2009.01.20
With the news this weekend of the Mountaineering Council for Ireland (MCI) having its anti-doping policy banded about the papers and internet forums. When a member of the committee that arranges the Irish Bouldering League (IBL) tipped off climbers on a forum about possible tests, because the MCI ask that they have the paperwork in place for random drugs tests. (see the IBL/MCI anti-doping policy)
This testing seems to have been almost sprung on the competitors in the IBL, and there are many questions that need answering and asking. Whilst the MCI have had the anti-doping policy since 2003, it appears as yet they have been able to implement any testing, especially and this ‘local’ level of competition, where many climbers are there simply for the crack[sic!].
In sport taking an substances that can positively affect physical or mental performance, including pharmacological, physiological, nutritional, mechanical or psychological aid, are commonly referred to as ergogenic aids. Arguably even water is ergogenic aid by this definition, however more often the public think of anabolic steroids when performance enhancement and doping is mentioned. Whilst Ben Johnson was famously caught and banned for doping in the 1988 Olympics, the dopers until then had manage to stay one step ahead of the enforcers. It wasn’t until the death of three competitive cyclists in 1998 whilst using ergogenic that the International Olympic Committee started to consider the issue widely and the independent World anti-doping Agency (WADA) was set up in 1999. This organisation set up a policy that rules which substances are banned for ethical and medical reasons and was first applied at Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.
With the recent recognition of the International Federation of Sport Climbing, by the International Olympic Committee has lead to the situation that we are seeing in Ireland, whereby it seems that the MCI under the guidance of the Irish Sport Council anti-doping rules have suddenly started to implemented the WADA policy that has the ethos removing an unfair advantage and levelling the playing field, for those athletes who didn’t want to win at any cost.
Despite WADA’s efforts to stem their use of anabolic steroids a 2003 study by Boyce into sport in the US estimated that there was 1 to 3 million users, that 67% of Elite Athletes where on the ‘juice’ and more concerning was the result that 1-12% of males in High School were users. An explanation offered is the pressure of gaining an Football scholarship at University is so great that they will go to any length to beef out.
One of the reasons for using ergogenic aids comes from old research carried out behind the iron curtain much of which was destroyed during the fall of the Berlin Wall, which showed that a female shot putter given several months of Anabolic Steroids could throw three metres further, and that by removing the drug before the competition the effects would last whilst the evidence would not.
If you think it was only a minority of competitive athletes then if you saw the drop off in distance attained in the strength dependent female throwing events after doping controls became more effective due to better testing in 1988; where both the world record thrown that year and the average distance attained by the top ten athletes takes a dramatic drop, after that landmark date.
Steroids which famously can have some androgenic (male building effects) with certain types of steroid there is greater or lesser amounts of male building to muscle building (anabolic), the safest one being Nandrolone that Lindford Christie was banned for in 1999. The Earlier anabolic steroids had greater male building effects and lesser anabolic effect. Leading to the concern over these drugs was the questionable sex of female athletes, Jackie Joyner Kearsy and Florence Griffith were described as a gorilla and a man respectively during the 1988 Olympics.
In terms of climbing the use of anabolic steroids may well benefit bouldering, however since until now we haven’t been tested, there has been no way of telling whose doped up and who’s natural. Indeed the problem of enhanced physique became so problematic in bodybuilding that there is now natural bodybuilding federations, allowing those that don’t want ‘roid rage’ to compete amongst equals.
Now with our shift towards the Olympic movement although small may potentially mean that climbers will need a growing understanding of the WADA code. As there are many supplements that we can use legally, that may enhance a climbers performance. However there are some more everyday substances like various cold and flu medicine that are on the banned list. Caffeine for instance has been shown to have a 3% increase in short and intense activities, however it is banned substance if there is more than a certain level in your urine.
At present few if any supplements have been tested specifically looking at climbing, meaning that whilst they might aid running, weight lifting or cycling performance, due to the complexities with the all important power to weight ratio they might not be as beneficial as you would hope to a climber. Creatine for instance is a legal muscle/strength building supplement, that is often mentioned on climbing internet forums, however it increases water retention, so despite making you stronger, might lead to added unwanted weight gain. A second supplement a posh amino acid, HMB offers a similar level of weekly increase in muscle mass to Creatine that may be better for bouldering performance?
Another legal aid is Sodium Bicarbonate, aka baking powder, what this does, other than make you sick, is help buffer against blood lactate accumulation. Through a process that is carried out in the kidneys. This might help improve performance in power endurance, however the sickness effect will make it far from pleasant to use. However given the lengths some athletes have gone to, who knows?
