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Working Through a Flat Spot

• June 2011
• Hi Steph Climb Training

Hi Steph–
Just looking for a little advice. I’ve been climbing quite a bit lately, a lot indoors, though I’d rather be outdoors more and I’m hoping to work through a flat spot in my climbing, at least in terms of numbers.

I learned to climb many years ago on granite slabs and faces, and a few cracks. The kind of thing that places more emphasis on footwork and being able to trust one’s feet on slopey stuff, friction and little stuff. The numbers game has always been the most obnoxious–I mean difficult–part of climbing for me. I’ve been training–climbing–indoors lately by climbing for a shorter time several times each week. That means one day of normal climbing–pushing myself at a reasonable level, followed by a day of easier climbing, involving enough flow, patience and control that it feels like soloing, and another day of climbing stuff that’s a little too hard. I’m in a spot right now where many climbs feel more awkward than I’d like and my goal is to be able to push myself a little more but with enough control/flow to climb on gear. Sounds like the same old story, I’m sure, but a little expert advice might help:)

Anything you can tell me? It is appreciated.
Thanks again for this blog and all the good info here.
Stay Safe
Dave

Hi Dave,
Thanks for writing to me! I have never pretended to understand climbing ratings. They quite frankly do not make sense to me, and I will probably never get it. They seem to give some general indication as to whether a route is going to feel easy, challenging or impossible, but that’s about it, from my point of view. I don’t have a lot of advice about addressing climbing and ratings. However, I do find that it’s helpful to your climbing as a whole to repeat climbs at your local crag or gym. One thing I like to do is to turn former projects into “trainers.” So after you redpoint something, rather than just walking away and feeling satisfied that you ticked it off, go back to it and keep climbing it again and again as part of your routine. Eventually it will become repeatable, and possibly even mellow feeling, and this will bump up your climbing level. Also, if you get enough of these routes dialed in, you can have a local circuit. When you come back to it after time off or a different type of training, you will get a pretty good feel of where you are at. The more you climb, the more you will flow when climbing–but beware of overtraining.
Hope that helps! Steph