Description: A personal and subjective reflection on climbing.
Background: I am 5'1 and a half. I was not very active in middle school or high school, outside of taking long walks and biking around town. I started climbing in college, and now I climb 2-3 times a week at the V3-V4 level.
Contents
Fall 2023 and Spring 2024
I started indoor climbing in my first semester of college. I went an average of 1-2 times a week in my freshman year, for a total of 18 sessions in my first semester and 10 sessions in my second semester. I bought climbing shoes after 11 sessions.
During that entire year, I stayed at the V0-V2 level. While I can blame my lack of strength and my height, I think the main problem was simply that I didn't push myself to do V3 climbs.
I have a completionist attitude about finishing all the climbs in a grade first. But I didn't go often enough to finish all the V0-V2 climbs in the gym, so I stayed at that level.
Takeaway: Go climbing more often.
Summer 2024
In the summer, I continued climbing at that gym. We went an average of 2 times a week, for a total of 21 sessions.
One of my friends broke through V1 in his first session, V2 in the second session, V3 in the third session, and V4 in the fourth session. We joked that he had linear growth. Climbing with him really pushed me to try harder grades, and I broke through V3 at the same time that summer.
Takeaway: Collaboration can help you break through plateaus. Watch and talk to people!
Fall 2024
In my first semester of sophomore year, I climbed a total of 26 times. But I was stuck in the V2-V3 range and felt frequently frustrated with the wall.
One of the things that I didn't know at the time was that rest is not the same as recovery. As a beginner, a day of rest is probably enough to be fully recovered. But when you put more stress on your body, it might take days of rest or "active recovery" before you are fully recovered. And on those recovery days, you won't be able to quite perform at your best. This just happens naturally from the cycle of stress and recovery.
Because my mantra was just to try harder, that semester I:
- Sprained my ankle from falling badly off a wall
- Pulled a back muscle from attempting an overhang problem too many times
- Cried frustrated tears after falling off a V2 I "should" be able to do
I didn't climb for a week after the sprained ankle. I also had to stop climbing for a semester to let my back recover.
Takeaway: Listen to your body. Don't put too much stress in a particular muscle in one session by attempting a problem over and over again.
Summer 2025
I picked up climbing again after a semester off. I can currently do around half of the V3s and some of the soft V4s in the gym. The goal I give myself is to send one new V3 every session and one new V4 every week. My strengths are slabs and crimps, but I still struggle with dynos, overhangs, roofs, and long routes that require more strength and stamina.
I also started going to the gym to get stronger. It's a bit difficult balancing gym with climbing. If I'm not careful about how hard I push myself in the gym, I can accidentally put myself out of commission (for climbing) for 1-2 days.
My current schedule is:
Monday: climbing
Tuesday: gym
Wednesday: recovery
Thursday: climbing
Friday: gym
Saturday: climbing
Sunday: recovery
General thoughts
Technique is mainly about getting the right body position and footwork to maintain tension while minimizing the amount of force put on the hands and the fingers. In other words: "legs strong, arms weak."
Focus on technique all the time. Never try to muscle through anything. If you get a problem by muscling through it, come back later and do it with better technique.
Try to spend at least 2-3 sessions on volume and 0-1 sessions on projects per week. Building up a base is more important than trying to send a specific hard problem. Repeating a hard problem over and over again can also increase risk of injury.
If you're a short climber, there will be some problems that are much easier for taller climbers. For example, I have a friend who is stronger and taller than me, but a weaker climber. The set of V3s I can do and the set of V3s he can do is completely disjoint. My advice is to treat this problem as a higher grade. You can do it, but you might have to become stronger and scrappier.
Links
Inspired to write this after reading Steven's 7.5 year self assessment of climbing, strength training, and hangboard. I noticed that I tended toward "completing all the problems at a level" rather than "grade chasing." I also learned that some days could be "volume days" and other days could be "project days." Anyway, it's really inspiring reading how a great climber approaches their training.