In this new education series, our Adult Programming Manager, David Farkas, will be supplementing our climbing skills class curriculum with regular articles to help you get the most out of your indoor climbing. The inaugural Fall/Winter series will focus on Planning, Skills, Fitness and Strategy.
NOTE – Part 1 of this series contains climbing lingo and advanced training terms that may be unfamiliar to you. For an introduction, check out the Bouldering 101, Mastering 5.10 or Learn to Lead courses, or schedule a Private Lesson!
Methods and Tools
Write it out first. Writing down your goals and plans on paper gets them out of your head so that you can focus on showing up and doing the work. It helps you look at the full picture and quickly iterate to develop a plan that meets your needs. I recommend writing down your plan using the long-term and short-term planning methods described below.
Plan Ahead
Planning ahead can maximize your climbing session and season. Writing your plans down helps you stick to them and see if they are working. The planning I refer to here is not necessarily training based, but rather climbing based, that is, what kind of climbing do you want to do and how do you want to improve at it and have more fun doing it? But how do you start?
Identify the Goal
Working backwards from a goal is how you create a plan. A more specific goal is easier to plan for, and more general goals require a closer look to create actionable steps towards them. Reflecting on how SMART your goal is – Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely – helps determine the steps to achieve it.
Focus on the Process
Effectively working towards your goal means shifting your attention to the tasks that make up the process of getting there. Commit your full attention to those tasks, and you will either achieve the mini goals of your journey, stick with them until you do, or discover that some different tasks might be in order. Be open to learning. The non-learning mind wants nothing new…only to validate what it already knows. The learning mind is open to new information and tests that information with experience and reflection.
Put it in the Pebble App
When committing to a plan, the more resources you have, the better. Apps are exciting and useful ways to track your climbing progression. To create the most detailed workout possible at The Front, download and explore the Pebble Climbing app’s brand-new Workouts feature. It lets you create your own workout or circuit, add your own exercises, and include any number of every single route at every Front location into your climbing plan. Bonus, you can follow other Front members’ workouts!
Session Design (Short-Term)
Session Design is a method for short-term planning tool that will help you plan how to spend your valuable and limited time at the gym. The main goal is to create a complete session that includes a warm-up, main activity, and a cooldown. Climbing at least two times per week is necessary to see consistent improvement.
A general warm-up is what you do to get ready to exercise. Light cardio can get your heart rate up a little, and dynamic stretching prepares you to move.
A specific warm-up includes skill drills and progressively harder climbing. Skills are things that you practice and refine over time, such as movement drills, falling practice, clipping, breathing, sequencing, etc.
The main activity is training or performance-oriented. In a training session, you are not trying to send your goal routes. You are working to improve some part of your fitness. For example, limit bouldering to enhance your power or route laps to enhance your strength-endurance.
In a performance-oriented session, you are working towards climbing your goal routes. Need further guidance? These methods are covered in our Private Lessons and by our Front Training Room coaches!
A cooldown is the “active Shavasana” that ends your session with an easy route you can climb exceptionally well, and maybe some static stretching to help you relax from the stress or pump of your main activity.
Your climbing or workout journal can also be anything that is easy or inspiring for you to write in. Combine it with your favorite pencil or pen. An old notebook will do, or you can buy a journal, whether a cheap composition book, or durable hard-bound writing journal.
After you have it written out, you can use a more detailed planning tool, such as the Pebble App, to help you track progress.
Pyramid Chart (Long-Term)
This is a simple long-term planning tool to track your progress as you work towards climbing your goal route.
The pyramid has eight boxes on the base level, four on the second level, two on the third, and one on the top. The box on the top contains your goal route, the middle and bottom boxes contain the routes that help you get there. The pyramid is arranged this way because a broad base of climbing will gradually narrow toward a climb that you consider to be your maximum difficulty. The progressive tiers help ensure you are gaining all-around skills, fitness and strategy to keep you climbing strong and healthy before reaching your most challenging routes.
You fill in the box with a climb only after you have completed it. Whether it was on-sighted, flashed, or red-pointed, it matters less as you progress because the most challenging route must be something you cannot already do, necessitating the red-pointing process. While you might dabble at the next level to see what you are in for, you must fully complete one tier of your pyramid before progressing to the next.
Your goal route needs to be above your current ability to red-point; how far above depends on your patience, the type of route, and how far out of your usual “style” or comfort zone the route is.
An example pyramid might look like this: for a climber who wants to red-point their first 5.10c, they would start by completing eight 5.9’s. Then they would move on to send four 5.10a’s, two 5.10b’s, and finally, their first 5.10c. Progression in this manner means the climber’s 5.9 base level would then go away and the climber would complete four more 5.10a’s, two more 5.10b’s, one more 5.10c, and then their first 5.10d, etc.
Please remember that used this way, a pyramid is a long-term tracking tool, not something you need to complete each time you climb! You may on-sight several of your base levels climbs, but your more challenging climbs may take many sessions, weeks or months to complete.
Note: This series contains climbing lingo and advanced training terms that may be unfamiliar to you. For an introduction, check out the Bouldering 101, Mastering 5.10 or Learn to Lead courses, or schedule a Private Lesson!
By David Farkas
Adult Program Manager
Challenge yourself. Have fun, and please email David with any questions at david.farkas@thefrontclimbingclub.com.
