SUBSTR8 Training Blog
Hello and thanks for checking in on this first installment of the SUBSTR8 Training Blog. There are a lot of online training tools and coaches available today and I’d like to start by offering a sincere and heartfelt “Thank You” for putting SUBSTR8 on your radar. SUBSTR8 was started with the intent of helping fellow athletes achieve goals both in climbing and in other various athletic pursuits. Having worked nearly my whole life as a carpenter and electrician it was always a struggle to try and balance the sometimes intense rigors of my day job and the physical demands of climbing at a high level of performance. Through years and years of trial and error (mostly error) I began to fine tune both my training philosophy as well as my tactics for approaching various climbing goals. There are a lot of great tips, tricks, and ideas about how to improve climbing performance. Many are valid methods based on research and proven practice, there are also a lot of flashy gimmicks that make for great social media posts that don’t really hold much water. I’ll be the first to admit there is NO magic bullet, improving at this sport requires commitment, knowing yourself as an athlete and person, time, energy, etc etc. That being said there are certainly a few simple strategies we can employ to help us reach our goals.
My good friend Kris Hampton often talks about intentional practice in climbing. Unfortunately it’s an idea that is often skipped over in favor of picking up bigger weights or ticking off a slightly harder boulder problem in the gym. The beauty of intentional practice (and furthermore INTENT) is that it encourages the construction of a foundation to build upon. By focusing on skills, both skills we already have and those we need to work on, we can really start to create a groundwork and assess where we need to improve and potentially by how much to achieve our own personal goals. I recently had a client ask me about how to start “getting better at climbing outside”. I should have his personalized six volume literary work of “climbing improvement protocols” completed by the end of 2022. There are frankly too many variables to take into account with a question like that to offer a concise answer. When we ask BIG questions about climbing we tend to look for BIG answers. I would offer instead, from the perspective of intentional practice, start small and work up. I told the client that every time he stepped off the ground on his climbing project he should try to learn something. Learn which resting spots are the best. Learn which sections or moves are the most taxing. Learn which way is easiest to clip bolt six. Leave the ground with the INTENT of learning something about the climb and or yourself.
I have a rule when working on a project whether it’s a season long endeavor or just a handful of tries kind of climb. If I fail at the same spot three times in a row I automatically stop and re-assess my beta. I would say 70% of the time I tend to find some sequence (either in that specific spot or leading up to it) that is more efficient and by nature more effective. It took me a long time to get past my own stubborn hubris and realize that I might be approaching problems with the wrong solutions. By intentionally trying to learn more about my projects I found that in many cases my beta could be refined even if it felt “okay”. Often if we “want to get better” we need to be serious about all the potential aspects of how we might “get better”. If you can start small and approach your projects with the intent to learn something each go, you’ll likely find progress hiding where you least expected it. Like someone much wiser than me said - “…the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step”.
LG