The final physiological drug/method I am going to talk about is EPO and Blood doping, both are virtually undetectable in urine. Simply because Blood doping relies of transfusing out your own blood whilst training at altitude and then re-transfusing it in just before a competition. Therefore the only thing your adding is your own blood that is fortified with red blood cells from being at altitude.
Some clever boffin realised the process that altitude causes and synthesised the bodies natural trigger for producing red blood cells, EPO, as such it is virtually impossible to trace this kind of doping. The only way is literally to catch someone red handed like in the Tour De France a few years back where hundreds of doses where found or through testing the heamocrit level in the blood, which if above 50% is deemed an unnatural level. As higher levels of red blood cells thicken the blood and increase the risk of stokes and heart attacks the phrase ‘Better Dead than second’ was coin about EPO doping by Eichner in 1992.
A psychological active drug that I have seen mentioned on UKC forum are Beta-Blockers, these are often cited as being misused in ‘control’ sports like archery, shoot etc… In climbing the concept is that they may well help you remain calm and focused by essentially switching of your bodies reaction to adrenalin, by blocking the beta-adrenal receptor in the heart. Again like EPO and Blood this method is illegal.
Alarmingly the notion of performance enhancing drugs and therapies is virtually at the cutting edge of medicine, in fact a representative of WADA said “The same kinds of people who cheat in sport today will probably try to find ways to misuse genetics tomorrow”. There are three possible futures that sport scientists are keeping an eye on one is a genetic disorder in humans that leads to myostatin suppression that in turn results in increased muscle growth. Other experiments with mice has lead to what on You Tube has been dubbed Supermouse. Further research might well come from the new altitude research into the mounting evidence that suggests that some people are better at transporting oxygen there red blood cells than others.
Now for most sports that is where the WADA anti-doping policy effectively finishes, you aren’t going to get Chris Hoy smoking a fat one. However climbing is more anarchic, take Chris Sharma who was found positive for cannabis in 2001 and stripped of his world championship medal and winning. This problem of recreational drugs will be an issue for climbers and boulderers. I am not saying that everybody who climbs hard uses illegal recreational drugs, but I would hazard a guess that there are more than a handful.
Indeed research into the types of people who engage in risk-taking behaviour shows that they are statistically more likely to do things like take drugs, drive recklessly as well as pursue a hobby that can result in serious injury or death. We are naturally predisposed to engage in those type of activity, as such we have run a mock for a long time now, and the announcement albeit through what many sporting circles will see as an unsporting whistle blower, that urine tests are starting to be carried out has knock some of the competitors for 6.
Rock Star enjoying a Spliff
Whilst I agree that having an anti-doping policy is important for our sport if we want to be taken seriously by the IOC, I do feel that since these appear to be the first tests, and there appears to have been little to no guidance from the MCI into what is and isn’t allow. That they need to be thoughtful with the punishment, which can be anything from banning an individual from competing for life, to never being allowed to hold a position with the MCI or just a simple reprimanded.
It seems that whilst MCI adopted the Irish sports councils policy in 2003 along with there testing regime they have done very little to police it in the intervening 5 years. Whilst in the short-term this could potentially lead to a drop in participation as climber ’stay away’ in fear that their until now private life’s become a potentially public and personally damaging story. Although having met the odd Irish boulder I think possibly they are a few more likely to wear a positive test as a badge of honor or kudos, like ASBO’s in inner cities. Unfortunately, the papers are already onto this and I can almost fear the headline ‘Irish Rock Climber: Stoned!’ I guess that if you are going to introduce drug testing to a sport like climbing then you have to expect some kind of teething problems
The BMC is in the middle of trying to decide whether to get fully behind the Olympic bid from the IFSC. As well as develop a new coaching structure to the instructional qualifications. At present there is no information of the BMC website about doping, so for the time being there appears to be a big difference between Ireland and the Britain. The BMC gets a lot of funding from the English Sports Council, and I wonder how long it might be before they are force to implement drug testing at events like the BMC Leading Ladder?
NB – THANKS GO OUT TO DR JAMIE MACDONALD, WHOSE LECTURE ON ERGOGENIC AIDS HELPED FILL IN MUCH OF THE TECHNICAL DETAIL ON THE VARIOUS SUPPLEMENTS MENTION AS WELL AS THE TITLE TAKEN FROM THE OLYMPIC MOTTO (Swifter, Higher, Stronger), OH AND DR SAMEUL MARCORA FOR SHOWING THE SUPERMOUSE VIDEO DURING CLASS!
2008.11.21
Often people who want to be coached want to improve their technique, which in my mind is often the best way to make rapid improvements, as improving how you climb will improve your grade and confidence without the need for lengthy conditioning through aerobic, anaerobic or strength building regimes. Often where people fall down is how to develop good techniques, and this is where the science of skill acquisition can help.
