Training 102

A Quick Note
First of all, I would like to say that this book is 100 percent free! That means
download it, share it with friends, print it – all I ask is that you keep my name on
the front! I am fond of the following saying: “Play to make yourself better; work
to make others better.” This book represents an attempt to bridge those two
ideas together. My goal is to put my experiences together so that others may
benefit from them. It is my hope that this book will help you in your journey as a
climber.
If you find this work to be useful and would like to donate some money to
help me in future projects like this one, feel free to do so in the ways listed below.
My suggested donation is $10-$20; however, please remember that I do not
expect that. Please only donate if the money is not an issue for you. If you like the
book but cannot donate, you can still help by sharing it with friends or posting
about it on social media. Thank you!
-Carlos Tkacz
boulderbushido@gmail.com
Venmo: @Carlostkacz
GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/training-for-bouldering
Paypal: Carlos Tkacz
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For me, seeing the film Progression was something of a watershed
moment. In that movie, Patxi Usobiaga says something that struck me and that
has stayed with me ever since: “Other climbers are very talented, but I have to
work fucking hard. My talent is in being a masochist.” I remember thinking to
myself, I can be that guy.
I took to climbing right away, going from having never stepped into a gym
to climbing every day until my muscles and hands completely and utterly failed
me. I had never done anything that so struck a resonant chord with me. I had
always been a bit high strung, and in climbing I had finally found something that
truly exhausted my energies, something that took what I had to give and required
even more than that. Not only did the sheer effort required appeal to me, I was
also pretty bad at it. I had grown up playing soccer, and I had always been good at
sports. They came naturally to me, and I played just about every sport I could find.
But climbing was different. It was hard in a way no other sport had ever been for
me. Maybe it was my lack of upper body strength and my soccer-huge thighs, or
maybe it was just a complete lack of finger strength. Whatever the case, climbing
was hard, and I loved that about it. I had to try.
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I was hooked. I’ll spare you the unnecessary details but suffice to say that
climbing became the driving force in my life. I worked in gyms, taught kids classes,
and became a guide. Eventually, I went back to school so I could afford to travel
and climb and because climbing taught me the value of doing things right and
doing things well. After school, I moved to my current home, Bishop, CA. All for
climbing, or perhaps more accurately, all because climbing taught me the value of
effort. But that is all beside the point of this introduction; we will get the high-
minded shit in the chapter on the Philosophy behind this book. The point is, I
became a climber.
At first, I just went to the gym and climbed whenever I couldn’t go outside
to try and climb. I bouldered, sport climbed, did trad; I didn’t have much of a plan
other than getting out and trying hard (except with trad, that is. For me, trad was
more about dealing with fear. A whole other topic). I ate fast food and smoked
cigarettes and drank. In fact, one of the first draws about climbing for me was the
idea that I could party and do drugs and also be an athlete. It seemed that I had
found a way to combine my beatnik sensibilities with the need to use my body I
had always felt. Eventually, however, that changed.
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I remember my first v6. It was a climb called Dissin’ Euros (a great name
with a great story behind it) in an area near Ojai, CA called Pine Mountain. I had
been climbing around 2 years and had been stuck at the v5 range for most of my
second year. Pine Mountain was the nearest, best bouldering to Bakersfield,
where I grew up and was living, so I spent a lot of time out there. Because of this,
as well as because of the beauty of the rock and the interesting movement, I had
settled onto this line as my v6 project. Over the course of that summer, I threw
myself at this climb every off day I had, working the beta and trying different
things and never quite managing the crux move. Soon, it became apparent to me
that I just was not strong enough. It was around this time that I saw Progression
and heard those fateful words.
My first training plan was something of a humble affair: I would hangboard
at home (we did not have one at the gym), doing body weight repeaters. Then I’d
go to the gym and boulder or rope climb for an hour and a half or so and end with
some pullup exercises on a huge jug we had in the middle of the wall. It wasn’t
much – there wasn’t a core element, I didn’t change my diet, I didn’t really know
what I was doing, having just grabbed random exercises from a weightlifting book
I had grabbed from the bargain books section at Barnes and Noble, and I kept
track of my workouts on 3x5 notecards I brought to the gym with me. But it was
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more systematic than just climbing and forced me to get more out each session. I
did this 3 times a week for a month, during a particularly busy time at work when
I couldn’t get outside much.
About a week after finishing what, at the time, passed for a training
program, work settled down a bit, and I went back out to try my project. I sent.
Not only did I send, but it felt easy. I even did it again for the sheer joy of it. That
day, a lightbulb went off in my head, and I realized how effective training could
be, and I embarked on the trial and error journey that has brought me here.
After that, I slowly began to do research, try different ideas I saw in
magazines and online, develop different schedule and workout formats, refining
and refining and refining. I experimented with my diet, even going vegetarian for
3 years, vegan for a year and a half of that. I asked people stronger than me what
they did. I wrote everything down. I became focused. I got stronger. I plateaued. I
broke through and got stronger again. This process went on until I got to where I
am now. I went from having to work the shit out of my first v6 to doing my first
v12s this year. I’m hoping to do my first v13 next year or so (got a few I am close
on!).
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That brings me to the purpose of this book. Through 8 years or so of trial
and error, I have fallen on a training formula that has worked quite well for me
and for the friends I have helped develop programs for. This books seeks to make
the concepts and ideas behind this method accessible to others.
There are a lot of companies out there now doing training plans, but they
all seem to be falling into similar patterns. Most of them are taking something of a
subscription-style model in which you pay continuously, month by month, for
your training plans. This does two things.
First, it makes you dependent on others for your training. That brings up
the first goal of this book: to make you self-sufficient in developing your own
training plans. I have endeavored to so structure the information in this book that
you can use to make your own plans for the rest of your climbing journey. It is my
hope that you will never need to buy another book, that, with this copy, perhaps
as well as updated editions as I learn more myself, you will be able to
continuously develop new and better and more intense programs to carry you
above and beyond what you ever expected of yourself.
Second, many of these companies that offer training plans and support
charge a shitload of money. For my part, affordability was one of the major
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limiting factors in getting help with my training. For people who have the
resources, great. This book is for the ones who do not, the ones who desire to get
stronger but can’t afford to go to one of these companies or to pay a private
trainer at a gym or to join a team. Climbing is getting a little bourgeoisie, and this
book is an attempt on my part to bring some balance back into the affordability of
climbing.
All in all, the goal of this book is to make you a better, stronger climber no
matter what level you find yourself at now. In keeping with the above two goals, I
have attempted to write a book that will be useful to all climbers, from the newly
minted and obsessed to the experienced who are trying to bring something new
to their climbing and break through to the next level. If I was successful, any level
climber will find the information here necessary to progress continuously for as
long as they want.
This book is broken down into chapters, beginning with the foundational
ideas in the Philosophy and Theory chapters and working up to actually creating
and executing the training plans. It is my hope that this book will prove useful to
you beyond simply making you stronger; climbing has a lot to teach us as humans,
and training can be a way to access distilled and direct versions of some of those
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lessons. While reading and using this book, please remember that, ultimately, you
are the master of your own life, and only you can know what is best for yourself.
Now, enjoy the book, feel free to reach out to me with questions and/or
comments, train hard, and crush!
A Note on the Second Edition
First of all, I would like to thank everyone who took the time to download
and read the first edition of this project. The positive response blew me away, and
I am especially grateful to everyone that donated a small bit of their hard earned
money and/or shared the book with their friends. My goal in this project is to be
useful, to share something that is important to me with others, and knowing that,
in my own small way, I have contributed to the development of others as climbers
means a lot to me. Thank you!
The above Introduction was written for the first addition; I have chosen to
leave it unchanged, as I feel it still captures the spirit of the project. There are,
however, a few extra things I would like to add and will do so here:
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First, some explanation of what is different about this book. Content-wise, I
have endeavored to offer new information. This is mostly in Chapter 4: Non-Linear
Training, which describes a form of training I have been experimenting with over
the last few months that is an alternative to Periodization. I have also included
some new exercises in Chapter 5, in hopes that even those who have used and
implemented the training described in the first book will come away with new
material to continue to progress. In addition to these changes, I have included,
towards the end, a chapter on technique and a chapter on the mentality of climbing
hard. Finally, I have included some old articles I wrote for a blog I kept a while ago
in the Appendix. I have also tried to simply make the book better in its design and
formatting. The goal of this is to offer an attractive and easy to navigate book, in
hopes that this will increase the usefulness of the book to you, the reader and
climber. I also simply enjoy this kind of design work, and I had fun in this process.
I would like to reiterate that I am not an expert by any means. Though I have
a fair bit of experience, and though I have worked in gyms and as a guide
periodically throughout the ten years I have been climbing, I too am on the journey
to become a better climber. This book reflects my continuing progress on that
quest, and this book is my attempt to help others I see on the same path. I am a
teacher by vocation; this is and will always be my primary way of working in the
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cooperative experiment we call civilization. As such, it is simply my nature to want
to help others through education. And that process is a finicky thing. If I give my
students too little help, then they do not have the tools they need to progress (in
the case of my job, in writing). If I give them too much, then they do not learn
anything even when they produce something to be proud of. The key for a teacher
is to find the balance between the two extremes, to give students the tools and
information they need in order to struggle with whatever project they are working
on (I would call this project life itself) on their own. This book operates under a
similar pedagogy. I have attempted to offer information anyone can use to get
stronger but under the expectation that the reader will not blindly follow the
program. Rather, is it my hope that you will use and implement the information in
this book and a spirit of personal exploration, in a mentality that includes critical
thinking and personal trial and error.
It also in this spirit that I hope some of you with similar mindsets as mine will
continue this project of helping others in the climbing community in your own
ways. This can be done by taking newbies outside, by volunteering to teach kids
classes at your gym, by investing yourself in the successes of others. I will not harp
on the issue here – this is something very personal to me and perhaps not
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something that everyone would understand – but I do believe that most endeavors
are better if undertaken in a cooperative spirit. I am, after all, a Star Trek fan.
So thank you for taking the time to look at my book. And thank you to
everyone that offered helpful ideas for its improvement; the current edition would
not have been possible without your insight and comments. I wish everyone well
in their personal journeys as climbers, and I hope we can all be made better people
by the effort we put into ourselves through climbing and training. I believe the
commitment and discipline that getting stronger and better requires burns away
the unnecessary and often harmful parts of our being, leaving only the best parts
of ourselves. Oh, and one more thing. I did end up sending my first v13 this year!
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In this chapter, I want to air out some of the more tangible ideas and
concepts that lay out the foundation of the training method outlined in this book.
This comes from my pedagogy as a teacher: you, as the person training, should
understand more than just the what, as in what exercises you are doing. I think it
is also beneficial to understand the why, especially if you are to use this book to
become self-sufficient in your training. While I have included this kind of
information throughout the book as it pertains to specific elements of the
program, the following ideas run through the entire concept behind this book.
Outdoor Is the Goal
For me, this goes without saying: the goal of this book is to help you
achieve your outdoor goals. If you want to get stronger at a specific exercise, like
one hand hangs on the board, if you want to improve performance in
competitions, or if you just want to crush on the Moonboard, this is not the book
for you. If, however, you want to use your time indoors to make sure that, when
you can get out, you arrive at your projects ready and with the best chance of
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sending, then this book is intended for you and will help you in that. Remember
this: everything you do in your training should be geared towards getting outside.
Training vs. Climbing
Training should and must be differentiated from climbing in that the goals
are different when it comes to being in the gym. This book has been written
under the assumption that many of us, either because of work or location, have
to climb in the gym at least during the week. Differentiating between just
climbing indoors and training is truly a demarcation of the purpose of the gym.
Under the “just climbing” model, the gym is an end in and of itself, and this goes
against the above principle. Under the “training” viewpoint, the gym becomes a
tool you use to achieve your true goals: not sending the pink line in the overhang
but, rather, sending your project outside. And, like all tools, a gym can be used
effectively or ineffectively. The purpose of looking at the gym as a training tool
and of this book is to maximize the effectiveness of this tool.
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Maximizing Every Session and Balance
Just climbing in the gym is a perspective susceptible to whim and whimsy.
We have all been there: you go to the gym without a plan or goal and you spend
more time hanging out than climbing because you weren’t really feeling it that
day. Or, you get obsessed with a single problem and spend 2 hours on it, at best
getting really worked in specific muscles or at worst injuring yourself due to
overuse. Neither of these are an effective use of gym time, and, while they do not
necessarily set you back (except injury of course), they also do not move you
forward. The goal of the program outlined in this book is to make sure that every
session in the gym requires maximum effort and every element necessary to
improving your climbing, from forearms to core, is hit on, bringing full-body
balance to your sessions.
Consistency and Focus
There is no magic bullet to training, no secret workout that will make you
stronger. Consistency is the closest thing to the magic pill that will make your
projects feel doable. Focusing on a discipline, in this book bouldering, and taking a
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consistent and long-term view of training is what will lead to significant and
permanent improvements in your climbing. Really, there is nothing as important
as this. While this program, if only done once, will likely help you, true progress
will come from the continuous application and adaption of the principles and
format found in these pages over long periods of time. Your body is an adaption
machine. It will adapt to strenuous and consistent exercise in ways you can hardly
imagine. That said, by the same token, it will also adapt to inconsistent training
and gaps in your effort. Your body will become what you force it to be; to become
a climber, you must keep at it consistently.
Quantifiable Progression
Key to maximization and consistency is adaption and motivation. Keeping
track of your progress is the best way to effectively keep these in your training. By
keeping a training logbook and by writing down your performance, you do a few
things. First, you begin building a long term narrative of your training that allows
you to remember where you have come from and how much you have improved.
This in turn is a major source of motivation; actually seeing your progress
physically recorded will increase both your understanding of and your faith in the
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training process, leading to increased motivation and dedication. Second, the
logbook allows you to see, in concrete fact, what exercises work for you and
which do not, and when you need to increase or decrease the intensity of a given
exercise. This is key for adapting your workouts to fit you as a climber and to keep
up continuous progression.
Discipline and Attitude
Ultimately, what separates those that see results from their training and
those that don’t comes down to two things: attitude and discipline. You should
develop an approach. An attitude, to training, that will allow you to give 100% to
your training without causing you to fall off the horse when, as will happen, the
going gets tough or, as will also happen, you don’t send your project. For many,
training is only worth it if they see results. There are many factors that go into
sending – conditions, sleep patterns, luck, - and training is not the only variable. If
you are too focused on results, then setbacks and failures will likely cause you to
give, when working harder should be the response. At the same time, sending is a
proper carrot on the end of the stick; you needs goals in mind to motivate. I find
that the path through this paradox is to focus on discipline. Training, while a way
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to achieve climbing goals, is also a way to cultivate the will. A discipline-based
approach to training focuses on achieving maximum effort without attachment to
the end result because the discipline learned, the will empowered, through
physical and mental hardship is a worthy end in and of itself. The discipline you
can learn through training can be applied pretty much anywhere in your life. This
itself makes the training worth it.
Motivation
There is a scene in the scifi novel “Dune” that I love and that I think
illustrates the point I want to make here well. In it, the main character, Paul,
expresses that he “isn’t in the mood for training” that day; he is being trained in
martial arts so as to be able to defend himself. His teacher finds this remark
enraging and attacks him viciously. Paul defends himself well, though he is afraid
of his teacher’s sudden fury. After the skirmish, the teacher leaves him with these
words: “Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for
fighting.” This is a little dramatic, but the point applies to training quite nicely. If
you are training sufficiently hard, your motivation will invariably falter. Your body
will be tired, and fatigue of the mind will be close behind. This is inevitable and
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the reason mood is not a good source of motivation. In order to push yourself to
the level necessary to make the maximum progress in your climbing, you have to
find a source of motivation outside of your mood. Focusing on discipline, as
expressed above, can be good for this, but each of us must find our own
wellspring of energy from which to draw. This process, regardless of what the
source ends up being, should be proactive. Personally, I watch kung-fu movies
and read tales of incredible feats of mental and physical determination. I watch
videos of my projects and read books on the philosophy of the mind. Everybody is
different, but being proactive about cultivating motivation will save you from
falling into “the mood” when things get hard or when failure rears its instructive
head.
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Periodization is essentially split into 3 parts (with a fourth, optional section
that precedes the others: Fitness (optional), Strength, Power, and Send. This style
of forming a training program is called periodization and works well for anyone
training for a specific trip or a specific time of year. I have also found that it allows
the climber to focus on the individual aspects of bouldering individually,
improving on each, rather than trying to do a bit of everything all the time and
improving at none of them. Essentially, the point of periodization is to break up
the focus of your workouts, according to phases, so that you have a distinct
“peak,” a period of time in which everything comes together and you hit a max in
your climbing strength and ability. Optimally, a series of training cycles will relate
to a climbers ability like this:
Highs and Lows

Peak
Start
Peak
Strength
Start
Peak
Start
Start
Time
Progress Linear (Progress)
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With Periodization, each training cycle is represented by the upward trend of the
line, culminating at the “peak.” Slowly, you will lose some of the raw Strength and
Power as you come off your peak, but your next starting point, your “Low,” will
still be above your previous performance level. It is through this continued
progression of training cycle Highs and Lows, with a definite upward trend, that
continual progress is achieved. This graph is, ultimately, a little deceiving, as
nothing in training works in quite so linear a fashion. There will be ups and downs
in your training cycles; you will (and should!) feel progressively more and more
tired while training. And your peak will not be a single moment, as the graph
seems to indicate. Rather, your peak will last anywhere from 2 weeks to a month,
or maybe even longer. The point of this visual representation, however, is not
accuracy. It is to show the general trend your training cycles should take.
Strength vs Power
In order to become self-sufficient in creating your own periodized training
plans, it is important to understand the difference between Strength and Power
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as they pertain to climbing. The goal is to be able to see an exercise and be able to
recognize whether it is primarily training Strength or Power so that you can
properly place the exercise in your phases. Another benefit of being able to tell
the difference is that, when you are training for a specific boulder problem,
knowing the difference will help you recognize which your project needs most. I
should note here that I will be keeping my definitions simple, for the sake of
clarity; my sources for this information can be found in the Bibliography at the
end of this book.
Strength is, essentially, your muscles’ ability to stay engaged and
contracted against continuous resistance. In bouldering, this is static climbing –
moves that require lock offs or holding a specific position. Strength also
encompasses finger strength, the lynch pin of all hard climbing. Your ability to
hold and use a grip, be it a crimp or a sloper or a pinch, is also included under
strength. Consequently, the Strength phase of your training cycle will incorporate
exercises that require controlled, steady movements or exercises that require you
to hold a position.
Power, on the other hand, is the quickness by which your muscles can
contract – how fast they can engage. In bouldering, this is dynamic climbing –
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moves that require you to jump and latch holds, moves that force you to propel
yourself upward with momentum rather than holding a position. In terms of the
hands, Power also refers to the ability of your fingers to engage quickly enough to
grab a hold while falling away from it. The Power phase of your training cycle will
use exercises that attempt to speed up the contraction of your muscles and of
your hands (forearms, really) by focusing on momentum and snatching holds.
Each of us come with a natural tendency towards one of these. Personally, I
tend towards climbs that require jump moves, swings, and dynos – Power. I think
this is because of my background as a soccer goalie and as a skater. Both involved
throwing myself through the air, quick reflexes, and a sort of wildness, which,
throughout my youth, built in me the body-awareness that eventually lead me
towards dynamic climbing, but neither required much physical strength, which is
something I had to build consciously as a climber. When I first started climbing, I
struggled to lock off to get to holds, but I was able to use momentum. I think it is
important to recognize your own “style,” not to bemoan climbs of the opposite as
we so often hear people do at the crag but to better understand yourself as a
climber and to be able to consciously pick out and focus on your weaknesses. The
fact of the matter is that, in order to improve as a boulderer, both Strength and
Power are required.
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Timing
Your Strength and Power phases will each run for six weeks: five weeks of
hard training and then an easy week to recover before the next phase. Online,
you will see a number of other lengths given, from three-week micro-cycles to 12
week marathon phases. Ultimately, you will have to decide for yourself what is
best for you and your goals. This book will operate under the six week phase time
that I have been using for myself for the past few years with quite a bit of success.
This isn’t simply anecdotal; there is quite a bit of research in sports medicine
showing that five to six weeks is just about the optimal amount of time for
training; after that, according to these studies, the body and your neurons don’t
advance much and the likelihood for injury increases exponentially. The goal with
training is to approach that place where injury becomes likely due to the
increasing amount of stress the body is undergoing and to stop right at the cusp,
not crossing over into injury territory and letting the body recover before
beginning again. Remember, it is in the recovery that you get stronger!
This also is why the Strength phase always comes before the Power phase.
Strength is where you are building the specific muscles you need for climbing, and
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this happens by tearing them down and letting them rebuild. The Power phase is
more of a neurological or learning phase – you are learning to use the muscles
and strength you have built during the Strength phase. Basically, the Strength
phase should and will be harder on your body than Power. This means that, while
you are working on your Power, working on learning to use your body in a
dynamic way, your muscles will be progressively recovering from the Strength
phase, allowing for everything to click and come together during the next portion
of your training, and the fun part: the Send Phase.
The Send Phase
After 12 weeks of training – 6 weeks of Strength and 6 weeks of Power – it
is time to go out and throw yourself at your projects. However, it is important to
note that peak takes some time to hit and how long it lasts varies. For me, my
peak usually comes at around 2-3 weeks after the end of my Power phase and
lasts around 3-4 weeks. A calendar also becomes useful here. You should try and
time your training so that whatever trip you are taking lands right in the middle of
this phase. I usually try to time it so that I arrive at my destination in the first
week after my Power phase ends, that way I have a week or 2 to get used to the
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rock and to pick out and build up to my projects. Also, I make sure to take 4 to 7
days COMPLETELY off before the Send phase, making sure I am completely rested
and recovered before going hard at the boulders. Remember, if you do not rest
properly, you will not make the gains you worked for!
Another thing to consider is how long your Send phase will be. Many of us
only get a few weeks off a year, but I would argue that your send phase should be
at least a month long. I usually do 2-3 months, but I also include a fitness phase
(see next section). The temptation to jump right back into training, especially
when you see how effective it is, is a dangerous one, and over-training can
stagnate your process or send you tumbling back or, worst of all, lead to injury.
You should not begin another training cycle until you feel fully recovered from the
previous one and fully recovered from your Send phase. This does not mean you
necessarily have to stop trying hard; usually, just some time away from training
and a few extra rest days sprinkled into your life as you approach your next cycle
will do the trick. It is also good to note that there is another benefit to the longer
Send phase; projecting will work you and make you stronger still. Usually, when
my peak ends I feel really tired, but after a few rest days, I tend to have a second
peak, albeit a little shorter. I have sent a lot of projects in this second peak, and I
try to make sure I time myself so that I can utilize it.
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The Optional Fitness Phase
I call this phase optional because you do not necessarily have to have good
fitness to climb hard. That said, many of us can benefit from fewer excess pounds
on the body and, overall general fitness is good for you! Another reason I like to
include this phase is that it helps me stave off the temptation to jump into
training too soon. Also, it’s nice to go into training feeling fit overall. Generally, I
fold this phase into the last month of my Send phase, basically just tacking it on.
The Overview
Here is an overview of the cycle I have laid out in the above sections:
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By the week
Now that we have discussed the breakdown of the program according to
the 6 week Phases, let’s look at what each week generally looks like. While the
workouts will change depending on what Phase you are in, the overall structure
will be the same, roughly. There are two reasons for this. First, simplicity.
Simplicity is key when it comes to creating a program you can stick with
consistently, as it allows your mind and body to get into a kind of rhythm, making
skipping workouts less likely and maximizing efficiency. On a related note,
keeping the overall structure similar makes it easier to plan all your workouts
ahead of time; the last thing you are going to want to do after a hard day at work
is try and decide what to do for your workout that night. Secondly, I have just
found this structure to be the most effective, as it allows you to really work your
body hard but not overdo it. I repeat here: the temptation to over-train is a
dangerous one invariably leading to stagnation and injury. In keeping with the
weekly structure I have laid out below, I have found a balance between training
and rest that has allowed me to continually improve as a climber.
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Let’s start by looking at the week as a whole. Each week, regardless of
Phase (except for the 6th, easy week in each Phase), will look like this
Monday • Core and Cardio

