Separating Training from Play

Sean Mccoll ranks as one of my favourite competition boulderers because he climbs smart (I know this from reading his blog). He is able to compete evenly against competitors much taller than him, or have greater spans that him, primarily because of excellent route reading skills and momentum-based movements. However, I am not writing this blog post because I want to discuss how well he climbs; rather, I found something he said which was strikingly similar to what I wrote about some time ago.

I believe that how well a person climbs is a function of his climbing philosophy. How well a person climbs in competitions though, is a function of his training methodology. In an interview with La Sportiva, Sean Mccoll said something about training which sounded strikingly similar to what I've mused about before: separating training from play. I like to think that I'm a person who adapts to the situation and tries his best to work with what is given to him. I am an university student working hard to secure a good degree (this entails doing well for projects and exams, doing internships during vacation periods, reading and learning from academic papers - ranked in order of importance), as well trying to climb hard (not mentioning other commitments). Because time is limited, when I get down to the gym it's all business. I'm convinced that structured, clinical and no-nonsense training is the way forward for time-starved people like myself. Anyways, YMMV.

I highlighted the phrases within the interview which are congruent with my views. Even though he's from Canada and I'm from Singapore and we didn't discuss our views, we arrived at quite the same conclusion. There is a similar phenomenon in biology called convergent evolution - two unrelated species independently evolve similar traits to cope with specific evolutionary challenges. The relevant paragraph is extracted and put up here for your reading pleasure (or displeasure).

What would you suggest for aspiring comp climbers to help improve their performance?

The best thing for aspiring comp climbers is to get in a really good routine. The hardest part about training is that not a lot of people like to do it alone. Pick a good core group of climbers that you’re going to train with and set up times that you’re going to meet. It’s basically what every Junior Climbing Team does at each respective climbing gym. I find it’s necessary to climb at least 3 days a week. While I’m in school, I’ll be going 2 days during the week for 3 hours and a training session on Sunday night for 4 hours. It’s also good to stay at training for at last 2.5 hours. Also, when you’re at training, it’s not the time to stand around and socialize with your friends. Sometimes when I’m at my gym, people think I’m kind of rude because I don’t stand around and talk. The bottom line is, I’m going to the climbing gym to train. I can still talk to people in between problems and during rest periods but when the time comes again, I’ll be getting back onto the wall. The best thing for climbers is to have consistency. You can’t train for 2 weeks and then take a week off, it doesn’t work that way. You have to be focused and determined. During the competition, you also can’t look at the rest of the field. In reality, it doesn’t matter if they climb 5.11 or 5.15, you just want to climb your best. If you fall off a route because you truly slipped or missed a hold, then that’s just a mistake. If you fall off a route because you were so pumped you couldn’t hold on, then you should be happy no matter what your final result is.