A lot of climbers ask me over social channels what I do to train. And there are a few things like running and hang boarding that seem to be beneficial. But for the most part getting out to climb is the most important.
Leading out onto Thin Ice
A few days ago I was teaching a thin ice clinic at the Mount Washington Valley Ice Fest and went to an area that I had not climbed. There was a pitch of very thin ice but something that I felt was climbable. I knew it was going to be a serious lead, but when protection further up did not materialize the pitch became far more serious. So this got me thinking how does one train for this situation and could this be my next answer for the instagramer looking for a little edge on their climbing.
Strength. We do need to train strength. I do go to the climbing gym and I do a little hang boarding. Not getting as pumped on route can always help us stay calm. Rarely does strength play a huge factor into this. At least not in a way that we should really rely solely on this to get us through hard pitches or the above scenario. I in fact did not feel pumped in anyway during the lead and don’t feel that my physical shape did much to help the climb.
Mental fortitude. This might be one of the greatest things you could exercise and one of the reasons I climb. Some could say it is being in the “zone” or “flow state” and this allows a sense of calm which opens your mind and movement becomes easy. For me flow is easy to achieve when falling is not an option and harder to achieve when a bolt is at my waste, but still possible. So how do you train this? Lots of time on the sharp end. Like many other types of training, mostly zone one. So just leading in general and getting used to the stress of being on the sharpens and the decisions that you have to make there. As you do a lot of leading you can then start to mix in more runout climbs (maybe skip bolts if sport climbing) to start to be in more and more no fall zone territory. Free soloing is also a good way to take this to the next level if that is in your risk management but this is a whole other realm.
Movement ability. This is where you will make most of your gains. Just get better at movement. How many times have you videoed yourself on a route? How many times have you hired a climbing coach? Getting better at movement and understanding why you are doing what you are doing will pay off ten fold compared to just “getting stronger”. The easiest way to do this? Go Climbing! Once the rope is up, take that extra top rope lap.
As I was leading out on the ice that was only a little more that one tooth of my pick deep, I was thinking this is pretty chill. I think many of the participants were freaking out a little but in my mind it was very easy climbing because I had top-roped a hundred pitches like this one before. Once I got to the snow shelf where I thought I would be able to just walk to the left and get a screw, things changed. The snow was just covering slabby rock with no purchase and so now I had to climb even thinner ice to continue upward. While this wasn’t ideal, it was climbing that I could do and just had to be a little more perfect on each tool to make sure nothing skated. So I just relaxed into my climbing ability and continued upward.
A participant getting to the snow section
Getting stronger will help your climbing 1-2%. Getting Better at climbing movement will help you 10-50%. Just go climbing…