Age quod agis

John Vleugels Antonsson climbing in Valmasino ITA 2022

 

Rather than start writing about training by providing a set of definitions, exercises or methods, I prefer to start from a different viewpoint. I will start with “the end” of it. Having the benefit of experience means a possibility to recapitulate through a few decades of own climbing and coaching and attempt to putt together some important advice in the art of climbing and training for climbing, or any other matter in sport, studies or professional endeavours.

The adage that stands for today’s title is as old as communication can be, and probably expressed in some language vanished for tenths of thousands ears ago. I chose Latin for effect’s sake of using a quote in an also dead language. While the prosaic literal translation means “Do what you do”, it’s normally translated by the phrase “What you do, do it well”

Climbing and training, as all other sport, is composed of a mixture of tasks requiring a wide array of abilities and skills that don’t come easy. In m experience climbers and even some coaches often fall for the temptation to single out a few elements of the sport and dedicate themselves to develop training routines that will be performed in rather repetitive manners. In my opinion this is one of the most frequent factors behind abandoning sport both in short, and in long term perspective. Hence my first advice.

Age quod agis/Whatever you do, do it well.

For me this means rejection of simple repetitiveness, and sole commitment to a few factors (often strength) as a means for rapid success. The same is true in the realms of technical and tactical training. Just repeating time and again the same movement or routine doesn’t guarantee proficiency at a certain task. In my personal experience as coach. Testing to give climbers tasks such as climbing a 6b/5.10c route, then ask them to climb 8b/5.13d almost invariably revealed that climbers often make the same technical and tactical mistakes while performing on routes regardless of difficulty. In addition to this, you can observe yourself how top-level climbers behave and move during even the simplest tasks during a warmup routine. They will often seem very focused and conscient of almost all actions they undertake, no matter the level of difficulty. In training attitude and quality always is no less than critically important.

In practice I would advice climbers to try to dig deep inside themselves and attempt to find a deep enjoyment in attention and movement. Whereas movement of low quality often feels strained and somehow uncomfortable, high-quality movement feels smooth and even joyful. This takes time, but it’s the foundation of a successful relationship with the athlete’s own path in the sport. It is important to recognize that ultimately all difficult movements for the individual climber will be better performed at the most favourable technical and tactical solutions, which in turn implies quality of movement and. This means that quality-at-all-cost is a better long-strategy than use of force to overcome all difficulty.

 

In practice

Dedication to good movement takes time and, especially if you aren’t already practising, it will feel cumbersome and uncomfortable. The reasons are many but put in simple words, it’s very difficult to be proficient at anything first try.

Usually, we go to the climbing gym, change clothes, gather our gear, and start doing some easy things for warmup. The contrary situation would imply to be absolutely conscious of every action from the time we enter the gym. Such a thing would be closest to the actions of a monk or nun, and for most human it would end up with a feeling of stress, even lack of meaning. I would rather recommend starting with a simple sequence before making things more complex. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Once you are out of the changing room, take a few seconds to watch around in the gym and think about what you do plan to do during the actual session. How will you warm up, then what exercises do you plan to perform? Problems, routes, other exercises? What is the idea and the main ovjective of the session?

1. Perform a general warm up (non-climbing exercises).

2- Five to 10 problems or 3-5 routes suitable for warm up intensity. Once climbing try to direct your attention inwards. How does it feel when you move? How does your body move? How do hands, feet, hips, elbows, shoulder, knees and other parts of your body move and feel?  

3. Take a little time to observe the problem/route you intend to climb, even if it is very easy.

4. Go on with whatever you plan to do during the rest of the session.

You don’t need to try to achieve a certain philosophical or spiritual state by doing this. Simply climb and try to notice how it feels to do it, rather than simply performing an “mechanical routine” just to get warm for harder climbs/exercises.

 

Benefits

While the large-term goal is proficiency in climbing at higher levels, the immediate results of such simple task is to learn to plan in a small scale, to pay attention to inner cues and movement awareness. By very simple means you might notice how easily attention and movement adjustment comes. You’ll learn the importance to stop for a few moments of observation,  and develop a sense of effective movement.

If having the patience of repeating such a routine for every training day, even when you don’t climb, you’ll be able to appreciate changes in your climbing already after a few weeks of practice. Once you have practiced it to that point, this routine will be a natural thing in all your climbing for the rest of your career. The backside is that it is easy to lose these gains if we abandon them. “Use it or lose”, it is a convenient adage here, even though I haven’t a proper Latin quote for it.

I wish many climbers at all levels had this ability to come into situation and self-awareness before and during their hardest tries. I have seen too many climbers pump-off or lose their ingrained sequences on a route many times due to lack of attention and ineffective movement. Also, I have seen a few medals in competitions, even at world championships vanish that way.

 

For coming posts I’ll try to develop more the subject of quality with both more concepts and practical examples.