It's All Uphill From Here

One of the biggest things holding back advanced climbers is the struggle to differentiate between what is hard for them personally and what is just a hard part of rock climbing.

There are quite a few things that can make a climb challenging:

• The holds are hard to grab

• The moves are big

• The holds face the wrong direction

• The positions are hard to get into and maintain

• The feet are bad

• There’s a high demand of coordination between all of your limbs

• The sequence that is ideal for you is hard to unlock and fully understand

• Linking all of the moves together is both physically exhausting and technically demanding 

The longer we climb and train, the more we improve. As the grades we climb on increase, those challenges listed above also increase. That might seem obvious, but I consider it to be one of the most overlooked aspects of our sport and a major reason why so many advanced climbers stall in progress.

We need to accept that all of those bullet points will continue to exist to some degree for our entire climbing career. No matter how strong, fit, technically savvy, or mentally capable you become, all of the things that make climbing hard only intensify as the grades go up. 

As you level up, so do those challenges.

After years of climbing and struggling to get better, we tend to develop some level of competency. It feels good to finally be decent at this thing that you’ve worked hard at for years. It’s okay to feel that. The problems arise when we cling onto that comfortable feeling of competency and refuse to get back to the uncomfortable work that’s required if we want to improve.

There’s a desire that we all feel at some point to out train this discomfort. If only we could get strong or fit enough for things to stop feeling so hard. Achievement and effort go hand in hand, though. The sooner you accept that your best performances will still feel like a struggle, the sooner you can identify and work on the things that are actually holding you back, rather than just the things that make you uncomfortable.

Are finger strength, power, or endurance really your low-hanging fruit or are you just trying climbs at your limit and wishing that they didn’t feel so hard?

Trying to improve at climbing is a Sisyphean task. That’s not to say that it’s meaningless, only that it’s a climb with no end. Effort isn’t just an unfortunate part of the process, it is the process. Learning to appreciate that might bring a level of enjoyment and clarity to your climbing that you haven’t felt in years.