Pro-Sports

Variety is the spice of life.  It is also the key to getting better at whatever you do.  Always try to climb something new and different - work on different routes, climb at different crags, go to different gyms.  This helps you to improve a couple of things:

• your route-reading ability - how you look at a new route and figure out how to climb it.
• your repertoire of rock climbing moves - every new route will train your muscles in different ways.  If you only climb the same routes over and over again, your body won’t learn anything new.  Eric Horst once wrote about a climber who would climb at the same crag every weekend.  He got so good that he could dance pirouettes around every single route at that crag.  Until one day when someone broke one of the holds on a route and suddenly, he couldn’t climb that particular any more.  Don’t fall into this trap.

Add variety to your training sessions.  Try different styles of climbing.  You can work any of the following suggestions into your training program:

• Climb using only one hand (the easier routes, of course); or only one leg
• Practice traversing on a slab (a forward inclining wall) using feet only - this is great for improving your balance and your footwork.  The wall in the picture below is a good example of a slab, but obviously if you’re only using feet, make sure it has bigger footholds.

• climb using first touch - that means once you have placed your hand or foot, you can’t shift the position, even if it is awkward.  This helps you think about how you use a hold so that you optimise your moves and reduce the number of unnecessary moves
• boulder - do this with a group of friends and give each other boulder problems to work on.  Bouldering tends to be a shorter, more powerful sequence of moves that is guaranteed to help improve your footwork and your strength.
• do laps - up climb and down climb on a route that you can complete but is still somewhat challenging.  Obviously, don’t pick one that you could climb in your sleep, make sure you feel like you are working out when you do laps.  This helps to build your endurance.

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