Tuesday • Training Session1
Wednesday • Core and Cardio
Thursday • Training Session 2
Friday • Rest
Saturday • Outdoor/Gym
• Outdoor/Gym or Fitness and Strength
Sunday
Session
This weekly layout is intended for the working climber that can only get outdoors
on the weekend. The specific days can change according to your schedule (say,
instead of weekends you have Tuesday and Wednesday off), so long as the
distribution of the specific elements stays the same. The purpose of this
distribution is to always give your climbing-related muscles a rest before the
training sessions and before the first climbing day.
35
While we will get into details progressively as we get through this text, here
is a brief description of what each element entails:
Cardio and Core: This is a brief workout focusing on, you guessed it, Cardio and
Core exercises. The length should be 30-60 minutes, and you should avoid
any exercises that use your arms or back muscles, paying special attention
to letting the forearms rest.
Training Session 1: The focus of the first training session of the week is exercises
that isolate certain climbing specific-muscles or movements.
Training Session 2: The focus of the second training session of the week is on
climbing and exercises that use the wall.
Rest: Easy: rest!
Outdoor/Gym: Just a basic outdoor or indoor session. Have fun!
Fitness and Strength Session: This alternative to an Outdoor/Gym session on
Sunday is useful if you really wrecked yourself on Saturday and want to
make sure your forearms are recovered for Training Session 1 or if your
local outdoor spot annihilated your tips and you just can’t climb another
day. It can also be useful time-wise, as it usually does not last as long as a
normal climbing session. The focus should be on body-weight calisthenics

36
rotations of HIIT-style lifting sessions utilizing low weights and high
repetitions.
By the Day
Let’s get into a bit more detail now. In this section, I will start giving you the
specific information you will need to begin building your own workouts and,
therefore, your own programs. Think of this section as the outline you will fill in
with exercises from the next chapter; I will breakdown each training element
described above in greater detail, but I will leave the choice of the individual
exercises that will comprise each session up to you. This should make more sense
as you continue to read. But first, a note about how your climbing level should
inform your training.
For beginners, those with 1-2 years of regular climbing and in the v3-v5
range, most of your time should be spent on exercises that put you on the wall.
This is because, as a relative newcomer, you have the most to gain from simply
climbing, as this will both build the necessary muscles used in climbing and
continue your education in technique and body awareness. I use the following
breakdown for Beginners: Training Sessions no longer than 2.5 hours and roughly
75% should be in exercises that require actual climbing.

37
For Intermediate climbers, those with 3+ years of regular climbing and in
the v6-v9 range, you should begin including more isolation-based exercises that
focus on very specific climbing muscles and movement. While climbing technique
and body awareness can always improve, the Intermediate climber has more to
gain by forcing the body into an even more specialized form. I use the following
breakdown for Intermediate climbers: 3 hour workouts split down the middle
with 50% spent on isolation exercises and 50% on the wall.
For Advanced climbers, those in the v10+ range, sessions and exercises that
require the maximum amount of intensity and effort are the key to improving.
This means that much of your time should be spent on exercises that isolate and
work on very specific muscles and movements, such as the hangboard and
campus board. That isn’t to say you should give up the wall, however, as keeping
some climbing in there will help make the transition from training to real rock
easier and quicker. I use the following breakdown for Advanced climbers: 4 hour
workouts with 25-45% of that on the wall.
Again, I would like to reiterate that the above information is for your
benefit. While you can just use this book to create training programs in a plug-n-
play kind of way, I am endeavoring to give you the information that serves as the
38
foundation for the specifics of the workouts I am outlining. The idea here is that
knowing the why is just as important as knowing the how, when it comes to being
self-sufficient.
By the Session
Ok, now we will jump into the Training Session layouts. The goal here is for
you to be able to take the layout appropriate to your level, choose exercises from
the next chapter, and thereby build your weekly program. There will be more
information on this later, but you can do this simply by using your computer and
printing out each workout or by using a notebook.. However you choose to go
about it, I recommend planning your entire training cycle, each phase and every
workout, completely in advance and keeping a log of your effort and progress.
The preplanning will maximize your completion of the training cycle and using a
logbook will inform the choices you make when you build subsequent programs.
39
Beginner
Training Session 1
Time: 2.5 hours
Focus: Isolation Exercises
Warm Up • 20 minutes
• 60 minutes
• Hangboard (Strength Phase) or
Campus board (Power Phase)
(30 minutes): choose from
Isolation Chapter 5
• Pull Up Bar or Rings (15
minutes): choose from Chapter 5
• 40 minutes
Climbing
• V-Max
• 20 minutes
Core
• Choose from Chapter 5
Cool Down • 10 minutes
40
Training Session 2
Time: 2.5 hours
Focus: Climbing Exercises
Warm
• 20 minutes
Up
• 1hour 40 minutes
• V-Max (60 minutes)
• Climbing Drill (20
Climbing minutes): choose from
Chapter 5
• Climbing Drill (20
minutes): choose from
Chapter 5
• 20 minutes
Core
Cool
• 10 minutes
Down
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Intermediate
Training Session 1
Time: 3 hours
• 60 minutes
Isolation Chapter 5
• 60 minutes
Climbing
• V-Max
• 20 minutes
Core
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Training Session 2
Time: 3 hours
• 30 minutes
Isolation Campus board (Power Phase)
Chapter 5
• 90 minutes
Climbing • Climbing Drill (20 minutes):
choose from Chapter 5
• Climbing Drill (20 minutes):
• 20 minutes
Core
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Advanced
Training Session 1
Time: 4 hours
• 120 minutes
Isolation Chapter 5
• 60 minutes
Climbing
• 20 minutes
Core
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Training Session 2
Time: 4 hours
• 60 minutes
Campus board (Power Phase) (45
Isolation
• Pull Up Bar or Rings (15 minutes):
• 120 minutes
Climbing • Climbing Drill (30 minutes): choose
from Chapter 5
• Climbing Drill (30 minutes): choose
from Chapter 5
• 20 minutes
Core
45
You will use Chapter 5 to fill in the above layout that is appropriate to your
level, including the Cardio and Core days. Create a complete week for each phase,
Strength and Power. You will repeat these weeks 5 times each, with an easy week
at the end of each as well. This will make for 2 6 week phases, and a total of 12
weeks, as described previously.
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47
Non-linear training contrasts with Periodized training by virtue of its less
formatted structure. While the workouts are still planned according to goals and
weaknesses, the phases of train/rest are much less so.. With Non-Linear training,
you do attempt to complete pre-planned workouts throughout your week, but
when in the week you do them and for how many weeks you train (within some
boundaries based on general rules) is less structured and basically up to you and
your time-availability.
Non-Linear Training looks like this: you break your climbing into 5
categories, as described below:
Hands: this category involves anything that isolates the hands, namely the
hangboard and the campus board.
Climbing: this category involves anything that requires climbing on a wall.
Strength/Power: this category involves anything that isolates climbing specific
muscles other than the forearms, namely the arms and back.
Fitness (Antagonists): this category involves anything that is not directly climbing
related, namely antagonist muscles and general fitness exercise.
Core and Cardio: this category involves anything that isolates the core and works
on cardio.
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For each category, and depending on your level as a climber, you create a
workout (these are described below) or two for each category to complete during
the week in whatever order and/or combination you can or see fit. The level-to-
workout ratio should be as follows:
a.1 Hands
b.2 Climbing
Beginner:
c.1 Strength/Power
6 Workouts
d.1 Fitness
e.1 Core and Cardio
a.2 Hands
b.2 Climbing
Intermediate:
c.2 Strength/Power
8 workouts
d.1 Fitness
e.1 Core and Cardio
a.2 Hands
b.2 Climbing
Advanced:
c.2 Strength/Power
10 workouts
d.2 Fitness
e.2 Core and Cardio
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Rational
There are basically four reasons to choose this style of training over
Periodization:
1. Time management: this style of working out is useful if you have work or
life circumstances that make getting the exact same times in difficult,
week to week. The flexibility of Non-Linear training allows for you to
change what your week looks like according to your work or home life
circumstances.
2. No Trip Planned: Periodization is excellent for someone like me; I am a
teacher, so I have the exact same vacation time every year. Most
people, however, are dependent on the whims of their bosses, and that
can make planning for a trip 12 weeks ahead of time difficult. Non-
Linear Training is designed to keep you continuously fit while also
improving so that you can simply keep training year-round or can take
off on a trip relatively last minute.
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3. Limited Facilities: Periodization works best when you have access to a
gym that has everything you need: wall, hangboard, campus board,
weights, rings, bars, etc. However, some gyms, like the one I learned to
climb in, are limited in their facilities. Because of the way Non-Linear
training is structured, you can use multiple facilities to get your
workouts done.
4. Special Considerations: Non-Linear Training can be ideal if you are prone
to injury or if you struggle with recovery, as it allows for more choice
and flexibility in what you do and when you do it.
By the Session
Each workout should be comprised of about an hour, not including at least
15 minutes on either end for a warmup and a cool down. The only leeway is with
the Climbing workouts: you can make these longer if you choose. For all the other
categories, assuming the 3 set/5 minutes per set timing structure outline in
following chapter, this should allow for 4 exercises per workout. Please note that
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the following workout descriptions do not include a warmup or cool down, but
your execution of them should include both:
Hands: Hand can be broken up into workouts involving the hangboard or
workouts involving the campus board. The following are examples of each.
a. 1 hand Hangs x 2 edges (3 sets each = 30

Hands minutes)
(Strength) b.Max Hangs x 2 edges (3 sets each = 30
minutes)
a. Max Ladder (3 sets = 15 minutes)

Hands b.Max Throw (3 sets = 15 minutes)
(Power) c. Up Downs (3 sets = 15 minutes)
d.Max Bumps (3 sets = 15 minutes)
Climbing: Climbing can be broken up into two parts: V-Max, which I would
argue should be at least a short section (30 minutes minimum) of every climbing
workout, and a drill or drills:
a.V-Max (30 minutes)

Climbing b.Hover Drill (3 sets = 15 minutes)
c.Hang Arounds (3 sets = 15 minutes)
Climbing workouts can be extended by adding more time to the V-Max
and/or by adding more drills.
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Strength/Power: Strength and Power workouts emphasize climbing specific
muscles other than the hands and forearms. This basically encapsulates the
pulling muscles, and most exercises here are pull-based. Like hands, this category
can be used to focus on Strength or Power:
a.1 Arm Pull Ups (3 sets = 15 minutes)

b.1 Arm Lock Offs (3 sets = 15 minutes)
Strength
c.Max Weight Pull Ups (3 sets = 15 minutes)
d.Typwriters (3 sets = 15 minutes)
a.Muscle Ups (3 sets = 15 minutes)
b.Clapping Pull Ups (3 sets = 15 minutes)
Power
c.Kipping 1 Arms (3 sets = 15 minutes)
d.Fast Ups, Slow Downs (3 sets = 15 minutes)
Fitness: The goal of the fitness category is in the name: to build over all
fitness. This should emphasize HIIT style exercises; I do not give too much
information in the Exercises chapter of this book on these, as the amount of
information online is out of control. Focus on body weight or low weight and high
volume exercises that utilize complex movements. Calisthenics rotations, kettle
bell pyramids, and bar complexes work well for this. You can also add extra cardio
here, if desired. Also, this one often will not fall into the normal 15
minute/exercise blocks, though it can be made to:
53
a.Calisthenics Rotation (3 sets = 15 minutes)
b.Bar Complex (3 sets = 15 minutes)
Fitness
c.Antagonists (3 sets = 15 minutes)
d.Jump Rope (15 minutes)
Core and Cardio: As with Fitness, I do not give too much information on
these in the Exercise chapter of this book, as information abounds. Normal timing
also does not need to apply, though it can. The example below is how I chose to
structure mine. Trial and error!
a.Core (40 minutes)

i. Levers
ii.Toes to Bar
Core and Cardio iii.Windshield Wipers
iv.Planks
b.Cardio (20 minutes)
i. Sprint Walks
By the Week
Based on your level, as described above, you will complete a certain
number of these workouts a week (Sunday through Saturday). How you complete
them is entirely up to you. You may find yourself doing 3 in one day and 1 in
54
another and resting on yet another… so long as you complete the allotted
number, it really doesn’t matter. That said, there are some guidelines that can be
useful:
1. Stack climbing related Categories together. These include Hands,
Climbing, and Strength/Power.
2. Try and give your hands at least a day rest in between times you use
them.
3. When stacking workouts, do so in decreasing intensity and isolation. So
for a climbing day, try Hands and then Strength/Power or Climbing. If
doing all three, try Hands, then Strength/Power, the Climbing.
4. Be sure to include a proper warm up and cool down for every
workout/stack!
5. Try splitting your workouts up throughout the day to save time.
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Timing
Periodization follows a 6-12 week cycle in which you train for five weeks at
a time, followed by a week of rest. After 12 weeks, it is recommended that you
just climb for at least a month. Non-Linear Training operates under similar
guidelines but with much more flexibility. There are no set phases for Non-Linear
Training; rather, you throw in rest weeks as you see fit. You should, however,
consider the following as useful guidelines to avoid overtraining and injury:
1. The 5 Week Rule: studies in sports medicine show that 5 weeks is about
the limit that the human body can handle intense training while still
making progress. After this, progress declines sharply while the risk of
injury increases. If you manage to train in a Non-Linear fashion for 5
weeks straight, throw in an easy/rest week.
2. The 10 Week Rule: Regardless of how many rest weeks you take,
whenever you hit your tenth week of training overall, take 2-4 weeks to
just climb. Not only will this help you avoid injury, it will also keep you
sane and help keep the training easily translated to the rock.
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One of the main virtues of Non-Linear Training is that it allows for an intuitive
approach to Strength and Power Training. As there is not set phase for each, there
are a few ways you can approach it. You can focus on Strength for a bit and then
move to Power based workouts, almost like an intuitive and less structured
periodization. Or you can only focus on one or the other based on what you
perceive your weaknesses to be or based on an outdoor goal. Or you can do one
of each every week, getting some Strength and some Power in together. As Non-
Linear Training involves a high degree of flexibility, it is ultimately up to you to
decide what works best for you and your goals through trial and error.
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58
This chapter should be used in conjunction with the previous chapters;
after choosing which type and level program you are going to use, choose
exercises from the list below, being sure to fit them into their appropriate slots
and adjusting the number of sets according to how much time is required by the
layout. Also, be sure to choose exercises appropriate to your level (Beginner,
Intermediate, or Advanced). I have included detailed descriptions and images of
many of the workouts, especially ones that I consider to be foundational for other
exercises. For variations, I have included only descriptions, under the assumption
that you will be able to use the description as well as the images for the
corresponding foundation exercises to understand how to do them. A simple
online search of any of them will bring up countless pictures and videos showing
them with more detail. Use these to guide your training towards specific
weaknesses and/or goals. Another thing to consider: in sections of the work out
that require you to fill in more than one section, consider utilizing a workout
below your level as well as ones at your level. Also, the exercises are mainly split
into 6 categories: Strength, Power, Power Endurance, Technique, Core, and
Fitness. Where applicable, the exercises in each category are grouped according
to the equipment necessary (Hangboard, Bar/Rings, etc.) and ordered from
Beginner to Advanced.
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All of these exercises utilize a similar timing technique (with a few
exceptions that are explained where necessary): for each set, no matter the
exercise, you are given 5 minutes to complete the required reps (what is defined
as a rep/set varies according to the specific exercise). You have whatever leftover
time in the 5 minutes to rest before the next set. For example: you have 5
minutes to complete a max hang. Start your timer. Hang. If the hang lasts ten
seconds, then you will have approximately 4 minutes and 50 seconds before going
again. The idea here is to err on the side of too much rest between sets of the
exercises, maximizing your output for each and minimizing the chance for injury.
Any variations in timing will be offered in the exercise description.
Warming up and Cooling Down
To warm up, use a combination of stretching and easy climbing/hanging.
Increase the intensity gradually through the allotted time until you are giving
between 75 and 90% effort in the last ten minutes or so.
The cool down is an important and often ignored part of training; I cannot
stress enough how necessary it is to do some kind of cool down. This will, in the
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long-term, keep you injury free, allowing you to ultimately train harder and push
your body farther than you thought it could go. I recommend dedicating at least
10 minutes to Cooling Down at the end of your session, using any combination of
the following (NOTE: any of these can also be used for warming up):
Simple Sun Salutations
These are a simplified version of the yoga cycle often seen in classes. It is
important to note that this should be easy stretching; don’t overdo it!
Begin standing straight with hands at

side.
61
Raise arms out to side and above
head, stretching back.
With a straight back, reach out and

down, touching toes.
62
Straight back and open chest,
allowing yourself to rise up a little.
Reach back down to toes, place hands

on floor, and step back into a plank.
63
Drop into a push up and then push
chest upwards into upward dog.
Reverse movement back into push up

and then push back into downward
dog.
64
Step feet forward again, coming into a
doubled over position.
Raise arms out and up as you

straighten your back.
65
Return to starting position, and
repeat.
The Rice Bucket
The Rice Bucket is an old martial arts tool that is hands-down my favorite
on this list. The major benefit of the bucket is that it provides consistent and
continuous resistance and primarily works on your fingers and the attached
tendons and pulleys. The pictures below are taken with the model hand outside
of the bucket for ease of explanation; the movements described should be done
with the hand in the rice bucket.
66
Fill a five gallon bucket at least half
way with uncooked rice.
Finger Spreads
1. Insert hand into rice, fingers

together, up to the forearm.
67
2. Spread fingers out and drag hand
up out of the rice.
Fist Rotations
1. Insert hand into rice, fingers in a

fist.
68
2. Rotate fist one direction.
3. Rotate fist the other direction.

