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

skill-fortifying steroids!

Fundamental Techniques
     
    The essence of climbing is a dance up the wall using the four points of contact as your dance steps. Since each climb possesses a novel configuration of hand-and footholds, your challenge is to unlock the perfect sequence of moves and leverage your points of contact into this dynamic dance.
    In executing any physical skill—whether it’s shooting a basketball or simply running—there are fundamental techniques that represent optimal use of body position, leverage, and physical energy. While the specific techniques may be hard to observe with an untrained eye, just about any novice can spot an athlete steeped in the fundamentals: Her movements are smooth, crisp, and confident, and her demeanor reveals a poise and ease of execution, despite inherent difficulties of the situation. The bottom line: Fundamentally sound movement affords perfect economy and looks easy.
    Unfortunately, becoming a highly skilled, proficient climber rarely just happens—it results from a conscious decision to develop superior technique via disciplined long-term practice. Make it your goal to learn to climb every move and every route in the optimal way, and not to be satisfied to succeed with sloppy, inefficient movement. Excellence in climbing comes only to those with knowledge of the fundamentals and a desire to make them habit. To help you on this journey, this section provides a primer on twelve fundamental techniques that you must practice to the point of mastery. As you read through each section, ponder your current level of competency in each fundamental technique and make it an urgent part of your training-for-climbing program to improve these weak areas. For a more tangible record of your technical ability, score your command of each fundamental technique using the checklist assessment in table 4.1.
    Tips for Rapid Learning of Skills and Developing Good Technique
     
    1. Engage in regular climbing “practice.” That is, go climbing with the intention of learning new skills and improving quality of movement, with little regard for absolute difficulty. Climb on as many different types of rock, wall angles, and areas as possible to build diverse skills and true climbing expertise.
    2. Practice new skills and techniques early in the session while you are physically and mentally fresh.
    3. Use blocked practice to accelerate learning during the initial trials of a new move, skill, or sequence. After two or three successful repetitions, cease blocked practice in favor of variable and randomized practice.
    4. Employ variable practice to expand command of newly acquired skills over a wide range of conditions (angle, hold size, rock type, and so forth). Vary the “route” conditions more than you expect would be the case in a real-life climbing situation.
    5. Practice known skills while in varying states of fatigue to increase your mastery of them and to build long-term retention.
    6. Use random practice—climb a random series of moves back-to-back—to enhance proficiency of serial skill performance. Another random practice strategy is to climb several very different routes back-to-back to mandate recall of many different motor programs.
    7. Model the techniques and tactics of advanced climbers to learn new moves and climbing strategies.
    8. Aspire to dominate at a climbing grade, and not just get by. Focus practice on routes at or just below your maximum difficulty and resist the urge to constantly work routes beyond your ability level.
    9. When working a route, resolve to find the best way to do a move or sequence and resist the urge to just thrash up the route and deem that acceptable. As a practice method, climb a route several times to identify and learn the most effective and efficient moves and tactics.
    10. Maintain a long-term perspective toward learning to climb. No matter how fast you improve or how hard you climb, realize that you can still improve technique and learn new skills—even after ten, twenty, or more years!
     
     

     
    Table 4.1 Score Your Technical Ability
     

Precise Foot Placements That Carry Your Weight
     
    Given that your legs are stronger than your arms, the first fundamental of climbing is that the legs should do the majority of the work. The exceptions to this rule are overhanging routes, which demand greater use of the arms (more on this in a bit). The process of effectively using your feet begins with spotting the footholds and positioning