Psycho Wrangler, scene of the upcoming second DVD from Douglas Hunter and Dan Hague.

Our second book, with accompanying DVD is in the works. This time we’re tackling the important topics of redpoint and on-sight tactics. Like The Self Coached Climber, we hope to provide the reader with not just the mechanics involved but the insight into why certain tactics are likely to be more successful.

Our combined 50+ years climbing and hundreds of successful redpoints and on-sights will help you to more quickly and efficiently send your projects. And the accompanying DVD will show you step-by-step how to improve your game.

Filming for the DVD took place last week at Cotton Top in the New River Gorge. Psycho Wrangler and other routes at Cotton Top were used to demonstrate the effective tactics we’ve come to rely on. Here are just a few pictures to pique your interest. More later…..

How best to climb like Dave?

What’s the best way to improve? I’m often asked this question by those new to climbing, and the answer can sometimes elicit a look of puzzlement due to its simplicity and lack of sexy exercises. It’s sometimes surprising to learn that you can climb well without ever suffering on climbing specific workout equipment. Here are a few tips for getting your improvement program moving in the right direction.

Tip #1: You’ve got to spend time on the wall practicing the right things. It’s impossible to improve without putting in the time climbing, but it can be unproductive if you practice the wrong things or in the wrong way. Remember that your subconscious will place into motor learning any movement that is repetitively performed. So if you practice poor movement that is what you’ll retain and use.

Tip #2: Practice good movement instead of attempting to build strength. This topic was explored in an earlier blog so we won’t go into detail here. Suffice it to say that as a newer climber the root of your climbing performance issues is not a lack of strength but rather the inability to move well.

Tip #3: Find a good movement program with experienced instructors. This is trickier. How can you know if the movement programs offered at your local gym are first-class? Look for a progression from using your feet well to turning to more advanced topics. Make sure there is plenty of practice time built into the program and that the instructors are at least good climbers (5.12) themselves.

Tip #4: In the beginning spend the majority of your time learning to place and use your feet. We can’t overemphasize this skill. It is foundational in climbing movement and without it you’re left pawing at the wall trying to gain any kind of purchase. Put in the time practicing the silent foot exercise until you can quickly locate and efficiently use the footholds presented.

Tip #5: Learn to turn. Although sometimes thought of as an advanced movement skill, we believe turning should be learned early in a climber’s career. The ability to turn a hip into the wall can greatly improve your leverage and increase your reach. After learning to use your feet, turning is the next skill to acquire. Use the line and flag exercise until you can ascend an easy wall without hesitating.

Tip #6: Build strength through bouldering. The best way to improve your strength is not to do sets of pull ups or follow a weight lifting regimen, but rather to boulder. Bouldering allows you to repeatedly work difficult moves thereby improving not only muscle strength but the refined movement skills required as well. Climbing requires strength to be applied within the context of precise movement, and strength developed without movement skill is wasted.

Tip #7: Build endurance through routes. There’s a theme here – can you catch it? Yep, the best way to improve your climbing is to climb. Gain endurance through long continuous climbing sessions or doing laps on routes.

I read a study years ago conducted by the Nautilus Corporation, the folks who make Nautilus weight lifting equipment. They wanted to test whether cross training was a useful activity for improving performance so they had runners train by bicycling and bicyclists train by running, two similar aerobic endurance sports. The conclusion was that although some improvement was noted for the cross trained athletes, those in the control groups that stuck with their respective sports improved far more. Now if cross training in similar sports is relatively unproductive, I think we can safely say that doing pull-ups or lifting weights will not help you improve as much as simply climbing.

These and many other exercises along with the background theory and practical applications can be found in The Self Coached Climber.

What trickery awaits you?

To the novice holds may appear randomly placed to be used in more or less the same manner: hands pull straight down and feet stand on the big toe. More advanced climbers know that route setters are devious creatures bent on forcing certain movements and tricking the climber into dead ends. Unraveling these puzzles can be either one of the most satisfying of climbing activities or one of the most frustrating.

So, how do skilled route setters go about setting a route? Step 1 is usually to determine a grade target and, less commonly, a specific movement goal provided by the gym owner or manager. The setter’s job is to establish a new route of that grade that may also include a certain movement sequence on a specific section of climbing wall utilizing holds on hand.

Step 2 is developing a general idea of the route’s character. For example, the setter may decide on a continuous route with no real crux (the section of the route that is obviously most difficult) or a route with all slopers or sequences designed to force heel hooks. He may opt for a crux section high on the route or low, or he might attempt to mimic an outdoor climb with which he’s familiar.

Step 3 is hold selection in which your setter picks hand and foot holds that will help him set a route according to all the criteria determined above. This takes some practice and experience to predict whether the holds selected will produce said route; in other words will the holds be appropriate for the angle of wall, type of movement, and grade.  There are no hard and fast rules here, the setter’s experience and skill determines whether a good set of holds is selected.

Step 4 is the actual setting. Contrary to what some may believe, setters don’t plan every move on paper or even in their minds before beginning to place holds on the wall. With the movement and grade in mind, a setter may begin by placing a number of  hand holds in a sequence followed by the foot holds. Some setters even set an entire route of hand holds only and then go back over the route placing foot holds, although this is a less efficient method than placing them at more or less the same time.

