“What’s the Magic Bullet?”

I get this question all the time.  ALL the time.  Mostly from beginners and climbers who can't seem to break out of the plateau they hit after doing what they always do stopped working.

So how do you improve faster?  There's a simple answer.  You don't.  That is, not unless you make some drastic changes and stop doing what you're doing, which essentially boils down to caring about climbing BETTER.

Just this week I was asked, "How do I climb harder problems?".  My answer (I'm not the most understanding to dumb questions when I'm training) was, "Stop trying to climb hard problems."  After the mix of embarrassment, hurt, and "Wow, this guy is an ass!" faded from his face, I offered one more bit of advice.  "Spend your time in here learning HOW to climb.  Climb the easier problems perfectly.  All of them.  After that, the next level will come easy."

Of course, he went right back to flailing on the first moves of every hard problem in sight.

My advice, of course, was specific to his situation.  If you're a beginner, or if you're even relatively new and have been climbing less than two years or still don't regularly climb V5 or 5.11 (and by regularly I mean that you do it consistently... sending two V4's in the gym this month doesn't constitute consistently), then there really is a simple answer.  You need mileage.  Lots of it.  Learn as many movements as you can.  Stop spending all your time only trying to climb the hard problems in the gym.  But that's an art in itself, so we'll save that for another time.

For those of you who are climbing 5.12 or 5.13, and have been at the same spot for several years, there really is a magic bullet…

WANT MORE? READ THE REST IN: The Hard Truth: Simple Ways to Become a Better Climber