Energie Conference Review

Today I was lecturing at an interesting conference on physical activity and health in Glasgow – it was quite a day! The conference was aimed at professionals mostly involved in promoting physical activity, sport and exercise in one form or another. Below are some quick hits from the speakers that I found quite interesting as someone heavily involved in a ‘niche’ sport and having spent 6 years studying sport science. After I finished my masters in 2004 I actually thought about doing a PhD in this area – it’s one of the few areas in sport science with any support for post grad research. But in the end I decided I’d had enough study for the time being and fancied climbing E11 instead. Hopefully I’ll go back and do it sometime…

It was most amusing to see full on research lectures with screens of data as you would expect at a science conference, interspersed with audience participation sessions of the latest in step aerobics! 150 people jumping up and down in their civvies to banging techno in a conference room at 2pm is and strange sight. My talk was last and ended up being about E9 for fear factor as the tech guy messed up and crashed the AV system, so my nice slides of climbing and clips from E11 disappeared and I had to ad-lib my lecture with no slides. Scary. Everyone still clapped at the end, so I guess I got through it. But it’s not something I want to repeat in a hurry. As I was saying to the audience about risk sports – bold climbers don’t like surprises and like to know in great detail the tasks they face in advance.

The main part of my talk was to try and relate why I turned from an inactive kid who despised school sports to a pro athlete. I told them that I was fairly low confidence as a kid because I’m not a very outgoing and extrovert person, so the competitive and win/lose situations of sport (amplified by the cut throat world of pecking orders among kids) was always a negative experience for me. I felt that a lot of other kids also weren’t ready for this sink or swim world and therefore turned away from sport. When I discovered climbing, it washed all that away because it could be whatever I wanted it to be – individual, team, competitive or not, explorative or light-hearted. So I could move from a gentle break in to maximum commitment as and when I was ready. I told them that I climbed a world class route on the same crag I started climbing on as a timid kid – how cool is that – normally elite level sport takes you far away from the experience of the first steps, not necessarily so in climbing. I also told them I thought they should borrow some ideas from the world of business and internet to help appeal to a broader range of youngsters. Web 2.0 is a remarkable real time worldwide study in behavioural techniques and engaging user attention and motivation. I am certain there is stuff to be learned from that. I also think sport/health promoters need to look at the Long Tail idea that is buzzing in the business world and recognize the power of it’s ideas in reaching diverse groups with their own codes and vales such as teenagers.

Anyhow, here is a quick zap through the field of exercise promotion as it stands right now:

Matthew Lowther, who is the Scottish exec. policy coordinator on physical activity showed us data that suggested that the Scots have one of the best designed strategic plans in the world (!) for motivating and facilitating the public to get off the couch and exercise to stay alive. I guess that shows just how deep the problem of an inactive society runs in Scotland. Depressing really. I liked his slide showing what things should be like with pictures of parks with a sign “MORE BALL GAMES” instead of “no ball games”. When he was talking about creating new environments for sport to take place I couldn’t help but feel a touch of frustration that not enough folks, especially kids know about the great massive (and free) playground out there called the Highlands – plus all the places closer to home like the Dumbarton’s and the Auchinstarrys.

Dalia Malkova was talking in her nice Russian accent about sports nutrition myths, especially good practice in carbohydrate loading for endurance sport. It’s quite a complicated picture but the main things were again reinforcing the importance of rapid munching of high GI carbs after you train (must be inside 2 hours post workout for hormonal reasons). Eating high GI carbs before training can help give you a higher glycogen load going into the exercise, but it seems to subsequently drop off more rapidly during the exercise compared to eating low GI. I’m going to write up something in detail about carbs for climbers soon.

“Motivator to the Hollywood stars” Ali Campbell gave a good talk, which was typically a little high on cheese content as much motivational content can be. But it was still very good. He classified people’s deeper life motivation as either “moving away from pain” or “moving towards pleasure”, the latter being the better but more difficult strategy to adopt. I recognised what he said in climbers I’ve seen and coached and suggest that there are climbers who are in the sport to move towards pleasure but their regular regime of climbing activity and thought is centred around moving away from pain. I’ve thought a lot about this lately for my climbing coaching and feel I am learning a lot right now – with much more to discover yet I think.

