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!

For young climbers - case study

After three years of learning to boulder, mainly on my own, I got good at being pretty damn tenacious, and learned that the process of climbing stuff was actually the fun bit of climbing rather than the tick.

I've been asking lots of young climbers what they would ask a coach if they had one and all of them asked me what I did when I started! So I'll briefly tell you what aspects of my start in climbing resulted in my best efforts since then.

One of the main blessings I had was to do a lot of bouldering on my own. I got really used to visualising moves in my head rather than just watching a mate try the same problem. Of course, you can learn climbing faster by watching good climbers, but learning to visualise moves in your head, and getting used to putting in a lot of effort into trial and error are very useful skills. Basically I developed a habit of looking at many different ways of doing a move I am struggling with, and being very open minded about the options. My attitude is that there is a way, it's just a matter of finding it. And finding it just means applying your mind more and being more patient and tenacious. It works!

Being able to climb hard on your own comes in very handy later on when you find your partners dry up for a while through circumstances. You have to be able to keep training or find other ways to keep your momentum up. Because I started on my own it just comes naturally to me now.

Training wise, once I started I worked fairly hard, but not hard enough. I used to climb indoors Monday, Wednesday and Friday and then outdoors at weekends. Indoors I'd warm up, do hard bouldering for and hour and a half, then ridiculously intense weights sessions for 2-2.5 hours, then back up to the wall for mileage problems for another hour, then sometimes a 30 min run to finish. I had a big tree in my back garden and I cut lots of holds in the bark. I used to run outside and climb my problems on it every ten minutes, every day! I did that for three winters when I was 16, 17 and 18 and my standard went from Font 6b to 7c. After that I went through a massive phase of getting injured fingers all the time, which I put down to poor diet, poor technique and choosing the wrong routes to try at the wrong time. Poor footwork and body awareness is probably the cause of most pulley injuries, along with poor warm-up or tiredness.

Injury got me into trad climbing and my climbing level took a massive leap because the volume of routes I was doing jumped and my technique got the chance to catch up with my tenacity and finger strength. Losing a stone and a half probably helped too! Those changes took my level to F8b, Font 8a and E8 headpoint/E6 onsight.

The main things that got me beyond that level were just tightening everything up - improving my lifestyle (more sleep and better diet), gradually building up to training 6 days a week, more variety in my climbing, sharpening up all my tactics and especially working diligently on the fingerboard to increase that finger strength foundation.

If I was 16 again I'd do little differently, my tenacity and being able to solve problems for myself and use my head are the foundation for everything else. If I'd had a home board like Malcolm, I reckon I could have got Malcolm type strength if I'd started while that growth hormone was still floating about. I definitely would have slept and eaten better, and got into trad earlier as well; more moves= more engrams =better movement. If I hadn't had those three first winters of pretty gruelling training, I don't think I would have believed I could climb hard grades. The feeling of coming outside again and pulling easily on holds that were impossible 5 months ago was such a revelation. I couldn't get enough of that feeling.

Tactics - Rock-bootcamp

A deep egyptian on Devastation F8c. On this route I needed to wear different shoes on different feet as I needed a specific heel shape for the crux heelhook. (Photo: Pete Murray)

Wearing a good quality and well fitting pair of rockshoes is so basic for rock climbing, I used to think of it as not even worth mentioning. But then I found myself telling about 50% of the climbers I've coached that they need a new pair (& different model). As I was saying in my last posts about the true basic rules of climbing technique - feet are the key. So if you hinder them by wearing boots which don't fit your foot shape, are too big so you can't put weight through your toes, or have lost all their support and are ready for the bin, you are slicing off a big chunk of your potential ability straight away. Usually, climbers using ineffective rockboots will avoid routes with small footholds, or fall of when they come across them. In my coaching sessions when we work with small footholds, the true effect of wearing the wrong shoes comes out instantly. Climbers with relatively poor footwork but good shoes can swap feet or move off small smears/edges, while climbers with good footwork flail. Unnecessary.