At its simpliest level there are three stages to skill acquisition – Cognitve/thinking stage ; Associative or Intermediate stage; Autonomous or Elite Stage. If you then see this as a continum rather than seperate stages then we start off as a beginner, were we are first introduce to a skill, by practicing that skill we move from the first stages of learning where we are having to think about it all the time (hence cognitive stage), to where from time to time we will associate that skill with a given task, before after more practice we can carry out that skill without consciously thinking about (Autonomous Stage).
The key to moving from the cognitive/thinking stage through to the Autonous stage is effective practice. Now many people will have heard the saying practices makes perfect. Unfortunately this simply isn’t true, a modern coaching maxim is that only perfect practice makes perfect. So the chances are that unless you have used perfect technique from the very start of your climbing you will have some less than perfect technique that you will need to over write in your brain to adapt to better technique.
What often happens when learning new technique is that you practice it in an nice and easy environment, and then as soon as you try and use it in anger for the first time on the sharp end of a hard route is that it goes out the window, and you revert back to your old bad technique. This is because you haven’t practised it enough in the right type of environment.
Lets take for instance the habit of trying to face sideways when climbing, one of the quickest and easiest of technique to practice, and great help to your climbing. Try and climb keeping your upper body facing left or right as you climb. Now if you try and practice it on hard boulder problems then you simply won’t be able to practice it enough as you will get to pumped. If however you practice facing sideways as a technique drill every time you warm up on easy routes then you will effectively have more and more practice everytime you go climbing. After a few sessions try practicing that skill in a variety of situations e.g. leading easy routes, top roping hard routes, climbing corners, climbing arete, climbing slabs, climbing walls, etc… Adding in the different places and types of climbing that you practice the skill in help to make it a robust technique that will stay with you.
Remember though it won’t all happen over night as one researcher in sports science said ‘It take 10000 hours or 10 years of practice to reach an elite level in Sport’. So keep at it, as everyday is a school day when it comes to learning technique. I still use climbing drills during my warm ups!
2008.11.21
As a reader of this blog you are probably aware of the British Mountaineering Council, and a lot of the work that it carries out on the behalf of mountaineers in the UK. As the national representative of climbers, hillwalkers and mountaineers* one pertinent question that very few of us choose to ask is who actually runs it?
The obvious answer is Dave Turnbull the CEO of the organisation, however underneath this public face of the BMC lays the true answer. As a council the policy decisions are made by believe it or not a national council of representatives from across the various geographical areas of the UK, as well as honorary presidents. Each of these areas has two voting members on the council who attempt to represent the views of the people who turn up to area committee meetings to discuss proposed policy decisions and local points of interest.
So theoretically you, the near 60000 members of the BMC steer the ship in the direction you choose and poor old Mr Turnbull has to command the staff in the mother ship (BMC office and other volunteers) towards those policies and decisions. In reality around 300 members make it to the 9 different area meeting, meaning that less than 0.004% of the members of the BMC are actively involved in what can be very important decisions.
None more so than some issues that are on the agenda at present, in particular through some very good budgeting from the finance team, and a profit sharing scheme set up with insurance company that provides BMC travel insurance means that the BMC has £200000 to spend at present, for which there are several suggestion as how spend this cash.
* Including ski mountaineering
2008.11.19
There has been much research into what not only makes a good athlete but what makes Champion’s stand out from the crowd. Often they have looked at the amount of physical practice and training, finding that despite equal amounts, natural champions still end up on top. What research points to is that to make a champion, you need various mental skills that enable equal physique to be used to a much greater effect. The argument being that in order to make a champion you need to concentrate as much energy on training those mental skills and you do the physical and technical.
Williams & Krane (1993) highlight several key mental ingredients for champions including self-regulation of arousal, high self confidence, appropriate focus and concentration, positive preoccupation with sport, determination, commitment and that the athlete is in control. They also suggest for an athlete to achieve peak performance they go onto suggest several commonly used mental training techniques which are imagery, goal setting, thought control strategies (self-talk, CBT, Hypnosis), arousal management techniques, well-developed competition plans, coping strategies and pre-competition mental readying plans.
Whilst in climbing the physical side of training has been looked at extensively, in climbing the mental training techniques have been overlooked. One of the aims of this blog is to highlight many of these mental training techniques.
Williams, J and Krane, V (1993) Chapter 11 Psychological Characteristics of peak performance in Applied Sport Psychology: Personal Growth to peak performance, Ed. William, J. CA, USA, Mayfield Publishing Company.