Repeat.
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Finger Spread Rotations
1. Insert hand into rice, fingers

together, up to the forearms.
2. Spread fingers out and rotate hand

back and forth.
Bent Fist Rotations
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1. Insert hand into rice, fingers in a
fist.
2. Bend hand at the wrist.
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3. Rotate fist back and forth.
Bands
Bands are an old standby and very useful. The below movements focus on
the elbows and shoulders. One of the best parts about bands is that, as they are
lightweight and easily packed, they can be taken to the crag and used as part of a
warmup when climbing outside. They are also very inexpensive.
72
Shoulder Presses
1. Stand on band and drape over

thumbs.
2. Press hands overhead. Repeat.
73
Shoulder Rotations
1. Stand on band and grip with fist in

front of you.
2. Bring fist up, rotating up at the

shoulder. Repeat with both sides.
74
Rotator Rotations
1. Attach band to anything off to

side. Grip with elbow at side.
2. Bring fist across body, keeping

elbow in. Repeat with both sides,
also with tension in opposite
direction.
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Wrist and Finger Stretches
While these are good for a cool down or warm up, I also just do them all
the time. It’s not a bad habit to cultivate:
Wrists
1. Make a fist and put arm out in

front of you.
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2. Bend fist down at the wrist.
3. Bring other hand over and grip fist.
77
4. Pull with other hand, rotating fist
outward. Hold for a few moments,
and repeat with other side.
Fingers
1. Hold hand, palm up, out in front of

you with arm bent at elbow.
78
2. With other hand, hook a finger and
pull down. Hold, and repeat with all
fingers.
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Strength
Hangboard
A quick note on hangboarding: in a previous chapter, I list beginner as those
climbing v3-v5. Climbers still working their way into these should consider
forgoing training for just climbing. Take the long-view; getting on a hangboard too
early in your climbing can lead to injury!
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81
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Repeaters
Level
• Beginner, Intermediate
Total Time
• 5 holds, 1 set per hold, 5 minutes per set: 25 minutes
Purpose
• The exercise is designed to increase forearm endurance through

continuous hangs with little rest.
Description
• To perform, hang with both hands, shoulders and elbows slightly

engaged for as long as you can. Let go, and rest 5 seconds. Then
hang again, again till failure. Rest 5 seconds. Repeat 3 more times
for a total of 5 hangs with 5 seconds rest in between. Complete for
5 different holds.
Reps/Set
• Each hang is a rep; each group of 5 hangs is a set.
Progression
• Increase intensity by choosing more and more difficult holds to

hang on.
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Max Hangs
Level
• Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Total Time
• 2-3 holds, 2-3 sets per hold, 5 minutes per set: 20-45 minutes
Purpose
• This exercise is designed to build maximum finger strength through

short, intense single rep sets.
Description
• To perform, hang with both hands, shoulders and elbows slightly

engaged. If you can hang for more than 8 seconds, add weight in 5
pound increments.
Rep/Sets
• This is a single rep exercise, so each set consists of one hang. You will
complete 3 sets (hangs) per hold size.
Progression
• Begin by picking 3 edge sizes, small (10-15 mm), medium (15-20 mm),
and large (20-25 mm). Add or take off weight as necessary so that you
can only hang each size for 3-5 seconds. When you are able to hang a
hold size/weight combination for 8 seconds, choose smaller holds. Use
the same method for Pinch Blocks.
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Single Hand Max Hangs
Level
• Advanced
Total Time
• 2-3 holds, 2-3 sets per hold, 5 minutes per set: 20-45 minutes
Purpose
• This exercise is designed to build maximum finger strength through

short, intense single rep sets.
Description
• To perform, hang with one hand, shoulder and elbow slightly engaged. If
you can hang for more than 8 seconds, add weight in 5-10 pound
increments.
Rep/Sets
• This is a single rep exercise, so each set consists of one hang. You will
complete 3 sets (hangs) per hold size.
Progression
• Begin by picking 3 edge sizes, small (10-15 mm), medium (15-20 mm),
and large (20-25 mm). Add or take off weight as necessary so that you
can only hang each size for 3-5 seconds. When you are able to hang a
hold size/weight combination for 8 seconds, add or remove weight to
make more difficult again.
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Pull Up Bar or Rings
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Weighted Pull Ups
Level
Total Time
• 2-3 sets, 5 minutes per set: 10-15 minutes
Purpose
• This exercise is designed to build pull strength.
Description
• To perform, complete sets of 5-10 pullups with weight

added, using either a weight vest or a harness, sling, and
plate or bell weights.
Rep/Sets
• Each pull up is a rep; each group of 5-10 pull ups is a set.
Progression
• When you can do 10 pull ups at a given added weight,

add more in 5-10 pound increments.
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Max Weight Pull Up
Level
• Intermediate
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise is designed to build max strength through

intense, single reps.
Description
• To perform, complete a single pull up with as much

weight added as you can manage.
Rep/Sets
• This is a single rep exercise, so each set consists of one

pull up.
Progression
• Add weight as necessary.
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90
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Lock Offs
Level
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise is designed to build resistance strength in the back

and arms and lock-off strength.
Description
• To perform, use a chair or block to bring yourself to a half lock-off

(elbow at 90 degrees) on the bar or rings, depending on which is
called for. Hold position for up to 10 seconds, adding or removing
weight as necessary.
Rep/Sets
• This is a single rep exercise. Each lock-off is a set.
Progression
• Begin by removing or adding weight so that you can only hold each
position for 5 seconds. Once you are able to hold for 10 seconds,
add or remove weight in 5-10 pound increments.
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93
Pull Up Negatives
Level
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise builds both pull and lock-off strength.
Description
• To perform, use a block or chair to begin fully locked off, both

hands on the jugs/bar, with your chin above your hands. Take your
feet off the block/chair and lower yourself to straight arm as slowly
as you can. Add or remove weight as needed.
Rep/Sets
• This is a single rep exercise. Each negative (lowering from fully

locked to fully extended) is a set.
Progression
• Take off or add weight as necessary. If done properly, it should feel

as though you cannot quite hold yourself in position, but you
should be able to lower yourself slowly and with control all the way
through the movement.
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Assisted 1 Arm Lock Offs
Level
• Intermediate, Advanced
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise is designed to build single-arm strength.
Description
• To complete, use a pulley system or bands to assist. Use both

hands to pull yourself to a half lock-off position (elbow at 90
degrees). Release one hand and hold the lock-off with one arm
until failure. Repeat with other side.
Rep/Sets
• Each lock-off is a rep; each group of lock offs, both sides, is a set.
Progression
• When you can hold a single arm lock off for more than 10 seconds
at a certain weight, remove weight from the pulley system or
switch to a lighter band.
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96
Assisted 1 Arms
Level
• Advanced
Total Time
• 2-3 sets, 5 minutes per set, 10-15 minutes
Purpose
• This exercise is designed to build single arm strength
Description
• To perform, grasp bar or jug with hand. Start with elbow slightly
bent (this protects the ligaments in the elbow from strain). Using
just that arm, pull yourself up (try not to use your body to “kip”)
until your chin touches your hand. Lower yourself in a controlled
manner and repeat until failure. Repeat with the other arm.
Rep/Sets:
• Each 1-arm pull up is a rep, and each group of pullups done in

succession is a set.
Progression
• Use a pulley system to take off weight. When you can do 5 at a

certain weight with relative ease, lower the amount of weight you
are taking off. Continue until you can do without assistance.
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Single Hand Lock Offs
Level
• Advanced
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise builds lock-off strength.
Description
• To perform, use a chair or block to bring yourself to a half lock-off

(elbow at 90 degrees) with one hand on the bar or ring, depending
on which is called for. Hold position for up to 10 seconds, adding or
removing weight as necessary.
Rep/Sets
• This is a single rep exercise. Each lock-off is a set. You will complete
2 or 3 sets.
Progression
• Begin by removing or adding weight so that you can only hold each
position for 5 seconds. Once you are able to hold for 10 seconds,
add or remove weight in 5-10 pound increments.
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Climbing Drills
V-Max
Level
Total Time
• As much as called for in appropriate level program.
Purpose
• To build max ability.
Description
• To perform this exercise, basically just boulder and try as hard as you can! Pick
climbs at or above your maximum level but that you think you could send
within a few sessions (3 or so). The boulders you choose should be geared
towards your goals and should help you to work on your weaknesses. The
steeper the better! In a 30 minute Limit Bouldering session, you should work
2-3 problems, making sure to rest between attempts.
Rep/Sets
• N/A
Timing
• N/A
Progression
• To increase difficulty, choose harder problems.
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100
101
102
Hypergravity Bouldering
Level
• Intermediate or Advanced
Total Time
• As much time as allotted in Program.
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to build overall strength in the upper body,
core, and hands, as well as technique.
Description
• To perform, simply do a V-Max session while wearing a weight vest. Be sure to

avoid climbs with tweaky holds or moves, and to rest properly between
attempts.
Rep/Sets
• N/A
Timing
• N/A
Progression
• You can increase the difficulty by adding weight or by choosing more difficult
boulder problems to work on. I recommend not going over 10 pounds in the
vest. Less steep, crimpy lines will work on your finger strength more; steeper
lines with bigger holds and moves will work on your overall strength more.
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Power
Campus Board
A quick note on campus boards: in a previous chapter, I list beginner as
those climbing v3-v5. Climbers still working their way into these should consider
forgoing training for just climbing. Take the long-view; getting on a campus board
too early in your climbing can lead to injury!
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Foot On Pulls
Level
• Beginner
Total Time
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to begin building the necessary strength

to safely use the campus board.
Description
• To perform, place both hands on one of the lowest rungs, also placing
your feet on the wall behind the board (there are usually feet here for
this). Pull your chest to your hands quickly and use the momentum to
reach with your right hand as far as you can, grabbing whatever rung is
at that length for you. Let go and match hands low again. Repeat leading
with left hand. Complete 5-10 reps total.
Rep/Sets
• Each pull is a rep, each group of pulls is a set.
Progression
• To increase difficulty: use smaller feet or your approach shoes, choose

smaller rungs, or attempt to reach farther.
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Up Down Pulls
Level
• Intermediate
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise builds power and contact strength.
Description
• To perform, hang on one of the lowest rungs, feet off. Pull up

and, using the momentum, reach up as far as you can with
your right hand and grab the rung at that height. Release and
match low. Repeat with the left hand. Repeat until failure, 5-
10 reps total.
Rep/Sets
• Each pull and reach is a rep, each group of reps is a set.
Progression
• To increase difficulty, reach farther and/or use smaller rungs.
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Doubles
Level
• Intermediate and Advanced
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise builds power.
Description
• To perform, start matched on a low rung. Pull up and use the

momentum to move both hands simultaneously to the next
rung. Repeat until failure, 5-10 reps.
Rep/Sets
• Each movement of the hands is a rep, each group of

movements is a set.
Progression
• To increase difficulty, use smaller rungs, try to skip rungs,

and/or down campus from the top instead of dropping off.
This can also be done with feet on the back wall.
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Up Down Doubles
Level
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise builds power.
Description

momentum to move both hands simultaneously to the next rung.
Then, instead of continuing upward, drop back down with both
hands to your starting rung. As quickly as possible, launch yourself
up again and repeat to failure, 5-10 reps.
Rep/Sets
• Each up and down movement is a rep, each group of movements is

a set.
Progression
• To increase difficulty, use smaller rungs and/or try to skip rungs.

This can also be done in an up-2 rungs, down-1 rung pattern. This
can also be done with feet on the back wall.
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Max Double
Level
Total Time
Purpose
• Power!
Description

momentum to move both hands simultaneously as far up the
board as you can. Drop off and rest.
Rep/Sets
• This is a single rep exercise. Each move up the board is a set.
Progression
• To increase difficulty, increase distance between rungs and/or

use smaller holds.
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Pull Up Bar or Rings
Fast Ups, Slow Downs
Level
• Beginner
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise is designed to help the beginner climber prepare for

the campus board.
Description
• To perform, grasp the pull up bar or rings as if for normal pullups

(thumbs in). Pull up hard, pulling your chin to the bar as quickly as
you can. Then lower yourself as slowly as possible, striving for
complete control. Once you reach the bottom of your movement
(keep the elbows slightly engaged), explode upwards again and
repeat until failure.
Rep/Sets
• Each pull up is a rep, each group of pullups is a set
Progression
• Once you can do ten without too much difficulty, move on to the
next exercise (momentum ups).
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Momentum Ups
Level
• Beginner and Intermediate
Total Time
Purpose
• This exercise is designed to help the beginner climber prepare for the
campus board.
Description
• To perform, grasp the pull up bar or rings as if for normal pullups

(thumbs in). Pull up hard, pulling your chin to the bar as quickly as you
can. As you reach the top of your pull, use the momentum you have
generated to reach with one hands as high as you can. As you fall back
down, catch the bar with your free hand and lower. Once you reach the
bottom of your movement (keep the elbows slightly engaged), explode
upwards again and repea, alternating hands, until failure.
Rep/Sets
• Each pull up is a rep, each group of pullups is a set
Progression
• Once you can do ten without too much difficulty, move on to the next
exercise (clapping pullups).
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Clapping Pull Ups
Level
• Intermediate
Total Time
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to build power.
Description
• To perform, grasp the pull up bar as if for normal pullups

(thumbs in). Pull up hard, gaining as much momentum as you
can to drive yourself a little past the bar. Near the top of your
momentum upwards, release the bar and clap your hands,
catching the bar again on your way down. Repeat until failure.
Rep/Sets
• Each clap is a rep, each group of claps is a set
Progression
• When these become easy, add weight or move to muscle ups.
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Muscle Ups
Level
Total Time
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to build power, specifically power that

drives your body past your hands.
Description
• To perform, grasp the pull up bar as if for normal pullups (thumbs in).
Pull up hard, gaining as much momentum as you can to drive yourself a
little past the bar. Near the top of your momentum upwards, roll your
hands onto the top of the bar, elbows out, so that you are in a bar dip
position (when you are first learning, it may be easier to roll one hand
over the bar first, then the other). Straighten your arms and complete
the dip. Lower yourself below the bar again and repeat until failure.
Rep/Sets
• Each muscle up is a rep, each group is a set.
Progression
• To increase difficulty, add weight or attempt to do with more control

and better form.
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1 Handed Campusing
Level
• Advanced
Total Time
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to build single arm power.
Description
• To perform, hang under the bar with one arm. Using your
body for momentum, pull up as hard as you can. Near the top
of the movement, release the bar with your hand and then
catch it again on the way down. Repeat until failure.
Rep/Sets
• Each release with the hand is a rep, each group of reps is a set.
Progression
• When this becomes easy, move to doing it on the campus

board.
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Climbing Drills
Dynamic V-Max
Level
Total Time
Purpose
• To help translate power from isolation exercises to the wall.
Description
• To perform this exercise, basically just boulder and try as hard as

you can! Pick climbs at or above your maximum level but that you
think you could send within a few sessions (3 or so). Focus on
problems that require dynamic movement.
Rep/Sets
• N/A
Timing
• Be sure to take plenty of rest between burns on a boulder!
Progression
• To increase difficulty, choose harder problems!
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Dyno Drills
Level
Total Time
Purpose
• To help translate power from isolation exercises to the wall.
Description
• To perform, pick a jug somewhere on the climbing wall, between 6 and

10 feet off the ground. Using other holds in the area, try and make up as
many dynos to the jug as you can, coming from all different angles.
Rep/Sets
• N/A
Timing
• N/A
Progression
• To increase difficulty, choose a steeper part of the wall, choose a smaller

jug, or choose different types of holds to dyno from (slopers, crimps,
underclings, etc.)
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Power Endurance Drills
The following drills are intended to increase Power Endurance. I
recommend doing these on the second training session of the week and towards
the end of your cycle. These can be slotted in anywhere that calls for climbing
drills.
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4x4s
Level
• Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced
Total Time
• 20-30 minutes
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to build Power Endurance
Description
• To perform, choose 4 boulder problems below your max (it helps to choose
problems of different grades, progressively getting easier). Either climb all 4,
or climb one 4 times, but without resting (other than how long it takes to
chalk up and get to the start again). Then rest 4 minutes. Repeat 3 more times
for a total of 4 sets. If you cannot complete a problem in the series, climb till
failure and move to the next one.
Rep/Sets
• Each group of boulder problems is one set.
Timing
• Take as long as necessary to climb the 4 problems, rest 4 minutes between

sets.
Progression
• To increase difficutly, choose harder lines.
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Boulder Link-Ups
Level
• Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced
Total Time
• Variable
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to Build Power Endurance.
Description
• To perform, choose a few problems below your max, though they should all be
on the same section of the wall. Climb the first one, then down climb, using
any holds, back into the start without touching the ground again. Climb it
again, and repeat until failure. Rest 2-4 minutes and repeat with other
problems for allotted time. Alternatively, link-up different boulder problems
instead of climbing the same one.
Rep/Sets
• Each group of boulder problems is one set.
Timing
• Take as long as necessary to climb the link-ups until failure, rest 2-4 minutes
between sets.
Progression
• To increase difficulty, choose harder lines.
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Technique Drills
The following climbing drills are designed to focus primarily on technique,
though they also include elements of Strength and Power within them. They can
be inserted anywhere in the program that calls for Climbing and should be chosen
in order to address perceived weaknesses.
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Backstep Drill
Level
• Beginner or Intermediate
Total Time
• 4 boulder problems, 5 minutes each, 20 minutes total.
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to teach the use of backstepping as a climbing

technique. This exercise also builds strength and core.
Description
• To perform, choose a problem a few grades below your max. Climb the line,
but backstep for every move, switching feet and direction for every hand
move. If necessary, complete using any feet, though use smaller feet for more
effectiveness.
Rep/Sets
• Each boulder problem is one set.
Timing
• Break the allotted time into 5 minute blocks; each block is for one set (one
boulder problem). Climb the boulder problem in the way described above,
then rest for the remaining time.
Progression
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Static vs Dynamic
Level
Total Time
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to teach the techniques necessary for static and
dyanmic climbing, as well as to familairize the climber with the difference
between the two styles.
Description
• To perform, choose a problem a few grades below your max. Climb the line as
staticly as possible. Rest one minute. Then, climb it again purposefully using
momentum to make each move.
Rep/Sets
Timing
Progression
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One-Leg Drill
Level
Total Time
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to teach the technique required to climb when
not using all points of contact. This drill also works Strength, Power, and Core.
Description
• To perform, choose a problem a few grades below your max. Climb the line
using only one leg. Rest 1 minute. Then climb the line again, this time using
the other leg.
Rep/Sets
Timing
Progression
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Core
For core, do whatever you want! Just make sure it’s tough and that you
change it often. There are essentially two approaches to doing core: short
duration with high intensity or low intensity with high duration. The former
requires that you do an exercise much like you would the other exercises in this
chapter: a smaller number of reps with long rests in between. Levers are a good
example. They are difficult, especially when working up to them. You can do 3
sets with the same timing described at the beginning of this chapter, the reps
lasting, generally, a few seconds. The latter requires more reps with less rest. For
example: pick 4 core exercises you can do on the ground (leg lifts, planks,
windshield wipers, etc.). Do each for 30 seconds, moving from one to the next
without stopping (take a breath here and there when you need to). Do this 3
times, for a total of 3 sets per exercise, all without resting. I highly recommend
including planks. Also, there are many great core workouts in this style on
YouTube. You can also get an app for your phone that makes the timing easy
(they are generally called Tabata timers).
I have included some descriptions of exercises I really like here. These can
be used in either of the manners described above.
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Cardio and Core
Level
• Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced
Purpose:
• The purpose of this exercise is to build fitness and to manage weight

while strengthening core.
Description
• To perform, complete the following steps:

• 1. 1 minute of jump roping
• 2. 30 seconds of core (choose any exercise)
• 3. Repeat 10 times (15 minutes total)
Rep/Sets
• Each exercise is a rep; each rotation is a set.
Timing
• No rest between reps; rest long enough for partner to do set between
sets, or 1 minute.
Prgogression:
• To make more difficult, choose a different core exercise for each cycle; I
like to mix up stabilization core exercises like planks and movement
based exercises like bicycles and leg lifts. Use the same timer mentioned
above, Tabata, to complete this.
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Fitness
Calisthenics Rotation
Purpose
• The purpose of this exercise is to increase muscular endurance

and recovery, as well as to increase overall fitness.
Description
• To perform, complete ten reps of each exercise in succession,

in the order given, without rest. After completing a full set
rotation, rest while partner does the cycle, or approx. 2
minutes. Repeat twice, for a total of 3 sets.
1.Pulling Exercise (Typewriters, Offsets, Regular, etc.)
2.Dips (on bench, bar, or dip bar)
3.Pulling Exercise
4.Push Ups (Typewriters, Offsets, Regular, etc.)
5.Core (choose a different exercise every time)
Rep/Sets
Timing
• No rest between reps; rest long enough for partner to do set

between sets, or 2 minutes.
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Kettle Bells
Purpose
• This exercise helps build overall fitness and power, as well as

helping to work stabilizing muscles in the arms, core, and legs.
Description
• To perform, pick two kettle bells 10 pounds apart (this can also be
done with dumb bells). Pick light weights!! The focus of this is not
the weight but the movement. Choosing too heavy of weights is an
easy way to get injured. Starting with the lower weight, complete
the following steps, right hand and then left immediately after, in
succession without resting. Once you have done a full rotation, rest
3 minutes and repeat twice more, using the heavy weight only for
the second set, for 3 total sets:
1.One handed swing (5 each side)
2.One handed snatch (5 each side)
3.One handed snatch and press (5 each side)
4.Ome handed snatch (5 each side)
5.One handed swing (5 each side)
Rep/Sets
Timing
• No rest between reps; rest long enough for partner to do set

between sets, or 3 minutes.
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Shuttle Sprints and Core
Purpose
• To build fitness and manage weight.
Description
• To perform, choose a distance approx. the size of the

width of a basketball court. Use whatever at hand to
mark 3-5 lines within the distance (a gym court works
well for this). Starting on one side, sprint to each line,
stooping low to touch it, and back to the starting
point, also stooping low to touch it. Repeat until you
have touched every line, including the back one. Then,
complete a core exercise (choose whatever you like
and change for every set). Repeat twice more for a
total of 3 sprints and core. Complete 2 total rotations.
Rep/Sets
Timing
• No rest between reps; rest long enough for partner to

do set between sets, or 1 minute.
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I have a love-hate relationship with the idea of teaching technique. On the
one hand, there are some things that, at a bare minimum, are helpful to know in
an abstract sense. On the other, technique is highly individual to body type and
climbing style and is best perfected throughout a climbing practice. At the same
time, strength and power will often get someone through a climb in which their
technique is lacking, but the opposite is rarely true; technique doesn’t often get a
climber through a climb that requires strength and power.
Despite my reservations, I have decided to include some basic information
about technique in this section. Nonetheless, I can’t stress the following enough:
the best way to improve technique is to climb and pay attention. Another useful
tool is to watch other climbers that have similar style and body type and to
emulate their style and technique. If you pay enough attention to your body while
climbing, if you pay attention to what works for you when and what doesn’t, you
will, over time, improve. As such, the following tips are meant for beginners, the
idea being that some simple ideas will go a long way to help one progress.
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Points of Contact
One thing worth understanding is the idea of points of contact. In general,
you have 4: 2 hands and 2 feet (climbing gets weird and full body – kneebars and
off widths and the like). In theory, you want 3 points of contact on at all times.
This means that you move one point at a time, never moving the next until the
other 3 are set. In practice, you often only have 2 points of contact on (or 1, for
full-on dynos). Another thing to understand is that the most stable position when
operating with only 2 points is when you have opposition between your hands
and feet. So, if you are moving your left hand, in general, you will want your right
foot on. Think of it like this: imagine your points of contact as hinges. If you were
to put a hinge on each side of a door, it can’t swing open. But if (as you do) you
put the hinges on the same side of a door, it swings. Having your points on either
side of your body is the most stable position (of course, some moves require the
“barn door;” again, this is just a primer).
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Rest vs Lock Off
There are 2 basic arm positions in climbing: rest and lock-off. A lock-off is
anytime you have any bend in your elbow. In order to achieve this bend, you must
use your muscles – they constrict to move your limbs. This constriction requires
energy. As such, the more time you spend in a lock, the more energy you are
using. Contrast this with rest position; here, you hang straight on your arms. This
allows your skeleton to do most of the work. While your forearms will still be
engaged to hold on, you will use less energy overall. Of course, many moves
require that you stay in a lock off position in order to keep tension. Nonetheless,
defaulting to a rest position whenever you get the chance can help you conserve
energies between cruxes or during lengthy top outs.
Foot Work
There is an episode of SpongeBob that I think exemplifies how to use your
feet in climbing (I used to teach kid’s climbing courses, so this always comes to
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mind). In it, SpongeBob is about to take his driver’s test, and in order to succeed,
Patrick is on the other side of a radio he has implanted in his porous head. When
the driving instructor gives the go ahead, SpongeBob, reacting from stress, goes
to slam his foot on the gas. Patrick yells for him to stop, and then instructs him to
only use his big toe.
When using your feet, you will generally use your
big toe as the point at which you make contact with
the rock. On most climbing shoes, this will be just
inside of the point of the shoe (see Image 1). When
back stepping, you
will use the outer
edge of your shoe,