And maybe you think it doesn't matter in the short term, you can buy a new pair anytime right? Well it does matter - Having crap shoes you can't trust and rely on works it's way subconsciously into your technique. You start to solve move problems using your hands, because your brain subconsciously isn't trusting your feet. Once this happens, it's extremely difficult to erase. It will pull your standard down massively.

Take time to try on lots of different brands in the shop, get info about how much they stretch (it differs massively between brands). Find a pair that fit your foot shape. Watch out for what models good climbers are wearing, you can bet your life its for a reason. Ask them. And don't make the mistake of thinking something that good climbers do/use is only for good climbers.

Climbing beginners - top 5 technique basics

Much of the advice out there on improving climbing technique is aimed at climbers who have a bit of experience behind them. If you are a true beginner and just been to the wall/crag for the first time you probably were shown the basics of safety and the rules of the game (use only one colour of holds etc) but many will learn their climbing technique intuitively from a mate and won't know what to look for.

It takes a bit of time to get comfy with being at height and moving on rock before the more detailed technical drills will help you improve. Try them in your first few sessions and they sometimes just frustrate and confuse. So here are 5 basic things to repeat in your head on your fist few sessions.

1. Feet are the key:
Your body is built to be supported by your feet. The more weight on your feet at all times, the better. When you struggle on a route, you're arms are giving in and you start to rush, think FEET - they will almost always be the reason you are stuck and the solution to keep you on the rock.

2. Arms straight:
Keep your arms straight as much as you can (i.e most of the time). The basic climbing movement is to keep arms straight, move feet into position to reach the next hold, pull up momentarily to reach next hold, arm straight again to move feet, and so on. This helps you in lots of ways but the most important benefits are reducing the muscular effort from your arms and being able to see what's going on at your feet much better than if your face is pulled hard against the wall.

3. Lots of small foot moves:
Many beginners automatically assume the making more foot moves is bad. Your footwork will become more efficient in time, but it's still normal to make 2-3 foot moves for each hand move in many types of climbing.

4. Quiet feet:
This technique has nothing to do with keeping the noise down in the climbing wall, its just a simple technique for good footwork. Avoiding jumping or scuffing your feet up the wall as you move your feet means you have to get in balance to place them carefully.

5. Make the most of each hold:
In indoor climbing, each hold will have a 'best' spot on the hold which is the part you should use. You need to try and find it (hand and feet!). Beginners tend either to grab and pull without 'feeling' for the best bit first, or, when they get stuck on a move, they feel around for way too long trying to find that magic hidden incut that isn't there. Somewhere in between is best; look and feel the hold to find the best bit, then move on. If you get stuck, concentrate your efforts on feet (see No. 1) and looking for other holds.

When is the climbing 'off season'?

Enjoying the last of May's cold days on a project before the summer sweat comes. Hopefully by the time October comes around I'll be fit from my off season training...

The issue of when to go into 'off season' mode and put immediate climbing objectives aside and focus on training is always on my mind as an all round climber. We are sort of conditioned to think of summer as being the 'climbing' season and winter being the off/training season. But I noticed early on that there is really much more going on in winter.

Yeah the weather is bad, but even though there are fewer days rock climbing outdoors, the other aspects like winter climbing and indoor training all add up to mean I feel way more worn out and stretched than in summer. In summer when sport and bouldering is somewhere between a bit sweaty and unbearably hot, there is really only mountain trad to fill up large chunks of time. So about 4 years ago I switched my labels for the seasons and started doing the bulk of my foundation strength and endurance work right through summer (who needs good conditions when you are just training?).