2008.11.18
Typically imagery and climbing has been basic at is very best, often it has been misleading and based assumption brought from other sports and disciplines. One thing my MSc has shown me is that imagery is not a simple thing, and that there are many variables involved one of the models that tries to encompass all of them is the PETTLEP model Holmes and Collins(2001)
Before we go into the PETTLEP model it is probably best that we look at what imagery can be used for. In the most part climbers use imagery or visualisation to imagine themselves climbing a route. It ‘function’ is to aid sequence memory and improve performance once on the route. There are many other functions that imagery can be used for, like anxiety reduction, increasing confidence, aiding recovery from injury and aiding other mental skills.
If you see what you are imagining as a stimulus, then the function is often a combination of the meaning you attach to that stimulus and the response you give to it. Given time it is possible to control the stimulus, meaning and response to imagery. The way that you can start control your imagery is through using it regularly, which has been shown to be around 15 minutes a day.
This model advises athlete to look at and consider the:
PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE ACTIVITY
ENVIRONMENT YOU ARE TRYING TO REPLICATE
TIMING OF THE ACTIVITY
TASK YOU ARE LOOK AT REPLICATING
LEARNING YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE
EMOTIONS THE ACTIVE EVOKES
PERSPECTIVE YOU IMAGE IN
Each one of these will have certain considerations based on the sport, person, aim of the imagery intervention. However for simply visualising boulder problems research into climbing, and specifically bouldering points towards several key things that will help aid imagery. The first thing was discovered by my MSc supervisor Nicky Callow and Lew Hardy (1999, 2005) from SSHES, University of Wales Bangor.
What they found was that in bouldering tasks an External Visual Imagery Perspective (that is as seen by a documentry crew filming you) was better than an Internal Visual Imagery Perspective (seen through your own eyes). However better still was EVI with Kinesthetic Imagery (imaginging how it feels) was most effective.
They also found that for people with a higher imagine ability had more positive effect, and that whilst climber with lower imagery abilities didn’t benefit from the performance effects of Kinesthetic imagery they did find it increased there confidence in the task.
It not just as simple as that though as Craig Hall (1997) another one of the oracles of modern imagery research, believes that whilst research does point to various sports like climbing have a perspective that best suits the physical nature and type of task. The individual athletes preferred perspective needs to be the first consideration.
Hall, C (1997) Lew Hardy’s third myth: A matter of perspective. JASP, 9.
Hardy & Callow (1999) Efficacy of External and Internal Visual Imagery Perspectives for the enhancement of performance on Tasks in which Form is Important, JSEP, 21.
Hardy & Callow (2005) An Critical Analysis of Applied Imagery Research, In Handbook of Research in Applied Sport and Exercise Psychology: Internation Perspectives, WV, USA, Eds. Hachfort, Duda & Lidor.
Holmes & Collins (2001) The PETTLEP Aproach to motor imagery: A Functional Equivalence Model for Sport Psychologists, JASP 13(1)
2008.11.18
I’m my mind and in my car, we can’t rewind we’ve gone to far, the classic song by the Bungles (Here’s the a link to the track live at a princes trust gig). But in the modern idiom has the internet killed the fanzine, and more specifically has UKClimbing.com destroyed the climbing magazine or has commercialisation done it for us?
Essentially a few years ago magazines were portals for us mere mortals to see what the leaders in the field of climbing were up to. The two month lag time between getting the news in, laying out the magazine on the desktop, printing it and then the distribution did not seem to matter, as unless you had actually been there or knew the person it was still news.
Unfortunately for magazines web 2.0 (or is it 2.1 or 3.0 now?) means that often before the ascentionist has manage to settle themselves after a climb, their publicist has already uploaded a blog entry, contacted their sponsors, who have given the route a grade and the necessary spin and of course phoned Mick Ryan or Jack Geldard for a scoop on UKClimbing.
I for one have no problem with any of that, provided there is some honesty and integrity over the climbing. I also don’t want to debate the pro’s or con’s of that type of media or grade chasing now, instead I want to look at where does it leave the print media?
At present and particularly in recent months CLIMB magazine has been James Pearson quarterly, which is great for James I hope he has a nice fat photo incentive deal or retainer from TNF, there are too few climbers making a proper living from our sport. The problem is that UKC run the same picture and pretty much the same story online the day after it happens, so there is absolutely no chance a magazine beating that turn around time. However UKC don’t pay photographers, so I suspect that Dave Simmonite has some form of return from TNF, and he won’t be the only photographer to have that relationship with a manufacturer.
The type of photo space he then gets in a magazine is what can only describe as blanket coverage in TNF/James Pearson Quarterly. I appreciate that James ascents have been ‘ground break’, ‘last great problems’,'the cutting edge’, but there comes a point where one amazing photo might capture the ascent, maybe a couple of extras to make the point, but I lost counts at 8 photos of the route Walk of Life (link to this cheesy tune here).
