Got it?
I was talking to a friend the other day about slacklining. He said that he didn’t like it because he wasn’t any good at it. I told him that no one is good at it when they first try it, and that the key to it was just practicing a ton until it gets easier or until you get better.
As I was thinking about this, I realized that the same applies to climbing. It’s kind of a weird thing to think about, though. You hear a lot about practicing and other sports, but not so much about climbing. So I thought about it and realized that there are a lot of things in climbing that you can practice to get better at. Here are some off the top of my head:
1. Practice tying knots.
2. Practice clipping your rope into a draw.
3. Practice dynos. They’re pretty scary to do on the rock if you’re not familiar with them, so consider practicing them in the gym.
4. Practice placing cams and nuts at ground level.
5. Practice the anchor-cleaning process on the ground. Sling some table legs and use them as your anchors.
6. If a certain kind of climbing hold gives you trouble (slopers, sidepulls, etc.), climb routes that have lots of those holds.
That’s all I can think of at the moment, though surely there are more. Got any ideas?
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Love the blog. Keep it up!
A few other ideas, both related to training for climbing (as opposed to technical skills)…
1.) hangboards.
2.) continuous climbing exercise (as outlined in the “self coached climber” … which contains a wealth of ideas and training techniques). it’s basically doing laps on an easy route or traverse for 20, 30, 40 minutes or more (or whatever you can stand).
Cheers