Upskill Climbing Coaching

Training Philosophy

These are key 'trade secrets' I have learnt the hard way. They form the framework of the entire Upskill program.

Focus on your weaknesses
It is your weaknesses which ultimately limit you as a climber. For example, you may be the strongest climber in the gym, but if your head isn't in the game when you're on lead outdoors, you're not going to achieve your potential. In this case, getting even stronger in the gym (which feels good) isn't going to help your climbing overall. Because we are egocentric creatures and like doing what we're good at, working weaknesses is often hard work.

Be process focussed
Learn to enjoy the process of climbing, training and learning, rather than the outcome of any given attempt on a route. If you get bummed out by failing to tick a route, this is counterproductive to the overall process of becoming a better climber. Falls are not failures - they are opportunities to learn and improve. Enjoy and try to perfect each move.

Gradually increase your training load
The body is an adaptive organism. If you keep doing the same thing each week, your body will adapt to the training stress and you will plateau. In order to keep improving at climbing, there are three variables that need to be addressed:

  1. Intensity - the difficulty of the moves you're doing
  2. Volume - the number of moves executed in a session
  3. Rest - the length of rest between routes or problems

The values of these variables combine to give you the training load of any given session.

Rest
All successful professional athletes realise that taking one or more substantial rest periods a year is a vital component of a sustainable training schedule. If you don't rest, your body will make you rest through injury or the symptoms of overtraining.