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The skills which make a good competition climber are useful for ALL climbers. Being a good competitive climber requires us to be skilled at all styles of climbing and confident in dealing with high-pressure environments... whether you plan to do any competition climbing in future or not, these will always be fantastic skills to develop in your climbing! Lots of climbers often find that they don’t perform well in competitions; this is usually due to being adversely affected by the high-pressure environment of a competition, and not being equally skilled on all styles and angles of climb!
What?
This plan has been designed by Louis Parkinson - former member of the GB climbing team and known worldwide for his expertise in teaching climbing movement and mindset - with the aim being to provide an accessible, affordable and effective month of focused practice, helping the students who engage with it to build confidence and familiarity with a wide range of styles of climbing and in dealing with high-pressure situations through a series of detailed, on-the-bouldering-wall session plans.
Who?
This plan is designed to be used by a wide variety of ages and ability levels! The only
limitations are as follows:
- The sessions are to be performed at an indoor bouldering wall.
- There is some basic climbing knowledge required, so we recommend a minimum of 6 months climbing experience before engaging with this plan.
We expect that this plan will be most useful for climbers operating in the V1 - V5 area, but climbers of any level can have preferences and imbalances in their climbing. If you feel as though you’re not as well-rounded in your climbing as you’d like to be, or that you struggle to climb when people are watching you, this plan is for you!
How?
To start practicing, simply follow session plans shown in the Session Plan pdf.
The sessions have been divided into 4 separate weeks, with 3 sessions to follow in each week. Don’t worry if 3 sessions per week is too much for you; simply work through the sessions in chronological order, and expect that your practice will last for longer than the scheduled 4 weeks!
Each session has a column of detailed guidance on which drills / exercises to do, for how long, and at what level of difficulty. Alongside this is an additional column of notes from Louis, with further guidance as to what to focus on whilst going through your planned sessions.
Every drill and exercise contained in the plan has extensive additional details and video demos, which can be found in this Reference Document! We’d recommend reading through each of your upcoming sessions ahead of time so that you can read through/ watch any required video demos ahead of time, and minimise the amount of time spent looking at the reference document during your sessions. At first, you may find yourself referring back to this document repeatedly for details, but after a little while the exercises will become familiar, and you’ll need to refer back to this document less and less.
A thorough warm up is included at the start of each session, in addition to a stretching cool down at the end of each session. If you had previously not been doing any warm up or cool down as part of your climbing sessions, including these is essential! If you already have a warm up and cool down routine which you are comfortable with, please continue using this.
What to expect?
In week 1: We’ll be focusing on becoming more well-rounded in our skillset, exploring and practicing elements of complexity, intensity and risk.
In week 2: In the second week, we’ll be focusing on drills which incentivise us to make confident, precise placements of our hands and feet, and doing a lot of dynamic movement practice.
In week 3: This week will see us practicing our ability to climb well whilst under pressure - a crucial skill for performing well in competitions!
In week 4: In this final week, we’ll be putting all of the last few weeks of learning together with some competition simulations and focused projecting...
Overall: When learning something new, it is common to feel as though you are doing it all wrong - especially if you’re learning something which you know to be outside of your comfort zone. Don’t worry if you’re finding the drills and exercises difficult and awkward at first, or if you’re struggling to complete the goals of the various challenges, because the aim is just that; to be challenged!
The session plans you will go through are designed to challenge you, and through being challenged you will learn LOADS; all you need to do is enthusiastically go through each session, focusing on learning rather than focusing on outright success.
What to do if you have any issues?
If you are uncertain about any aspects of this plan which aren’t answered by the Reference Document, if you are struggling to access any video demos relevant to the training, or if you’re unable to perform one of the drills / exercises and are uncertain why, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via email at enquiries@catalystclimbing.com.
