How to practice like an expert
Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.
It’s an adage I first learned from my horseback riding instructor when I was about 13 years old. In addition to weekly riding lessons, I also spent 2-3 days per week practicing independently. I’d ride in circles around the arena, practicing some of the drills we’d learned in the previous week’s lesson. As a young athlete, it was tempting to believe that the comfort of repetition is what would eventually improve my skills. Perfect practice makes perfect.* Our instructor would remind us that it wasn’t simply the mileage that mattered: it was the mindset and intention we brought to each session that would ultimately help us level up.
Since then, this phrase has stuck with me. Only by intentionally aiming for perfection can we ever hope to possibly achieve perfection.
Hold on—don’t run away from the word ‘perfection.’ This type of practice is not about perfect outcomes. It’s about the intentional pursuit of our best effort. The need for ‘perfection’ is often correlated with an all-or-nothing mindset: “If I can’t do it perfectly, I’m better off not doing it.” Rather, the type of practice we’re talking about here confronts our imperfection, and asks us to give our best effort in light of it. Practice is a chance for us to identify our weaknesses and lean into making them better.
In Angela Duckworth’s book “Grit,” she speaks with Anders Ericsson, a cognitive psychologist who studies how experts acquire world-class skills. Ericsson refers to this type of ‘perfect practice’ as deliberate practice (which feels a lot more accurate and a lot less intimidating than ‘perfect’). According to Ericsson, becoming an expert doesn’t just involve practicing more, it involves practicing differently.
The basic requirements of deliberate practice are:
A clearly defined stretch goal
Full concentration and effort
Immediate and informative feedback
Repetition with reflection and refinement
If you want to get better at climbing, it’s important to remember that how you practice matters. Looking at this definition of deliberate practice, it’s easy to see how this could fit into, say, a bouldering session. We can clearly define a goal, work towards it with full concentration, receive immediate feedback (if you fall off, your idea didn’t work), and repeat our effort with some refinement (get right back on and try something different).
While the conditions are right in our sport, deliberate practice isn’t a given. Even if we set up the framework, coasting still becomes an option. You can throw yourself at a hard boulder time and time again without meaningfully refining your skills. It’s all too easy to trick yourself into feeling like you’re working towards a goal just because every attempt feels quite hard. Instead, closely analyzing hard problems and setting intentional goals within a sequence can help create a more focused session.
Even climbers who are following a training plan or working with a coach should consciously employ deliberate practice. A workout written for you doesn’t equal into a workout done for you—it’s on you to intentionally bring your best effort to every exercise and drill. While the bounds of your session and overarching goals may be set, it’s important to also consider opportunities for smaller improvements within each session. Can you channel stronger focus during your pull-up set? Can you improve your self-talk on project-level boulders? Mental goals often work well for athletes in a training cycle, since they require a high degree of self-accountability within the bounds of a prescribed workout. Practicing deliberately in a training cycle helps cultivate intrinsic motivation and ensures you’re getting the most out of your plan or coaching.
Experts who acquire new skills are self-driven and sensitive to the minutiae of their practice and performance. Deliberate practice involves holding yourself accountable for your own improvement—it’s important to be honest about your effort and output. Paying attention to the minutiae and focusing on incremental improvement is what makes every attempt count.
Of course, low-energy days happen. On these days, it’s extra tempting to just coast through the motions of going to the gym and churning out a workout. Deliberate practice doesn’t require every day to have huge breakthroughs, it only asks that you’re continually striving for improvement, even (maybe especially) in small moments. You can adjust your session goals accordingly on a low-energy day. Maybe you want to focus on really nailing your deadlift form, or maybe you want to romp around the boulders focusing on your onsight grade. Even simply choosing to have fun in a session that feels low-energy is a totally valid goal: if you showed up not really feeling it, but you leave having found fun in your session, that’s a net positive for sure.
Deliberate practice asks you not to waste any time. Once you’re in the gym, you have an opportunity to improve. To do so, you’ll need to define your goals, focus on achieving them, and consciously reflect on your progress—in every single session.
Sources & Footnotes
*This quote is originally attributed to football coach Vince Lombardi.
Duckworth, Angela. “Chapter 7: Practice.” Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Scribner, New York, New York, 2016.
