Mental training for climbing: 3 beginner exercise
Photo by Emily Trombly
Our thoughts impact everything in climbing, from what goals we set and what climbs we try to our training strategies and climbing technique. But mental training for climbing is a huge subject and difficult to approach because it’s not as measurable as physical training. Still, that shouldn’t stop you from trying it out!
Here are three beginner exercises to help you get started with mental training for climbing. If you want to dive deeper into the subject, I recommend checking out Eric Horst’s book Maximum Climbing or attending an upcoming ClimbWell retreat.
1. Preclimb mental rehearsal
This exercise is exactly what it sounds like: before you get on a route or boulder, rehearse the climb in your mind. Preclimb mental rehearsal can be used before an onsight attempt or on a climb you’ve tried before.
Here’s how to do it:
Stand in front of your boulder or route and first take in the climb as a hole. Do you see an obvious crux or difficult move? Does the climb look safe in terms of potential falls, swings, or landings?
After assessing the overall climb, start from the bottom and try to imagine climbing the route or boulder move by move. Identify all the critical holds and the sequences you will use to get between them. Vividly imagine the body positions, clipping stances, rests, and cruxes with as much detail as possible.
Do this two times before getting on your next climb, and see how it goes.
This type of mental rehearsal is a great beginner exercise that you can progress to visualization. Unlike mental rehearsal, visualization typically involves closing your eyes and miming movements while lying on your back. Preclimb rehearsal will help you build up the mental skills to memorize longer sequences and entire routes, which will help with visualization in the future.
2. Name and categorize your fears
Our goal as climbers should be to befriend fear, not to make it go away. The first step when making a new friend is to learn their name! This exercise invites you to consciously name your fears before starting a climb and to identify whether your fears are reasonable or unreasonable.
This is best done in writing with a notebook, but you could also try this exercise with a supportive climbing partner. Begin by assessing a climb you’re going to try from the ground, just as you did in the previous exercise. Ask yourself: “Do I have any fears, doubts, or apprehensions about this climb? Am I nervous? What am I afraid of?”
Write down any fears or doubts that come up, using the words that occur to you. Most fears in climbing fall into one of three categories:
Fear of falling: you are afraid of climbing above your last bolt or gear placement, or even of falling on top-rope or from a boulder.
Fear of injury or death: you are afraid of getting hurt or dying (from a bad fall, rockfall, or another risk).
Fear of failure: you are worried you won’t perform well, send the climb, or impress others.
After listing your fears, note which category each falls into - falling, injury, or failure?
Finally, identify whether each fear is reasonable or unreasonable. This is mostly an intellectual calculation based on your experience and knowledge of the safety system (like spotting or belaying).
Fear of falling and injury or death are sometimes reasonable and require careful risk management and experienced decision-making to avoid a bad outcome. For example, if you’re going to try a trad climb with poor protection, a highball boulder, or a runout slab route, a fall could lead to serious injury. If you’re not sure whether your fear is reasonable, consult a more experienced climber and err on the side of caution.
But for most beginners climbing in gyms or on overhung sport routes, falling and failure are common fears that you can dismiss as unreasonable. For example, it’s nearly impossible to get injured if you have a competent belayer and are top-roping in the gym.
By naming and categorizing your fears, you can consciously choose how to respond to them. If you choose to climb anyway, you’ll be more confident and relaxed knowing you’ve done a careful risk assessment in advance. When the fear surfaces again in your thoughts, you can tell your brain, “We’ve evaluated that already and decided to continue.” With practice, fear will play a much smaller role in your climbing internal monologue.
3. Breathe and climb
This exercise is the simplest of the three, but it may also be the hardest. While climbing a sport route, take a conscious, deep breath at every stance. A stance is anywhere you can pause for a moment and remove a point of contact (e.g. shake one hand or remove a foot).
Breathing has a profound effect on your physical state and this exercise will reduce tension throughout your body. The result will be less over-gripping and more fluid, intuitive movement.
Make each breath slow and deep by beginning from your belly and then progressing to fill the midchest and upper chest. You might notice you forget to breathe at each stance, which is part of the mental exercise! Practice regularly until you can climb an entire pitch without forgetting to take a deep breath at each stance.
Putting it into practice
Because mental training is harder to measure than physical training, make it simple for yourself to incorporate these exercises.
Pick one exercise you want to try first and use it each day you climb for a week, whether in the gym or outside. Initially, only incorporate the exercise on your warmup, then consider trying it out on more challenging routes or boulders. To accelerate your skill development, write simple notes in a journal after each climbing session to capture how you felt and what effect you noticed from the mental training exercise you practiced.
Written by Remy Franklin | www.remyfranklin.com | @remyfranklin