In autumn I'll start prepping to peak and then in winter I scale down training but end up climbing 5/6 days a week (I'm lucky to live near crags, work from home and have a flexible schedule - this is obviously tricky with a 9-5). So in summer I tend not to be climbing so well as I do lots of basic strength stuff, but it doesn't matter too much since trad is a little easier technically than the equivalent overall sport grade. In winter I get loads of variety by mixing up bouldering, sport, mixed and indoor, sharpening up my technique. And conditions are good (if unpredictable but you can't have it all ways) for nailing hard projects. In summer I earn money and do basic strength training, punctuated by trips to the mountains.

I'll never look back from this set up, it works so well for me. Anyone else out there do the same?

New to climbing? - the basics

First climbing steps in the old Kelvin Hall wall (I miss it!). Note chalk clogged atmosphere!

One of the things I'm finding on my web crawls for good climbing training sites is a lack of god resources for beginners. My memories of getting into climbing were not being too intimidated by all these grades, ethics, rules of the sport and the jargon of training - sets, reps, intervals, Egyptians, etc I just tried to soak it up. But I know others find it off-putting. Starting out in climbing is a bit of a magical time (of course it doesn't have to get any less magical as time goes on!), and I think what you are exposed to when you start out often shapes your likes and skills later on, even if you diversify your climbing.

Strictly speaking, basic climbing safety is outwith the scope of this site, but there is certainly a lot of overlap between basic climbing tactics and skills and performance factors and they must fit together. I've added a link to the New to climbing? section for a series of Planetfear guides for starting out in various types of climbing. I'll be searching for more and writing some myself for taking your first steps in getting better at climbing once you decide you have the 'disease'.

Specific technique - feet are for pulling too!

1- Getting into position: my feet are pushing down through the footholds to support my weight, but also pulling inwards (towards the rock) to allow me to put more downward force through my feet, reducing the force on my fingers. Centre of Gravity (hips) low, arms straight.

2- Initiating the move: throwing my hips in to the wall by pulling in aggressively with my feet (note foot angle, bent legs and arms still straight).





3- exploding off my FEET using my bent legs to generate the momentum to the next hold. (side note: even though I've jumped for the hold I've maintained the tension through my body to limit the swing - note pulling in from the shoulders, forcing torso inwards and already eyeballing the next foothold and aiming for it).

One of my aims with this site is to focus on some of the themes I've seen to be most problematic in climbers I've coached. I'll be adding a steady flow of short tutorials on specific techniques. Please comment if you want me to write something specific that's on your mind or want me to expand on a point. Although these are designed to be applied by novice-intermediate climbers, even the best often don't use nearly the full repertoire of techniques out there. I've seen 8b climbers who don't understand the topic below.

One of the most common footwork issues I come across is that people don't realise that feet are for pulling as well as pushing and that they should be used as much like hands as possible. On overhanging rock, your COG (centre of gravity - note to self: add a training glossary/abbreviations guide to the site!) is pulling you away from the rock, reducing your ability to get weight through the footholds. In climbing getting more weight through your lower body is priority No. 1. So you have to pull (and I mean REALLY pull) inwards even on small footholds so you can get more weight on them. When I coach climbers I see this pulling and pushing at the same time idea is a little confusing at first, but once experienced/understood is always a revelation. The next stage is to find out just how hard you can pull with your feet. Legs are pretty damn strong limbs (compare the volume of your forearm to your thigh) but often people don't really use them because it feels natural to concentrate on pulling with our arms. Next time at the wall, seek out a good climber. Stand and watch them and look out for when they are pulling with their feet. Watch how they hook their big toe over the foothold, pull in and then execute the move. Now copy it.

Perspective - a culture of low standards

It is quite amazing how much we are influenced by the people around us and their habits. It happens in every sphere of life (I could give thousands of examples but a moments thought will surely reveal them). Climbing is no different. Have you ever ended up bouldering with some new people at the wall and found yourself picking up their habits. Niall McNair climbs with a very positive-aggressive technique style. My normal style is fast but careful. After a day out with Niall I find myself naturally climbing more like him. We are incredibly limited by our own inhibitions and habits and they work on us without us even noticing. When doing strength research in a sport science lab it never fails to amaze me the immediate effect on a subject’s muscular output just from screaming “COME ON!” at them. And yes, the effect has been soundly proven. Basically you are saying ‘it’s OK to let your guard down and give it your all’.

