In most sports, athletes have coaches who determine how they train. This traditional model has a lot of benefits as an effective coach can objectively evaluate an athlete’s performance and keep them on a path of continuous improvement. Climbers, on the other hand, are mostly self-coached. Obviously, with the right amount of motivation, focus, and discipline anybody can coach themselves and keep improving at climbing.
However, here is an article by Andrew Bisharat of Evening Sends about one of his sessions with climbing coach Justen Sjong in which he describes just how valuable personalized coaching can be.
“However, the reason that I’m going down the tangent of online-training courses is because I felt as though spending 60 minutes in the gym, one-on-one with Justen, was more valuable and helpful to my climbing than the five weeks of online training that I completed with Team of 2.” – Andrew Bisharat
Andrew goes on to describe in detail what he learned during this 60 minute sessions with Justen Sjong. (His thoughts on his first session can be found here) He covers:
- “I’m too heavy”
- Its all in the eyes
- Swagger like Ondra
- Level 10 breathing
- Beating the old “crimp and pull”
Andrew has been climbing at a high level for many years and it’s inspiring to see someone with that much experience putting in the effort to not just try and get stronger, but also work towards getting better at climbing. While these specific lessons may not apply directly to you, this is a great reminder of how effective in-person, one-on-one coaching can be. Do yourself a favor, keep training hard to get stronger, but also find a knowledgable coach and spend sometime with them learning how you can get better not just stronger.
Click Here: Andrew Bisharat – Training with Justen Sjong
(photo courtesy of eveningsends.com)
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