I was having a conversation the other day with a climber who had been climbing for about 6 years, and that conversation inspired this blog so thank you.

I recently bought a Tindeq, a cool little load cell with the purpose to being able to measure max finger strength and your ability to pull hard. We were having some fun with the group and having a max pull test off. The climber above had used one of these previously and pull some good numbers, Over 60kgs of force which is quite impressive. “Ash, why is it that I can pull that hard but in comparison my climbing grade is low?”

Climbing ultimately comes down to a few factors,

Adaptability, or the amount of skills you understand and how well you can apply them.

Mindset, how well you can focus and your ability to try hard.

Strength, are you physically strong enough to pull the move.

Most people focus on strength, its easy to measure and being strong feels good but it my opinion its listed in 3rd place for a reason. the top 2 are the more important in the hierarchy in terms of long term progression.

Lets talk “technique”, this is one of the most common things that people come to me for, “what do you want to get out of this session?” “ I want to get better technique” but what does that even mean, it seems like often people want to come to a class or a private session and just obtain technique or walk away at the end of the session a technical climber.

Im super curious as to how other coaches would define good technique but here is my definition at my current level of awareness, “Good technique is your ability to adapt your body to the climb or move infront of you, to be able to use the way your body is set up to maximise the efficiency of the use of the holds and footers that are infront of you”

What do I mean by adaptability?

1. Can you regulate the amount of momentum to suit the move?

2. Can you regulate the amount of tension to suit the move?

3. Do you understand how much twist you need?

4. How much pressure needs to be applied from your feet?

5. Can you find the best point of balance?

6. What is the best way to control as much of the movement as you can?

These are just some of the questions an adaptable climber is answering as they climb, maybe not consciously but they are being assessed and executed.

One of the best tools for this is to repeat climbs with a focus on a skill set, can I climb this climb slower, faster, square on, twisting? What moves felt better or worse? Do the moves feel worse because I suck at that style of movement or because that type of movement is not suited to the move?

Big ol bag of worms opened there but these are the questions and stimulus your coach is choosing for you to find the answer too as well.

At the end of the day, how you use the space between the holds is just as important as the holds.

We have covered a lot of mindset stuff in previous blogs so check one of them out.

Strength, probably the most simple way of feeling like you are making progress, a simple strength program will take a lot of people far but it can also be a trap. There are definitely people who have good technique but not the strength to be efficient on the wall as they are operating so close to their limit just to stay on.

Its pretty unlikely you will be too strong for your project unless one of the other factors is letting you down.

Maybe stop forcing yourself to climb the climb infront of you in your style and take some time to learn to adapt to the climb and how it wants to be treated, Stop being a square peg.