UKC

I started climbing about 3 weeks ago, going to the gym 3 times a week and top roping French 6A+ (5.10b) regularly, bouldering a few V3-4 and easily sending V2's.

I have not yet experienced a plateau as progress has been a steady climb but would love to gather insight on what brought everyone past this level and into the more experienced climbing routes.

Any and all information would be appreciated, thanks.

Okay, so right now: concentrate on climbing. For at least your first year, possibly first several years, you're going to get way more climbing progress from "just climbing" than from trying to add any special training on top.

There are a few exceptions to the rule -- for example, if you're very inflexible, you might benefit from starting some stretching to improve hip and hamstring flexibility.

But basically: just climb.

That's quite a lot to start out with (tempting though it is when you've just been hooked). Climbing places a lot of stress on your tendons, and they're slower to respond than muscles.

Your body might cope fine with this, or you might find you need to slow down and build up more gradually to three times a week. Watch out for sore elbows and tweaky fingers!

Third: FOCUS ON TECHNIQUE. That's where your biggest gains will come from right now. Grab a book like "The Self-Coached Climber" or a DVD like Neil Gresham's masterclass, and start learning about body position, movement techniques (outside edging, flagging, heelhooking, etc. etc. etc.) and footwork.

That way you should be able to keep your learning curve delightfully steep for a while!

I hope you have a great time and continue enjoying your climbing!

Personally I would get in plenty of mileage and concentrate on your footwork.  I can't emphasis the latter enough. I'm not convinced that training technique books and videos are worth it at this stage in your career. Figure 4's and Egyptians are all well and good but can probably wait a while as far as you are concerned.  I would also start leading more and top roping less.

Al

Maybe so (figure 4s can probably wait forever unless you get into ice climbing!), but IMHO it's never too early to start learning to place your feet properly, keep your arms straight when possible, twist from your hips and use body position to reach rather than trying to do pull-ups up the wall on steep ground, etc. etc.. Especially if you're bouldering, heel hooks (for example) start being useful pretty early. That's the kind of stuff I mean by "technique" here.

I got a lot out of a few books and DVDs at an early stage of my climbing career.

At 23 what's the hurry? You've got years of time to develop climbing skills.

Just enjoy it and watch other more experienced climbers or, as Slab_happy says, check out some DVD's. Don't over train as it's a quick way to get injuries.

Check out performance courses at your climbing Centre they help too.

Brian

You've got ages yet of just getting magically better without even trying. Come back in a few years when you're bitter and frustrated at still being relatively shit (but much better than you are now) despite trying every training regime under the sun.

But, more helpfully, note that bouldering is generally better than routes for making progress that's  transferable: when you're doing hard moves you're training strength and technique, which are hard-won. On easier moves on a route, you can climb them badly and still make upward progress, and in doing so you train bad technique. When individual moves are at your limit in bouldering, you have to find the optimum body position to get the next hold, and so technique improves much more rapidly this way, as well as the higher resistance being much more effective strength training. When you want to go on a climbing trip and do some routes (or just do hard routes indoors), you can train your stamina up very quickly if you have a solid base of strength and technique.

Good advice on this post. I'd agree about getting body position and footwork right from the start. Not entirely convinced about DVDs and books as there is can be a tendancy to skip focus on the bits someone new needs to think on most and move to more advanced stuff (tthat won't work). Climbing with or watching other people who climb with good style is maybe the best (easy indoors these days). I'd also say don't get too focussed on grades.

I feel getting an idea of techniques by looking at articles and stuff is good but I would not pay that much attention to the training aspect of that at all at this stage. Focus on climbing, focus on climbing well. If you do a route and it feels clunky, figure out where you could improve it and do it against. You are going to be seeing rapid improvements at this early stage of climbing, as different aspects of technique click in.

PS: Sometimes articles contain gems like this: “Heel-hooking is a technique that requires commitment and confidence and this will only come if you practise regularly and do the supportive training.”

Ignore them. If the latter there was true, the majority of climbers wouldn’t be able to climb to save their lives.

You're probably reasonably athletic already to be climbing at that level after just a few weeks. I was right around the same level after a similar amount a time. Here's what I'd do if I could go back:

Understand that technique and mileage is everything for the next 2 years.

Completely forget about training finger strength in any other way than just climbing.

You can do core strength training along with pull ups and other general strength work, but this is a distant 2nd to actually climbing. 

Look for the climbers in your gym who climb V8 and above and try to emulate how they move, flow and position their body. They will most likely have great technique. 

Practice climbing with silent feet: place the toe (not mid foot) exactly where you want it to go, silently, first time, without needing to reposition it. 

Push hard through the feet and the handholds will feel better. You can also pull with the toe when the foothold is out to the side for example. 

Ease into crimping very steadily (don't go full power on crimps for another year or so) and then use each grip equally. I massively overused the full crimp for years leaving my half crimp and open hand strength extremely weak in comparison and susceptible to injury. Stay balanced.  