Image 1
somewhere between the pinky toe and the middle
toe (see Image 2). You will almost never use the
center of your foot to stand on (see Image 3). When
you use the edges of your shoe, it is called, perhaps

Image 2
insipidly, edging.
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Another important thing to think about when
edging, beyond just positioning, is that you are not
just standing on that edge. You should think about
pulling with the foot
(see Image 4). So
while you stand on
your feet to support

Image 3
and push your body up, you should use your feet to
pull your body in. This is especially important when
it comes to steeper climbs. Image 4
The opposite of edging is smearing. This is when
you place the ball of your foot against the rock
(usually where there is not much to stand on) and
use the friction from the shoe’s rubber to stick to
the wall. It is important to note that this kind of
friction requires pressure and tension. You must
push against the smear (see Image 5), often by

Image 5
pulling against it with your hands (unless on slab, in which gravity does that work).
If you find yourself on slab, keep your hips above your feet, as this will give
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pressure down into the foot. Avoid leaning too far into the slab, as this will apply
pressure down and away from the smear.
Foot work is incredibly important in climbing. Often, a slight difference in
foot position will make a shitty foot workable. Often, moving your foot two inches
to the side will somehow change your body position enough to make a move go.
When trying a boulder problem, especially outdoors, experiment with different
feet in order to see what works best.
Another thing to consider is precision. Next time you are at the gym when
there is a group of newbie kids, watch their feet. You will see them slapping their
feet against the wall with no attention whatsoever. A friend and I used to call
these beaver tail feet, because they seemed to slap their feet the way you see
beavers slapping logs (at least, the way they do in that old cartoon Angry
Beavers). While this works for kids just playing around, this is, ultimately,
inefficient. This is especially true if you are trying something hard that requires
your feet be perfect. It is worth taking the time to set your feet with intention and
precision before the next moves. In line with this, another thing I noticed teaching
introductory climbing classes is that people often look away from their foothold a
slight moment before their foot touches it; they are so intent on the next hand
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hold that they do not see their foot all the way to the proper position. Pay full
attention to every move, including the feet.
Proprioception
Proprioception is the body’s ability to tell where it is in space without visual
information. Wave your hand somewhere out of sight, like behind your head.
Chances are, you still have some idea as to where your hand is in space, how far
behind you it is, etc. This is achieved through feedback sent to your mind by the
muscles being used to do the movements themselves. Proprioception is the
reason we can walk without having to look directly at our feet all the time.
This is useful in climbing in the following sense: when you are moving, your
eyes are generally focused on the next hand or foot. Despite that, however, your
body is still engaged in the movement required to get there; you are still digging
with your feet, still engaging the core, still locking off and gripping with the other
hand. All of these actions, through proprioception, are sending feedback signals
back through your nervous system to your mind. Pay attention to this
information, as it will help you better understand what went right and what went
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wrong on a given go. This sense of spatial awareness can be cultivated by simply
paying attention to it. If you make an active effort to pay attention to where your
body is in space while climbing, your sense of it will improve. In time, this can be a
very useful tool for figuring out boulder problems.
Hips
In climbing, we tend to focus most of our energy on our hands and, if we
have learned their importance, our feet. While this is important to do, paying
attention to the hips is equally necessary. Much of the movement we make on
the rock, especially dynamic moves, are at least partially driven by our hips. If
they are not, then your hips tend to stick out, drawing your center of gravity and
your weight away from your points of contact. By focusing on pushing forward
and up with your hips, you will keep your weight under your hands, providing for
a better grip, and over your feet, providing for better contact and more support.
You can see this when you watch a video of a professional climber: their hips are
always in and up, driving their movement and not sagging back at all. This makes
for more efficient movement.
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Over-Gripping
This one is pretty simple but takes some experience and practice. Just as
described in the lock off vs rest position section above, your forearms have a
limited amount of energy to give towards contracting to hold onto the rock. At
the same time, gripping is not an on/off kind of thing; there is a spectrum to how
hard you grip, and the harder the grip the more energy you use. When someone
first starts climbing, the tendency is to grip every hold as hard as you can,
squeezing with your fingers. There are a number of reasons for this: fear of falling,
the novelty of climbing, the feeling that you are going to slip off the hold. This
kind of over-gripping, however, is not necessary for every hold. Sure, when you
are trying something really hard for you, you might need to crush the hold to
make the move, but many moves and holds do not require a fully clamped down
grip to hold. Learning to relax on holds and to hold them with the minimum
strength necessary is a good way to conserve energy so you can have more juice
at the crux. Take the following example: when you hang on a pull-up bar, you
don’t need to squeeze your hand into a fist with the bar in the middle as hard as
you can in order to hold on. All you have to do is use the energy and contraction
necessary to keep your fingers hooked over the bar. The same goes for climbing
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holds. You can learn to do this by simply paying attention while climbing; when
grabbing each hold, make a conscious effort to only grip as hard as necessary to
hold on and no harder.
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I debated with myself quite a bit on whether or not to include a section on
nutrition, but my own experiences in the matter, as well as the prevalence of
some trends I find to be harmful, lead me to believe that a small section on diet
could be useful to some. Let me start by saying that diet and nutrition vary greatly
from person to person – there is no “right” diet, no nutrition plan that can be
applied wholesale to all climbers. That said, it is an important part of training, as a
suboptimal diet can sabotage your training or, worse, lead to injury.
For a long time, I was concerned about weight. I’m pretty big for a
boulderer at 6 foot 2, and this means that I naturally weigh a bit more. Early on, I
got sucked into stories about climbers starving themselves to be able to get thin
and climb harder, and I tried to do much the same. This eventually led to a mild
eating disorder, in which I began to always feel fat and could never eat without
some semblance of guilt. Tack on to this 3 years of poorly managed
vegetarianism, half of which was spent vegan, diets in which the calorie and
protein count is not exactly dense, and pretty soon my hair was falling out and I
was beginning to get injured more often. After a particularly nasty stint of injury
and a lingering sickness, I began to reevaluate my eating habits and realized that I
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had been undereating quite bit for a few years on end. I also realized that my
entire outlook on food was a part of the problem.
At the time, I didn’t know how prevalent eating disorders are in sports,
even with males. I had been conditioned to always think of those problems as
something exclusive to women; nothing could be further from the truth. I also
had learned to look at proper nutrition as the taking away of certain foods, as a
restrictive thing dictating what I could and couldn’t have. Finally, I tended towards
extremes, thinking that extreme dieting would lead to extreme results. These
perceptions are what led me to 3 years of stagnation in my climbing and a year of
injury, varying from strained ligaments to broken bones. It is in order to combat
these ways of approaching nutrition that I would like to offer the following
outlook towards food:
Restrictive Diets vs. Holistic Diets
Diets trends seem to come and go by the bucketful these days, but it is my
opinion that most of them have one thing in common: they focus on what you
cannot have. No meat. No carbs. No processed foods. No dairy. No breakfast. The
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list goes on. While the ethical and/or health considerations behind these
restrictions are not necessarily wrong, I find the logic behind them and their
extremism to be detrimental, especially for the climber. Climbing uses an
enormous amount of energy, more than you probably think. It taxes your body in
such a comprehensive way that both the activity itself and the recovery require
considerable intake of energy. And, as you get stronger when recovering,
restrictive diets that force you into calorie or nutrient deficits by rote of their
nature do more harm for climbers than good.
I would like to argue that a more Holistic approach that focuses on what
you need to have for proper nutrition, rather than what you can’t have, is better
and more effective overall. In this kind of approach, rather than beginning with a
list of off limits foods, you begin by calculating your calorie and macronutrient
needs and work from those to assure that you are meeting your minimum
requirements. In this way of looking at nutrition, foods are not judged according
to arbitrary restrictions often based on emotional responses or faulty, near-
sighted science but rather according to the nutrients they provide and the role
they play in your overall plan. Also, this approach treats the human body for what
it is: an incredible, energy consuming and producing machine that is capable of
handling much more than we often believe. Finally, because the needs of the
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body are so diverse, this approach tends to move away from extreme diets, in
which a single food group is over or underrepresented, allowing for more balance
and diversity.
Before getting into the information proper, I would like to take a moment
to say again that everybody is different and that the following should be taken
with a grain of salt. Ultimately, it is up to you to experiment and figure out for
yourself what works. What follows comes from a few years-worth of personal
research and trial and error (as with most of this book). This has worked quite
well for me and for some others that I have helped develop nutrition plans. In the
end, I hope that the information in this chapter helps you to make your own
decisions.
The Basics
The place to start is by calculating your caloric needs. There are a million
websites with which to do this – Livestrong.com and MyFitnessPal.com both are
good ones that are simple to use. Perhaps the best bet is to use a couple and get
an average from there. The calculators will ask you your activity level; as I find
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that these websites tend to err on the side of caution, usually going a little high, I
tend to be conservative when inputting my activity level and shoot a little low.
This number will be your base, and you will use it to decide how much to eat both
on climbing days and on rest days.
The number the calculator gave you will be the number of calories you
should eat on a climbing day. Now, calories is not what is important here; it is the
macro-nutrient ratio, protein, carbs, and fat, that really matter. For a climbing
day, you should try to reach your calorie needs with a 50/30/20 ratio: 50% carbs,
30% protein, 20% fat. The above websites both have food tracking options that
can help you do this. If you’re into doing the math yourself, one gram of fat has 9
calories, one gram of protein has 4 calories, and one gram of carbs also has 4
calories. I recommend using the websites; just input food according to meals and
snacks and see where you end up, adding and taking away foods until you end up
at the right calorie intake with the desired nutrient ratio.
Now for rest days. Starting with the number your chosen calculator gave
you, subtract a few hundred calories (I do not recommend taking away more than
500 calories!). Then, do the same as above but this time with 50% protein, 30%
fat, and 20% carbs.
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The basic principles at work here is called intermittent fasting (though
some would disagree), carb-cycling, and macro-cycling. A full description of each
would be outside the scope of this guide; if you are further interested, a simple
internet search will bring you tons of reading. The high-calorie, high-carb days will
ensure that you are properly feeding your body both for the training and for
recovery. The low-calorie, low-carb days will ensure that you do not overdo it and
will kick your body into a high metabolic rate without stagnating, as often
happens with pure low-calorie diets. If you are doing this correctly, your weight
should stay just about the same, but you will see your body fat decrease and be
replaced with muscle. You should notice a firmer, more built look in the mirror. If
you are gaining weight, cut back on some calories for both days; if you are losing
weight, add some calories. However, keep the same ratios!
What I do is I create an eating plan and then I stick to it, eating the same
thing every day. This may sound boring, but it has several advantages: first, I do
not have to think about it. Secondly, I know I am getting EXACLTY what I need.
Third, it generally saves me money. It comes down to how serious you are: do you
prefer climbing hard or eating for pleasure? I choose climbing.
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Foods
The following is a list of foods that I think do well with this diet and that can
make fulfilling your needs both easy and delicious. Remember, the goal here is to
be holistic and inclusive, not exclusive, so this list will not be gluten free, vegan,
paleo, or any of that stuff.
Carbs Protein
Bread (Rye and Sourdough are best, Whey Powder (the best source of
as they are low-glycemic) complete proteins)
White Rice Eggs (also good for fat)
Pasta Egg Whites
Veggies (literally, any will do) Beans (beware of lentils, as they can
increase inflammation in those

Fruit
sensitive to it)
Oatmeal
Chicken
Pancakes
Turkey
Honey
Plain Greek Yogurt
Carb-Based Recovery Drinks
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Fats possible to have too little in your
diet)
Peanut Butter (the same warning that
applies to lentils applies to this) Soy Sauce (there are some studies
showing that the body does not

Avocado
process soy sauce the same as it does
Butter
other salts, making it a bit of a better
Eggs
option than just salt. I use the low
Dark Chocolate sodium stuff nonetheless)
Cheese
Olive Oil
Condiments
Mustard
Curry Powder
Pepper
Salt (very little, as salt will cause you
to retain water weight, but it is also
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Suggested Combinations
Pancakes with Protein Powder mixed in and Butter or Peanut Butter
Toast with Peanut Butter and Banana
Oatmeal with Protein Powder and Banana
Nonfat Greek Yogurt with Protein Powder
Turkey, Egg (or egg white), Avocado sandwich with Mustard
Veggies (lots!), Rice (or no rice for low-carb days), Chicken, and Egg (or egg white)
all cooked together in a pan with a little oil or water and soy sauce
Tips
Snacking is ok, especially during the Strength Phase. Just try not to overdo it
and base your snacks on whether or not it is a climbing day. If it is, a high-calorie,
high-carb day, avoid fats and snack on some carbs. If it’s a rest day, low-calorie
and low carb, avoid carbs and have some fat. Lean proteins, like meat or jerky or
yogurt, are always a good option.

