent. This explains why, in preparation for a redpoint ascent, you can’t just practice the individual moves—it’s equally important to practice connecting the moves, since this is in itself a new skill.
MOTOR PROGRAMS
     
    Discrete climbing skills are directed by motor programs stored in long-term memory. These motor programs, which define and shape movement, become more stable, elaborate, and long lasting as you progress through the three stages of motor learning described earlier. With consistent, quality practice, the program becomes highly precise and largely unconscious, thus freeing attention for other matters such as finding the next handhold or remembering the sequence. Conversely, climbing skills that you