The national average standard for climbers in the UK is very low – VS/HVS from what I gather. Ask most climbers and they will tell you they would like to be climbing harder. You can bet a VS climber would be more likely to make it happen if 90% of climbers were at E4. It takes bit of courage to break out of the normal culture – it takes some individual thinking.

Interacting with as many people, places, habits, and resources as possible that have a ‘social norm’ that oozes a high standard of quality, performance, effort, whatever the variable, will work its way into your norms. Yes, believe is or not if you spend all your time climbing with good climbers (good in some respect, not necessarily grade, maybe just effort level) it rubs off on you without you even knowing it. It’s quite a marvellous feeling when it happens! If none of your climbing mates train, will you go and train on your own while they go to the pub? If you live in the Spanish Basque country and EVERYONE climbs 8c including the females these days, will you stick at VS? Of course there is a balance to be struck between your climbing goals compromising the places and people you spend your time with, but most peoples balance has room to shift a little. You only get one life and there are many paths through it, you might as well choose a good one.

We need more data!

Working moves on Rhapsody June 2005. I kept a training diary all summer so I made sure I didn't skip any sessions while still getting lots of days on the route (Photo: Steven Gordon)

Well its good to see interest in this site starting to get going already - wow! In the comments for my last post Lee from Australia gave us a link to his training diaries article. Lee admits to being fanatical about training and I'm guessing very few of us keep training diaries in the long term. So should you? Well, probably yes! I only keep one for a couple of months of the year when I'm not climbing, just training specifically for something. Last year when I was training for Rhapsody I kept one for three months because I had so many training objectives to fit into the training week - fingerboard sessions, endurance circuits, flexibility, running and I was trying to get 4 sessions a week on the route itself. You might say 'well why not just allocate a weekly routine with set tasks on Mon, Tues etc..' Well yes thats fine if you can do that, but most peoples lives aren't so simple. And if you are trying to do your real climbing outdoors then you have to schedule around the weather. So all in all its easy to lose track of your volume and it inevitably slips either side of the optimum.

I tend to keep track of my yearly volume in my head because training comes first in my daily schedulea and I think about it non-stop. But for most thats not the case. If you want to improve year on year you NEED to be sure you are doing more training/climbing load than last year, otherwise your body won't adapt. The Scotland Online article on the links page has more on the overload principle. It's always an eye opener when you write down some detail on how much time you spend training - it always makes you realise just how big the gaps are at certain times of year when life gets in the way. If these gaps were smaller, a lot of people would be climbing a lot harder.

Climbing training web crawl

I've just spent way too long in front of the screen crawling the web for the best online sources of information of training for climbing. So the link list is looking a little better now and has enough for anyone to get started learning about training techniques for climbing. My experience of searching the web for these resources showed me that there are a few excellent resources (such as Eric Horst's sites) but that is set amongst much poor writing and questionable advice. What you see on the links list is probably only 20% of what is out there as much of it doesn't really come up to scientific standard. My aim with this blog is to keep an extremely high standard of information, so links I include are preferably written by authors with a background in contributing to science in the field or top level climbing. So as I build up the links over time it will be a 'one stop' resource of trustworthy and carefully edited links.

I also ran many searches and identified many gaps in written guidance on the web, especially in our specialisms here in the UK; trad and winter climbing. So they will be my priorities over the coming weeks as I add more articles to davemacleod.com articles page. I'll also be doing some much needed interviews with well known coaches and climbers and hopefully learning some of their secrets.

If you know of any good links, or want to comment or request specific links or information, email me (my email is the first link). This is your service - use it to get better at climbing.