John MacLean the medical director at the Hampden sports medicine centre (THE place to go in Scotland if you have a sports injury needing treatment) gave an excellent run through of sports medicine today. His ‘gore’ slides of breaking legs, arms etc were awesome and after the talk I asked him about the rationale behind using ice on acute sports injuries to reduce inflammation and pain. My question arises because the body has evolved for many an age to fine tune its inflammatory response – so why should we start interfering with it? I asked the same question to my sports med lecturer back at uni and got a fudgy answer. This time, John clarified rather better. It turns out there are still two camps of opinion, one feeling that the natural course of the body’s response should be left to run its course, and the other feeling that part of that evolved response is to prevent the injured athlete weight bearing/using too early and causing more damage. Anti inflammatory treatment of acute injuries combined with careful re-introduction of appropriate rehab is essentially ‘more intelligent’ and prevents the rapid loss of muscle tissue that goes with immobilisation of an injured limb.

The afternoon sessions saw several experts on obesity putting their cases for the best ways to get children off play stations and away from a path to being round adults. Lyndel Costain shone a cold scientific beam on the popular ‘celeb’ diets and reflected what we all knew deep down anyway; they only work where they tip the energy balance negatively. The sad fact is that most people (2 thirds I think she said) who lose weight fail to keep it off in the long term. So the emerging picture is that the only way to cure the worldwide obesity epidemic is to prevent people from getting obese in the first place. A big ask. But at least we know where to direct our efforts.

Climber interview - Adrian Berry

Next up in OCC's series of interviews is Adrian Berry, one of the better known british trad climbers and one of our most experienced coaches. In his climbing career Adrian has climbed E10, redpointed 8b+ and been a member of the British competition climbing team. He's begun to coach climbing more and more and I was interested to find out what patterns he's noticed in climbing over recent years and how he's responded to these with his climbing and his coaching.

Adrian Berry (Photo: Duncan Skelton)

OCC: How do you think fashions in the climbing scene affect how climbers at large train/prepare for their routes?

Adrian: To be honest Dave, I think fashions in climbing affect a very, very small number of climbers, generally operating at the higher grades. If you look at, say, deep-water soloing for example, it seems to have exploded in popularity, but in fact there are maybe a couple of hundred climbers at most doing it regularly, there are probably more aid climbers. I would say that considerably less than one percent of climbers actually train, a lot go to the wall, but it’s used as an extension of climbing outside and a bit of a social, more than a training facility. I think this is largely down to the improvement of climbing walls, they are just a lot more fun now.

OCC: What changes have you noticed in climbers over the last decade – are they stronger? fitter? mentally tougher? Moving better? How do you think climbing walls are influencing standards and fashions?

Adrian: I don’t think much as come along in the last ten years, to be honest. Ten year’s ago, the hardest route in the UK was Neil Carson’s The Big Bang (9a), at the time there were maybe a couple of other people capable of that grade in the UK – and the same is true now. There is a larger pool of climbers operating just below the ‘cutting edge’ than there was ten years ago, but I would say the average climber climbed about HVS back then, and still climbs HVS. You only have to go to any busy crag in the country, sit and watch, and you’ll see few climbers even taking on HVSs. I thin that this is simply down to a booming economy, people are earning far more than they were, with bloody big mortgages to pay off. The idea of quitting your job to go climbing just isn’t happening any more. Here in Sheffield there used to be a large climbing population on the dole, just training and climbing, arguably, the boom in standards was the result of the bust of the economy and vice versa, it’s no surprise that the country’s producing the most super-climbers are economically the least developed.

In a word, ‘it’s the economy, stupid’.

One more thing that has had a major change, has been the failure of the club system to educate climbers. Today, climbers learn the basics of safety, then they’re on their own. There’s no apprenticeship, you can belay OK? Right then, you’re a climber. This all began with the clubs stopping taking out beginners because of the fear of litigations. The rot started there. For the last five years, I’ve been working to try to reverse that by raising the profile of climbing coaching, which sorely needed to fill the knowledge gap. Fortunately, that’s one thing a booming economy is helping, economic restructuring has merely commoditised the advice that use to be ‘free’, still, it keep us in work, eh?

Photo: Duncan Skelton

OCC: When you coach climbing, what pieces of advice do you find reminding people again and again that surprises you?

Adrian: Boy, that’s a big one, here are some that spring to mind:

- Footwear choice – technical climbing requires technical shoes – you’ve got to have the right shoes, and yes, they will hurt for a bit.

- Rear wheel drive – thinking in terms of following a line of foot holds rather than hand-holds – getting stuck is 95% due to looking for hand holds as opposed to using obvious foot holds.

