Mental strength in climbing

I often tell people that climbing is at least 50% in your mind. Whilst it’s probably fair to say that figure is a little random and definitely pulled out of nowhere scientific, I really feel that how I am in my head changes everything at the crag or the gym. A good day where I’m feeling physically strong can sometimes give terrible results, if my head is not there, and a bad day can sometimes finish unimaginably.

As an incredibly complex sport, it should come as no surprise that climbing, with its a multitude of tiny often complicated movements to master, is difficult if we can’t fully concentrate. Deeper than that, the emotional side of things also has a huge impact on performance. I’m sure everyone would agree that if we feel great, were more likely to perform well, but did you know it’s actually possible to alter your mental state with the express goal of improving your performance? A great example of this is listening to some your favourite psych music whilst training. It’s not just about having some cool beats to pass the time, but music has been proven to change your state of mind, and in relation to climbing performance it can do all sorts of crazy things.

May Caliente in Pembroke – the first time, I tried to flash E10. You have to stay calm in a section of climbing that is around 7c+, faciing a ground fall from 18m. ©David Simmonite

Recalling some particularly bold routes from my past, from time to time I’ve even climbed with headphones playing some of my favourite tunes, as without that extra little help the pressure of dealing with the situation was simply too much. The music not only allowed me to concentrate on something else other than the stress, but it also helped me to ground myself in familiar emotions – transporting part of my subconscious to a successful training session in the past where everything seemed to flow. Whilst listening to music is certainly powerful, it’s not always practical or even possible. Luckily, with training and practice, we all have the potential to change our mental state at whim, simply by wishing to do so.

Unsurprisingly for anyone who has ever had the chance to meet him, or even watched him on video, one of the greatest mental strengths I’ve ever seen is Yuji Hirayama! Yuji has climbed, and excelled in most of the disciplines you find in the sport today. From boulders to big walls, trad to World Cup competition, Yuji is not only able to function at the top of his physical capabilities, with added pressure he surpasses what he’s able to do in training.

Caroline often describes the appeal of competition as taking away all of your control! Unlike regular climbing, where we wait to feel in shape, wait for a good day of conditions, wait for the best time of day etc etc, competition forces you to climb at your best, whenever the competition decides!  People deal with, and respond to this challenge in different ways. At one extreme you train your physical capacity to a far greater level, to soak up any loss you might find on D day, on the other you work on your mental game to make sure you give your very best when the time is right. 

Caroline and myself on a multi pitch bay in Sardinia. ©Riky Feldere

Whilst Yuji is definitely not alone in the ranks of mental gifted competitors, what sets Yuji apart from others is how well he’s able to use his gift to excel at all other aspects of climbing. I’ve personally witnessed him climb hard sport routes on his final attempt of the last day of the trip, as well as bold trad routes when falling is not an option. In both situations, just a few hours before he still seemed far away from the level required to actually climb the pitch, but when needs must, Yuji knows how to put his body and mind into gear, in all styles!  

On first glance this doesn’t seem so shocking. The two experiences ultimately come down to the same challenge of finding the best in yourself when failure is not an option, just like in a competition, and so someone who can do one, should be able to do them all, right?

In my own experience it’s not quite that simple, as there are subtle yet important differences in the type of stress that make the overall experience anything but the same. I started climbing over 20 years ago, and contrary to what most people might think, I’ve spent the most part of the last 15 years concentrating on sport climbing! Despite the significant amount of time I’ve invested, and the chance I have of living in one of the best countries in the world for sport climbing, as well as being married to an awesome sport and competition climber, I’m still far from an expert in this field.  

In comparison, when it comes to trad climbing, big run-outs and risk, I feel like I can hold my own with some of the best in the business.  In the last 5 years I’ve opened hard multi-pitch adventure routes in Ethiopia, repeated one of the boldest climbs on gritstone, and made the first ascent of Bon Voyage, a contender for the worlds hardest trad route – all this is with no trad specific training. Believe it or not, the last time I felt purely focused on Trad climbing would probably be around 2003, when Toby Benham and I spent an entire winter focused on climbing Hard Grit, culminating in Toby’s ascent of Harder Faster. I’m not saying that I never go trad climbing, and I’ve definitely been on plenty of Trad specific trips, but the majority of my time and my training, the real bread and butter of my climbing, has for many years been focused on sport climbing.

So why is it then that I feel so much more comfortable when trad climbing in comparison to climbing on bolts? For one reason or another I’m able to deal with, and capitalise on the certain pressure of falling = injury, all whilst the more subtle nuances of performance anxiety in sport climbing continue to allude me. At first I thought it due to simply not knowing how to relax, as to a certain extent, trad climbing teaches us to overly control every movement in order to minimise the chance of an unexpected slip. Sport climbing on the other hand needs one to let go, almost literally! To make to most of whatever reserves you have, sport climbing asks you to relax on each move to the point of almost falling, so you can climb the route as efficiently as possible. 