Not to mention Dave Simmonite’s a photographer’s view of the ascent (including the make, model, size and catalogue number of the cams needed), James view, and some arbutary editorial. Surely we’ll be able to watch the edited video highlights online before too long!
My point is if all climbing print media offer is a rehash of the old news and old photos as the cover shot and main story why do people still by them. If you want to see a million shots of James on what looks like an awesome route, well an E8 he straighten up and taken all the pegs out of, then CLIMB magazine is for you.
The other problem print media faces is the dreaded hyperlink, one click and you taken striaght to where advertisers want you to be, looking at there gear, linked to more links, and as you keep clicking you get further and further into oblivion, until no number of clicks on the back button would bring you to where you started, quite literally lost in a web of advertising. Just what the marketeers want, and on top of that they can actually count how effect there advertising is. For a full lesson contact Mick at UKC, and tell your thinking of advertising with them but ask him what the benefits will be!
I am sure Neil and Gill at CLIMB magazine will put this down to me being bitter, unfortunately, I am not I just can’t see a way forward, for them with their current model, but I don’t see the sales figures, perhaps the TNF/JP editions of CLIMB sell more, in which case they are more than likely to be sat in CLIMB tower’s laughing at my rants deleting my photos from there hard drive. Unfortunately I believe all climbing magazine need to change away from providers of news, and into providers of decent information. Mini-guides to areas, and not just a list of route descriptions and photos. Articles that you could actually take to a crag and use as a guide.
Trail Magazine (I actually spit when I say those two words together) basically provide maps of an area so people can actually walk there recommended routes, and do you know what it works. I once got ask to guide a route that had been in the magazine on Cadar Idris. There was normally no one on the route but that weekend, a few weeks after trail had come out there were ten teams on the scramble.
Don’t get me wrong CLIMB has some great features, in particular Dave Binney’s coaching column. On the other hand Climber Magazine has some appalling columns in particular John Arrans Alps and Beyond, which basically has just become John and Ann’s Big Wall climbs in the Jungle pages. If you want news from the Alps and Beyond you need to read Lindsay Griffins pages in CLIMB, because at least he is passionate and knowledgable about the subject.
I have probably said too much, bitten the hands that feed me, burned too many bridged and pissed on my own doorstep once too often for now. So I will stop, well at least for now.
2008.11.18
I can’t believe it has been ten years, there are few things in my life that make me look back and question what I have done, where I have been and whom I have met. 10 years ago I was fresh face graduate from university, who had a big trip planned to Yosemite National Park, during that trip I climbed Lost Arrow Spire with Leo Houlding, Patch Hammond and Ben Bransby, all of which wanted to free climb the spire.
We were all young and Leo, Patch and Ben all still unknown stateside, so when an experienced valley rat rocked up in front of us, he naturally thinks well I’ll nip in front of these green horns. After Leo and Patch free the top free pitches, whilst Ben and I froze on the ledge below, he apologised for thinking we were young British punters
To make up for delaying us, as he had been guiding an American punter up the route, the late and great Dan Osmond left his ropes in situ for the tyrolean back across to the rim of the valley. Where he apologised further by forcing us to take a hit on his bong before we tried to keep up with him on the descent.
Dan was very much the man in the valley, a legend I had only seen in the Master’s of Stone videos, in the flesh he was only kind and generous to me. I am reminded of him because a friend join a Dan Osmond group on facebook, it was on the 23rd November 1998 that the climbing community lost one of its truly wild characters. If you like to join the group to remember a man who seemed to truly believe in the maxim that its better to burn out than fade away.
If you’d like to remember Dan in the modern way then here is a link to the face book page. For most of us now he will be that guy in speed climbing video to thrash metal that so many people have copied on Youtube
2008.11.17
Climbing is primarily a head game, admitting that you are in it for that moment of thrilling panic, as your breathe deepens and you face the only option, commit or fall. Crossing that line in the sand and facing life at its most primal, fight or flight! In that moment its not your strength or fitness that will get you through that dark alley, but you mind.
The thing is that today, you believe, you believe that you can do this, you’ve been climbing well all day. Each route a step up on the last one, you saw someone lead the route the last time you were at the crag, you know there’s gear above. A distant voice says ‘go for it’ as your stomach sinks. At that moment you move on and discover a new place, that ephemoral moment.
There are numerous theories, ideas, research and intervention that can at the very least make you aware of some of the components success or failure. This first situation could be numerous times in my climbing career that I have experience, be it when mine or someonelses confidence shines. This incident though occurred just after I heard of Bandurra, and his thoery of self efficacy.
