If you’ve just started bouldering, the progression through early grades can be quite addictive.
Depending on a variety of factors, you will eventually find yourself facing diminishing returns from your efforts.
There are a few things that you can incorporate or emphasise in your sessions to ensure not only progression in the early grades, but a base that will set you up for ongoing success as you pursue bouldering further.
Vary Your Exposure.
Do Not Specialise!
Bouldering comprises a vast number of movement patterns and open chain skills that are performed slightly differently to fit the demands of a specific problem.
Often, different wall types will lend themselves to certain styles of movement, however it is frequent that techniques and styles are transferred across all manner of problems.
An easy trap to fall into is boxing yourself into a particular style, wall angle, or hold type and shying away from anything that doesn’t “suit” you.
Of course everyone is going to be predisposed to a particular style, whether that is due to strength, morphology, technical proficiency/deficiency, or a mentality such as fear of failure of commitment to a particular style (e.g. slab, dynos, roof).
Allowing yourself to fall into this trap of avoidance and early specialisation will bottleneck you and your bouldering for years.
At some point you may wish to specialise for a particular trip or outdoor style, and that’s perfectly fine. What we’re discussing here is ensuring a varied exposure to all styles in the foundational months to years of your bouldering.
Diversifying your exposure often begins with leaning into things that you would otherwise shy away from.
GET CURIOUS & COLLABORATE!
Bouldering is a very technical sport.
The solving of problems requires making decisions that vary in their subtlety, from which hand do I grab that hold with, to nuanced hip positioning or foot pressure.
A lot of these decisions become intuitive as exposure to repetitive patterns in movement allows for “muscle memory” to take over.
However, there will always be decisions to make and being able to determine the best beta requires constant analysis and reflection.
An underappreciated aspect of technique learning and practice is an analytical environment.
This environment has both internal and external aspects.
Internally, we must practice self-reflecting on performance. Asking ourselves questions about why we fell, and how the next attempt could be adjusted.
To optimise technical growth, foster your curiosity by dedicating your attention to the problem whilst off the wall, between attempts, rather than simply recognising that you fell off.
We should aim to set up our external environment in the same way, surrounding ourselves with like-minded, curious boulderers who are focused on details of the boulders.
Adopt this collaborative culture with your bouldering partners, more brains are better than one.
Attempt to focus your attention on the problem, work on the problem together even when you’re not bouldering.
IMPROVE THE CONSISTENCY & QUALITY OF YOUR SESSIONS WITH STRENGTH TRAINING
The introduction of strength training massively facilitates progression and skill development in bouldering at every level of the sport.
The list of benefits include an enhanced work capacity within a session and across a week, both with regards to intensity and volume.
Improving joint and soft tissue health, mitigating injury risk.
Least not noticeable strength improvements on the wall, and improved confidence.
While strength training alone will not instantly have you sending three grades harder, view strength training as a means to quickly enhance both the quality and quantity of your bouldering practice.
By incorporating strength training, you can tackle more challenging movements with heightened control and consistency.
You can and should start strength training early; the biggest factor in long term bouldering performance is consistency, and strength training will not only facilitate a consistent number of sessions, but the quality of those sessions as well.