- Reversing – time and again, I watch climbers climb into the most strenuous position on the route, stay they as long as they can, they call to be taken onto the rope. Reversing – even to the ground isn’t going to get you a ticket from the ethics police – it’s just good sense!

- Following from the last point – I find many Brits obsess over ethics, and what they CAN’T DO, rather than what they CAN. Be positive!

OCC: In getting better at climbing, really attacking your weaknesses, dislikes and bad habits is inevitably the sticking point for climbers improvement. Which weaknesses have you overcome to get to the standard you’re at just now, and which have you still to overcome?

Adrian: I would say my biggest weakness is definitely my head. I like to be in control, and you can’t be all the time. I absolutely HATE falling off, and can go for years without taking a fall, which is really sad! I’ve been dropped, and smashed into the wall a few times, which hasn’t helped me. I have found that on a recent trip through France and Spain, by getting on harder routes onsight (I was working up to onsighting 8a) I found my head got really sorted, just because the climbing felt so hard I didn’t have time to get anxious. I also make sure I do a few practice falls early on a trip now, just to get my head in gear. I don’t think I will ever like falling off, but I’m not afraid to confront it and it gets easier. I have found that explaining dynamic belaying to my partner helps a lot. My other, big weakness is exposure – it really affects me, I have to admit that my tactic here is to avoid it!

OCC: What importance do you place on doing a high volume of easier ‘milage’ climbing (indoors or out) for the purpose of sharpening movement technique? Do you see it as being commonly neglected, or the opposite - overrated?

Adrian: I swear by it – 70% of my climbing is soloing VS – E1 on grit, I can go out and do thirty routes in a couple of hours – I absolutely love it and by the end of the day you move without thought, which has to be the end goal. You can’t really work technique on hard climbs, at least I can’t. It is also great for developing capilliarity (blood supply to your forearms), which makes recovery much faster.

OCC: Many climbers who are not interested in bouldering as an end in itself in climbing, don’t practice it in their training either. Do you agree with this and do you think these people should make the effort to do more? If so, why?

Adrian: There is this idea at the moment that bouldering is a new thing – rubbish, you only have to look at the new BMC grit guide (Burbage and Beyond) to read quotes about bouldering from the early 1900s! The difference bouldering makes to your climbing is stark – when I have a new client, I can tell almost immediately whether they boulder or not. Moving beyond HVS without bouldering is going to be really tough, not just because it’s really hard to develop the strength, and technical range to tackle the moves, but because bouldering teaches you how to TRY. Bouldering is about repeated failure, and getting use to it. It’s about slapping for holds in an all-but-hopeless situation with the hope that just maybe you’ll make it. Applying that to routes will immediately gain you a leap of several grades. I love bouldering – but bouldering with a small ‘b’. I’m not a big fan of Bouldering (capital B) with its sitting starts, and daft rules – but then I’m not very good at it!

OCC: What elements of training do you think have held you back from climbing even harder than your current level?

Adrian: When I was training a lot, back when I was on the British team, there was really no advice as to how to do it. I got into this rut of climbing laps on routes in the mid 7s, then flying out somewhere to compete on routes in the mid 8s – naturally, I didn’t manage too well. After I quit international competitions, I had a big rethink on training, and did my own thing, which involved circuit training, with lots of one handed dead hangs in stress positions – some clips – and at a much higher intensity. This made a massive difference. If I’d know this back then, I would have been getting into the semi finals – though I think I would have had to have been doing since the age of six to have won!

OCC: Is there anything that you know now as an experienced coach that you wish you’d known as a novice climber?

- Being afraid of falling is the single greatest limitation to your climbing.

- Take advice with sceptical mind – mind included.

- Beware of the BS – and never let a tale of woe stop you trying a route – routes are never as bad as climbers who’ve failed on them make them sound.
- Treat your partners better than you would treat any of your kit – they are far more important.

Thanks Adrian! I really like the idea of 'rear wheel drive' - thats something you can tell yourself in the heat of battle when you are about to come off. Adrian has been working on a book about improving at sport climbing which will be out in a couple of months. Click on the cover below to check out Adrian's coaching site.

Climber interview - Neil Gresham

Have a conversation about coaching and training for climbing and the name Neil Gresham is likely to come up pretty fast. Neil is undoubtedly the guru of training for climbing in the UK and has been for years. As well as being the most experienced hands on coach in the country, he has recently packaged much of techniques and tactics he coaches into two DVD's Which are basically a bible for how to move on rock and get to the top of tricky routes. Neil gets down to the nitty gritty of training every month in Climber magazine, so in my interview I tried to ask him some more overarching questions about his experience and general approaches for doing well at climbing.

