Pen and Rock

This will be a short and fun post!  Over the past few months, I have been developing a personal philosophy of training for climbing. I have found it helpful to distill my ideas about how I learn best into a list. My Philosophy of Training for Climbing: No time should be wasted. If you’re are climbing, climb. If you’re working out, work out.  To climb hard, one must climb hard. A serious climber should spend the majority of their time climbing hard. If you’re not falling, you’re probably not climbing hard enough. Technique over raw strength. Generally speaking, I believe it is healthier, more stylish, and – from a performance standpoint – more efficient to practice good technique than to muscle up everything one sees. By good technique I mean using skills like footwork, precise hand placement, and leg utilization (among others) to save energy and minimize the chance of a careless error. Movement every day. I have found it particularly helpful to be active and stimulate the musc...

I am active on USA Climbing’s competitive youth circuit. Recently we youth competitors had a very important competition: Youth regionals for sport climbing. I went into this competition feeling very strong, but I had a terrible day and failed to advance to divisionals, which had been my goal and expectation. Afterward I reflected on what happened.  In isolation – an area for the competing athletes to warm up while staying isolated from the competition floor – I felt great, and after I got to preview my routes, I still felt great. The routes looked fun and I was excited to climb them! Everything crumbled, however, after I climbed and fell on my first route. I started strong and controlled. All my limbs were placed very methodically. But about half way up the wall I got stuck. Where to go? I experimented with a few different approaches, but suddenly I lost my balance and peeled off of the wall. I later learned that I did quite well on the route compared to most of my competition, but...