….“Self efficacy refers to beliefs in ones capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations. Efficacy beliefs influence how people think, feel, motivate themselves and act” Bandurra (1995).
In laymens terms efficacy is self confidence within a given task and/or environment, that given how confident we feel at that precise moment of commitment is linked to the choice of activity we choose, do we commit or back off? The amount of effort and persisitence we give to an attempt under the threat of failure, even how we think about the climbing and our emotional reactions.
Research has tracked down four main building blocks of self efficacy which in order of influence are prior performances, vicarious experience, verbal persausion and arousal level. What Bandurra theorises is that if you develop the building blocks of efficacy then it increases your own personal beliefs in your ability to achieve your goals, and then you can start to realise those goals.
Science aside I have witnessed many days when a series of progressively harder and harder routes have lead to the successful ascent of a new grade of a climbers, none more so compelling than just after I had seen the diagram of the building blocks of self-efficacy. I had arranged to meet up with two climbers Hazel and Sarah, I had never met them before, in the emails we exchanged I had come to know that they want to push themselves on Slate, and that they had previous lead E2.
Unlike teaching beginners these guys were climbers though, and at some point you need to accept the risk. As we warmed up on a few sports routes I started to climb and point out a few things they could do to save a bit of energy, but other than that there was minimal ‘traditional’ coaching.
Instead I used a progressive approach, making each route harder than the last. Eventually the girls decided that they both wanted to lead a burly E2 laybacking crack. I sat back and observed from a distance, Sarah the first person up looked a little shakey on the lead but managed it fine when she choose to commit. Hazel on the other hand climbed it smoothly and in control. Now I know there is an argument for having a visual beta, but under Banduraa’s theory this would be classed as vicarious experience, in that you saw someone achieve your goal, and an inner voice has turn round and said ‘I can do that’.
On its own that observation was nothing to write home about, however on the second route the order was reversed. So first up was hazel, this time she was the shakey one, and Sarah climbed with a lot more grace and style.
The second route was a bit more complex than that though, as well as looking at the vicarious experience, I was assuming that the previous routes would have also bolstered there confidence as a perforamnce accomplishments. On top of that I also started to turn the cogs of verbal persuasion The route was an E3 in the guidebook and the look on the two girl’s faces and body posture changed, E3 to them was a big thing. They undoubtably had the skills and ability to lead this route but the anxiety of breaking a new grade was undermining their confidence.
So I told them that as one of the authors of the fourthcoming guidebooks to the area we were downgrading the route to E2 5c, rather than E3 6a. After explaining why we downgraded the route, I climbed it and tried to make it look as easy as I could.
By now the colour had return to their faces, and after climbing the route successfully, I re-awarded them with the E3 tick, for which I receive two very big smiles, for a coach there is no bigger reward than the overt satisfaction of people you work with. My next stop was to see where exactly I could go with this, so we went on to another E3, this time I told them the grade, climbed the route, and them let them both lead it.
The next day one of them climbed Comes the Dervish, they both had “the best weekend climbing”. I did tell them a week later that I had observed and to a certain extent helped the process along by choose rotues to help develop there confidence in stages, both were fine with it, but the real question was it all because of self efficacy?
Whether it was or not, the main thing is that improving you self efficacy is so easy that you probably do it already, what this and the following articles want to highlight are ways that modern sports psychology can be used to increase our climbing performance. The lessons to take from this, and the lessons we are going to cover over the coming months are going to address ways that we can build the four building blocks of Bandurra’s Self-efficacy or your confidence in a climbing situation.
Prior Performance
The easiest way and by far the most powerful way to increase efficacy is by using your previous accomplishment to build up in a steady progression. It is a delicate line between make too rapider progression and failure or too slower progression and stagnation. Get it right and everything works for you, over step the line and the wheels will quick fall off the wagoon, and you will undoubtably have a negative effect on you confidence.
The trick is to know you ability, know the routes you want to climb and then create a step by step approach to your route. Be it routes of similar style, length, difficult. If you have a route as a goal then you will probably have done your homework and know the demands through reputation. Later in the series we will cover goal setting, but as a starter concerntrate on process goals, like feeling comfortable on route of certain grades, climbing efficiently or placing gear rather than success or failure on specific routes.
As well as recent performance expriences it is possible to recall through a process of imagery prior performance. Whilst we don’t cover this specifically when we address imagery, the ability to visualise prior performance experience can help reinforce confidence and even reduce anxiety.
Vicarious Experience
Like your performance accomplishment, vicarious experience can be gained both directly from observation of both your friends and others, but also through visualisation. One of the mechanisms that it undoubtably works through is our natural behaviour to judge performances against our own ability, so whilst watching someone who you percieve as better than you will still help to increase your efficacy, you often gain more when you witness someone who you percieve as the same level or even worse than you at climbing. The reason being that in the latter situation you mindset will change to, ‘if they can do it, so can I’.
