I think this is an interesting question and something I was having a conversation about with someone in the gym recently.

We were watching someone climbing a climb and they weren’t climbing particularly gracefully, smoothly or making it look effortless, the kind of climbing that could be described as a baby deer standing on ice, but they made it to the top.

I think that in terms of progress in anything there are 2 major areas of focus getting better (deliberate practice) and trying harder. Often we get stuck in either camp, both of these areas are a trap, at some point we need overlap of these 2 area’s, we need to try hard to get better and we need to be better while trying hard.

Over the years of hanging around in climbing gyms I have seen a full spectrum of people from those who climb in the V8-V9 range who can’t hold a front lever and barely do a pull up to those who can one arm lock off for 45 seconds on a bar and hold a 30 second front lever yet climb in the v4-v5 range. I always wonder about the reason these people are so far apart, I mean surely the difference in strength will close the gap right?

I think that realistically there are 3 models to progress for climbing athletes.

The first is the one below, try to get better until we get bored with the lack of sending or our progress starts to slow then we focus on the fun side or the results based side of get stronger, why is the allure of this so strong? because its measurable, you can literally see and quantify the results immediately.

The second is to train solely for strength or technique, maybe the strength training is actually a split that someone has focused 50/50 between strength and technique training but our awareness of technique is not big, good or varied enough (can’t truely see the bigger picture) so it ends up being 50/50 in effort but a 90/10 strength/technique return of time investment. Or maybe its a choice to solely get stronger.

The 3rd is the Power Company Climbing model I saw at a workshop we ran earlier in the year.

What model are you currently using?

I think each model has its own place in the progression of athletes from all walks of life not just climbers, I mean sometimes you are better off just trying harder rather than trying to get better if you can’t clearly picture what “Better” is…

Personally I think there is a noticeable difference between what a good climber looks like on the wall, what a stronger climber looks like on the wall and what a good strong climber looks like. I think there is a certain grace or effortlessness that is projected when a climber is both good and strong, ultimately this is where I myself as a climber want to be on the spectrum. Where do you want to be?

Originally when I started climbing I liked the power side of movement, I became strong at this style but it left many gaps or holes in my understanding of the movement spectrum that often it felt like I was just beating my head against a wall when trying to climb slab or more delicate or balance style overhung problems and I have had many conversations over the years with those who are in the same boat for different styles, super static climbers who never took the time to understand momentum or slab climbers who didn’t understand power but were well versed in the art of balance.

Not sure where you are at with your movement, where wall angle did you like the most? hold types? climbing types? its pretty simple to identify your strengths but how do we identify weaknesses? Usually the first place I look is what are the things we don’t want to do, probably the most common answers are jump or slab.

The human brain is wired for repetition, it loves to do things again and again, it also loves to do things we are good at so where do we get lead subconsciously? to climbing styles we like, are good at and this creates bias in our climbing. Don’t get me wrong bias is wonderful and should be used to its fullest extent but if its the only thing we focus on the number of weaknesses we have will far outweigh the strengths we have, this works the same for weightlifting.

So whats the moral of the story, if you want to be a strong climber try hard to get strong, if you want to be a good climber try hard to get better and if you want to be a good climber then diversify in your training techniques.

I think that topping out is the quintessential end game for each climb but I also think that how you get there or the journey is what defines the quality of the climber.

Hazel Finlay once said something along the lines of “I want to be a good climber and I see a good climber as someone who can go anywhere in the world, on any rock or climb type on any wall angle and be skilled at doing so”, I apologise if I remember or interpreted that wrong.

Whats your thoughts?