If you want to gain weight, then do the above but add a few hundred
calories. If you want to lose weight, subtract a few hundred. Avoid extremes; I
never swing in either direction by more than 500 calories. Extreme diets, whether
to gain or lose weight, do not result in long-term change to your body; rather,
they cause, logically, extreme fluctuations and can have wild and unpredictable
effects in your climbing. Take a long-term view – slow and steady! Also, I tend to
make sure I am getting at least my bare minimum, or maybe a little more, during
the Strength Phase, as your body will need the calories to build muscle. I tend to
go under a little during the Power Phase, where the goal is less about muscle and
more about movement. Then I return to my baseline for the send phase.
I climb/train 4 days a week. This means that I eat the high calorie diet 4
times a week and the low calorie one 3 times a week. It is better to err on the side
of too much than the other way around.
I also allow myself one full cheat meal a week. Since my cheat meals are
usually fat based (burgers!), I do them on a rest day, usually Fridays, and just
replace my dinner with it. I might, depending on how crazy I plan on getting, eat a
little less throughout that day. I also usually make sure that my cheat meal has
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red meat. I do not eat red meat any other time during the week, but it is an
excellent source of creatine, which you deplete while training.
If you have a sweet tooth, don’t sweat it and let yourself have a little every
day or every other day. It is better to have a cookie a few times a week than to try
and hold off and then eat an entire box on Saturday. Also, seek out the good stuff
– gourmet or homemade sweets that have some nutritional value to them aside
from just sugar. Cookies are definitely a favorite of mine.
Don’t rely on self-control, because the fact is that it doesn’t exist. The true
key is avoidance. Keep the bad shit out of the house, and you won’t be tempted
to eat it!
If you can help it, do not eat out (except maybe for the cheat meal). THERE
IS NO HEALTHY EATING OUT OPTION. I repeat: THERE IS NO HEALTHY EATING
OUT OPTION. No matter what the place says, your health is not their biggest
concern; making a profit is, and they will always choose taste over nutritional
value. So save that money to go climbing!
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We have all been there. The new year rolls around and, full of holiday food
and cheer, the ever optimist in each of us sets grand resolutions for the year
ahead. Of course, the first month goes well. Maybe even the second month. But,
more often than not, and for more people than otherwise, things eventually fall
apart. We lose our commitment, and slowly let go of our resolutions. Sometimes,
the digression is incremental, a missed workout here and there becomes more
and more often until one day you wake up to realize you haven’t been to the gym
in a week, a month. Sometimes, the fall from grace is more spectacular, an all-
night binge of beer and pizza at a party. Then comes the rationalization, the
excuses and self-hate or, perhaps ever worse, the acceptance that “it felt good”
and that “you gotta show some self-love sometimes.”
The fact is that a strong mental game is crucial to getting the most out of
your training. The other, perhaps more inconvenient truth, is that you do not
change overnight. You don’t suddenly wake up with the will to complete your
lofty goals. This is why New Year’s resolutions fail so often: they do not take into
account the year prior, the year that should have been spent preparing yourself
for the completion of your goals.
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Achieving a strong mental game requires a lot of things, but it mostly
requires time. You have to accept this and act accordingly. If you are looking for a
quicker or easier path, I am sorry to say that that path, while it fills shelves with
hundreds of self-help and new-age philosophy books, simply does not exist. As
such, I have no intention of describing some sort of “plan” for you to achieve
mental fitness in 12 weeks or whatever. Instead, what I can offer are some
general thoughts and a list of books that I found useful. Beyond that, it is up to
you to take the long hard road and think, act, reflect, and repeat. If you are lucky,
you will find what you are looking for. If you are luckier still, you will die still
trying.
One of the first things it is important to understand about training is that
much of it comes down to willpower. As such, I want to lead up to understanding
the importance and reality of the Will, as it functions in the human life, but there
are some other concepts to take a look at first. At times, the way will seem lost
and meandering, but stick with me. I’m not much for wisdom, but I do think I
might have something worth saying here.
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The Falsity of Self and Choice
The first thing to understand, in terms of willpower, is what it is and where
it comes from. I think there is a popular conception of will that goes something
like this: the will is the power to direct the choices of the self. The Self often has
desires and impulses that run contrary to our aspirations, and so a strong will is
necessary to line them up and to give ourselves the best chance to accomplish our
goals.
There are few things wrong with this conception, but as base it comes
down to two things: the idea of the self and the idea of choice. This is where the
above definition of will hinges, and I think it is a hinge waiting to crumble under
pressure.
Let’s start with the Self. Western ways of thinking put a lot of emphasis on
the Self as some sort of immutable thing. This is prevalent in the Abrahamic
religions where the soul is considered important, but you can also see it running
all through our culture. The emphasis on personal freedom, accomplishment,
happiness, morality, identity, and ownership all operate under an idea similar to
that of the soul, namely that each of us is a single, immutable being with a
conception of Self that runs as a continuous constant through the story of our
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lives. This can be contrasted with some Eastern ways of thinking that claim that
the idea of the Self is an illusion and that, in fact, there is no continuous Self that
exists from moment to moment in your life. Now, I do not intend to try and argue
for the truth of such a claim. This argument has been going on for thousands of
years in philosophy and religion, and I have nothing new to add to it that hasn’t
already been said and better. For me, the idea of the Self as an illusion rings with
a kind of truth; I can’t look back at my life and feel like some of the things I have
done, things I couldn’t imagine doing as the person I am now, were done by
someone else. I also can’t look back and wonder how much of the idea of a Self
that I hold in my head is just a trick of language, just a function of this narrative
history of myself that I keep tucked away in my memory. Ultimately, it is up to
you to think and ponder and decide for yourself. If you are interested in the idea,
there are some suggested readings at the bottom of this section that may be of
use. That said, even if you find this idea offensive, I do want to make an argument
for the utility of the idea when it comes to training. You see, I think the emphasis
on the Self as the source of Choice and Will is, ultimately, one that sabotages
ability to direct our own lives.
Allow me to take a seeming digression for a moment. I was a substitute
teacher while I was in grad school, working mostly in elementary schools. Now,
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my experiences could (and one day will) fill a book of their own – if you would like
an experience that will challenge you in every way imaginable, and for the better,
I highly recommend subbing – but here I would like to reflect on one common
experience I had in this line of work. As a sub, you always had to report to the
office first to get the key to your classroom and all that. From there, you would
walk the halls to the class, where, invariably, you would run into other teachers
who would ask who you were subbing for. And, almost always, they had advice or
warnings for you. These ranged from “Oh, Mrs. Hernandez has a good class, have
fun with them” to “If anyone gives you trouble, just send them to my class.” One
of the more common warnings, however, would be about a specific kid. The
teacher would say something like, “That is a good class, but Robbie can give you
trouble, so watch him.” Often, when I heard something like this, helpful students
in the class would offer the same warning about the same kid. Sometimes, even
the kid himself would warn me!
After dozens of exchanges like this (I subbed for four years), I started to
think harder about this and about “Robbie” (I will simply use that name as a stand
in for the so-called problem-student from here on out). I wondered about Robbie
and why and how he had become the student he was. At the same time, I would
watch the Robbies of my classes and try to understand through observation. A
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plausible scenario that presented itself as an explanation was that Robbie, being a
child, did what children do: he messed up at some point. He made some mistake.
And, for reasons I do not fully understand, that mess-up became, for others, the
defining feature of his person. He became the “bad kid” that teachers warn subs
about. And, year after of being told this, guess what? He became just that. In
some sense, the judgement others made about him became predictive. He began
to believe the scenario, and then began to act it out. Afterall, if that is who he is,
how can he be otherwise?
Let me try and bring this back to climbing, though give me a little more
time. I think we do something similar to ourselves when we emphasize the self.
What we are emphasizing, more than an actual thing of substance, is a narrative
we have chosen to believe, a version of ourselves we have chosen to privilege,
made up of events and stories and thoughts and actions we have collected and
held onto over the course of our lives. It is important to note that this narrative is
not comprehensive and not exactly honest; as with all stories, this narrative self
comes with a fair bit of editing. We certainly leave out and forget some things
while holding strong to others. And the problem here is that, eventually, we do
the same thing Robbie did. We begin to believe in the story. In that, as with
Robbie, the story becomes predictive. At this point, we begin to engage the
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fallacy of mistaken cause and effect. We look at a past action and say, “I did that
because I am this,” rather than what is more likely true: “I am this, because I did
that.” After so many years of this inversion, we become beholden to this
narrative, saying, “Well, I should do that, because I am this.” Eventually, the
narrative begins to make out choices for us.
It is in this way that the idea of a Self, as some sort of immutable, soul-like
thing, becomes antithetical to the possibility of choice and, as it were, change.
When we take too much stock in the idea of a Self, something that, upon
inspection, truly seems to hold little water, that Self diminishes our ability to
direct ourselves in a meaningful way. The issue is that a strong attachment to the
Self necessarily comes with a strong attachment to the traits of that Self, traits
that we had very little, if any, hand in developing as they mostly developed
through childhood and adolescence by experiences filtered through a
consciousness that was undeveloped and undirected (at least, unless you grew up
as a monk, I imagine this describes most of our adolescences). As such, any
attempt to make changes in your life, such as in your daily habits, has to fight the
tide of who the Self thinks you are. Of course, this can be done; any story can be
retold, and any Self-Narrative can be reformulated. But this ultimately
perpetuates the same issue, rather than solving it, as it does not address the core
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of the problem, which is the attachment of the Self itself. Rather, it simply creates
a new, strong Self-Narrative that, if you one day wish to change again (and you
likely will, as we are often wrong about what we want or, at least, what we want
changes – another conversation altogether), will prove just as resistant for the
same reasons given above.
The key log of the issue is the Self, and the proper way to address it is to
think long and hard about the seeming reality of the Self. As I wrote above, I do
not wish to tell anyone what to think. This is akin to a spiritual question and, as
such, is personal in the extreme. Do what you will with the thoughts I have
offered so far. Below are some more thoughts more directly related to climbing
and to willpower, but keep the idea of the Self in mind. It is my opinion that a
strong attachment to the Self can get in the way of one’s journey to self-
determination through, in this context, training for climbing.
Discipline and Freedom
I think we often conflate freedom with something that looks a lot like it in
feeling and action but that ultimately falls short: impulse. I often get the sense,
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watching those around me, that to many freedom is equated with acting out any
impulse that comes to mind. I think this is a grave error, both logically and
pragmatically, and an error that leads to many others. For now, I will try and focus
on the original error.
The issue is this: when you have an impulse and act upon it, say an impulse
to travel to a new country or an impulse to go out to a party or an impulse to buy
a new car, you then have a choice of whether or not to entertain that impulse and
turn it into action or not. The choice portion of this dialectic is where we, as
people, often see our freedom or lack of it. If we have the time and/or money to
execute the examples above, then we feel as though we have freedom. If we do
not, then we feel our freedom has been impinged upon. As such, for many of us,
the search for personal freedom falls into other categories, things like financial
freedom, location independence, or maybe even just more free time. This is a
case of category error; what we take for freedom is actually incorrect and, due to
this error, more a source of its opposite. It is the original impulse itself that should
be focused upon.
Think about the impulses you have. Where do they come from? Why do
they arise in the mind, and how much control do you have over that process?
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How often do they seem to run contrary to other impulses you have, to other
commitments and goals you have? It is my experience, both in observation and
personally, that impulses often arise unbidden and often are in tension with other
things I want. I want to climb v13, and the impulse to binge some pizza and beer
will not help. I want to save money for a trip I plan to take in the future, and the
impulse to buy a new television will derail that goal. I am in a committed
relationship, but the impulse to sleep with someone else certainly will make that
relationship harder to maintain. These impulses are a part of life; that is, they
arise no matter what stage of development we find ourselves in. It is my
contention that we are not in control of those impulses, in the sense that we do
not determine their content nor their timing, and that to attempt to organize your
life in a way that allow you to better indulge them is to actually become, in a way,
a slave to them.
This has been long recognized both in the East and West. The Buddha talks
about it, Spinoza called it a life of human bondage, and even Tennyson wrote
verse exploring the concept. There are many more examples, but I find Spinoza
and the Buddha to be the most lucid explorations, though this can also be seen in
many other philosophical and wisdom-based traditions. The basic gist is this (and,
in the appendix to this book, I have included a more detailed piece on this very
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topic, if you are interested in a more in-depth conversation): freedom is not
attained in giving into your impulses. Rather, it is attained in controlling them.
There is a deep metaphysical hole to fall into here, which I will attempt to
sidestep, but the overall logic is relatively simple and centers on the question:
Where do your desires come from? This is the crux of the issue. Serious
introspection, I believe, reveals that the impulses we equate with our own
volition come from… well, nowhere. At least, nowhere we know. You can call it
the subconscious, the soul, God, bio-electrical and chemical reactions in the brain,
call it whatever you like. No matter what you consider to be the root cause of our
thoughts, which appear to be the roots of our desires, we are not conscious of
them. Indeed, they are extra-conscious, meaning that they come from
somewhere outside of our consciousness. We simply become aware of them once
they have already arisen, and then, generally, we engage in a bit of post-hoc
rationalization to make them our own. But are they truly? Probably, I would
argue, not.
If this is true, then the conception of freedom that involves giving into your
impulses, that privileges your thoughts, is likely the exact opposite. As Spinoza
said, it is a particular form of bondage, “human bondage.” And, if this is true, then
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freedom comes not from expressing and acting out on those impulses but on
controlling them. Freedom comes with discipline.
I will leave this alone here. As I said above, I do not want to fall into the
metaphysical hole, the precipice of which we are currently standing on. If you
followed the above logic, and it rang true to your experience, then it will be up to
you to dive into the hole and seek your own way out of the cave. I have been
doing as much for most of my life, and, if you’d like to talk about what you find,
I’d love to hear it. If this all sounds a little too morose or out there for you, then
me diving in now wouldn’t be of use to you anyways. Regardless, I think the end
result passes the test of pragmatism. Our impulses are not what get us into the
gym, get us on the hang board, and get us up our projects. From pop culture
(think Rocky) to philosophy (the peaceful mind of Spinoza) to art (Maughan and
Tennyson) to religion (Jesus and the Buddha), the message is the same: discipline
and self-control are what achieve goals (whether that goal is winning a fight,
seeing reality, getting to heaven, attaining Nirvana, or sending).
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Will as Abstraction
I am fond of saying that there is no such thing as willpower, only avoidance.
Generally when I say this, I am talking about diet, but I think the sentiment holds
true. What I mean by this is, in terms of diet, the only way to make sure you keep
on your diet is to keep the foods you do not want in your body out of your house.
If they are there, your willpower will eventually give into the temptation. But, if
you avoid these foods by keeping them out of your house, you will not even have
the opportunity to break your diet no matter how much you crave the candy bar.
For me, this breaks down as such: you make a decision AHEAD OF TIME
about what it is you intend, and then you plan and act accordingly in order to give
yourself the highest chance for success. You abstract your goals so as to remove
them from the oscillations of your whimsy and turn them into a plan. The fact of
the matter is, we are emotional creatures constantly in flux – what we want
changes from moment to moment. You may really want to send your project in
one moment, but in another, crucial moment, sitting on the couch to watch
Netflix might seem a hell of a lot better than getting yourself into the gym to
train. Abstracting your will power out is a way to combat this before it even
happens. It should also be noted that this is not a sign of weakness; it is simply a
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fact of existence. To berate yourself for weakness when you crave the candy bar
or when you really don’t want to train is not only unfair and not in line with
reality, but it will also make you more likely to give in to those impulses.
There are many ways this can manifest itself, such as the example with diet
above, and everyone ultimately is responsible for themselves. Trial and error is
the only true way to figure out what works for you, but I can offer some other
examples of things that have worked for me. The first has to do with timing. I
learned in school that my brain operates most efficiently in the morning; as such,
my performance in school very much improved when I began blocking off the
morning hours as my “school time,” the hours in which I wrote my papers (also,
these are the hours in which I have written this book). By saving these hours
specifically for what most needed to be done most effectively, I ensured myself
that I would be always working on what was most important to me at the times
that I had the best chance for doing my best work. I do the same now with
training, I know that, in the afternoon and after work, my brain and body simply
are not operating at peak levels, slightly used up from throughout the day as they
are. So I try and make sure that I train sometime in the mid-morning (after I have
completed my writing) when my mind and body are awake but not yet tired. For
me, this ensures a number of things, namely that I will have the physical energy to
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get through my workout and the mental energy to stay motivated. Planning and
scheduling workouts is another example. I write my 2-3 month training cycles
ahead of time, and I print them out. This gives them real, physical existence; the
moment they are down on paper, they cease to be a thought and become an
actuality. I find that this, rather than making them up as I go, day by day and week
by week, better enables me to get to the gym even when I really don’t feel like it.
The decision has already been made by a past version of myself, and the current
version, the version that is tired and not motivated, only has to show up.
This method can be applied to a number of aspects, both with climbing and
with other parts of life.
Will as Attention
Your attention is the most valuable resource you have. There are many
things we do not have control over: your digestive functions, the tenor of your
mind, your genetics, other people, etc. And while it’s true that, in a way, how your
mind operates is not quite up to you, where you direct that operation can be, in a
sense, directed. But this can only be done through practice.
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We tend to take our attention for granted. We often go through our lives
without paying much attention at all. We will be at work but thinking of vacation.
With our friends thinking of our significant other. With our significant other
thinking of the game. There is often a discrepancy between what we are doing
and what we are thinking about. All the while, more and more of our attention is
being coopted by marketing, entertainment, media. All of this is not ideal for
climbing.
Being able to pay attention to precisely what you are doing is a skill that
leads to direct benefits in climbing. How often have you come off a boulder but
could not remember what you did, good and bad? How many attempts have you
wasted trying the same beta that already didn’t work? How often have you not
been able to figure a body position out? Much of this can be chalked up to lax
attention. Paying attention in climbing means being present and aware of the
interactions between your body and the rock. This, in turn, gives you information
about what worked and what didn’t work from which you can extrapolate other
possibilities.
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Effort and Non-Attachment
I think this is something we can all relate to. Consider the following
scenario: you have a climb you really want to do, something that you have
worked hard for, a line that is meaningful to you. You have done all the moves.
You are close. And yet, for some reason, it just will not yield. No matter how
dialed the beta is, no matter how easy it feels, something always seems to go
wrong. Soon, the climb starts to get into your head. You feel nervous during the
approach. You get the send jitters before getting on it. You cannot turn off the
constant stream of thoughts and doubts as you climb it. You get worse.
Or, consider this related situation: you have been training hard, and you
know you are getting stronger. For some reason, this is not translating to the rock,
and it has been a while since you sent something you are proud of. This
continues, and you start to worry. Are you getting weaker? You go through your
life, taking inventory. What is different? Am I over training? Is my diet off? Am I
not committed enough? You start to wonder why you put in the effort at all. Both
of these hypotheticals have something in common: an attachment to outcomes
that leads to a collapse of the process of climbing and the mental state
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accompanying it. This is one of the strangest paradoxes in any performance based
activity: you have to want it in order to access the necessary effort, the try-hard if
you will, but wanting it can in itself become a barrier to success.
I see this is a category problem that occurs when success is defined as
sending. It is true that sending is the goal, but it does not follow that achieving the
goal should be considered the measure of success. In light of the above scenarios,
which I think we can all agree are pretty common, it might be fair to say that
sending should not be made the definition of success but, rather, a possible
outcome of it.
Ideally, you should be able to give maximum effort without concern about
the outcome. This means that you try your hardest, that you give it hell, but that
you do not judge yourself based on whether or not you send. Rather, you base
your success on your effort; you gauge yourself according to the following
question: “Did I try my hardest?” If the answer is yes, then, regardless of the
outcome, you should be happy. If the answer is no, then you have a path to move
forward, a way to improve. This way of thinking sidesteps the mental traps that
basing success on outcome invariably falls into. At the same time, it takes into
account the reality of climbing. Sending is a fickle thing. Many variables, from
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temps to skin condition to rest, all have to align for a hard send. And, the fact is,
sometimes those don’t align, and often through no fault of the climber.
Sometimes trying hard just isn’t enough. So to base your idea of success off of the
send is to set yourself up for failure and stagnation. However, if you can cultivate
a mentality of effort without attachment, you will still send when things line up,
but you will avoid the above mental traps.
Death as Motivation
Socrates famously said that “Philosophy is practice for death.” I think that
could be expanded: “Life is practice for death.” Now, this may sound
unnecessarily depressing to you, but I find the idea to be a constant source of
inspiration and energy. Allow me to try and explain.
The fact of the matter is, everything has to die eventually. Even if humanity
achieves some sort of digital transcendence that gives us unlimited lifespans
(doesn’t that sound exhausting?), even universes have life spans, have births and
deaths. So, be it in 60 years or in 100 billion, death eventually gets us all. What
this means is that each of us has only a limited amount of time in existence. For
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those of us alive right now, that time is incredibly short in the grand scheme of
things (even shorter if that bus finally gets you). Death is simply a fact of life. Or,
as Immortal Technique put it: “Death is another part of life.” We have two
options, then. Worry ourselves to death (or worse, psychological paralysis) over it,
or accept it and see what that acceptance means. I think it is fair to say that the
latter is the preferable option, so I will operate under that assumption. So the
question logically follows: how do you want to spend that time?
This is one of those questions that you can only answer for yourself. I think
is important to consistently ask yourself that question, and I also think it is
important to consistently remember that you are going to die one day. If you can
keep these thoughts in your mind together, with acceptance and equanimity, it
can be very motivating. You will see your tolerance for fruitless activity diminish
and find yourself wanting to be more productive with your time. You will even
value relaxation more, as it becomes something you choose to do, something you
willfully engage in, rather than being the default when you have nothing to do or
are bored. You will also find yourself less bored, as you will fill your life with
meaningful activity in light of the truth of your own impermanence. I don’t want
to harp on this too much; we all have to deal with our own mortality in our own
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ways. But I do think it can be a source of inspiration if considered in the correct
context.
Fun as a Measure
All of the above is very serious sounding, and this is because it mostly
relates to training, not to climbing outside. This chapter also comes out this way
because I tend to be a little serious of mind, or maybe I have just watched too
many Kung Fu movies and like to equate my climbing with the martial arts.
Regardless, I try to balance the ways of thinking above by remembering that,
ultimately, climbing – the full use of your body and mind – is a hell of a lot of fun.
The feeling of fun itself can be used as a good measure of your mental state,
especially outdoors. When a project ceases to be fun, even when it is challenging,
and crosses over into the realm of frustration, it is time to consider stepping away
for a little while. While pushing through a lack of motivation or some frustration
can be necessary with training, that kind of response, and the lack of fun that
comes with it, usually indicates an over attachment to the outcome of a given
session on a project. That attachment, as indicated above, can itself be a barrier
to success. Pay attention to this and use it to know when it is time to let
something go. Not forever, just until the next session.
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There is a video somewhere in which Dave Graham says something that
stuck with me. He says something along the lines of the following: “I try and
remember that, no matter how cool we think we are, we’re just a bunch of
weirdos running around the woods climbing on small rocks.” In Velcro shoes no
less.
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The Appendix is just a place where I have chosen to put some random stuff
that I think might be useful, from logbook templates to articles I have written
related to climbing. I hope there is something useful for you here!
Blank Logbooks
The following are some blank template log sheets for you to use to help
create logbooks, if you so choose. There is one for each level (beginner,
intermediate, and advanced), as well as one for each work out (Strength days 1
and 2, Power days 1 and 2). Logbooks can easily be printed or just kept in a
notebook. The last template is for non-linear training.
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Beginner
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186
187
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Intermediate
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190
191
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Advanced
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194
195
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Non-Linear Advanced
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Articles
The following are articles I wrote for a blog I was keeping for a while. These
may be useful and/or interesting to some readers. Many of them have to do with
my own thoughts and experiences on climbing. They are offered in no particular
order. Feel free to not read them!
On Projecting
I will never forget what it felt like to walk away from Shosholoza without
sending. I was so close, and this particular line was very important to me. First
and foremost, it was, and is, one of my dream lines. It was a climb that, since I
saw a video of it years ago, has been on my life list of boulders to do. It was a
climb that I thought about when my energy was lagging and when I didn’t want to
train. It was the climb at the top of my tick-list. It also would have been the
hardest boulder I have sent. It was THE climb for my trip to Africa.
It’s only two moves, basically, and I could do the second move no issue
every time. It was the first move that gave me trouble: a huge, tension-y cross off
a finicky heel. It took me probably 6 sessions and a couple hundred tries just to
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stick that single move. The next day, I stuck it six times in a row and FELL OFF THE
SECOND MOVE EVERYTIME. I was tired from ten weeks of climbing. I didn’t have it
in me. I was devastated. Walking away, I thought to myself, “If I just had one
more day.”
And that, it seems, is the crux of the issue.
You see, I had spent 8 weeks in the Rocklands before I decided to really give
Shosholoza some real effort. I had tried early in the trip, first day in fact, and had
become discouraged by the move. I spent the next 2 months climbing and sending
a bunch of other climbs, climbs that I am proud of doing and that I don’t regret
spending time on. When I finally was done with everything else, when I felt good
about my trip, about my sends, I finally got to my dream climb.
Another crux.
Looking back, it seems obvious that I was afraid of spending all my time on
one climb and not sending. This seems silly now, considering that I did the moves
and got close, that, with one more climbing day, I know I would have done the
climb. Had I started working on it first, I likely would have sent it in the first few
weeks and then been able to enjoy the rest of my trip riding high. I likely still
would have sent many of the other climbs.
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This attachment to sending, now that I think about it, has been a part of my
climbing ever since I started. I don’t know if it comes from getting older and
feeling like I started climbing late or if it comes from an addiction to the feeling of
success or if it has to do with the kind of general surprise I feel about being able
to try climbs like Shosholoza when my beginnings in the sport were so humbling.
Whatever the reason, I wonder now how much this attachment has held me back
from being my best, as it did in Africa. How many climbs have I left undone or
never even tried because there was something easier, more doable, that I allowed
to distract me?
If you’re the type of climber that just sends everything, then this probably
isn’t much of a concern for you. I am not that kind of climber. I have to work hard,
and, at the end of every season, there are projects that I file away in the “Close
but No Cigar” folder in the back of my brain. Every time I go out, there are moves
and sequences I just can’t do. These are the moves that inspire me to spend the
hours I do in the gym, on the hang and campus boards. But maybe that is another
reason for my approach, another subtlety into the “why” of me not trying
Shosholoza earlier in the trip. Spend enough time training, and sometimes you
start to feel like you deserve to send. You want returns on your investment. I
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remember realizing this a few years ago, but I did not see this particular
consequence of that line of thinking.
It is essentially a focus on the result over the process that brings that
mentality and that underlies my approach to climbing. This is the approach that
causes the send-jitters. This is the mental state that gives way to frustration. This
is the way of looking at climbing that, ultimately, blocks you from learning and
that keeps you from being your best. Many of the struggles we have as climbers
come from our attachment to the idea of climbing and the desire to be something
other than we are: fitter, stronger, on top of the boulder instead of on our asses
on the pads. This is something of a paradox; we need the drive to be better, but
the attachment to the supposed end-goal is what keeps us from being better. I
am reminded of the concept of wu wei; to act without attachment to the result
allows for purity in the action. This balance between the desire to improve, the
desire to see tangible results, and the goal of being able to focus only on the
effort itself, the willingness to try things that will not come easily, is difficult to
achieve.
Now that I see it, I am determined to adjust my approach. I am going to
continue to train and work towards my goals, but I am going to keep those goals
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firmly in mind. I have no doubt that, next year, I’ll send Shosholoza. I have learned
my lesson on that climb and look forward to standing under it again, to relearning
the moves, and to going back to battle with it. What I am most concerned about is
this season, about the climbs I try and don’t try. I am going to stop looking for
climbs I know I can do and finally get on the Mandala, finally put real effort into
the Mystery, go get my ass kicked on Spectre. These are climbs that I have always
wanted to do, always dreamed of sending, but I am never going to have even a
chance if I am not willing to fail on them first.
Training Your Weaknesses Outdoors
We all know the cycle; you train for a few months, working and working
and working, and then you go out to try and send. If you’re like me, after a month
or two of outdoor climbing, you start to feel a bit off your peak. Your climbing
intelligence is better, you can read sequences and use your feet more efficiently,
but your finger strength eventually starts to lag a bit, your power subsides. You
start to look forward to getting back into the gym.
This up and down process is part of the game. No one stays at their peak
forever. Hell, when you try and force that peak into lasting longer, injuries usually
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result. Just like everything else in the world, climbing ability works in cycles. I
remember starting to think about this after my first trip to Africa, where I learned
two things about my climbing: I am not as good at dynos, particularly steep ones,
as I thought, and I am not that good with crimps.
When I started training again, I made the intention to work on both of
these issues and planned my workouts accordingly. When the time came for me
to spend two months in the winter just climbing outside, I wanted to make sure
the gains I made transitioned onto real rock, and I didn’t want to lose the progress
I had made.
After deciding that I wanted to keep strong on and get better at crimps and
steep dynos, I picked out climbs in the areas I was planning to be in that seemed
to really need the skills I was lacking to send. For me, last season, this turned out
to be climbs like Cholos, Toxic Avenger, Bubba: the Legend, and Shizam Sit in
Bishop and climbs like Dead Rabbit and Show of Hands in Moe’s. Every time I
went out, I tried at least one of these climbs, despite the little voice in the back of
my head that kept telling me that I just didn’t “like” these climbs, that these
climbs just didn’t “fit” me (see Tension Climbing’s Blog for an interesting post on
listening to what that voice is really saying).
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Something else I started to do was to make up eliminates. On climbs I have
already done, I tried to come up with betas that made the climb harder in terms
of my goals. I forced myself to move off the small, intermediate crimp rather than
bump past it. I tried to use the higher, bad foot rather than use my long legs to
stay on the good ledge. I envisioned and attempted dynos that bypassed moves.
Not only did this help me work on my weaknesses on climbs I had already sent,
but it also was just plain fun and turned old staples in my climbing circuits into
new challenges that forced me to climb in different ways.
Did I send these climbs? Some of them, and those sends were extra
rewarding precisely because of how difficult they were for me. But regardless of
sending or not, I learned a lot from these climbs, from trying them. I learned that
actively trying things you’re bad at is a good way to get better at them, that there
is a process to learning that you can trust to work most of the time (this is
something I had learned in school but not yet on the rock). I also learned where
weaknesses come from, that, often, they aren’t so much physical as mental or
knowledge based. I didn’t just get stronger on crimps by working climbs with
small ones; I learned how to better use my body to make the crimps useable. I
didn’t just gain power, but I learned how to better use my entire body to generate
distance on a dynamic move. I learned that weaknesses, generally, aren’t a
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singular issue but, rather, come from an inability to understand some sort of
larger picture.
This, then, is what differentiates training your weaknesses indoors from
training them outdoors. In the gym, we isolate as much as possible to work on
individual parts of our climbing game. This is necessary and effective, but the fact
is that climbing is full-body-karate – no move on a real climb requires an isolated
part of your body. Seeking out and training your weaknesses outdoors takes the
work you do in the gym and folds it into the overall function of your body and
your climbing as wholes, making you a stronger and smarter climber.
Mental Lessons for Effective Climbing
As I have I progressed through my climbing, I have learned that the mental
game is oft times just as important as the physical. This is something I had
forgotten for a while; when I first started training, I became overly focused on the
physical aspects, and my overall climbing game suffered for it. In the last few
years, I have started to realize this gap in my approach to climbing and have
thought a lot about it, reviewing my experiences and trying to better understand