In terms of real observations and the ethics of watching someone climb route prior to climbing it, many of the elite climbers of today work to a strict on-sight ethic, where they try and insist that they have onsighted the route, only in the rarest of circumstances is this true. They will have undoubtably acculumlated some vicarious experience, be it through watching a friend, or having someone elses description of the route by which they judge their own potential to perform. The only thing that is inportant ethically is that you are true to yourself.
Verbal Persausion
For most of us verbal persuasion will come from those around us, be it belayers or friends you are climbing with. The right thing said at the right time can have really positive effects on your performance, verbal encouragement has been shown to improve performance in a variety of laboratory settings as well as in real life situations.
You can try this out yourself, next time your at the wall try traversing on a angle of wall that will result in failure, firstly traverse back and forth until you reach failure but have no one you know with you noting down the time you can hang on for, the next time you try, either after a substanial rest or on another visit, go with your friends and get them to call out lots of encouragement as see if you last longer? I tried this exercise on a few young climbers, two of climbers almost doubled the amount of time they manage to climb for.
This link to encouraging to success, can be equally linked to negative encourage whether that be through the direct communication of what you belays says to the more subtle language of their body or facial expression. As a belayer it is an import to remember that and remember that in giving someone the time to belay them, attentively, positively and with ethusiasm, should be repaid in kind by the climber. If it is not then consider climbing with someone that does. I have climbed a few times with people who seem to fill me with negativity, I think I only ever climbed with them twice.
An obscure voice that often persuade us to carry on or give up is our inner voice. This chatter of our consciousness is what the boffins call this self-talk, and the research is in its infancy by comparison to other sport psychological interventions, but we won’t hear anymore about this for a couple of months.
Arousal
Arousal is a well researched area in sport, anxiety being one of the biggest obstacle and sometimes boosts to performance, as such research into the optimum aurosal levels for optimal performance in mainstream sports has created a drive to push research to answer some of these questions. Some of this research has used outdoor pursuits and climbing as it is easier to manipulate the anxiety levels, by having people lead or top-rope.
We will seperate our somatic from cognitive arousal and how these can effect our processing efficiency, conscious processing and even how they can cause performance catastrophies. On top of the causes and effects of arousals we will also examine ways to manage our arousal levels through relaxation, visualisation and self talk.
The thing to remember is you are in it for that moment of thrilling panic, as your breathe deepens and you face the only option, commit or fall off.
2008.11.17
For many people getting a good climbing coach is difficult, if you live too far away from the large urban areas and especially London, then a coach rather than an instructor can be hard to find. In order to help address this and keep the cost of coaching down, here at Climbing Coach we are starting to offer individualised online coaching solutions via email, skype and MSM
How does it work?
Well the first session, which is a thorough needs assessment, where we identify you weakness, help you set training goals, and develop a few training activities to address those needs. This takes around one hour and cost £10.
If you’d like to find out more about online coaching then email Mark Reeves via his main webpage.
2008.11.14
Fontainbleau is more than just woods and rock, it is the synergy of experience and culture so close to home that everyone should make the pilgramage to these hallowed stones. So extensive are the boulders and vast the variety there is quite literally bucket loads of climbing for anyone young, old, beginner or wad to scapper over.
Here we take an off the wall look at the lighter side to climbing in France enchanted forest, with a list of essential hints and tips.
Patisseries: For those not fluent in french, a patisserie translates to shop of filth. These emporiums of edible delights are not usually the natural habitat of the emaciated climber, however a trip to font is also a holiday, so leave your psuedo eating disorder at home and dive in at the deep end of the cake counter.
Pain: NO, not pain, Pain, the french for bread and it comes in many sterotypical forms, like french stick, crossiants and pain au chocolait. It is said that in france a man or woman for that matter can live on bread alone.
Cheese: Armed with bread, cheese and a knife you can live in decadence in the forest and eat like kings. Your only dilemma is which or how many you choose to climb with, the delicate rotten cabbage aroma of a ripe Brie, the suculent toe rot fragance of gorgonzola or for the less adventurous the creamy delights of Edam.
Beer: You can never under estimate the isotonic qualities of beer after a hard days bouldering, despite scientific research that would have you believe beer is a bad for hydration, french beer is special and often requires several litres to reach that perfect hydration level. Do be careful with lunchtime drinking, it can often enhance you neck but decrease actual ability, and lead to some off-piste action.
Wine: Well, when in Rome! The birth place of many fine wines, means that france is a fine place to hone your palate, and cheap as chips for a good bottle as well. A lovely bottle of van rouge to wash down dinner is another hidden cog to success in france.