Photo: Adrian Croome

OCC: Neil you're probably the most experienced climbing coach in the UK, and since climbing is still a young sport in its stage of development, you've had the opportunity to influence many of the trends in training for climbing. Can you pick out one or two key messages that you've tried to get across to climbers over the years that stands out as most significant and/or innovative?

Neil: I guess the most obvious one is that it’s hard to persuade climbers to plan, but if you can convince them to use the principles of periodisation as a guideline for their training then they’re going to climb so much better and be less likely to get injured. The other big one regarding technique is that you have to focus on style and looking good (yes, I know it goes against the grain!) rather than getting to the top at all costs. People find it hard to be mentally aggressive and physically relaxed at the same time, but that is exactly the state you are aiming for.

OCC: The first climbing magazine I ever bought has an article on redpoint tactics written by you, and I still refer to it occasionally now. Is there any piece of advice or writing from your early days that still keeps you on the right track today?

Neil: Yes, for sure, a classic example is the difficulty of getting both strong and fit at the same time seeing as they require such contrasting approaches. I once wrote a piece for OTE in the early 90s which described the requirements of stamina training as being quantity based and the requirements of power training as being quality based. Bouldering work-outs should be short, intense and with good rests in between, whereas stamina sessions should be long slow-burners with as little rest as you can get away with. If you want to develop both at the same time then you need to prioritise one for a while and then switch to prioritizing the other rather than going hammer and tongs with both. There are so many little rules that help out when it comes to coordinating strength training with endurance. For example, if you’re training 2 days on then it’s nearly always best to train strength on the first day, and so on. Another good general principle is that the best time to back off with your training is when things are going well, and this is of course the time when you are least likely to want to. That one has probably saved me from injury countless times.

OCC: I think it's fair to say your notoriety as a climber really took off when you moved beyond the hard sport climbing scene, started doing routes like Indian Face and generally became a super all-rounder. Do you think your attitudes to training and preparation helped you do this, or was it just your sport climbing fitness?

Neil: It was both. Sport climbing gives you a huge buffer for trad in terms of strength, endurance and technical ability. It’s clearly more of a chance game if you turn up at the base of an E9 knowing that F7c+/8a is your limit. It’s only the total headpointing gurus like Nick Dixon who can pull this off. But then it’s people like Dixon, Dawes and Grieve who are the masters of the preparation side and who taught me so much. None of these guys are really strong climbers but they developed a whole new way of looking at bold climbing. Parallels were drawn with the Samurai warriors who had to practice highly complex routines, knowing that the penalty for a mistake would be serious injury or death. Many of the tactics that have been coined both for preparation and for coping with mid-ascent catastrophes are pretty zen-like in nature. It’s a vast subject but the essence of it is to focus so hard on the delivery of spontaneous action that there is no space left in your brain for disrupting thoughts or emotions. There are a few lucky climbers who can turn this on straight away with minimal experience to draw on, but for me it took years to nurture. I was very timid when I started climbing.

OCC: It’s always seemed to me that 'natural talent' in sport can sometimes bring problems as well as benefits. Many climbers who have the most prolific careers have had rather ordinary abilities to start with that have catalysed a determination and work ethic that goes on to surpass the natural talents (who get too used to success without effort). Do you agree with this? If so, do you try to develop determination in your coaching and in your own climbing?

Neil: I couldn’t possible agree with this any more. So often the most talented climbers, especially the young ones are total slackers. In short, they don’t appreciate what they’ve got because they haven’t worked for it. There is nothing like being fundamentally un-talented to make you realize that you have to capitalize on the fleeting moments when you feel that you might be in with a chance. This ethos has defined my entire climbing career. It means that your finishing game becomes your strongest weapon. Can it be coached? Indeed it can! Let’s move away from nonchalant teenagers and look at keen but less-experienced adults – many just don’t know hard you have to try. It was Sean Miles who once told me that one of the big things that goes wrong with his climbing after a break is that he forgets how much effort you need to put in. This statement holds true both in the present sense (mid-climb) and also with your overall approach to training. Look at Rich Simpson and Chris Cubitt – these guys have sweated blood for it. The right attitude can be nurtured with anything from the use of key words as metaphors to tougher goal setting. There are all sorts of devices.

Photo: Adrian Croome

OCC: One issue that is often on the training climber's mind is body shape and how to best manipulate it. What have you learned about this in your experience? Do you think it is best to work with the frame you've got or become either a Dave Graham or a Malcolm Smith?

