I was asked to expand on a previous blog that had mentioned risk assessment in climbing.
Standing on a slab and thoughts are running through your head, if I slip Im going to lose my face.
Overhung weird drop knee exposed position, if I fall Im going to land funny and DIE!
Firstly I feel that it terms of risk mitigation there are 2 types of injuries that happen in climbing:
Maintenance, or really, lack there of. The human body is just like anything else if you want to use it and use it well, you are going to need to perform maintenance on it, elbow, shoulder and finger injuries fall into this category, you have spent 10,20, or 30+ years without the consistent loading that climbing forces upon the body, the body is not conditioned to cope with this load, you need off the wall based maintenance, you either directly or indirectly control whether these happen.
Accidental, these are the unintentional falls, the knee knocks, shin scrapes or any of the more serious injuries that happens from falling. Climbing is a high risk sport, even if you climb indoors and its up to you what level of risk you choose to accept with this, you cannot control if or when these happen.
Secondly there is your Comfort Zones:
My first blog image… woooo
Ok, we have set the foundation for the blog and hopefully I won’t have to spend too much time explaining things.
Maintenance Based Control
Often left until pain is present, Maintenance is a sure fire way to grow confidence with how your body performs, if you know your fingers, elbows and shoulders are strong, stable and have good range of motion you will not be worried about them, you will have the confidence and experience through movement experience or weight lighting to know where your limits are, to know when you should rest or atleast move onto a different style of move.
A few things fall into this category:
Movement Patterns Improvement
Time Under Tension
Rest
Stretching and Lengthening
Antagonist Training
Healthy Eating and Hydration
It is your choice to do this maintenance before injury occurs, any maintenance based injury that you have or get is often a result of not doing enough or doing the wrong thing for the current state of your body, get assessed and make sure this is appropriate for you, doing what you find on the internet can be better than doing nothing but doing what’s right for you is the safer bet. Little tweaks and niggles are warning signs that you either need some deload time or a better rehab program.
Fear, Learning and Comfort Zones.
Each move you perform will have its own comfort zone inside your head, this is why you might do the first 3 moves of a climb without even thinking then all of a sudden move 4 and you freeze up, Slab is a really common example of this as we are so close to the wall and feet often get all volumey and slippery, get to close to the edge of the learning zone and your reptilian brain will take over and just try to “save your life” you cannot learn here, you cannot perform, this is not an area of growth for you. How often do you pull onto climbs with the sole intent of just trying to relax into a scary move, just hold the position and breath, do even think about moving just hold the position for a few seconds and try to understand it then dropping off the wall.
I recently had an experience with a high ball outdoors, On my flash attempt I got to the top and got gripped, I couldn’t relax, couldn’t move forward even though the moves were well below my maximal climbing grade, I knew it was my head stopping me, fear had taken control. I knew I had to change my intent for the next go, so I said to myself, “Im just going to climb to the top and see if I can relax there, Im not going to try topping out, just relax and get comfortable, climbing up to that point I was focused on my breathing and staying relaxed, I got to the top hung there for a few seconds and realised I wasn’t scared, nervous or gripped, I made the decision then and there to top out and next thing I knew I was standing onto of the boulder.
Often times during learning different aspects of climbing we need to change the focus from getting to the top to understanding where we are better, its not always that the climb is too hard or that we need to get stronger, it is often that we need to learn more, to understand ourselves and how we apply ourselves in every given position, change the movement pattern, body position or mindset and that will more often than not unlock the move that you are stuck on.
We need to spend more time in uncomfortable positions to be able to become comfortable in them, remember when you first started climbing heights were the issue, now you have spent a fair amount of time not on the ground and they are not so big of a deal, spending time even dedicating time to those uncomfortable positions, 10 or 20 mins a session just on trying that one move will give you more information than just trying it for the purpose of getting to the top, even if you send it but the move was uncomfortable go back, do it again and again, especially on those climbs you said you were NEVER going to do again.
And Finally
Yes, there is always a risk in climbing, sometimes its inside your circle of confidence, other times it will be so far out of it you can’t even breath, pick and choose your battles based on these 3 questions:
Can I think about anything other than dying in this position?
Do I want to learn to understand this move?
Is the reward of learning this greater than the risk and likelihood off that risk actually occurring?
Yes to all 3 then just get too it, practice and execute.
If no to the following:
#1 Maybe its too close to the outer edge of your learning zone or you need to try at least 7 times/spend time in a position to get comfortable.
#2 If not why not? maybe it’s just not that important to you.
#3 Probably not worth doing if the risk out weighs the reward.
As always, breathing and move.
