Self-Assessment & Weaknesses

[octopus]

First, I apologize if this topic has already been well addressed, but I did not find relevant information on perusing through the forum history. After one round of novice RCTM training, I find that I am still not experienced enough to trust myself to assess my own strengths and, more importantly, my weaknesses. In preparing for training for next season, obviously I would cater my training to my seasonal goal route, but I like to also focus on long-term improvement. I would love it if there is a systematic way of identifying my weaknesses, short of hiring a coach.

I think part of the problem may be that there are so many possible things to work on when you break down technique, strength, power, control, flexibility, mental, etc, that it is hard to evaluate the most efficient things to work on for improvement. As I become a more experienced climber, a systematic method may become less valuable. But as a 5.11- climber with only one year of experience, I feel that some way to assess weaknesses and improvements of them, is better than trusting myself to form my training goals. (Sometimes when I compare myself to someone executing the same route, it's hard to even tell if a single move is different because I lack the body awareness to execute the technique or I lack the finger strength to execute the technique, or maybe some other factor altogether.) If anyone has found good methods for self-assessment or want to trash on the whole concept itself, I love to hear thoughts.

[txtse]

I'd say a self assessment also depends on your goals. Are you aiming for bouldering, sport climbing, trad climbing? And within those, are your goals overhanging, cracks, faces, crimpy, pockety, runout, etc?

Since you are relatively inexperienced, you can only climb so much in a year and I am guessing you are not well traveled (as a climber) so there are only so many moves and situations you can encounter in that time. My thoughts are that you are still at the point your training should not be super-focused on one style. Even though you will probably benefit from following a periodized plan as outlined by the anderson brothers (strength, power, PE, performance) you should still emphasize Base Fitness, even throughout your Strength Phase. In power, your emphasis should be on bouldering and movement instead of campusing. And your goals should maybe not be the hardest route you think you can possibly do, but maybe several routes that are still pretty hard for you but you can still tick them quickly and build a foundation of success.

Since you seem to have not found a glaring weakness in your climbing yet, I wouldn't worry about it too much and carry on with the program (if you are interested in it) but emphasize quantity over difficulty.

[daustin]

I don't have a good answer, but I have two kind of crappy answers…

1) Try to climb with a bunch of people who are roughly at the same skill level as you, and pay attention to instances where there's a big delta in your performance vs. theirs. Having a contrast can make it easier to recognize your weaknesses, and climbing with other people can be a good way to make sure you don't subconsciously stick to climbs that play to your strengths

2) If you're thinking more purely about your weaknesses on certain grips in terms of strength, then spend some time searching these forums and compile some data points. There have been lots of posts along the lines of "I climb 5.x and my PR on the wide pinch is +x lbs". If you dig through a bunch of these you might get a fuzzy sense of how you stack up in terms of grip strength relative to other climbers

[MarkAnderson]

The great thing about having many weaknesses is that you can work on any number of things and likely see some good improvement. I like the suggestion above to focus on mileage and skill development for a while, at least until you can identify anything more glaring. As we say in the book, I think it's best to work skill development concurrently with physical training, so I would recommend following the novice Seasonal Training Plan from the book for a few seasons and see how it goes.

[octopus]

Thanks for the replies. I have obviously not plateaued since I am a new climber, but I was looking for any way to improve my next season of training. (Progress to my progress) My strategy was to dial my training so it hits more on weaknesses, which got me to thinking about how to identify them when I lack experience. Like everyone said, I will continue to accrue mileage.

txtse: I enjoy sport routes for their accessibility and emphasis on power. I enjoy overhangs because of the movement and the beauty of the lines.

daustin : My friends that I climb with are better than me at vertical walls. The delta is much smaller when it comes to overhangs. The biggest thing I've identified is I cannot open my hips very much, which leads my butt to weigh me down when frogging on crimps. Other than that, I assume that their foot technique is better than mine. I am trying to address those two, but I have not gotten much progress on opening my hips, I end up turning my hips in even on vertical. Also, since you mentioned deadhang strength, I ended the strength phase at IMR-2pad @ +50, MR-2pad @ +17.5, 4F-1pad @ +20. I would guess that strength is not my limiting factor, but maybe transferring that strength to rock or moving from hold to hold using that strength is.

MarkAnderson : That was and is my plan for next season. I was hoping to fine-tune my training. Perhaps I read too many stories about plateaus. I did, however, recently get on a project, work from bolt-to-bolt, and came away thinking it was not possible to send without more training. Then, I re-read your chapters on Performing and Redpointing and realized that I was wasting my currency on learning beta while "just climbing" and not placed in the position for optimal learning. So thank you for including all the tactics in the book. It's very different from how my friends climb. I am excited to revisit the route, so I can practice the process of a proper redpoint.

[joecoov]

Apr 5, 2016 15:53:34 GMT -7 octopus said:

 After one round of novice RCTM training, I find that I am still not experienced enough to trust myself to assess my own strengths and, more importantly, my weaknesses. In preparing for training for next season, obviously I would cater my training to my seasonal goal route, but I like to also focus on long-term improvement. I would love it if there is a systematic way of identifying my weaknesses, short of hiring a coach.

Hopefully during your year of climbing you have made friends that are strong climbers.  Find one that has great technique and usually doesn't mind helping you out with beta, and ask them for help.  The worst that could happen is they decline.  Its not 100% that they are an expert at seeing weaknesses, but strong climbers can read routes and let you know if "you don't drop knee when you need to" or whatever.  

I also like the other posters suggestion of finding out what you dislike the most.  I disliked slab for my first year because I was always pushing the grade and came into climbing strong.  I hated slab because I couldn't just muscle through.  It was easy for me to identify my weakness once I started getting in to the mid to higher 10's.  Since focusing on footwork, I have had steady progression each year.

Good luck!
-Joe