Failure or Success

Failure or Success

When dealing with projects you can put a lot of pressure on yourself, this can come from not wanting to fail, not wanting to fall or having to know you are going to have to tie in on the sharp end again.

Its very easy to watch someone and see them fall and think why? Why did you fall off you looked good. Its hard to learn how to just shut it all out and just keep going even if you only get one hold further. If you do keep going and you do fall then at least have succeeded in the mental frame and you went for it. This is how you should look at climbing, not as a big burden sitting on you.

When I climb I will always look at it in this way. If I have a top rope up and I’m projecting I will break a route down into boulder sections, so if I have a 7c route I will climb to the crux and then stop and then look at what I had just done and know how I can get to here easy and efficiently. I would then try the crux and see if I can do it if not then climb the rest. All you need to do is just break it down into a problem solving exercise. If you can’t do the crux this doesn’t matter as you should look at it and say “yep I got there and I have to do is those 4 or 5 moves and I know I can do this route”.

Boulder training

I have been bouldering most of this winter so far and its starting pay off with a good day out on the rock yesterday with a good tick list:
2xV7's
2xV6's one onsight
1xV5
1xV4
1xV3

With my progress on the up and as im feeling strong ive now started to look for the harder lines. on my way out of the boulder field i had a quick look at "Guy Fawks" V11, this is a route with some tiny tiny holds. I had a very quick go on the holds and suprised my self and held them with not to much difficulty.

I am also starting to look at the long term project in the boulder field "Ty Landman" project which is prob the best looking boulder in the field.

TRAINING STARTS NOW

With this I will be starting to get to the wall 2/3 times a week with running sessions on top of this.

Training program will be uploaded soon.

Declassified V7

photo: Tommy Harris

Fingerboards

Why should I be hanging off a bit of wood or plastic for 30 minuets????

Although I have one I don’t use it at all at the moment but think that i should. My views on them will never change and I think that they are good for you in one way but can do nothing for you in another.

I agree that you can get finger strength from them by carrying on with a good routine and with steady progress. When I was using mine my routine consisted of one day on one day off. I would try and follow the “BEASTMAKER” exercises. What I find is it that most people get bored of the whole exercise but the only way to get strong is to stay on it for the whole year.

Even though your fingers get strong and you manage to hang the 10mm crimps on your little finger while holding a 10kg weight in the other hand, you will not gain the contact strength from just static hangs.
I find that the best way to gain this is on slightly overhanging walls with small holds and some big moves, if you’re planning on training this way the moves don’t have to be massive just enough so you feel like you’re going to come off. This will also train your core if you can keep your feet on the wall and keep your body open with no drop knees.

New year new plans

Now the new year is here I want to find out how I can be a better climber, this can be hard process for some people as it will show you how week you are but you also have to see how strong you are in other areas of climbing and look on that as a positive.

Today i went to reading climbing centre, I wanted to train a bit for my bouldering strength as the winter is here. when i arrived it was good to see such cool wall and good to try some of the routes from the competition they had the previous day. After warming up on some easy roots and catching up with some old friends i got onto the harder ones. I found that I was doing really well and manged to tick off all but three routes first go and from this am feeling really strong.

I have always said that most parts of climbing is in your head and i still believe this to be true. After years of climbing outside you come to relise that there are not many other moves that will be new to you that you have not done before. When onsighting routes this theory will come into effect a lot, all you need to have is the experience to carry this out.
This is something i think you can only gain from climbing outside as climbing indoors is much easier to work out as you have massive yellow holds hitting you in the face not a blank looking limestone cliff. As you look at a climb on a wall you can see some holds and think hell that looks blank. but if you were to set that same route on a indoor wall you would look at it and it would make scene. 
Learning body position and how to hold holds is key. 

drop knee to make more of a rest in a corner

Its been a long time since i have posted on here but thought i should start it back up again.
A lot has happend in the last two years and i have enjoyed every bit of it.

In may 2011 i was lucky enough to go on a trip to yosemite and what a trip this turned out to be.
As we arrived into the vally it was all but shocking about how much rock was there and how big the place was. The atmosphire was amazing just to be in a camp ground full of climbers and everyone so chilled was the best part of it.

 towards the end of the trip i unfortunately took a big fall and hit a ledge causing me to be out of climbing mode for a few weeks due to a fractured ankle.

Once back in the UK i went back to climbing sport alot and in the early months of 2012 i went on a trip to Kalymnos a small island in Greece. When we arrived i was super psyched about the place and was hoping to get a lot done.

 As soon as i got back i was getting on alot of routes knowing that i was going to head back later on in the year as the months went on i was back out feeling fit and ready. This time it was more about climbing the hard ones rather than the quantity. This had to be my best performance of rock climbing i had done with a few 7b+ ticked and also almost ticking my first 7c+.