Have you ever noticed that when you are climbing your best you feel completely present in the moment? You aren’t distracted by whats going on around you and your mind isn’t racing or being filled with fear or thoughts of failure. Wouldn’t it be nice if you were able to more consistently reach this mental state of mindfulness?
Luckily, just like you can train your fingers, there are mental training technique that allow you to practice mindfulness and prepare you for stressful performance situations.
To help you reach a more focused mental state in your climbing, here’s an article from Crux Crush by psychiatric clinical nurse specialist Anna Enright who works with the youth teams at the MetroRock Climbing Centers on mindfulness practice to increase their competition performance. In the article, Enright first discusses exactly what mindfulness is and then gives you some mental training strategies she uses with her athletes.
“Training focus and awareness is key. Climbing is inherently a mindful activity. Focusing on the route and visualizing moving to the finish is an exercise most climbers engage in. Unfortunately, once on the climb, especially if it is challenging, we lose focus and forget to scan ahead, breathe and allow our body to direct us… If mindful, one can observe this is happening and using the breath, the eyes, and the feel of the holds can help shift the focus back to the present and climb.” – Anna Enright
The mental techniques Enright describes are:
- Focus on breath
- Focus on sounds
- Focus on body awareness
- Visualizing peak performance
- Write a competition script
All of these tactics are described in greater detail in the complete article which you can read by clicking through below. Even if you never plan on entering into a climbing competition, these techniques for working on your mental control and reaching a state of mindfulness can really help your climbing performance. Give them a read and then try them out yourself!
Click Here: Mindfulness in Climbing – Crux Crush
(photo by GKwan Photo; courtesy of cruxcrush.com)
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