Neil: I think the answer is hidden in the question by the fact that you picked both those two climbers. They are both at the very top level and yet they have very different frames. It’s elementary stuff: to climb well you need a good power-to-weight ratio. Graham gets there on weight (or lack of it) and Smith gets there on power (or surplus of it). If you’re both heavy and weak then you’re not going to do very well. When Malc did Hubble he was both strong and ridiculously light but it was unsustainable and the combination of the dieting and the training nearly broke him. So long term he has settled to be strong, a little heavier and a lot happier! If you’re naturally a stockier build then you simply have to ask yourself how much you want it and how far you’re prepared to go. It’s easier for lighter framed people as they don’t have to think about all this! That said, a little extra muscle is a good thing for bouldering but for routes it only serves to weigh you down.

OCC: Can you describe roughly what elements you think would be involved training wise, if a climber set a goal of onsighting E9?

Neil: Are you asking for a bit of coaching advice here Dave?! After all, you’re one of few in the UK who’s in with a chance. Firstly I think this is a young man’s game. Leo Houlding was a contender when he was full of precociousness but he got older and worst still he became famous. I think it’s pretty important to still feel that you have something to prove, preferably just to yourself. James McCaffe was (and still is) another candidate. He has a very genuine love of climbing that isn’t media-driven and a high level of talent, but he got that big scare when he went off-line on Masters Wall and I think that really brought it home. It only takes one near miss to make you realize that the confidence building game we play is partly based on delusion. There are a few young lads who I’d like to mention here but to do so would be putting them at risk. If the media start rallying round with something as sensitive as this then the motives become cloudy and it gets even dicier. Back to the question – you need to be climbing outdoors a ridiculous amount and hence would probably have to give up any full time employment for up to 6 months. Here’s what I’d do if I was remotely in with a chance. Go to Europe in the winter and not come back until I’d onsighted 6 or 7 8as and 2 or 3 8a+s. Stop in Font on the way back to get my strength and technique back up and make sure I could flash Font 7cs and do 8as easily in a day. Do loads of onsighting all-round the UK in the spring, starting first with the safe, strenuous ones and then progressively moving on to bolder ones. I’d make sure I’d done a grade pyramid of 1 or 2 ground-up E8s, 6 or 7 E7s and well over a dozen E6s. All these routes would be in a full variety of styles, but then I’d pick my E9 and start focusing purely on that style. Then I’d start mental prep for the 9 and maybe do a few up-&-down style recces on the route. You know the rest. All yours, Dave!

OCC: As you know all too well, trad climbing in the top end E grades is a genuinely dangerous business. How do you decide you are ready to go for a lead you know will be at your limit with real consequences if you make a wrong judgment? What do you think it takes to walk away from a route when doubt creeps in just before you are about to lead it? Harder still, how do you coach these skills?!

Neil: My doctrine here is that there are two voices – the one in your head and the one in your guts, let’s call that one your sixth sense. If you ever let your rational mind over-ride the ‘sixth sense’ then you’re playing a dead man’s game! This may sound wooly and superstitious but if you don’t know what I’m talking about then you simply need to go out and do more trad climbing. Backing off teaches you the parameters and when the sixth sense says ‘go’ then you’ll trust it. But if you haven’t nurtured that inner voice tenderly over time then you have no referral device for your decisions. It’s like a final check: brain says ‘yes’, sixth sense says ‘yes’… ‘off we go then’. On the day I fell off Meshuga, everything was perfect on paper, conditions, skin, preparation, the lot. But something irrational inside me said ‘don’t do it’ and I chose not to listen. Never let your the to get it over with get the better of you. Be quiet, cut through the butterflies and the eternal chattering of your mind and listen to what your inner consciousness is really saying. And if it’s really saying ‘no’ then don’t go - an amber light is the same as a red one! You’ll know when the time is right.

OCC: Who in climbing have you seen or coached over the past few years that has really impressed you? What can we learn from their approach?

