Getting Ready For the Rock Season

It’s January and many climbers’ thoughts start turning to the upcoming rock season. Here are some pointers to make sure you are ready to send when the snow and ice are a distant memory.

Set your goals

Many people dislike the thought of making goals — get over this. Goals provide direction and purpose for your training. Follow the S.M.A.R.T. system for setting goals:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Timely

Make a plan, look at it often

Most climbers start off like gangbusters with an ambitious plan to be at the gym everyday only to find that this isn’t sustainable. Start off with a modest schedule and adjust it as needed as the weeks pass. Climbing a lot is not necessarily better than climbing less; it just depends on what you are doing each session. Once you have the plan, make sure you post it somewhere you can see it regularly to keep your stoke high.

Train, don’t just climb

The biggest mistake I see is at gyms is a lot of climbing but no actual training. To attain your goals, you need to put specific work into each session — stop coming in to just work on your latest project. This would be like a hockey player playing an entire game during each practice and not working on the parts of their game that need the extra work. Figure out your weaknesses and work on them early in your session and especially before you head to that project.

Work all the climbs you hate to get on

Don’t know how to determine what your weaknesses are? They're probably on that climb that makes you cringe every time you think about getting on it. The climbs you hate all have something that doesn’t work for you, whether it is a type of hold, a certain type of movement, or an angle that is hard for you. Working on what is not easy or natural for you will eventually turn these weaknesses into strengths.

Prevent injuries

Warm-up, warm-down (an active recovery technique), stretch — every session. You can’t reach your goals if you have nagging injuries. Prevent them in the first place and these won’t slow down your march to achieving your goals.

Rest — a lot

Most climbers never give themselves enough time to reap the benefits of their training sessions by not resting enough during their session or between sessions. Rest is where you will get stronger so let your body do its work.

Chris Neve is the Head Coach of Canada’s Youth National Climbing Team; he coaches with the Canmore Indoor Climbing Society youth team, and coordinates the Banff Centre Climbing Gym.