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the best ways in which to create a mental state that gives me the best chances for
sending. These are some of the things I have learned so far:
Use Aggression, but don’t be Aggressive
Climbing hard requires engagement; to me, this seems to be just a fact. In
order to stick those hard moves, to hold those painful crimps or to hold that crazy
swing, sometimes you just have to give some damn grrrrr. Sometimes you have to
yell, grunt, curse, scream, and thug your way up. Paraphrasing the almighty
Webb, drama sometimes creates dramatic results.
That said, being able to access and shut off that state of engagement at will
is important. Allowing aggression to turn into frustration doesn’t do anyone any
good, you or your friends. More often than not, allowing your aggression to go
beyond the moments you are climbing blocks your ability to think and will lock
you into inefficient mental and physical traps. You get stuck trying the same bad
beta rather than looking for something better. You complain about the holds, the
feet, the conditions, the anything-other-than-the-real-issue: you. Ok, that sounds
harsh, but aggression is often used to misplace blame; we get angry when we
ourselves are at least a part of the problem, focusing instead on outside factors
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we can pin blame on. You can’t change the circumstances of the day you are
climbing on, but you can change your beta or your approach or your effort.
Think about What Happened Every Go
Many times, the moments directly after an attempt are filled with emotion
and excuses: shock at the foot slip, anger because I messed up a key piece of beta,
sadness because I thought I had it, complaints at the conditions, etc. This is
stagnant and emotional thinking; it takes whatever happened with a kind of
finality and does not offer a way forward. Every time I come off a climb, I
immediately recap what I just did and how it went. Did I turn my hip in enough?
Should I full crimp that edge? Did I let my feet get too far below me? What did
work, and what didn’t? Usually, and much to the amusement to my friends, I will
have this discussion out loud. I really think this helps. Sure, sometimes the beta is
just try harder (see above), but, often, there is something better that can be
done.
By taking the time to consider exactly what happened, you are doing a few
things. Firstly, you are switching out of an engaged state of grrrr (technical term)
and into a logical one that considers the climb and the attempt logically and
openly, rather than just responding to it emotionally. Second, you are removing
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emphasis on the end result by acknowledging continued, potential learning (see
below). Third, you are increasing your body awareness by reflecting on what you
did and how it felt. This kind of thinking, I think, teaches you to engage your
entire being in climbing and creates a better mind/body connection and balance.
Use Accurate Language
This is an idea I learned from the Rock Warrior’s Way and is something I
have found corroborated by both my personal experience and my education.
Whether it be for consciousness, motivation, communication, or any other
number of things, language, it can’t be denied, is very important. Personally, I
would go so far as to say that it is one of the key elements of what it is to be
human. I don’t want to get into it much here (this isn’t a linguistics blog, after all),
but consider for a moment how pervasive language is in your life. Almost
everything you do, you do with language. Hell, we even think in language. It
sometimes strikes me, given that language is important, how loose we are with it,
how little we take the time to really think about the words we use. To a degree,
the language we use both describes and creates the world we exist in; there is an
element of choice in this.
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So when you say that crimp in the crux is shitty, guess what? It is going to
be shitty next time you try to hold it. Moreover, calling it shitty does not offer a
way forward; this is a judgement, and judgements tend to be end points. It is
more effective, rather, to call it what it is: a 3 finger, quarter pad, slightly sloping
edge. This description has 2 advantages over “shitty.” First, it is more accurate;
that way, when you are thinking about potential solutions, you are thinking about
what actually is and not about your emotional reaction to it. This clears the way
for the second advantage: using clear and accurate language betters leads you
into solutions. Calling a hold “shitty” is basically giving up. Calling a hold what it is
precludes possibility. Maybe if I can get my pinky on, it will feel more hold-able.
Maybe I can milk the crimp a little deeper and get to half a pad. The fact that it
slightly slopes down means I need the best feet possible to hold it: are there other
options?
Focus on Process
Climbing at your max grade, or breaking into the next level, requires work
and time. Because of this, and because of a climbing culture that is beginning to
shift towards flashes and end results and away from showing the work required
to achieve (there will be a post on this in the future, one day), it can be
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discouraging to not send quickly. The fact is we all want to send (it feels good) but
focusing on sending alone can make that result harder to get to. This is because,
when you focus on the end-result, every day you walk away without sending is a
failure. Failure can be hard to live with, especially when you are primarily focused
on success. This kind of overly competitive model can suck the drive and
motivation right out of you.
If, instead, you focus on the process involved in projecting, accepting the
effort and time it takes to improve at climbing, then words like success and failure
lose their meanings and importance. In their place, the word progress becomes
key. We no longer fail; rather, we learn (even if what we learn is what does NOT
work). Again, where success and failure delineate an end-point, process based
climbing always has a path forward, always keeps possibilities open. This, in turn,
keeps us coming back for more, keeps us on the ever-improving path.
Be Inspired
In my mind, there are three reasons to do a climb: the aesthetics of the
rock itself, the movement, and the grade/difficulty. I consider each of these valid
in and of themselves; I certainly have done/tried climbs based on each of these
individually. The best climbs, however, the ones I remember and the ones I really,
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really want and the ones I have the most engaging experiences with, have all
three. Recognizing what combination of these three aspects a boulder has can
help you choose your projects.
There are few things better than a boulder that has all three elements. How
many times have you been on a boulder and talked about what that climb is
lacking? This climb is cool, but a little too short. The movement is rad, but damn is
this thing ugly. This is hard, but I am not really enjoying it. This kind of talk is code
for “I am not fully committed to this climb.” That said, we have all had the
opposite experience. We have all stood under that climb that, for whatever
reason, appeals to our personal sense of beauty, that has movement that
somehow clicks with our bodies, and that is challenging to boot. These are the
climbs that inspire us.
That sense of inspiration is important. Projecting is hard, physically and
emotionally. Training is much the same. It’s the climbs that have all three of these
that keep us motivated, that force us to make the sacrifices necessary to be
better climbers. It is ok to have seek out climbs for any of the other reasons, but I
have found that having at least one climb a season that fulfills all three keeps me
inspired and keeps me getting after it.
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Have Fun!
You would think that this goes without saying, but it needs to be said.
Again. And again. Enjoy yourself! There are a lot of things that make climbing such
a great thing: the challenge, the physicality, the sense of achievement, the lessons
learned. But, for many of us, what attracted us to the sport in the first place was
the plain fun of it. It’s fun to get outside and move around on rocks. It’s fun to be
out with your friends, watching them try hard, laughing together at the
shenanigans. Remember that!
There’s a weird double-standard at work here. Usually, to get better at
climbing, you have to take it seriously, as in you have to want it. Sometimes,
however, this transition into being a dedicated climber can take the fun out of it.
This is because you CARE. Ever notice how people really only argue about things
they care about? This is why the most divisive discussions are about things that
actually matter. When climbing matters to you, then the results of your day
matter. You train for hours and hours, weeks on end; of course you want to send,
to see the fruits for your labors, to validate the effort you’ve made. There is
nothing wrong with this.
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That said, taking climbing too seriously makes you susceptible to the
mental traps mentioned above and, ultimately, lacks context. Climbing may
matter to you (hell, it may matter, period), but, in the end, you’re still running
around in the woods/dirt/mountains scrambling up and down rocks in colorful,
Velcro shoes. Think of it this way: how lucky are we? As climbers, we get to
regularly enjoy the abilities of our bodies, spend time with friends, and be outside
in the vast wonders of nature. What is there, really, to be mad about? You didn’t
send? Does that mean the beautiful day with wonderful people wasn’t worth it?
Injuries
This is a story I have told plenty of times but that I have never told fully nor
well. It’s also a story that begins a solid two years before it actually begins. Allow
me to explain:
In 2012, after a lot of thinking about the souls or lack thereof of humans
and animals, after meeting some people that heavily influenced my thinking, and
after a campus outreach that included a pamphlet full of horrifying images that
ended up in my hand one day, I decided to become a vegetarian. And, like most
things I do, I threw myself into this lifestyle 110%. A year and a half later, I
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became a vegan. Now, this story isn’t actually about food, but the food choices I
made up to the point where the story actually begins are important in a
foundational sort of way. You see, when I made these choices, I almost NEVER
cheated (the times I did were due to the unavailability of non-meat food sources,
such as when I spent a month in various rural areas of South America where the
only food choices for a vegetarian were bread and/or cheese, not exactly great for
the digestion and health). I read the labels on everything, I didn’t eat honey, I
refused to use leather, and I even refrained from taking vitamins (I figured if I had
to supplement the diet, then that said something about the lifestyle itself). I was
inflexible in my choice.
Again, I want to reiterate that this is not about the food choices, but,
through a combination of habit (I tend to eat the same things every day for
months on end), light food (takes a hell of a lot of salad to fuel someone like me),
and a predisposition to under-eat (which later became a full-blown problem in
and of itself), I ended up, as I later figured out, averaging 1800 calories a day for
almost 3 years. That lack, regardless of the source, is what matters here.
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Ok, let’s jump forward a bit to 2014, a year that will forever be in my head
when I think about nutrition and sports, the year in which I basically, minorly,
broke myself.
It began a week before my birthday in early May. Mike and I were out
bouldering at Pine Mt., one of my favorite spots in southern California. That day,
for whatever reason, I decided to try this semi-highball called the Jewel. After
working out the crux, I found myself on a send go at the top, maybe 14 ft above
my pads, battling with a winter and spring’s worth of dead leaves and moss.
Apparently, I was the first to climb it that season and the top hadn’t been cleaned
off yet (take note guys: check top outs!). After hanging on for longer than my
forearms could really handle, I bailed and jumped down. I am not sure what really
happened, but when I landed on the pads my ankle turned and pain shot up
through my leg and into my brain. It wasn’t the worst pain ever; a twisted ankle,
after years of soccer and skating, was something I was familiar with. I did that
half-pant-half-laugh thing you do when you know you’re hurt but you’re unsure of
the severity, and, after gingerly testing it with some weight, Mike basically had to
carry me down the hill back to the car and drive me home.
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I went to bed that night hoping it would feel better in the morning. I woke
up with a softball in my ankle.
Ultimately, this injury wasn’t too bad. I hang boarded and top-roped in the
gym one-legged (actually, quite a bit of fun!), and, after a few weeks, I could walk
pretty normally with a brace. By mid-summer, I could even boulder again, though
I stayed low to the ground for quite a while. I was especially happy about this, as I
had already, before the ankle, bought a ticket to Australia for a climbing trip.
When I was finally able to climb normally (relatively), I was psyched.
I spent the summer training for my trip, and when the last week of my cycle
came around, the last week before I left, I was feeling pretty fit. I decided, four
days before my departure date, to do one more endurance workout: 20 routes in
the gym. I was on route 18 when it happened.
Most of this was figured out later by talking to people and watching
security footage. This gym had a peculiar top-rope setup that required ropes to be
pulled and then replaced whenever someone wanted to lead. It just so happened
that whoever pulled the rope to lead the night before had not set the rope back
up properly; as I was being lowered, when I was about 18 ft up, I felt this
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sickening drop in my stomach. Next came a crunch as my heels bottomed out the
old, sacked-out floor padding, followed by a flash of white as my ass hit and body
basically folded in half with head snapping forward between my knees. The next
thing I knew, there was some commotion around me as a wave of pain and
nausea swept through me. I thought I was going to throw up. Tears streamed out
of my eyes from the pain. My trip, I thought, fuck.
Later, after an x-ray and a very expensive consultation with a doctor that
didn’t tell me much, I learned that I had very nearly snapped off a piece of the
outer edge of my heel. Luckily, according to the doctor, the piece was held in
place by a sliver of still-attached bone. Had that piece come loose, things would
have been really bad. As it stood, it was going to hurt for a while, and I was to
keep off of it.
Four days later, walking on my toes, I boarded a plane to Australia.
Walking on your toes for a couple of days straight really gets old, especially
when you have a recently injured ankle. After a week exploring Sidney, trying my
damndest not to let my broken heel, nor my other bruised one touch the ground,
my calves were killing me and my knees were irritated as all hell. Still, it wasn’t all
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bad. I figured out that, once I got them on, climbing shoes didn’t hurt too bad,
and I could climb on a rope so long as I didn’t heel hook. I headed to the
Grampians.
Side note: driving actually turned out to be one of the more painful
activities. I had never noticed that, when driving, I set my heel on the floorboard
of the car and use the ball of my foot and my toes to work the pedals. Driving
fourteen hours without setting your heel down will give you the aches in your
quad.
In the Grampians, about a week and a half after having broken my heel, I
found myself hiking through an ashen forest that had burned the previous year,
slowly making my way to a crag of beautiful, orange and red rock. There, my
climbing partner and I picked out what seemed to be the easiest climb there, a
single-pitch trad 5.10 called Roraima. I geared up, ignored my heel, and set off.
I encountered the crux maybe 40 feet up, a small roof-bulge with a decent
rest right before. I set a piece, a solid .4, and worked my way into the crack that
split the bulge in half. I was reaching over the lip, left hand locked in a gaston
hand-jam under the roof, when I suddenly felt myself go airborne. I wind-milled
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my arms and kicked my legs to avoid going upside down, probably screamed a bit,
and took a maybe 15 or 20 foot whipper before the rope caught me. As I lowered
down, my right pinkie started to throb, but I ignored it. I had taken my first ever
trad whipper and was exhilarated. I pulled the rope and went back up, sending
without too much issue this time.
By the time I got back to the ground again, my pinkie really hurt and was
pretty swollen. What had happened, as I found out later, was that I had snapped
my pinkie bone closest to my knuckle clean in half, long-ways and diagonally from
joint to joint. I’m still not quite sure how it happened, whether I caught a
carabiner or smacked a ledge on the way down. Either way, what I did know at
the time was that my finger hurt like hell and that I still had three weeks of
climbing left. I taped it up every day and powered through.
It didn’t stop me that much. I did my first 5.11 trad that trip, climbed v8 and
12.c sport. I learned that I tended to hold my beers with my pinkie under the can,
which proved excruciating. I also strained my right lat pretty bad and did
something crunchy to my meniscus bad enough that I couldn’t really walk for a
day. All in all, a great trip.
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When I got back to the states, just in time for college, I went straight to the
campus health center. X-rays showed the break, but it also showed that, over the
course of the month I had been climbing on it, the bones had shifted until my
pinkie bone made a kind of narrow X with itself and that the bones had fused in
that position. The doctor recommended surgery at an actual hospital in town. He
refused to set it for me.
At this time, I didn’t have health insurance, and I was flat broke from my
trip, so I called my friend B. who worked in a hospital in town as a radiologist. I
texted him a picture of the x-ray, he made a few calls, and soon I got a message
with an address.
At that address, I met P., who would soon become a good friend of mine.
Peter, for the past couple of years, had worked as an ortho tech, setting broken
bones in a hospital. He thought he could do a decent job on my pinkie.
Bryant had showed up with a twelve box of beer, 1/4th liquid courage for
me and the rest payment for Peter. I chugged three, waited for the alcohol to
make its way to my brain, and then, in the kitchen, Peter slowly tractioned out my
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pinkie, re-breaking it along the fracture, and did his best to straighten it out. Then
he mixed some plaster and molded a cast to it. Shit all hurt like hell.
In the end, I was in the cast for 3 weeks (Peter recommended 4, but I was
going effing nuts not being able to do some sort of physical activity, as I still
couldn’t run). I got another x-ray, and, after fuming at me for getting my pinkie
set the way I did, the doctor said my finger would be fine for a while but would
probably develop arthritis pretty bad sometime in the far future. Nowadays, I
have full use of the finger, though it has got a bit of a funky bend and comes up
short on crimps sometimes. All in all, it works fine. Thanks P.!
I am fond of looking for lessons in things, though that process is becoming
less clear to me as I get older. Still, I can’t help but wonder what I learned from
2014, the year of injuries. It’s hard to say; pretty easily, the lesson could be that I
am a dipshit and should try and take better care of myself. That seems like a
logical conclusion. But really, what I got from it is that the human body is pretty
damn amazing and can handle itself pretty well. Those injuries, though minor
overall, were my first real ones, and I was impressed at how my body dealt with
them and recovered. I also learned how dependent my mental state is on being
able to play. Maybe this is a weakness on my part, but physical activity is essential
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to my happiness. I’ll never forget the day I took the cast off my finger. I taped it
up and went bouldering right away, and the joy of being able to get outside and
climb, the gift of being able to simply use my body, was overwhelming. I try and
remember that all the time.
Oh, and eat enough!
Perfection
One of the things I most vividly remember about being a kid is working with
my dad on weekends and most summers. I hated it. Then again, I doubt many kids
would enjoy spending a Saturday doing finished carpentry in track homes that
smelled like fresh paint and lacquer. Looking back, I have, predictably, come to
appreciate those experiences quite a bit, as they taught me many things that I
would not realize were useful until much later. Some of those things directly
apply to my approach to climbing.
One of the things that drove me absolutely nuts about working with my dad
was his attention to detail. Things always had to be perfect: perfectly straight,
perfectly aligned, perfectly level, perfectly even, perfectly perfect all the damn
time. More recently, when my dad was helping me build out my van, I marveled
at how easily he could make everything he cut and assembled come together
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flush and beautiful. I realized then that I was watching a product of a lifetime
dedicated to achieving a kind of perfection in his work.
Another thing I noticed while working on my van with my dad was how he
responded when something came together perfectly. It always pleased him. Now
let me be clear: assembling my van involved hundreds of individual steps, and my
dad nailed nearly every one of them. And for every single one he nailed, he took a
moment to enjoy it. To appreciate what he had done. When I was younger, I
thought this was hubris; my dad is from Argentina after all and possesses nearly
unflappable self-confidence. Working on my van, I realized that he just found
pleasure in the lovely smoothness of the flush alignment of wood, in the process
of creating something functional from disparate parts.
It was in thinking about this that I finally saw how much of my dad had
seeped into my personality through those days working with him. He was never
much for words, but, in the hours I spent miserably filling tiny holes with spackle
or putty, I was absorbing his fascination with perfection.
Looking back, this explains why I have always been fascinated with stories
of true discipline, of people and characters willing to sacrifice in order to achieve
perfection of some kind. Christ, the Buddha, Bruce Lee, Siddhartha, Prince Andrei,
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Patxi Usobiaga… the list of personal inspirations goes on and on, and they all have
that quest for perfection in common. I think this is what most informs my
climbing today.
An earlier draft of this piece lacked a clear definition for what “perfection”
means in climbing; I balked at attempting to define it. The definition likely varies
from person to person. Some people seek a sort of flawless execution of a
sequence of moves; others tend to see perfection as a way of looking at a line. I
can help but think that, because of the nature of reality and language, there are
as many potential definitions as there are climbers. Defining something as
abstract as “perfection,” even when narrowed to a particular pursuit like climbing,
is almost impossible, but, for me, perfection in climbing has to do with the
directness of effort, with the wholistic engagement of mind and body with each
other and with an environment separate from both, and with the process
required to achieve that state. That is as close as I can come to a strong definition.
This is perhaps why I have gravitated towards bouldering more and more
over the years, until, finally, I sold most of my other climbing gear season. In
carpentry, there is a perfect simplicity that makes up the aesthetic value of an
object. Unlike other forms of art or building, which often derive their beauty from
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the interlocking of complex elements, from the coalescing of so many separate
parts into a whole, the kind of building my dad has always seemed to enjoy is
beautiful because of its directness. It’s the difference between Joyce and
Hemingway; there is always something beautiful about the simple form, about
the form that draws a straight line to its function. This is something of how I see
bouldering, devoid of excess as Hemingway is devoid of metaphors and similes.
No rope, no bolts, no climbing partner; when you boulder it is, in essence, simply
you and the rock you are climbing, you and the perfect execution of the only
moves that will get you to the top. In carpentry, if you make a mistake it is your
own responsibility; in bouldering, if you can’t execute a move or sequence, then
you simply are not ready, be it because of a lack of strength, of mental fitness, of
technique, of imagination, or of sequence reading ability.
This brings to mind the process that leads to an expertise. Like my dad, I
have discovered a love for the process that leads to improvement. I remember
him telling me stories of the furniture shop he worked in as a teen in Buenos Aires
(child labor laws didn’t quite exist there, then) and the machine shop he worked
in when he moved to Los Angeles when he was 17. One of the things he likes to
remind me of is that he never settled for doing exactly what he was told; rather,
he always sought a better, more efficient way. He also never settled for the one
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task assigned him. Instead, he spent hours, after he was done with his task,
learning how to make other pieces and use other machines. He credits this drive
to be better as a major part of his success in life.
Without really realizing it, I have applied the same principals in my
climbing. Every season, I approach training with an eye towards what I can
improve upon, what I can do better physically and mentally. I go into every season
with lofty goals in mind, goals that I know are probably out of reach but that I
think will push me harder to eventually get to a place where they aren’t. And
now, nearly ten years into climbing, I have managed to accomplish some things I
never thought I would. I don’t just mean grades, either. The drive to improve
myself is, essentially, an exploration of self-discovery. This same drive, the drive
that has admittedly led me to send harder and harder climbs, year by year,
correlates directly with the part of myself that has found ways to travel every
year, that took the leap to move to the Sierras, that got me through my grad
program. Nothing in the mind or body is isolated from the entirety of the self;
seeking perfection in one aspect of your life spills over, I think, into all the other
parts of your existence.
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I am sure there is something to be said here along the lines of the idea of
mindfulness. This idea is becoming more and more common, and perhaps more
and more misunderstood. Admittedly, it is beyond me, and I don’t have much to
say in that vein. If I were to ask my dad what he thinks of mindfulness, he’d just
look at me as if I had said something silly. He’s not much for abstract thinking,
unlike me. For him, the pursuit of perfection through his work is a natural result
of his dedication to living life. He couldn’t imagine doing things any other way.
Half-assing is not an option for him. If I really pressed him for words, he’d likely
say something along the lines of one of my favorite quotes, one from Hunter S.
Thompson: “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.” He’d ask me why I would
waste time doing anything unless I thought doing it was worth doing it to best of
my ability. A damn good question, and maybe one that we should all ask
ourselves more often.
The Depth of the Climb
A Lack of Understanding
When I was younger, I wanted to travel as much as I could. My parents
encouraged this; both of them are from South America, and they believed that
seeing the world is important. They took me to see their native countries when I
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was a kid, sent me on a school trip to France and Italy in the 8th grade, and
helped me pay to backpack through the U.K one semester when I was getting
burnt out in school. These travels cost us both quite a bit of money, but I was
never taught to look at it as a waste.
Right around the time I dropped out of college, pretty soon after that trip
to England and Scotland, I became interested in the Tao Te Ching. A friend of
mine introduced it to me one night after a discussion about meditation; I had
begun practicing a little, doing my own reading and trying to find my way. I dove
into this small volume and just ate it up. I had been an English major, having
always loved reading and language, and I found that the often contradicting
statements to be found in the Ching spoke to me in a way the comparatively
simple and straightforward seeming verses of Christianity, in which I had been
raised, never could manage. For years, I carried the Tao Te Ching with me
everywhere, reading it and rereading it, trying to absorb the wisdom I could sense
in its letters and lines.
There was one line, however, that I did not understand. Really, at the time,
I disagreed with it wholeheartedly, and this drove me up the wall. I knew that this
book contained more wisdom that I would come to know in my lifetime. For me,
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that was, and is, a fact. The idea that this one line contradicted what I believed,
what I felt to be true, threatened to undo the whole thing. This scared me. I had
lost my religion, a terrifying experience, and would never be able to have another,
but I did not want to lose this too.
The line was this: “The wise man never leaves his hometown.”
What, I wondered, could this possibly mean? Travel is like education; nearly
everyone agrees in the value of seeing other cultures, of learning about and
coming into contact with ways of being different than your own. How could the
Tao Te Ching, for all its wisdom, not see that?
Insight through Projecting
It was a Thursday morning, and my alarm went off at 6 am. I skipped the
shower, ate a quick breakfast, and jumped into my car. I had packed everything I
needed the night before. The streets leading in town were busy with morning
commuters, but the traffic thinned as I left the last of the neighborhoods behind
and drove out into the farmlands surrounding the city. Soon, even these
disappeared, and I found myself driving through hilly grassland which, eventually,
gave way to a winding road up into the mountains. As the road rose in elevation,
the views into the surrounding valleys become more and more spectacular. In one
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direction was a landscape of dry, low-rolling hills in various shades of yellow. It
was barren, and for this it was, in its own way, beautiful. In the other direction
was a series of ever-lower ridgelines, green with brush and trees, which led
directly into the Pacific Ocean. On clear days, you could see the white lines of the
surf and the hazy shapes of the islands just off the coast.
It took an hour and half to drive from home to the bouldering area. This
place was special to me; it was where I learned to climb. On this mountain top, on
the sandstone boulders scattered on the slopes amongst the tall, broken-topped
pines, I had learned what it meant to try hard. My first projects had been here. I
had done my first v4, v6, v7, and v8 here. I had camped alone for days in this
forest. I had spent my 25th birthday here exploring the wilderness with a stomach
full of mushrooms. That same day, I had decided to become a teacher while
sitting on a boulder overlooking the landscape that slipped wonderfully into the
great abyss of the ocean beyond. I had a connection to this specific place on
earth, a connection forged over years and years of getting to know it.
After warming up on a few easier problems, I made my way to the
objective: a beautiful, tall, over-hanging compression arete that led into a high
slab over a bit of a dangerous fall. The sandstone ranged in color from orange to
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black, persistent lichen giving it a tint of yellow and green from a distance. This
line was amazing. I had been to this climb every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday
morning for the last month, something like 10 sessions already dedicated to this
one boulder. Most days had been much the same. I warmed up, hiked the pads to
the climb, spent an hour or two fighting my way up the arete, and left with
sandpapered fingertips and sore elbows, driving the 1.5 hours back in time for
class and/or work, depending on the day. Rinse and repeat.
By this point, I had gone through the full gamut of projecting emotions. I
had been discouraged, reinvigorated by a breakthrough, frustrated by a missed
opportunity, made nervous by the impending send, and felt dejected by multiple
punts. After all that, after session after session of full physical, mental, and
emotional engagement, I found myself approaching the climb this day with a
sense of serenity and calm. When I sat down in front of it to put my shoes on, I
wasn’t intimidated nor confident. I wasn’t afraid of failure nor excited by the
prospect of success. There was a slight breeze, and on this side of the mountain,
in the shade, the air was a bit on the cold side. I could hear the air moving
through the trees, could feel the cold making its way across my scalp and cooling
my hands. The climb looked to me, this day, like an old friend. As I strapped the
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Velcro of my shoes down, I looked forward to this coming encounter the same
way I looked forward to seeing someone I felt akin to.
I sent that day. It was my first v11 and an important moment for me. This
climb had been my longest project to date and still is the most time I have ever
invested in a climb. I had been stuck at the v9/10 level for three years or so, and
that send catapulted me into a yearly improvement that I am still riding now. It
meant a lot to me, and as I stood on top of the boulder, exhilarated by the
success, a little disbelieving, but, most of all, thankful for the experience, I
suddenly had a flash of insight. I understood the line in the Tao Te Ching that had
puzzled me for so many years.
Depth in the Shallows
I spent two weeks in the U.K. Ten days in France and Italy. 5 Weeks all over
Brazil. Ten Days in Fiji. Ten days in Northern Ireland. 2 weeks in Thailand. A month
in Australia, and a month moving through Peru, Chile, and Argentina. And yet, for
all these trips, all this time traveling, I didn’t know much about the places. Those
trips were mostly, with some exception, spent frantically going from city to city,
hostel to hostel, trying to see and experience as much as I could. For all my
rhetoric about traveling, about getting to know a culture, these short, frenetic
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trips did not give me a sense of the place at all. If anything, I came back with less
knowledge, impeded as I was about my own smugness and pride for the things I
had seen and experienced. I had a tick-list mentality to traveling.
The same thing can happen in climbing. I don’t know how many times I
have been on a short trip somewhere and taken that mentality to my climbing,
wanting to come away with sends rather than focusing my attention on the
climbs and the place. I wonder how many climbs I have quickly judged as too
“scrunchy” or “not my style” and moved on to another climb, essentially looking
for those quick sends and numbers. It strikes me that, with this mentality, I come
away from each trip with basically the same experiences: quick sends and the
satisfaction of success. But, in seeking that, I wonder if I am missing out on
possible experiences like the one described above.
This is becoming more prevalent, I think, as climbing and travel are
beginning to mix more and more. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; honestly,
most of us have to work a lot to make our lives livable, and so maybe two weeks
off twice a year is all we get. In two weeks, it may be all but impossible to develop
a deep connection with a place, as opposed to something shallow and fleeting.
This belies a larger issue and returns us to the Tao Te Ching. Part of the mentality
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that drives our energetic search for new experiences, experiences that often are
just a rehashing of ones we have already had, is a kind of escapism, a desire to be
elsewhere than we are. We have all had this feeling when working a project or
when faced with a particularly stressful week at work and home. There always
comes that session when you fail to make progress, when maybe you even
regress, and a little voice in the back of your head tempts you with the prospect
of the easy send around the corner, the instant gratification simply leaving and
turning away from the struggle. Often, we chase that temptation all over the
world, always coming away with the same quick, satisfying but short-lived
experience. And once it is gone, we are simply waiting for the next chance for
another, an endless chain of immediately gratifying but ultimately shallow and
forgettable experiences.
I think the reason these short vacations and short projects leave us wanting
more, thereby, perhaps, not fulfilling what we needed in the first place, is that
they don’t really teach us anything new. The short vacation and the quick send
both only serve to reiterate something we already thought about ourselves, the
fact that we are well-travelled and cultured (or need to get away) or the fact that
we climb this and that grade. These kinds of experiences are more about imposing
the Self on a place or thing and less about learning. Any true lesson takes time to
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learn and happens in the long relationship you develop with something in which
the dichotomous gap between you and the thing begins to become fuzzy and
permeable. For me, this is why the wise man never leaves his hometown: he
knows it takes a lifetime to fully build a relationship with a place where that gap
ceases to be and a sense of oneness takes over.
Now I have never quite had this kind of experience, I think it is something
of a rare thing for my generation, but I have had glimpses of it and I have known
people who have. There are places in the world that I have spent a significant
amount of time in, and I know those places in a way I don’t know most of the
countries I have visited. I have had experiences with climbs, like above, that have
shown the difference between a shallow experience and one with depth. Does
this mean that I am going to stop traveling and going on climbing trips? Probably
not. I am not a wise man, and all this does not negate the pleasure derived from
novelty. Fun can be its own reason. What this does mean, however, is that I have
started to think about where I want to be, long-term, so that I can start to build
this kind of relationship with a place. It means that I am going to go back to the
Rocklands next year for the third year in a row. It means that, rather than just
waiting for the next trip to come around, I am going to try and take some time to
get to know the place, the moment, I am in. It means that I am going to seek out
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climbs that require me to spend time with them, that will take time to develop
the understanding necessary to send.
The beauty of the Tao Te Ching is in its ambiguity, and this is what I find
useful about literature in general. Language is a tool, and a damn messy one at
that. The underlying assumption that people attribute the same meanings to the
same words is fundamentally flawed for the simple reason that it is not true.
People are complex, and their relationships to words are nuanced inexplicably.
For me, this seems to match, rather wonderfully, the essential ambiguity of being
a conscious being in a material body. Do I have a soul? Am I only a body? What
are my thoughts? What should I make of the sometimes discordant urges of my
physical and moral selves? I honestly don’t know. But I do know that the tension
between the concrete nature of language – it does, after all, exist in a real way
and has real consequences in the world – and its abstract, symbolic foundation
mirrors the mental/physical dichotomy of my own existence.
This is something that I also find useful about climbing. The depth of the
experience I had with my first v11 came from, I think, having to face both the
physical and mental challenges inherent in projecting a climb and from the fact
that this interaction was with something objectively outside of my Self. As I got to
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know the climb, the climb changed me. It taught me, in a way, and gave me
insight into the line I couldn’t previously understand. I saw, from this experience,
that the preconceived notions we carry with us, often rigid and hard-lined, create
a predilection for shallow experiences and are obstacles to having deep ones.
It wasn’t that the Tao Te Ching was missing something; it’s that I wasn’t
listening deeply enough.
Flash Go, Best Go
Bishop is getting busier and busier every year. I think the record, as far as I
have seen, is 87 cars in the Happies parking lot. That’s a lot of fucking people.
Now, let me be clear about something from the get-go: I am not one of
those haters that is dismayed by the incredible influx of new climbers
transitioning from the mega gyms that seem to be opening everywhere to the
outdoor crags I frequent. I consider myself a relatively new climber – having been
climbing for just under ten years, I can’t help but consider myself as a part of that
wave of new climbers. Secondly, climbing has been an overwhelmingly positive
thing for me, and I love getting outside to climb more than just about anything.