Neil: Natalie Berry has really impressed me and I wish I was able to do more work with her. There are climbers three times her age who’ve been climbing three times as long who haven’t worked out half of what she’d sussed by the age of ten. She has a rare grasp of the movement, her tactics are impeccable, she knows how to train and how to learn from her mistakes. To be honest, so many climbers impress me – Ben Moon for being so relentlessly good, Rich Simpson and Steve Mac for taking over where Ben left off so many years ago with sport climbing, Paul Craven for constantly re-inventing his climbing by switching styles, Charlie Woodburn and Matt Birch for over-coming debilitating illnesses and cranking to ever higher levels, you (Dave Mac) for being out there on your own and pushing both headpoint and Scottish winter standards, Oh and Ryan Pascall as a young climber who seems to know what to do with his talent. And also at a much more modest level, there are a few people who I’ve coached - there’s a chap called Paul Bate who’s in his late 40s, with a family and a who holds down a very demanding and high-flying position in the world of finance. On our first session he said to me ‘Now then Gresham, I don’t want any creepy bullshit from you – I pay you to tell me what I’m doing wrong, not what I’m doing right, so don’t spare me any punches!’ I slated him and he went from falling off 6a’s to onsighting 6b+ and redpointing 7a in 6 months.

OCC: I sometimes get the impression that climbing walls have generated a lot of impressively strong climbers, who try but don't succeed in matching this ability outdoors, especially on routes. For example, I was recently talking to a climber who's goal was to do Font 8a and French 8a, feeling that French 8a was the harder goal! What can climbers do to overcome this?

Neil: That sounds like crossed wires to me! Can it be true? I take your point that wall strength is easier to ‘convert’ than endurance because the head side of lead climbing usually sabotages things. However, the tactical side of both bouldering and sport climbing is pretty much the same outdoors as it is indoors. Converting the technique patterns of indoor climbing to rock is simply a matter of putting the time in. So what else can climbers do to overcome disparities? This depends on whether they mainly climb indoors due to time constraints, or whether they are cowering indoors because they are scared of the crag. The former climber will be super psyched when eventually they do get to the crag; however, they should still channel this motivation into skills acquisition rather than the short term desire to tick high grades. To the climber who is more timid, they need to ask themselves if they are genuinely scared of the crag or if it is more to do with their ego. If it’s a pride thing, then it comes back to ‘having a word with yourself’ (as Tim Emmett would say) and dropping the grade and going for mileage. Remember that the indoor and outdoor climbing grades will only equate for people who’ve put roughly equal amounts of time into both disciplines. Only push your comfort zone once you’ve established a base - this is surely the first thing any climber is taught. Regarding the specifics of crag skills – that’s too long to answer here. Sales pitch aside, have a look at my Masterclass DVD part 2!
(OCC: No really! No crossed wires! The psychological issue you brought up of being timid and feeling out of the comfort zone was what I was trying to get at with this question and example. I think that a lot of climbers aren’t sure how to go about training it)

OCC: The last one is a philosophical one: What is the benefit of getting good at climbing? Is it more enjoyable at E5 than HVS?

Neil: For me personally, I’d say that E5 is more enjoyable than V Diff or Severe but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily more enjoyable than HVS. That depends on the quality of the route and a great HVS is surely better than a shit E5? I always used to look at Extreme Rock when I climbed in the lower grades and long to be pulling off proper moves on sheer faces rather than shuffling around on polished or vegetated ledges. For me there needs to be an element of exposure and technical intrigue and I can still find that on HVS. What you get from it seems to vary all the time – sometimes it’s the thirst for new experience in the form of increased mental or physical pressure that drives my climbing. But other times, if I can search out a climb that genuinely has something new and different to offer, then I don’t need to be pushing myself in order to obtain some value from the experience.

Thanks Neil! Neil’s masterclass DVD’s are a superb reference for just about all aspects of movement techniques and tactics for sport and trad climbing. A full review of these coming up soon. Check out Neil’s new site which has some great articles on training and tactics from climbers you’ll have heard of.

Climber interview - Lucy Creamer

Photo: Tim Glasby

I’ve been lining up a series of interviews with top climbers, coaches and sport scientists and trying to ask them the questions that need asking to get right up to date with the best knowledge out there for improving at climbing. The first of this series is with Lucy Creamer. Lucy is the UK’s best female all-rounder; 6 times British indoor leading champ, onsighted trad E7 and sport 8a, redpointed 8b and M9 and climbed up to E5 on alpine big walls. You can find out more about her on her climbing interviews. We can find out a lot about improving from all-rounders because to do as well as Lucy has, you have to be able to make all the ingredients of performance; physical, mental, and tactical work for you. You need to really know your strengths and use them to transfer ability across different disciplines, while working efficiently on your weaknesses. In my interview I tried to get to the bottom of what Lucy’s transferable skills are, how she uses them, and how she makes up for weaker areas. I also tried to find out if there were any advantages or otherwise Lucy has experienced as a female climber and how she dealt with these.