Gite: A self catering palace and resting place to help any climber get over the aches and pains of a work out in the forest. Much better and usually just as cheap as camping. The only down side is it is far easier to lie in for hours and get a font start.
Hire Cars: The first rule of hire cars is there is no rules, that is providing you take out the collision damage waiver. Failing that try and keep any damage to the underside of the vehicle. If its a large group try and hire similar cars, meaning that impromtu races to the crag can help start the adrenaline pumping. Also of note is the fact that they drive on the other side of the road, well worth remembering when you are half asleep on the morning crossiant run.
Circuits: Often an oxymoron, in the fact that the route taken through the boulders is anything from circuluous. Each is colour graded from white to white, with a few more primary colour in between. Arrows point the direction, numbers the sequence of problems throughout the circuit, a dot often signifies a sneaky boulder to start off. Quite often these paint on symbols have faded to nothing meaning that from time to time you will undoubtably be ‘off-piste’.
Patatas: These are the large spanish potatoes that many of the boulder problems top out on. Often they make a gritstone mantel look like a walk in the park.
Crease: One of the quintesential fontainbleau holds, where a fold in the rock, gives something between a crimp and a jug,.
Pof: Something that the french use to cheat there way up boulder problems, very similar to what violinist place on there bows, but smashed up and located in a pof rag, to give friction to smeary footholds that have become glassy with years of having pof dabbed on them.
Descents: Quite often the hardest part of bouldering at Font is the descents off some of the boulders, especialy for those not happy with launching themselves onto a nearby block. It is often adviseable to check the descent before an ascent, or at least leaving one of the party on the ground to move the crash mat round to a suitable position. Failure to do so can lead to an embarassing situation of waiting for a passing climber to rescue you.
Spotting: Something of a mystical art in the UK, if you observe the french then you will often see textbook examples of how to stop people landing badly. Being british you will of course need trousers or shorts with pockets, into which you must place both hands, and at least an extra three crash pads so that you can sit down a watch in comfort whilst another climber falls off onto the sand. You wouldn’t want to touch another body, we are english after all.
The Font Grading system: Something of a mystery for those not fluent in french, whose alpha-numerical system seems to be different from any other country, where 6a can be harder than 7a, and anything graded below 5 is really just a random number picked out of the air by the author to fill in the spreadsheet of the circuit.
Jumps: Quite often circuits and descents off boulders require short or not so short leaps of faith onto other boulder. This will be disconcerting for the unintiated, however the easiest circuits often include more a step of faith rather than a leap.
Font Start: Often this is believed to be a jumping start from a standing position, it is more often related to the lie in due to the comfort of the Gite and the amount of rehydration that took place the night before.
Climb On: A miracle product for men to come across, although women often choose E45 cream, aloe vera or other Nivea or Ulay hand care products. Whatever your choice these are essential due to the font finger syndrom. Quite often you will see many retrosexual male climbers fighting over a tub of hand cream like women fight over chocolait.
Font Finger Syndrome: This is caused by an allergic reaction between the rock and the fingers. Often accellerate by the unwitting running about like a fat lad in a sweet shop with a fiver. This over climbing on early days can lead to an inability to climb on subsequent days after all the skin on your pads has eaten away by fonticus maximus slopemous. Careful pacing and the use of hand care products is essential.
Chocolait: A famous french film about the evil woman that opens a shop similar to a patisserie but far filthier, and an essential ingredient to any day out in the forest. You will need half a large bar per male, and two bars for every female.
Fonticus maximus slopemous: Similar to patatas but does not include a desperate mantel shelf, instead it is a fight for friction, and skin.
Pacing: Often associated with the amount of isotonic larger or wine consumed throughout your stay in the area, this term is sometimes used as an excuse for when you can’t do a problem with the phrase,’Well, I would have done it eventually, but I have to pace myself’.
Ibuprofen: Another miracle cure for the aches and pains that a workout in fontainbleau will generate. Many climbers load themselves up in the the morning to help combat any off-piste action the night before.
Crash Pad: Also know as the forest sofa, these handy sitting and sunbathing platform are a must for any climber, who hasn’t paced themselves correctly.
Font 7 & 8’s: Whilst at first a guidebook conceived to take honed climbers to the serious end of the font grading system, it is now more commonly seen in the hands of female climbers and dubbed the guide to the best backs in the forest.
off-piste: A common situation in Fontainbleau, as poorly marked circuits and geographical embarrassment result in a Ray Mear’s survival experience to relocate your bags and lunch. It translates to Off Road, which is something only to be done in hire cars.
Bloc: French for Block.
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