Make sure you do some balancing activities as well to train the antagonistic muscles, you'll love yourself later if you get into good habits and start doing this BEFORE you get injured!

What do you want to achieve in climbing ? Any particular objectives in mind ? Obviously the areas to concentrate on will depend where you want to end up.

More likely the V bouldering grades are nonsense (as they often are indoors). Regularly top roping F6a+ is normally roughly  equivalent to easily bouldering V0-. At the main bouldering wall I climb at (Nottingham Depot) V2 is normally V0 or V0-,  from the grade ranges of the colour circuits.

In my experience a lot of young men (OP is 23) really struggle with watching and learning from others. If you can do this - and ask other people how to do things, even if those other people are kids - then you'll be well on your way.

Avoiding injuries is probably one of key things. Keep a very close eye on niggly pain, try to use an open hand grip and only crimp very occasioannly and when you do be very careful. Concentrate on engaging shoulders (don’t hang on skeleton) to avoid some shoulder injuries and try to move statically but with momentum. 

I started this year and took a lesson early on with a local guy Alan Halewood and learned a lot. Also I really enjoyed the Neil Gresham series on You Tube and John Kettles book (plus the books mentioned already)

really try to avoid injuries by not pushing your body too hard in tweaky positions and dynos etc. I’m always amazed how people can do things that seem impossible and look like they need dynamic jumps etc and yet very good people manage to do them in control and elegantly. I want to learn to climb like that.

Alan Halewood mentioned to me that John Dunne would never say a climb was really sent until it had been done in the most perfect, elegant style possible. I like that idea 

I can't imagine John Dunne saying any climb was "sent"

Al

Damn - brain fart - I meant Johnny Dawes. And he wouldn't use that word either... 

Fair enough -- I suspect whether books/DVDs will be useful will be a very YMMV thing.

For me, it helped to get a basic vocabulary of moves and an idea of what the underlying principles are, then lurk in a dingy corner of the bouldering wall at off-peak times practicing until things started to click for me ... That also helped me understand what I was watching when I was watching people climbing well, and why the stuff they did worked.

But yeah, obviously different people will learn in different ways.

The key point is focusing on technique and consciously trying to learn climbing movement; that will be where you get the biggest gains from at this stage.

It might be useful to break improvement in climbing into four categories, physical (strength/power/endurance), tactical (route reading, pace), mental (fear, trying hard) and technique (climbing efficiently).

I wouldn't totally ignore physical at your level, get into a good habit of warming up (20-30 mins), training antagonists (google this for loads of info), stretching and cooling down. If I could go back in time I wished I had done all of these things when I first started - i'm sure I would have avoided many injuries and long lay offs from climbing.

Focus your efforts on the other three categories, particularly technique - ingrain good habits from the get go. Watch and climb with people who are better than you, climb with a large variety of people to understand the difference between style and technique. Vary what you climb on as much as who you climb with, slabs, vert, overhanging, different centres, routes, bouldering, outdoors - climbing has loads to offer! Most importantly learn to enjoy failure when climbing, failure just means you've found something that will improve you as a climber.

There's some great books mentioned above, a few that I would recommend; 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes - Dave Macleod, Mastermind - Jerry Moffat, Rock Climbing Technique - John Kettle, Masterclass DVD - Neil Gresham. Theres an overwhelming amount of climbing literature out there, the trick is finding the concise pieces.

Even more importantly - enjoy yourself

Absolutely fantastic comments, this will give me a great deal to look at during my climbing sessions, just came of of the gym having sent a couple of 6b+'s. Thanks for the support this site is great for it.

It sounds like you are motivated by grade progression... you'll be criticised for it by a few but in my view there is nothing wrong with that ... provided it is done the correct way.

When I first started I was in the same boat. If I could start again here is what I'd do differently:

- Be sure not to simply keep focussing on pushing the grade. By all means push your grade every now and then but don't go to the wall... warm up and spend all evening on that 7a you want simply for the tick

- Make sure you consolidate your grade. You want a pyramid. For example, climb 100 6as, 60 6bs, 30 6cs before you even try your 7a. Furthermore you should to try to maintain this as you progress though the base will likely creep up too. Soon you'll be finding 6c a warm up, so it will be your base. And so on.

- Don't focus on routes that suit your style simply for the tick. Quite the opposite. Choose routes that don't suit your style to round your climbing. There is no point picking crimpy overhangs for several years so you can tick 8a and then going off on a multipitch sport climbing adventure in the Verdon and being shut down by a 6b offwidth. 

Put it this way. One 7a tick, or 8a tick or whatever does not make a 7a or an 8a climber. If I can point you at a 7a or an 8a anywhere in the world in any style and there is a good chance you can do it in a few redpoint attempts. Then you're a climber of that grade. Progression is all about consolidation. Without consolidation there is no meaningful progression. You need to put the mileage in, get used to all the different styles and requirements that climbing can throw at you and learn the necessary skills to tackle them. As you begin to do this... the grades will fall. 