OCC: You have onsighted on trad up to E7, which is still pretty much cutting edge in world trad onsighting. I think this is pretty remarkable since this is a lot nearer your physical limit than many of the men who have onsighted this grade. I know that a type of egotistical self-confidence can be used as a mindset to do bold climbing near your limit, whereas some people have a more confident but humble mental approach. What mental techniques or strategies have you used to commit yourself to bold routes? Do you think any particular style is effective or useful for female climbers in particular?

Lucy: One of my strengths in climbing is being able to push myself at my physical limit. It has always baffled me when I compare myself to others (in terms of pure physicality) as to why I can achieve harder onsight grades but as I said I think it has a lot to do with my mental attitude. When I get into physical extremis, I have the ability to override what is going on and push myself upwards rather than panicking and trying to retreat and or fall off. I generally only ever fall because I can actually physically no longer hold on.
I think climbing bold routes requires an inner self-confidence in your abilities and making tactical choices. i.e. I will never go on a route if I am feeling physically under par. For me one of the keys to climbing hard trad has been to do a lot of hard sport and therefore you know in the back of your mind you have the fitness to recover if you get in a pickle and get pumped and also you have the strength to pull off hard cruxes.

Photo: Tim Glasby

OCC: I’ve read and heard several stories of female climbers not being taken seriously or encouraged in climbing, especially in the UK. Do you think there is any truth in that and if so do you think it has an effect on women’s performances, either directly or subconsciously?

Lucy: This is a tough one. I don’t think it is that women are actively discouraged in climbing, I think it has more to do with British society and attitudes towards women and how we are brought up and what expectations are put on us.
Women are generally ‘looked after’ more by society, in a physical sense. i.e. if there is a group situation and there are some heavy loads to carry, it will always be the guys who are asked to do this job- the unspoken assumption is that women can’t cope with this type of activity- which is obviously rubbish.
Take this to a mountaineering environment, I can think of two good examples (of course there are many more) of women who have completely held their own; Louise Thomas and Alison Hargreaves. Speaking to people who have been on expeditions with both, these women were able to completely hold their own and generally perform as well as, if not better than the guys carrying loads etc. The pertinence of these two examples is that they are/were small in stature, not big bruisers. It definitely helps to be bigger in this environment but the point is they could still cope.
Sometimes, for the nicest possible reasons, women are not given the choice to do big physical jobs and I think this reinforces in their minds that they can’t. When in fact if they were a bit pushier, they would find they could. Maybe not at first, guys aren’t always good at things at first but with practice and time it would come.

OCC: You are really a big step above the level of other female all-rounders in the UK. What do you think are the main reasons why you’ve been able to dominate female all-round climbing in the UK for so long?

Lucy: Again, many reasons. One might be that over the years I have had many different climbing partners and have never had one person who has tried to look after me; I have always been independent and had to look after myself.
Right from the beginning, I wanted to do everything myself. I never wanted help on routes, I always wanted to find ‘my’ way of climbing it, even when I was seconding VS’s etc.
Also I have a strong inner confidence that has enabled me not to limit myself. So when I was only climbing E3, I didn’t sit back and think ‘oh well, that’s it’, I looked at others around me (generally always men) and thought well if they can do it why can’t I? So I would apply myself and work towards that next level.
I think women are not expected to be pushy or confident and therefore aren’t a lot of the time, it’s all about breaking ingrained attitudes and learnt behaviour patterns.


OCC: Steep bouldering and basic strength training are pretty essential for getting to high levels in climbing these days. This type of training tends to be popular with guys but not so much with female climbers - Do you think that’s true? Do you enjoy training for strength? If so, do you think you have a different mindset from many women climbers? Or do you not enjoy it but have just found a way to motivate yourself to do it!?

Lucy: Yes I do quite enjoy it. I used to do weights even before I started climbing, not full on hard-core pumping iron but just general stuff and it’s something I’ve always used. I’ve always been naturally quite strong, I could always do pull ups etc but I do have major strength weaknesses too and I think if you want to improve you have to work out what your weaknesses are and address them.

Photo: Niall Grimes

OCC: I know you emphasise the benefit of doing a huge volume of routes in your progression. What additional training do you do on a regular basis such as weights, campusing, fingerboarding etc?

Lucy: As I said, I do weights regularly. I’ve never really got into campusing etc. Partly because I think I would break/injure myself if I went for it, partly because it’s hard-core and more so because I find I can make improvements doing other things I enjoy more. I’m sure if I had done more of this, maybe I would’ve improved quicker but I feel my body wouldn’t have coped with it very well (not very strong fingers and not the best strength to weight ratio for this style of training).