How can I begrudge others that have found a similar passion?
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Now there is a lot to say about the effects of new climbers joining the mix:
the debate about environmental concerns and access is going to be around for a
while and will probably intensify. But there are people out there more qualified to
talk about issues like that than me, and I will leave that to them.
What I am interested in is the way climbing culture has changed with this
surge in popularity, and, by culture, I mean “the customs, arts, social institutions,
and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group” (thanks
Google!). To parse this down a bit, climbers definitely qualify as a specific “social
group,” and we definitely have an evolving set of “customs,… institutions, and
achievements” that are particular to our group. This is still pretty broad; hell, we
could spend all damn day and half the next discussing all the things that go into
this. I just want to talk about one, small cog in this big machine.
I started thinking about this one day last season while I was working a
problem in the Happies. This problem was in the Acid Wash cave area, and, if you
have ever been there, you know how busy that particular cluster of rocks can get.
I was having a good time getting my ass kicked by my problem and watching other
climbers work theirs; for me, it is always a bit of fun to people-watch boulderers
and to see the manifestations of their climbing processes play out in real time.
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One duo caught my eye. A man and a woman were standing back watching
another group of climbers work a v9 and discussing the efficacy of the beta they
were seeing attempted. After maybe 20 minutes of this, both went for a flash go,
using whatever combination of beta they had gleaned from their observations
that they thought best. Neither flashed the climb, and the woman didn’t even try
it again
It’s probably pretty obvious where I am going with this but bear with me for
a second. There is nothing wrong with wanting to flash a climb. Someone posited
an excellent question to me when I asked them about the motivation behind flash
attempts: “Why not?” And this is absolutely true. Why not try? You never know
what is going to happen, and there is something to be said for approaching a
climb with the intention of giving it 100% effort from the very start. This is how
we should approach every attempt, even the ones in which we ae simply trying to
work out beta (I have had many experiences where the beta turned out to just be
“try harder”).
That said, the issue here is that the focus and emphasis on flashing carries
with it some subtle nuances that, I think, should be fully explored. But it isn’t only
flashing that is relevant here; the overall attachment to sending that I think many,
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if not most, climbers have to deal with at some point in their journey also
contributes to what I want to talk about. I have written about this a little bit in
another post, “On Projecting,” which deals more with my personal experiences
with this, yet I think there are larger observations and implications to be made.
Let’s start here: climbing is hard.
I don’t know about you, but I quit playing on the monkey bars sometime
around the 8th grade. I think about how, had there been monkey bars at my high
school, it may not have been so tough to transition into climbing. As it was, when
I first started climbing, shit was tough! I struggled my way through the gear and
through the fear. This was in Bakersfield, and our hardest climber in the local
gym, at the time, had just sent his first v7. This was a time before videos of Webb
and Megos started showing up, when Sharma was still in his 20s and Woods was
still a teenager. Sharma makes for a good transition here.
I remember watching the Dosage videos and being amazed at how fucking
hard and for how long Sharma was willing to try. He was, and is, a long-term
projecter. As I understood it, watching his videos, he was never interested in
climbs he could do quickly; those weren’t challenging enough, and the man was
always looking for the next big, bad, and beautiful project to spend a few years
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on. Years. Think about that. I recently saw and Instagram post where someone
talked about sending their hardest and longest-term project: v13 in 3 sessions.
And that appears to be a bit of a trend now: how quickly can you climb how
hard? This is implicitly reflected in videos online. More often than not, the videos
we see give something of an unconsciously misleading perspective on climbing. So
many times, the send, after hundreds of efforts, feels and looks easy. Videos that
show only the send don’t reflect the effort that usually goes into hard climbing,
and these videos, in turn, affect the way newer climbers approach the sport. I’ve
seen many climbers tear through areas like headhunters, looking for the climbs
they can send quickly so they can go home with the tick-list they want. Hell, I’ve
been one of those climbers. Instant gratification. Quantity over quality.
This trend is even reflected in the language we use in climbing. These days,
it’s not uncommon for someone to talk about and “easy v10” or a “soft v13.” Of
course, this is a natural part of the progression of climbing, as every generation
will be stronger than the last. We see this in other sports as well. There is almost
always a fascination with pure talent; the media surrounding our sports tends to
highlight the athletes that make it look easy, that just manage to flow into
greatness without much effort. We love the working-hard-pays-off story too, but,
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these days, who has the time to listen to that narrative? I’ve only got a few
minutes on YouTube at a time, what with work and all. In the beginning, climbing
followed a different narrative structure. Sure, Sharma was talented and never
trained, but man did he throw himself at his projects. He never threw fits or
complained or bemoaned conditions or talked about the grade; when he couldn’t
send, he admitted that the climb was hard and that he wasn’t strong enough, and
he went after it no matter how long it took.
What I see in this, and what inspires me personally, is an incredible sense of
self-responsibility. One of the beauties of climbing is that, while it is true that a
number of factors go into sending, in the end it ultimately falls on the climber as
an individual. I was either strong enough or not. I played soccer for a long time
growing up, and one of the things that pushed me away from it, a thing that has
drawn me to climbing, is how easy it was to scapegoat my own failures onto
others. The ref made a bad call. My defense (I played keeper) fucked up. Our
offense couldn’t finish. I learned, early on from playing soccer, that it was always
easier to shrug off my own inadequacies onto others. You can’t really do this in
climbing.
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Now I fully acknowledge that conditions are important; I have been on
many climbs where it was just too hot/humid/whatever to feel solid. But let’s
take a look at the logic here. When I complain about the conditions, I am
complaining about something that is not fixed. Conditions change. Really, what I
am doing is revealing my own impatience, my desire to send NOW rather than
wait for the proper moment. This reminds me of an experience I had in the
Rocklands last summer; I made friends with guy from New Mexico who climbed
about the same as I do. As such, we worked a lot of problems together. One of
these problems was a compression v12 with a v9 stand start. We got there to
start working the beta, but the conditions weren’t great. Nonetheless, my friend
managed a good link from only 1 or 2 moves in, through the stand start, and
topped out. It was one of those “aha!” moments when you realize that you can do
a problem; he was psyched, as this would be his first of the grade. What he did
next blew me away. He came down, took off his shoes, and chose to wait for the
full send until the conditions were a bit better and until he was better rested. I
couldn’t believe it. Had I been in his position, I would have spent the next hour
throwing myself at the problem, so concerned with sending that I likely would
have fallen apart into a frustrated, bitching, no-fun-to-be-around shell of a
climber. He sent his next session in just a few goes.
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This brings us back to where we began. It isn’t that flashing is the issue, but
it’s what the underlying logic says about the ways in which we approach climbing
these days. We want things to feel easy. We want climbs to go down quickly. We
want to crush everything. We want to be better than the climbers around us. We
want all this NOW. But let’s be real, this approach doesn’t reflect reality. Climbing
is hard, really fucking hard. If it isn’t, then maybe you should try harder. Also,
most sends are preceded by a number of falls. It is ok to acknowledge that, to
admit that something took work, took hours and days of effort. So I guess what I
am saying is that we need mimesis in the climbing culture we are developing, a
commitment to making sure that this culture is an accurate reflection of the
reality of climbing. Without that, we risk falling into the same trap we see other
subcultures succumbing to, where the representations of their culture become so
far removed from the reality of it that the dissonance between the two begins to
dismantle the very things that attracted people to it in the first place.
Climbing for the Future
Here’s a fact about myself: I love to debate. In class, if one of my students
argues red, I will argue blue. Next session, another student argues blue, I argue
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red. This comes down to my pedagogy in teaching, but that isn’t the point here;
the point is that I find myself in debates all the time. Now I should make it clear
that I don’t do this for the sake of trying to be right, nor because I want to change
people’s minds. Really, debating is like projecting for me. It’s exercise for my
brain. I also am the kind of person that learns best in a dialogue. When I am
debating with someone, I learn a lot both about their positions and about my own
feelings on an issue.
It probably goes without saying that, lately, politics have made their way
into a lot of these debates (usually, in the past, it was all religion and metaphysics
for me, as well as the age-old Star Trek vs Star Wars argument (Picard!)). This
doesn’t bother me; I tend to think of humans as inherently political because we
are inherently social, and, as a teacher, I think it is part of my job to be informed
on the things that can and do affect the lives of my students. None of this is what
I want I want to write about. What I want to write about is how climbing effects
my credibility in these arguments. But really, even that’s not what I want to write
about.
I need to get some traction here, and for that, for you valued reader, I
should give you an important piece of information. Up until about a month ago, I
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had spent the last year living in a van. Specifically, my girlfriend and I both owned
vans, and we spent most of the time in hers (the bed was bigger). A month ago,
we sold her van for a trailer in which we now reside up in the Tablelands in Bishop
(don’t tell the BLM!). Now, believe it or not, this fact about my life gets very
different reactions from climbing and non-climbing populations. Climbers tend to
think it’s awesome; we, as climbers, know the special place dirtbagging has in our
cultural mythos. Non-climbers think it absolutely nuts.
So when I discuss politics with friends, family, and others, of whom many
are not climbers, this fact of my life colors their judgement of my opinions. And
this is as it should be. If politics is the extension of social life, to a degree, then it
makes sense that our political concerns would align with our personal ones. When
I talk about politics with a friend who doesn’t climb, what they see is someone
who doesn’t have a mortgage, a car payment, kids, and who spends most of his
free time either running around various outdoor settings to scramble around of
rocks or training for those times. Basically, it is a question of ethos: because I am
perceived as less invested in this system we call American Society, my opinion is
of less value.
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Now, I sympathize with their view. I really don’t have much invested, at
least monetarily (I’d argue that choosing to become a teacher is pretty invested),
in the “system,” and this generally makes the impacts of legislative decisions less
heavy on me. By the same token, I really do spend most of my free time running
around the outdoors. Hell, I spend a majority of my time there, considering how
permeable the barriers between you and Nature are when you live in a van/trailer
(and I don’t just mean walls. Neighborhoods, streets, cities, shopping centers, and
parking lots all act as barriers in their own rights). And climbing really is a pretty
frivolous activity. Ultimately, does it really matter I send or not? In a world where
children are starving to death in some places while, in others, men and women
have more wealth than they know what to do with, what does climbing
accomplish? Nothing. Let’s be real here: I can only climb because I am lucky
(privileged) enough to have all my others needs taken care of. If I was hungry, if I
didn’t have a van/trailer for shelter, if I didn’t have an education or job, climbing
would be fairly low on my list of priorities until those were addressed.
That is all to say that people are right to take my lifestyle into account when
they consider my political views. It’s only natural. What I have issue with,
however, is the idea that my outsider position somehow weakens the credibility
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of my viewpoints. I feel that, maybe, my outsider view gives me a more objective
standpoint.
We all know, either intellectually or through experience, of the Sunk Costs
Fallacy. Here is an example: you have watched 17 seasons of The Walking Dead,
but you have noticed that the last few seasons have been a little less quality than
the earlier seasons. The new season is out, and it is terrible. And yet, you watch
the entire thing, spending x number of hour watching a show you really don’t like
anymore. Your reasoning is that you have already put so much time into the show
that you feel as if you have to finish (exactly how they want you to feel!). This
predilection towards continuing with something no longer beneficial to you
because of the time you have already invested is a version of the Sunk Costs
Fallacy. Another common version that we see in life and stories all the time is the
girl-in-a-bad-relationship narrative. All her friends are telling her to get out, but
she can’t let go of the years they have already spent together. The point is that
having investment in a system can itself become a reason for continuing that
system, regardless of the value and/or effectiveness of it.
Intrinsically, we know, as a social group, that a true view of the merits of a
social system can only come from the outside. Just look at the writers and social
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critics that we have, historically, looked up to. Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi, King Jr.,
Abbey, Parks, Anthony: all of these were people who, either by choice or by race
or by gender, existed on the fringes of society. It was this very outsider-ness that
gave them their honest view of the world around them. And who were the people
that fought the changes these pioneers sought? Those invested in the system.
Those with something to lose.
It appears to me that this mechanism is the primary way in which unjust
systems continue: by creating a social structure in which large portions of a
population are made so systemically dependent for their needs and culturally
derived wants that they become resistant to change. So if we want to know how
we can do better, as a system (and all large groups are just that, systems upon
systems in place to help govern interactions and resource management), it seems
to me that we would do best to listen to our least invested, to those who have
been pushed out and away by the social, civil, economic, and political systems in
place.
This all reminds me of Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations. Since that
book was written, published the same year the United States became a nation,
we have tended to look at social systems through the eyes of the most successful:
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what is good for the individual is good for the whole. This means that, when
evaluating the efficacy and fairness of our way of life, we tend to look to those
who have had the most success, which, in our world, translates to those who have
the most stuff. In terms of the Sunk Costs Fallacy, these are the people most
invested in the system, a system that has already allowed them to amass wealth,
and thereby are the ones most resistant to change. The flaw here is obvious. I
suspect it would do better to listen to those on the other side of the “success”
spectrum.
This brings me back to climbers in general. Climbing is a special sport in that
it, by design, forces its participants into the fringes of society a little bit. This is
partially because of our shared heritage, in which archetype of the dirtbag plays
such a large role and still influences climbing culture today but is also an inherent
quality of climbing itself. As climbers, we spend our time, energy, and money
actively seeking experiences that remove us from society. This removal is both
physical, in which we literally remove ourselves from the social structures we
generally exist in for days at a time whenever we go outdoors for trips, and
psychological, in which we learn a different value system from the norm based on
our experiences as climbers. We spend nights under the stars away from stores
and traffic and the modern hustle. We learn to make sacrifices for climbing,
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training and dieting so that we can become stronger. Our heroes and legends,
men and women that so loved climbing that they removed themselves from
society so that they could pursue the craft full time, are the opposite of the ones
society would have us look up to, men and women of influence and power. The
seeming frivolity of our lives is exactly what gives us our strength.
I often leave political conversations with the feeling that words are
inadequate, that, if I could just get the other side of the debate (be it my dad or a
friend or a random guy at a bar) to spend some time outdoors with me, a better
understanding could be had. It is my belief that a day out in the mountains or
desert and a night under the stars carries in them more truth than a lifetime in
the rat race. The trick, even for those of us who seek out these experiences, is to
listen. Even more difficult a trick is to still hear it when we return to the social
structures from whence we came. I hear this tension at the crag all the time,
people bemoaning their impending return to “real life.” Such thoughts engage in
false dichotomies; the only differences between life at the crag and life back
home are those that you accept.
What I am trying to say is that, as climbers and as people who spend a
significant amount of time interacting with the natural world, we should embrace
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our varying degrees of outsider status. As climbing hits the mainstream, with large
companies (Adidas) entering the market and with climbing receiving
unprecedented media coverage (the Dawn Wall and the Olympics), we have a
chance to voice what we have learned from our time out in the rocks, whatever
that may be (and I imagine it’ll be different for each of us), a chance to embrace
what we love about the world we inhabit when we go climbing and to show that
world to others, to show others what their world looks like when we spend some
time away from it. It is through this kind of social self-reflection that we can truly
gauge our successes and failures as a society and, perhaps, make the changes that
will offer coming generations better lives on the whole.
Climbing to Enlightenment
From a pretty young age, well before I started climbing, I was interested in
trying to understand everything around me. This, I think, is where my love for
reading comes from. My parents encouraged this; one of my earliest memories is
of these books they bought me in which a carton mouse went around looking for
answers to questions like “Why do ships float?” and “Why is the sky blue?” I
remember being excited for my monthly issue of Zoobooks, and I owned a set of
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the Encyclopedia Britannica before I was in middle school. Eventually, this interest
in the world around me shifted to less tangible concerns, like the purpose and
nature of life and of the self.
This led me to study philosophy, religion, and literature, all in an attempt to
better understand the reality I was confronted with every day. Early on, I became
interested in the various “Eastern” ideologies, and I have found many of the
concepts in them to be useful to me. One of those ideas, one that we see thrown
around a lot these days, is Enlightenment. This word represents different things in
different philosophies, but, for some reason, it attracted my attention. Maybe it
was reading Siddhartha, or maybe it was the Tao Te Ching, or maybe even War
and Peace did it; whatever the cause, from my early 20s on I have lived with the
vague notion that Enlightenment is what I am seeking. As I have gotten older, this
want for understanding and consequent study has continued, and I cannot help
but look at everything I do through the lens of what I have learned in my personal
studies. This informs my living my teaching, and, I think, even my climbing.
I have long felt that climbing helps me on this personal journey in some way that I
cannot quite put into words. I’ve tried, and failed, quite a few times. Eventually, in
order to try and better understand my perceived relationship between climbing
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and Enlightenment, I turned to what I think is the closest corollary to climbing in
the sports world: martial arts. This led me to, of course, Bruce Lee and his
philosophies surrounding his art.
As I read about him and as I read his thoughts, I saw a kind of connection
between his thinking and climbing. To me, martial arts and climbing seem to be
two sides of the same coin. Both involve full-being experiences, both require
preparation and training, and both pit the subject against something objectively
outside of one’s own subjectivity (in martial arts, the opponent; in climbing, the
rock). It is no coincidence that we often talk about climbing in terms of combat,
that we often refer to climbing at “fighting” a rock or “going to battle” with a
project.
I think martial artists have long struggled with similar physical and mental
battles to those we face as climbers, and that we can learn a lot from them. To
that end, the following is taken from the beginning of Lee’s book Tao of Jeet Kune
Do*, where he waxes philosophical about martial arts, I have taken the liberty of
making small changes, signified by brackets, in order to make Lee’s thoughts
applicable to climbing, but I have tried to do this as little as possible. I hope you
find this as enlightening and interesting as I did:
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To obtain enlightenment in [climbing] means the extinction of everything which
obscures the "true knowledge,” the "real life.” At the same time, it implies
boundless expansion and, indeed, emphasis should fall not on the cultivation of
the particular [line] which merges into the totality, but rather on the totality that
enters and unites that particular [line].
The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all
physical action.
Turn into a doll made of wood: it has no ego, it thinks nothing, it is not grasping or
sticky. Let the body and limbs work themselves out in accordance with the
discipline they have undergone.
The point is the [climbing] rather than the [sending]. There is no [climber] but the
[climbing]; there is no experiencer but the experience.
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The perfect way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not
dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth
are set apart; if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or
against. The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease.
Eliminate "not clear" thinking and function from your root.
[Climbing] calls for complete mastery of techniques, developed by reflection
within the [mind].
All vague notions must fall before a pupil can call himself a master.
It is indeed difficult to see the situation simply — our minds are very complex —
and it is easy to teach one to be skillful, but it is difficult to teach him his own
attitude.
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[Climbing] favors formlessness so that it can assume all forms and since [climbing]
has no style, it can fit in with all [challenges]. As a result, [climbing] utilizes all
ways and is bound by none and, likewise, uses any techniques or means which
serve its end.
Approach [climbing] with the idea of mastering the will. Forget about [sending]
and [falling]; forget about pride and pain… Do not be concerned with your [result]
— lay your [effort] before [it]!
The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not
to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or in defeat. Let nature take its course,
and your tools will strike at the right moment.
[Climbing] is the enlightenment. It is a way of life, a movement toward will power
and control, though it ought to be enlightened by intuition.
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While being trained, the [climber] is to be active and dynamic in every way. But in
[climbing] combat, his mind must be calm and not at all disturbed. He must feel as
if nothing critical is happening.
[Crimps and heel hooks] are tools to kill the ego. The tools represent the force of
intuitive or instinctive directness which, unlike the intellect or the complicated
ego, does not divide itself, blocking its own freedom. The tools move onward
without looking back or to the side.
Absence of stereotyped technique as the substance means to be total and free.
All lines and movements are the function.
In the long history of [climbing], the instinct to follow and imitate seems to be
inherent in most [climbers], instructors and students alike. This is partly due to
human tendency and partly because of the steep traditions behind multiple
patterns of styles. Consequently, to find a refreshing, original, master teacher is a
rarity. The need for a "pointer of the way" echoes.
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When you get down to it, real [climbing] is not fixed and is very much "alive. " The
fancy mess (a form of paralysis) solidifies and conditions what was once fluid, and
when you look at it realistically, it is nothing but a blind devotion to the
systematic uselessness of practicing routines or stunts that lead nowhere.
The man who is clear and simple does not choose. What is, is. Action based on an
idea is obviously the action of choice and such action is not liberating. On the
contrary, it creates further resistance, further conflict. Assume pliable awareness.
Knowledge is fixed in time, whereas, knowing is continual. Knowledge comes from
a source, from an accumulation, from a conclusion, while knowing is a movement.
In [climbing], there must be a sense of freedom. A conditioned mind is never a
free mind. Conditioning limits a person within the framework of a particular
system.
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To express yourself in freedom, you must die to everything of yesterday. From the
"old” you derive security; from the "new” you gain the flow.
The [climber] is to always be single-minded with one object in view to [climb],
looking neither backward nor sideways. He must get rid of obstructions to his
[upward] movement, emotionally, physically or intellectually.
If you want to understand the truth in [climbing], to see any [project] clearly, you
must throw away the notion of styles or schools, prejudices, likes and dislikes, and
so forth. Then, your mind will cease all conflict and come to rest. In this silence,
you will see totally and freshly.
To fit in with [a climb] one needs direct perception. There is no direct perception
where there is a resistance, a "this is the only way" attitude.
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Having totality means being capable of following "what is," because "what is" is
constantly moving and constantly changing. If one is anchored to a particular
view, one will not be able to follow the swift movement of "what is."
Truth is relationship with the [climb]; constantly moving, living, never static.
[Climbing] requires not just a moment of perception, but a continuous awareness,
a continuous state of inquiry without conclusion.
The way of [climbing] is not based on personal choice and fancies. Truth in the
way of [climbing] is perceived from moment to moment and only when there is
awareness without condemnation, justification or any form of identification.
Training is the psychological and physiological conditioning of an individual
preparing for intense neural and muscular reaction. It implies discipline of the
mind and power and endurance of the body. It means skill. It is all these things
working together in harmony.
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Training means not only knowledge of the things which will build the body, but
also knowledge of the things which will tear down or injure the body. Improper
training will result in injuries.
*Lee, Bruce. Tao of Jute Keen Do. Black Belt Communications, 1975. Print.
The Post-Send Blues
It’s common enough to have become cliché. After many sessions spread
out over the course of a year and a half, after not being able to link a single move
in that first session, after struggling to learn the movement and the body
positions, after giving up for a few months and returning when I felt stronger, one
day I found myself on top of the boulder, more than a little surprised that it had
finally gone down. I had flowed through the crux moves, holding the tiny
intermediate crimp just right, turning my hip into the smear back-step perfectly,
executing the huge fall-in cross with the right amount of momentum. After 9 or
10 sessions, all that work finally just clicked. I sent.
The best part was that this was MY boulder. A friend and I had found it a
few months before I started trying it. I helped clean it, build the landing, suss out
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the moves. He eventually decided to let it go, and so it came down to me. The
Kern Canyon isn’t exactly a climbing destination, and Bakersfield isn’t exactly a
climber’s city, so I was, for most of the process, the ONLY person trying this climb.
Throw in the fact that I had started trying the line on the first day of my return to
climbing, after taking a few weeks off (1 week less than I should have taken) to let
a broken pinky heal up, and we have all the necessary elements for an obsession.
I was happy I could climb, the line was challenging, and it was mine alone.
I start this way because that is the point I want to make; for a significant
amount of time, this line was my main project. That said, I don’t want to talk
about the process involved in climbing it. We all know that story: hiking pads
alone, making progress, regressing, doubting then believing, and finally the
unexpected send. It’s a story as archetypal as bouldering gets. Rather, I want to
talk about the process of moving on from that send.
I have done FAs before. Searching for and developing boulders in the Kern
canyon is what kept me sane through school. After a week of work/train/study, a
Saturday morning wandering the steep, oak tree strewn hills or hopping from rock
to rock across the river to look at features and imagine possible lines was the best
way for me to recenter myself and prepare for another week of the same. I spent
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hours roaming, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. I kept a mental list,
and when something looked good I’d dive into the clean/try cycle. Some I sent.
Some are still there waiting for me to come back too.
On top of the boulder, my hardest FA to date, I had a mix of emotions.
Relief, pride, excitement, happiness, all those emotion we as climbers know and
love… but the next day, when I sat in front of my garage wall and put my shoes on
to do a little training, only one emotion was left: sadness. Maybe that isn’t the
right word, maybe it was a kind of emptiness. I don’t know. Words don’t do such a
good job of describing emotions even when we fully understand ourselves, and I
didn’t quite get what I was feeling. To be honest, I still don’t. What I do know is
that I just simply couldn’t get my shoes on and get on that wall. I couldn’t find
that deep, inner motivation that had kept me going year after year, failure after
failure, the thing that kept me going back to the climb I had sent just the day
before. It just wasn’t there that day.
I sat there, one shoe half on, and thought about what I was feeling. I
thought about the send, I thought about the big Why, the “why do I do this shit”
question, I thought about the hours I had logged on that 8x12 training wall, about
the many small sacrifices I made daily to try and be my best on the rock, about
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the nights of drinking I had missed over the years, about the pizzas I hadn’t
eaten… this lasted almost an hour, and, finally, I gave up. I couldn’t find, not an
answer, but a framework that made sense of what I was feeling. I should have felt
renewed, motivated and validated. I had sent! I had done something that, before,
I could not do! The training, the hours and the days, the months and months, had
given me the abilities I needed to climb this rock. And yet, the feeling remained. I
didn’t know what to do.
I ended up driving bac out to the canyon to take a walk. Walking outside
has always been a way for me to think or, perhaps more accurate, to escape my
thinking. Somewhere on the way up the road, while I was driving through the
steep-sided canyon looking at the river and the rock, I remembered a boulder a
friend and I had seen years ago, one that we had written off as beautiful but
featureless. A few minutes later, after rock-hopping across the river and zig-
zagging up a steep hill, I found myself in front of a huge, over-hanging, right-facing
blunt arete/dihedral type feature. At first glance, it looked as featureless as it had
before: almost completely holdless. But then I noticed some feet on the right
face, perhaps the right distance for a kneebar. The arete itself appeared to have a
few spots that were slightly more textured than the rest. There were even some
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thumb-catches, maybe some pinches. I crossed back to my car and returned with
some shoes and pads.
I still haven’t sent the climb I found that day. I went back maybe 4 times
and worked out all the moves, a delicate balance of technique and power, core
tension and body position. The climbed fully engaged all the skills I had been
working on through all my previous years of climbing, and it allowed me to find
access to my inner motivation again. When I had to give up for the season, as the
heat rose and made holding the blunt granite more and more improbable, I threw
myself back into training with that one project in mind. The next season,
however, was one of the wettest on record; the river rose so high that I could not
make it across. It’s been a year and a half since I have been able to touch the
boulder. I’ve moved away, and I’ve got new projects, and I am still training, still
pushing. But I haven’t forgotten about that boulder, the one that refilled my
motivation and snapped me out of a short but intense lull, and you better believe
that when I visit my family for the holidays, every year, I’ll be checking those
water levels, looking for a new way across. Until then, I am going to work so that,
when the day comes I can get there, I’ll be ready.
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Post-Send Blues Update
Warning: Prepare for some self-indulging, over-wrought, projecting talk.
“I still haven’t sent the climb I found that day. I went back maybe 4 times
and worked out all the moves, a delicate balance of technique and power, core
tension and body position. The climbed fully engaged all the skills I had been
working on through all my previous years of climbing, and it allowed me to find
access to my inner motivation again. When I had to give up for the season, as the
heat rose and made holding the blunt granite more and more improbable, I threw
myself back into training with that one project in mind. The next season,
however, was one of the wettest on record; the river rose so high that I could not
make it across. It’s been a year and a half since I have been able to touch the
boulder. I’ve moved away, and I’ve got new projects, and I am still training, still
pushing. But I haven’t forgotten about that boulder, the one that refilled my
motivation and snapped me out of a short but intense lull, and you better believe
that when I visit my family for the holidays, every year, I’ll be checking those
water levels, looking for a new way across. Until then, I am going to work so that,
when the day comes I can get there, I’ll be ready.”
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This is how I ended “The Post-Send Blues,” first post I wrote for this blog.
The events this post described happened just under two years ago, and the wet
season the above talks about was last season. This season was a little different.
I did keep that climb in mind; I couldn’t help it. As I trained for other projects,
climbs that didn’t depend on the whims of the dam flow operators, I kept my
hopes up just a little. Maybe this year it’ll be accessible. Maybe this year I’ll get a
chance to get on it again. Maybe…
Well, the chance first arose a few months ago when I headed south for a
birthday party. This year hasn’t been as wet as the previous, and the Kern River
was low enough to cross. There were only a few of us, and we only had a few
pads, but it was such a joy to be back on the line, to reconnect with this piece of
rock that had pushed me out of a funk and set me on a motivated path that I am
still riding today. I had been thinking about it a lot, especially in the days leading
up to that trip when, after checking flow charts, I realized I would likely be able to
get across. I had been thinking about why my short experience with this rock so
far had meant so much to me. I am still not sure, but I think it had something to
do with creation, with the opportunity for the FA. I could see, even back then,
that the line was possible. I hadn’t quite done all the moves, but they were
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conceivable. Putting them all together seemed impossible, but there was a
sequence, a way. I just wasn’t ready. I think it was this tension between what my
mind saw as feasible and what my body was then capable of that brought me into
the work-ethic emphasis that I carry in my climbing today.
It could also have been the sheer beauty of the rock. Let me try and
describe it: this thing is BIG. It’s maybe 25 ft tall at its highest and 30 ft across on
the face where the line is. The feature that makes up the line is on the right side, a
large, blunt dihedral that hangs off the main face a few feet from the right arete.
This feature juts out from the ground at a continuous 50 degrees overhang,
changing angles into the upper slab somewhere around 12 or 15 feet, depending.
The landing tiers down and away, so as the line goes up, the landing falls away. All
of this is etched in gray granite striped with white veins of mineral deposits. The
top slab has green moss, and the area surrounding it is jumbled with rocks and
bushes. Something should be said about the boulders position as well; it sits
maybe 50 or 60 feet up a slope from the river, leaning up against another large
rock, in a bend so that, when you are standing at it, you can see down and up the
river.
269
It could also have been the movement, a strange and engaging mix of
technique and strength. You start matched in a decent undercling crimp a few
feet left of the dihedral with a right heel. One move gains the dihedral with your
right hand, followed by a series of sneaky kneebars on bad feet and overlapping
hand moves on the blunt feature that set you up for the crux section. This
involves a long move off a kneebar that wants to kick your feet away, then a core-
tension release so you can throw another kneebar over your head for the last
hard move to the jug at the lip. Here, you can cop a rest before embarking on the
mantle well over the drop-away landing. Once you’re standing on the jug, it’s
over.
Or maybe it was all of the above, including the time and place in which I
found this, along with the fact that I FOUND IT. Regardless, this thing was and is
fucking rad. And being able to get on it again was pretty incredible. It took me
some time to re-work the beta, and, with new eyes and a bit more strength from
two years of training, I was able to eliminate some moves and make the sequence
more efficient. Soon, I was giving the line an attempt from the bottom.
270
I didn’t send. Not that go, nor that day. But I made a really good link, and I
knew, for the first time, that this was absolutely possible. And I knew I’d be back
for the holidays.
A few months later, I was back, and this time with a crew who were
awesome enough to hike a bunch of pads up for me, making the landing as safe as
possible. After cleaning the top and practicing the mantle on a rope, after
reacquainting myself with the crux moves and making sure I knew what to do, I
found myself sitting at the base, preparing for my first go of the day. My mind was
buzzing with thoughts. Hopes. Doubts. Mostly Doubts. I took a few deep breaths,
took a page out of Bruce Lee’s book and let out a yell. The thoughts scattered like
scared birds, leaving me feeling calm and prepared.
I sent.
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A Quick Note

