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

rarely practice or avoid will be represented by less detailed, unstable motor programs that may lead to poor execution and demand high degrees of attention.
    A highly skilled climber can often look at a section of rock, see the moves, and know what skills she will need to employ. For example, she might view a short boulder problem and see a lieback move that leads to backstep move, followed by a 2-foot deadpoint move to a good hold. In ascending the boulder problem, motor programs for lieback, backstep, and deadpoint yield a sort of movement script directing essential details of movement: the muscles to be used and in what order, the force and duration of each contraction, and so on. Still, the motor programs will not specify every aspect of movement, and so the climber will make many tiny reflexive and/or conscious adjustments that modify the commands of the “movement script.”
    A less skilled climber may be challenged in many ways by the same boulder problem. First, he may lack the experience and cognitive skills to “see” the necessary moves. Furthermore, he may possess less refined motor programs for the lieback, drop-knee, and lunge skills that are necessary to ascend the sequence. Chances are he will need numerous attempts to feel out the moves and gather sensory feedback on body position, the muscles to be used, and the force of contraction, among other things. Repeated blocked practice attempts may eventually lead to a successful ascent of the boulder problem.
PERFORMING NOVEL SKILLS
     
    The hallmark of an expert climber is the ability to on-sight climb at a high level on a wide variety of terrain and rock types. But how does this climber execute novel moves with a high rate of success? After all, our playing field has infinite variability—so even the most well-traveled professional climber will fail to experience every possible motor skill and variation thereof. Understanding how novel movements are generated will empower you to practice more effectively so that you can become a master of on-sight climbing through moves you’ve never before experienced!

     
    Figure 4.1 Developing Schemas
     

    Let’s use the boulder problem example above, which concluded with a deadpoint to a good hold exactly 24 inches away. Given the infinite variability of climbing moves and rock surface, it is unlikely that the climber will have previously performed a deadpoint move, from a backstep position, to a hold exactly 24 inches away. However, if the climber has thrown deadpoint moves from several different distances (say, from 15, 21, 28, and 30 inches away) and from different body positions and rock angles, he will likely be able to execute the novel move on-sight. This is because all the different deadpoint moves call the same deadpoint motor program into use, and this motor program is scaled to fit the novel situation according to what is known as a schema.
    A schema is a set of rules developed and applied unconsciously by the central nervous system, which allows you to adjust a motor program for different environmental conditions (hold location, rock angle, friction properties, and such) by changing parameters of muscle force, body position, and speed of movement. Becoming a proficient on-sight climber, therefore, is not just a matter of learning all the different classes of skills (jamming, side pulling, down pulling, lunging, flagging, and so on); it demands that you practice these skills in a wide range of configurations and settings. Such “variable practice” (more on this below) refines the existing schema-rule for each generalized motor program, thus allowing more accurate estimation of the necessary parameters for execution of a skill in a novel situation. (see figure 4.1)
    The practical application of schema theory should now be obvious: Upon learning the new climbing skill of, say, finger jamming, you want to practice finger jamming in cracks of different sizes, on different wall angles, and on rock with different frictional properties. Doing so will modify your schema-rule to expand your use of the finger-jamming motor program and effectively ascend finger cracks at almost any crag on the planet. The same goes for other climbing skills—strive to expand their use to a variety of rock types and terrain, and you will be on your way to becoming a master of rock!
    Conversely, if you climb at only a few cliffs and favor a specific type of climbing, you will develop fewer motor programs and less refined