We’ve been posting a series of articles by Alli Rainey on what to do it you are plateauing on you climbing project. In the first two, Alli covered the benefits of taking a break and the off-route tactical changes that can help stack the deck in your favor. In part 3, Alli delves into the on-route tactical changes you can make that may help you break through your plateau and clip the chains.
First up, Alli covers how simply repeating the same one hang can actually hurt your performance in the long run.
“It’s easy to get stuck in a performance rut on a project that is at the edge of your ability level, repeating the same performance every single day you climb. The most standard scenario seems to go as follows: climb up to sticking point, fall, pull back up to hard move, rest until pump dissipates and power returns, pull back on the rock and continue climbing to anchors. The problem with repeating this same pattern over and over again is that it actually trains your body to be less likely to quickly adapt to sending the route. This is a great real-life illustration of the athletic training principle of specific adaptations to imposed demands (SAID): when you do this, you are training the hang (rest period) into your body, not encouraging it to push through that place of difficulty.” – Alli Rainey
To combat this, Alli covers tactics such as pulling back on immediately without any rest, starting several moves lower, and deliberate low-pointing. Essentially, these are all strategies for effectively working a route by breaking it down into manageable sections.
Beyond talking about how to break up the route to avoid repeating the same performance, Alli also talks about on-route tactics such as re-examining your beta, how long to stay at rests, and pacing. All of these topics are covered more in depth in the full article which you can read by clicking through bellow.
Click Here: Plateauing on Your Climbing Project? Try This! Part 3
(photo by Louis Arevalo; courtesy of allirainey.com)
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