Beginner, young and naive me didn't follow the above advice and though I managed to get to some higher grades relatively quickly, it took 10 years of going back down the grade ladder to consolidate and feel I had a strong enough base to be confident on harder lines without redpointing the shit out of them. Always keep that pyramid in your head. Did a 6c at the wall? Great. Why haven't you done 3 6b+s 5 6bs and 10 6a+s this evening then .

Do loads of climbing and ....ENJOY it ! Get a good grounding in many rock types , get confident at gear placements and reading routes. Learn that some days you will cruise stuff and others you will fail . This takes years and the first few are probably the best as you learn your trade. Concentrating on grades will only lead to disappointment when you move to leading outside, and from many people I’ve seen over the last 30 yrs , burn out and going to the dark side ( road biking etc!) 

Hope it goes well .

I've known honest people gain useful help from reflecting on how their reading links to their experience . Trouble is ego  and enthusiasm can get in the way. I've had bad experiences from relative beginners in my old Uni club who read avidly and completely missed the point on basics. Also, more dangerous still, a few characters who developed really dumb ideas and fancied themselves as instructors... the worst of these caused several accidents and near misses with those 'under instruction'  (two of whom were lucky to live: one required facial bone reconstruction  and the other will never climb again due to a shattered pelvis)

Fervently agreed -- when it comes to stuff like gear placement and ropework or anything safety-critical, you CAN'T learn from books alone!

On the other hand, if what you pick up from books is, say, a good drill for improving your footwork when you're at the bouldering wall or top-roping, or an idea of what a heel-hook is, that's very low-risk -- worst outcome is you fall off a lot while figuring it out. Which is one of the things those environments are good for.

If you've climbed V4 after just 3 weeks that's very impressive indeed. Many, even most, climbers never reach that level, even after many years of climbing. This suggests you have a lot of natural strength so to improve your route level you just need to gain endurance. For most climbers this comes pretty quickly just by climbing lots and getting pumped.

On routes you probably won't encounter any crux sections harder than V4 until at least 7b and more typically 8a on indoor routes which tend to be more endurance based. However bouldering is still a great way to learn technique and good movement skills and gaining strength too which is always needed, so you should definitely keep at it. It's also a great way to meet people and find people to go climbing with.

That depends on the climbing wall ...

It's worth the OP being aware that indoor grades (especially in the lower bouldering grades) can sometimes tend to be "soft" compared to outdoor grades.

That's not to denigrate where he's at, just to let him know to expect that things may feel a lot harder when he goes outdoors, and not to be disheartened by that -- it happens to most of us and is just part of the process.

Indoor grades can be a decent way of measuring your progress over time; just don't look at the grade on something you can climb indoors and think "Right, I'll be able to climb this problem outside because the guidebook gives it that grade". You might, or you might not!

IMHO you'll learn more by being able to climb stuff well instead of fighting your way up something with blood and snot everywhere.  Watch the people who make it look smooth and relatively effortless - it doesn't matter how hard the route is - but watch how they move: how little but precisely they move their feet, how much they move their hips, how they rotate shoulders and hips, where (and how) they pause, and how every move is fluid and considered, and how they then do the same trick again.  Then factor in strength and flexibility and the differences in grade follow, but it's not necessarily apparent.

Care to elucidate? I'm interested in learning and it's good to pass on knowledge gained in the real world. Thanks in advance!

Not much to elucidate really. 

The newer climbers could discuss advanced technique but fail on related basics when climbing. Some of these lied about their leading when joining the club so we were always cautious about trusting new club members until they had  demonstrated competance. Worst case we had a self declared VS leader shaking on second on a Milestone Buttess scramble.

For the accidents and near misses linked to our club most of those who were hurt or nearly hurt prefer it to remain a private matter: the worst incidents happened when someone who was already banned in the club from any instruction was trying to 'teach' friends stuff in stupid and predictably dangerous circumstances. I have no idea what goes on in the heads of these (fortunately rare) climbers but I think its important clubs know they do exist and watch out for the signs (bullsh*t and a tendancy to try and run in instruction terms before they should even be walking).

As a warning, I progressed through the grades really quickly for my first few years climbing. I managed to get up Comes the Dervish (somehow) and then almost onsighted Consenting Adults. I got quite cocky as a result of this. 

I then fell off Cotton Terror and went splat (not full splat thanks to RPs but splat). Stopped climbing for about 9 years and am now a complete wuss. Leading VS on a good day (if extremely well protected/short or I've done it before) and sometimes bottling it on VDiffs. Can still second a lot harder mind...

Whoops, that should have been part of my reply, don't know how it ended up in the quote.

You can't really blame the books for those though. It sounds like they'd be idiots whatever way they learned.

This.. The best climbers are particular about style and technique. They don't 'thug' up easy stuff even if they can. Doing bouldering circuits are great for learning this; not only will you encounter problems that will challenge your technique, but you'll often climb with others and learn new beta.

Neil Gresham's Masterclass videos on youtube helped me understand basic techniques when I started out. Other than that rest, avoid getting injured and just climb.