Training Your Mind Is As Important As Training Your Body
Have you ever lost your composure on a route, or lacked the confidence to try really hard on a sequence? Have you ever felt like you had the strength and power to make the next move, but for some reason your body just wouldn’t perform what you were asking of it? This has happened to me hundreds of times, and it is something I am currently working on. This is a failure of you being able to perform mentally. It’s your mind that’s holding you back.
What I know now is completely different from what I “knew” when I started climbing 15 years ago. I used to believe in false truths, such as believing that hangboarding and campus board training were the only ways to improve my climbing game. This is undeniably false. Climbing is a complicated, multifaceted sport where a variety of skills affect your performance. Physical training is but one step to getting stronger. Focusing on your head game is just as important, or in some cases even more important, than training your body.
Paraphrasing one of my favorite lines from Dave MacLeod’s book 9 out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes, trying 4% harder doesn’t make you 4% better. It makes you 90% better — over time, like compound interest. Being able to force yourself to try 4% harder than what you think is your max is an exercise of the brain, not of your muscles. And training your mind gives you the opportunity to unlock your full potential.
My beautiful wife (she didn’t force me to write that) gifted me Mind Gym by Gary Mack and David Casstevens a while back. This book takes a look at pro athletes, and how their mental game was a key asset in their rise to the top. It is great exploration of how much of our physical prowess is in fact dependent upon the strength of our minds.
But how do you even go about training your mind?
Well, the first step is learning to identify your weaknesses. Start small by choosing one or two core issues you are having trouble with. For me, the biggest issue I identified was the ability to try my absolute hardest on tough moves. When it came time to pull the trigger, I would often misfire fail to exert myself to what I knew was my full potential. It wasn’t a matter of strength, endurance, or technique — but rather, of the ability to will my body to do what I knew it was capable of. In order to try harder, I needed to change my way of thinking.
As a second step, you need an action plan to address your weaknesses. What can you do to combat them? I wrote down the most applicable suggestions for me, like thinking of positive outcomes, rationalizing away the fear of failure, and channeling frustration into motivation.
The third step is putting these suggestions into practice. Instead of telling myself “Don’t miss the crimp!”, I would now say to myself, “You got this!” I changed my inner dialogue to focus on positive outcomes rather than negative ones, and lo and behold I started making moves more consistently. If I fell on a hard move, I didn’t blame myself for sucking; I chalked up and got excited about figuring out the sequence. Each fall became an opportunity to challenge myself to do better next time, rather than a failure. I began to view myself with more self worth than I ever had in the past.
The last step is to climb with others who motivate you. I turned my attention to climbers in the gym that I looked up to, the ones that were pushing their limits by constantly trying projects that were difficult for them. I prioritized scheduling my climbing sessions to coincide with times I could climb with them, rather than just climbing on my own or casually with friends. Being surrounded by those who want it, who really really want it, allowed me to want it too. This way when I tried to project a hard climb, I had others to encourage me, share beta with, and to keep me motivated.
Now when I get on a hard climb and I know I have to try hard, I don’t shy away. I give it my all. Regardless if I get the send or not, I can now walk away with no regrets because I know I’m giving it 100%.
Happy Climbing!
Kevin Allen