OCC: Who have been your role models in climbing and how much have they helped you? Have they been mainly male or female and is that just coincidence? Do you think it’s important for aspiring female climbers to climb and compare themselves to other female climbers, male climbers, both or does it not matter?

Lucy: I’m not sure I’ve consciously had role models, I don’t seem to work like that. I’ve been lucky enough to climb with many very good climbers over the years, like Ian V and Ben B and I’m sure I picked up things along the way but I tend to look at what I’m doing and work out ways to improve. I’ve always chatted to my peers about what they do and how they train etc but at the end of the day you have to find out what works for you through trial and error.
I think comparing yourself can lead you up a blind alley sometimes. It’s good to admire what other people are doing but as I said you’ve got to work out what works for you, we’re all different.

OCC: Female climbers have a disadvantage compared to males in terms of potential for developing strength, what strengths or advantages if any do you think females have that they can use to offset (or eliminate??) the difference?

Lucy: Yes we are at a definite disadvantage here. It’s interesting watching the juniors grow and develop; I’ve had some interesting chats with some of the young lads. You won’t see them for 6 months, the last time you saw them they were puny little weeds and then the next time you see them they are these muscle bound young men who can do 2 finger one arm pull ups on a pocket! They haven’t done anything different, sometimes they haven’t done anything, they’ve just grown muscles. This rarely happens to girls, you don’t wake up with muscles popping out everywhere and pulling one armers.
At this stage, the boys generally overtake the girls quite dramatically, mainly on steep stuff though. The girls just have to play catch up for a while trying to work on their strength deficits. I suppose an obvious difference is that girls really have to use what strength they have in a very economical way, which will generally mean developing a good technique (this is not to say guys don’t have or need good technique). Also, girls tend to work on their flexibility more and this can be a useful tool for ‘bending’ round hard moves. I think if you were a guy with all these attributes, it would be very hard for a girl to be better.

OCC: What do you think you need to do to climb even harder grades than you do now (assuming you want to!), that you aren’t currently doing?

Lucy: I spent the winter trying to improve my bicep and lower ab strength. These have always been two of my weak links. I was also working lock offs and reverse negs. All this combined has definitely made a difference to how I feel on routes. It’s made a difference to my grade but not a huge one. Making big gains at this stage is hard. However, I definitely feel better on routes.
I think I need to carry on with these weaknesses (when I go away on a months climbing trip, by the end of it those gains have pretty much gone, it’s a case of starting from square one again. Just going hard sport climbing does not, for me, work my particular weaknesses.
The other thing I could do, would be to wake up and miraculously have developed some power and be able to do one armers but that isn’t going to happen- oh well!

OCC: What other female climbers have inspired and/or informed you and why?

Lucy: When I first started doing comps, Fliss Butler was the queen of rock. I didn’t really know much about her as I wasn’t a big climbing magazine reader (I think it’s more of a guy thing) but she was an inspiration because she was awesome in the comps and on the rock, a woman after my own heart. And of course Lynn Hill, what can I say that hasn’t already been said. She’s pretty much one of a kind- you don’t get many Lynn Hill’s to the pound,

OCC: Finally, do you have any hard earned pieces of wisdom for female climbers that you wish you’d been told when you started to climb seriously?

Lucy: I can’t think of one nugget. But I suppose things like:
• Try not to let other people tell you what’s best for you, only you know what works for you and your body.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment, even if it feels like one step forward two steps back at times. Get in there and fall off boulder problems and routes, it’s the only way to improve.
• Have the strength of your convictions. If you want to work out your own way to do a move, do that. Find the inner confidence to tell your climbing partner to "shut up and mind their own business" (in the nicest possible way). What works for a 5’10” guy, will generally not work for a 5’2” girl.
• Girls, yes we are short, yes we are weaker. Unfortunately, that’s life, get over it. Try to work with what you’ve got. Get extra strong at locking off etc to gain height. There are ways round these things. But you do need to get stronger, if you want to push into the harder grades. We all know strength isn’t everything but it helps a lot.
• Finally, don’t let anybody tell you can’t do something, that’s solely your decision. Try to break the mould of deferring to men, be your own boss. I hope I don’t sound like a man hater because I’m absolutely not. But they will try to take charge of a situation, show them that you can look after yourself and your climbing needs. This is as much the fault of women as it is men. Be your own person.

Thanks Lucy and well done on your second 8b!