Should Climbers Be Well-Rounded?

How often do I actually need to dyno?

How good at slab do I really need to be?

Why should I spend so much time on steep boulders if all I want to climb is techy routes?

A question that most climbers arrive at eventually (usually the threat of slab climbing initiates it) is how much time should they spend becoming more well rounded vs. improving their strengths.

If someone who has been climbing for several years and already has a decent base of experience and skills only wants to be good at a single style, wouldn’t it make sense to only specialize in that one thing? At face value, the answer seems like an obvious “yes”, but there are a few things to take into account when considering if now is a good time for you to become more well rounded vs. specializing.

There are three big advantages to diversifying your styles.

First, many of these skills we tend to avoid have a broader application to climbing than we realize. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve used crack climbing techniques on boulders and sport climbs. It’s not something I ever thought I needed, but those skills have transferred to my everyday climbing style. 

Slab climbing, hard mantels, and offwidth climbing all teach a level of patience and composure that you can carry with you into almost any climbing situation.

The second advantage to becoming more well rounded is that you reduce the occurrence of “personal cruxes”. People with significant holes in their repertoire often encounter “personal cruxes”, these sections of boulders or routes where seemingly no one else seems to fall except for them.

Dynos are dumb until there’s a v-easy dyno at the end of the route you want to do and you can’t come close to it even though it’s not supposed to be hard. Slabs are stupid until that big steep dream-route you want to do has some 5.11 “victory climbing” to the anchors and you’re too intimidated to even try it. It’s completely normal to find a wide array of styles across any route or boulder you want to try. As long as you don’t have any seriously glaring weaknesses this might not be an issue.

Handjaming as a sport climber seems like an unnecessary skill until the redpoint crux of your project revolves around it

Lastly, as you diversify your climbing style, you might realize that you’re really good at or really enjoy something you’ve never tried before. I used to think my best style was steep overhanging endurance routes. With that being my specialty, it’s also what I enjoyed the most. That changed when I decided to spend a full year focusing on technical sport climbing in the New River Gorge. I thought it would be a brutal year of working my weakness, but it turned out that this style suited me better than steep climbing ever did. I had never given it a chance before, but techy, slightly overhanging to vertical sport climbing quickly became my favorite type of climbing. I still had plenty to learn, but this was the most that I had ever connected with a climbing style. Had I not decided to step out of my initial comfort zone of steep endurance routes I never would have found that out.

If you can become well rounded enough to enjoy the broad array of experiences that climbing offers, and not fail on your projects because of easy to learn skills then you’ll be in a good place. Who knows, with a little time you might even start to enjoy those styles you’ve spent years avoiding.