The False Ceiling: Has Your Skill Set Limited Your Training Gains?
Several years ago I came off of a hiatus to rediscover rock climbing, in the form of clipping bolts. After embarrassingly realizing complete failure on an 11a (and an incredibly painful pump that lasted about six hours) it was obvious that I lacked endurance, specifically when the rock was even slightly steeper than vertical. Like any good climber, I got my ass into the gym asap, and ran laps like a madman. Up, down, up, down, up, down again. Soon I was an endurance machine. 5.12 went down without a fight. 12d seemed tough, so I spent a week in the gym working on anaerobic endurance on pockets, and I went back out and did 12d,twice, back to back. My first 5.13 took four tries. I was cruising along, thinking that 5.14 must be just around the corner. But right about the time I hit 13b, I hit something else as well - a false ceiling. I trained harder than ever. No improvement. Still harder. No improvement. Harder again. Burnout.
Why couldn't I get stronger?