Whilst this is undoubtably part of my issue (I can see the general difference in my efficiency compared to Caro simply by comparing our max boulder grade with max sport grade), there have been moments during some of my hard trad climbs where I feel incredibly free, and climb without worrying about the pump building in my forearms.

It would be understandable on bold routes where the climbing is rarely physically difficult, but I’ve also experienced this on safer, harder routes that could be compared to sport routes missing a few bolts (Rhapsody is a great example), and it’s incredibly liberating to be up there without a care in the world.  Those special moments usually go hand in hand with exceptional performances, where significant unexpected gains are made on the journey towards finishing a project or routes are flashed or on-sighted (Somethings Burning) when chances seem very slim.  

I’d love to be able to transfer these skills to sport climbing, and whilst progress is being made, it’s clearly not as easy as I hoped it would be, if only measured by the time I spend working on it. A typical red-point process on a hard sport climb sees me falling repeatedly on the same move, or making slow and steady upwards progress, falling one move higher each attempt when excitement induced pump rears its ugly head when passing my high point. On-sight sport climbing is probably my weakest discipline, and more often than not finishes embarrassingly low in my chosen route, when I find myself surprised by a hold (that 9 times out of 10 is really actually quite good) and see my wings come up, ready for flight a few seconds later!

Whilst I’m far from a sport climbing God however, I might actually be able to share some words of wisdom on how I’m slowly improving, as bizarrely even though I can’t tell you why I’m not as good as I’d like to be, I feel like I could probably give you better advice on training for sport climbing than I could for getting better at trad, simply because I’m actually having to try to work it out rather than having it just happen.

In addition to the basic physical work of spending hours in the gym, turning around my circuits or lapping routes back to back, I spend a lot of time visualising my performance, repeating the physical movements in my head but also including the emotional aspect of climbing at my limit.  If you’ve never heard of visualisation before this might all seem a little far fetched, but look at it like this…

By rehearsing the moves in your head away from the route itself, you help yourself react quicker and climb more efficiently next time you actually climb. The same can be said for the emotions you might face, of which there are many, but we’ll keep things focused on one or two in this article.  A typical sight at sport crags is climbers going one or to moves higher on each attempt, seeming to be in great shape, then suddenly falling overcome with pump.

The highpoint stops being the unknown, and in that alone, a significant hurdle in arriving there again has already been overcome. On the other hand, they suddenly find themselves back in the unknown, from where they are either unsure to have what it takes, or nervous about falling when they think they have a chance to finish it off! 

Have you ever found yourself sticking the crux of your project for the first time, with only easy ground ahead, and told yourself Thats it, don’t drop it now! How many of you fell off just after thanks to an incredibly fast-onset debilitating pump? A physical reaction to a mental / emotional stimulus! 

By visualising all of these things, actually imagining yourself living the experience, even falling off and feeling your excitement / pride / frustration, you’ll have already been in that moment and will be less likely to be effected by it when it arrives for real.  It might sound a bit far fetched, but it can really work wonders, and I’d recommend any climber to add it into their training schedule, especially if they feel prone to overthinking / overanalysing when projecting a specific route.

Coming back to trad climbing, the only advice I can give, which is probably a contender for the most unhelpful advice ever given, is just to climb plenty of really sketchy routes as a young climber. Preferably when you are young and ignorant of the real dangers, you need to get out there and have some real leg shaking moments, make some really bad decisions, and only thanks to a bit of luck be able to walk back to the car at the end of the day! 

Obviously I’m not really recommending this approach, but its basically what I did, and although my first few dangerous routes were a real shambles, little by little I improved and evolved. Whilst at first the danger element definitely brought out the worst in my climbing; I used to want to top-rope routes 10x in a row before I’d commit to the lead, knowing on the sharp end I’d climb like a gibbering wreck. Eventually the opposite became true, where danger and commitment would take my climbing to levels I could only normally dream about. 

Luckily, by working on my general fitness, in time, I could adapt to climbing longer routes; allowing my mental tactics to grow and change, eventually finding similar experiences in the mountains and sea cliffs to those of my early grit routes.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and inversely, it’s easier to learn new things when you are young. I can see that already with Arthur and Zoellie later, they pick things up so quickly and they’re not the same person from one week to the next. More importantly, I think the first experiences we have of something tend to be the ones that stick with us, and its really hard to break a habit, or re-learn the same skill in a different way.

Hard Grit trad is what I know how to do best, and like it or not I think it will always be that way. Sure I can improve in other aspects, train and develop skills I feel are lacking and give myself the possibility to climb and enjoy other things, but nothing feels quite as much like home as balancing on a smear, slopers in my hands and slack rope beneath my feet!