Step 5 is forerunning. For most commercial, non-competition routes setters “forerun”, or climb the route  for the purpose of making refinements, while they’re placing the holds. For competition routes several experienced setters may climb each route, make comments, assess grade, and help refine the movement.

Route setters have a suitcase full of trickery to challenge your mental and physical abilities.  Some of those setting tricks include:

1. Forced cross: For a pair of hand holds it might at first appear that your right hand, for instance, should be placed on the far right of two holds leading right when in fact the setter intends for you to use the near hold with your right hand and then cross your left the next hold. If you are suckered into placing your right hand on the far hold you  may not be able to progress beyond this point.
2. Hand foot match: To maintain a stable balance, the setter may force you to place a foot on a hold before you remove a hand from it.
3. Involve your heels: Hooking your heel like a third hand is a favorite route setter ploy. The heel might be necessary to keep you from swinging off the wall or help maintain balance or prevent a dynamic balance barn door.
4. Gastons: A gaston is a sidepull used across the body instead of pulling to the side. Gastons may sometimes appear to be a sidepull for, say, your right hand when in fact the setter intended a gaston for the left.
5. Underclings: A large hold turned good side down is almost always a dead giveaway for an undercling. The setter will usually provide high foot holds to allow you to use the undercling to make a long reach.
6. Use of wall features: Many climbing walls have features either in the design of the wall itself or embedded in the texture. For example, an arete can be used as a long sidepull for hands or heels.  Or many walls have small protrusions and indentations in the texture that can be used as additional holds.
7. Stems: Using hands and/or feet in opposition in an inside corner is a very powerful movement skill. Attempting to ascend holds set for stemming in a straight on manner can make a climb much more difficult than it would otherwise be.
8. Dynos: Having difficulty making a really long reach? Chances are the setter included a dyno into the climb.

Skilled route setters are constantly coming up with new and varied movement they hope will entertain and challenge you of which the above eight are just a small sampling.  We hope you’ll challenge your setters to improve their art and keep you motivated to improve.

Why? Because climbing is not purely a strength sport. Imagine this: You don’t know how to swim so you take yourself to the pool to learn. At your first lesson you get in waist deep water and your instructor tells you to swim across the pool which you dutifully attempt to do. At the other side your shoulders burn from the effort yet for all your work you only made it a few yards. Is the problem that your shoulders aren’t strong enough? Clearly they’re tired. It’d be easy to place the blame on those overworked muscles, but are they really the underlying reason for your (lack of) performance?

Of course not. Any six year old with a decent stroke will out swim you and do so with seemingly no effort. Your problem is not with your aching shoulders but with your movement technique, called a stroke in swimming. The inefficiency of your stroke is what causes your shoulders to tire. Now you can bet that Michael Phelps’ shoulders are well developed and that they tire during a workout or race, but underlying Mr. Phelps prowess is a super efficient stroke that allows every bit effort to be translated into forward motion.

So what’s the real question climbers, and especially new climbers, should be asking? It’s not how can I increase my finger strength but rather how can I improve my movement skills??!! And that, my friends, is the basic premise behind our philosophy of climbing performance improvement. Work on movement first and even at the upper levels of our sport where strength training has its place, movement efficiency is paramount to climbing to your potential.

Of course, improving your movements skills is easier said than done primarily because there are so few places in which it’s taught or, if it is offered, taught properly. Climbers typically learn movement by emulating others, a sometimes dubious and counterproductive activity depending on who and what is being emulated. Emulation is usually what’s available, but someone else’s habits may not work productively for you.

So, how would you go about learning effective and efficient climbing movement skills? Skilled instructors are one method if available or they can be learned on your own by way of text, photos, and video which, of course, is what we hoped to accomplish by writing The Self Coached Climber. We’ll be discussing some of these skills in upcoming installments so stay tuned. For now, change your mindset from “My fingers are weak” to “My movement needs improvement.”

Now on to the entry….

In 1999 I was a fit and focused climber. I was bouldering well and redpointing at a high level but I was frustrated by one aspect of my climbing. I couldn’t improve my on-sight. While I had enough power endurance for short durations of difficult moves, I was poorly trained to handle the much longer durations of difficult climbing necessary to on-sight above my limit. To amp up my on-sight, I needed to raise my anaerobic threshold.

CROSSING THE LINE
Two separate systems, the aerobic and the anaerobic, produce all the energy muscles consume. The system that predominates at any moment is determined by movement intensity. With easier climbing, all muscular energy is produced using oxygen.

As intensity increases (the climbing becomes more difficult), your body cannot supply oxygen fast enough to sustain the workload. Above this point, the anaerobic system kicks in. Your “anaerobic threshold” defines the intensity level at which the production of lactic acid, by the anaerobic system, is greater than its removal.

Climbing above your threshold brings about an accumulation of lactic acid in the muscles, which causes your forearms to burn and feel pumped. Lactic acid limits the time you can continue climbing before muscle failure—the more difficult the climbing relative to your maximum contraction, the faster you pump out.

The good news is that both the aerobic and anaerobic systems can be improved with proper training. You can raise the intensity of climbing at which you begin to get a pump with aerobic conditioning, and you can climb longer after a pump sets in with anaerobic training.

Next installment: Continuous Climbing Training

Dan Hague and Douglas Hunter