ideas together. My goal is to put my experiences together so that others may

My suggested donation is $10-$20; however, please remember that I do not

about it on social media. Thank you!

work fucking hard. My talent is in being a masochist.” I remember thinking to

myself, I can be that guy.

was hard, and I loved that about it. I had to try.

had always felt. Eventually, however, that changed.

and heard those fateful words.

My first training plan was something of a humble affair: I would hangboard

I couldn’t get outside much.

After that, I slowly began to do research, try different ideas I saw in

the concepts and ideas behind this method accessible to others.

subscription-style model in which you pay continuously, month by month, for

your training plans. This does two things.

as well as updated editions as I learn more myself, you will be able to

above and beyond what you ever expected of yourself.

stronger but can’t afford to go to one of these companies or to pay a private

long as they want.

comments, train hard, and crush!

A Note on the Second Edition

in my own small way, I have contributed to the development of others as climbers

means a lot to me. Thank you!

have endeavored to offer new information. This is mostly in Chapter 4: Non-Linear

material to continue to progress. In addition to these changes, I have included,

to become a better climber. This book reflects my continuing progress on that

thinking and personal trial and error.

become self-sufficient in your training. While I have included this kind of

information throughout the book as it pertains to specific elements of the

Outdoor Is the Goal

one hand hangs on the board, if you want to improve performance in

Training vs. Climbing

effectively or ineffectively. The purpose of looking at the gym as a training tool

and of this book is to maximize the effectiveness of this tool.

Just climbing in the gym is a perspective susceptible to whim and whimsy.

getting really worked in specific muscles or at worst injuring yourself due to

balance to your sessions.

Consistency and Focus

permanent improvements in your climbing. Really, there is nothing as important

a climber, you must keep at it consistently.

Key to maximization and consistency is adaption and motivation. Keeping

This in turn is a major source of motivation; actually seeing your progress

Discipline and Attitude

approach to training focuses on achieving maximum effort without attachment to

itself makes the training worth it.

find a source of motivation outside of your mood. Focusing on discipline, as

source ends up being, should be proactive. Personally, I watch kung-fu movies

the climber to focus on the individual aspects of bouldering individually,

improving at none of them. Essentially, the point of periodization is to break up

to a climbers ability like this:

Highs and Lows

Progress Linear (Progress)

still be above your previous performance level. It is through this continued

continual progress is achieved. This graph is, ultimately, a little deceiving, as

In order to become self-sufficient in creating your own periodized training

plans, it is important to understand the difference between Strength and Power

recognize whether it is primarily training Strength or Power so that you can

end of this book.

Strength is, essentially, your muscles’ ability to stay engaged and

contracted against continuous resistance. In bouldering, this is static climbing –