The top 5 questions I get asked about training with a climbing coach
This month, I’m celebrating one year of working one-on-one with my coach, Karly Rager of Project Direct. Working with a climbing coach is something I dreamed of for years before I finally made it happen, and I’m excited to share why I hired a coach and what the past year has been like. Spoiler alert: hiring a climbing coach is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
In Part 1 of this 2-part series, I’m going to unpack some common questions I’ve gotten over the past year. I had many of these questions myself before I started working with a coach. If you have more questions that I didn’t cover here, feel free to drop them in the comments! Alright, here we go!
Will hiring a climbing coach take the fun out of climbing?
If you’ve ever tried using a one-size-fits-all training plan that you found somewhere online, you might have experienced some loss of joy in climbing while trying to complete it. Pre-written plans can be hard to stick to, and might not be effective for your specific goals and experience level. These types of plans often don’t leave room for autonomy in your climbing and training.
The experience of working with a 1:1 climbing coach is completely different than self-coaching your way through a plan that wasn’t designed for you.
A good climbing coach will listen to your goals and design a program that allows you to reach them. Your coach will likely program your workouts and climbing days on a weekly or monthly basis. If you haven’t had the experience of someone writing your workouts for you, it can sound a bit intense—like maybe you’re entering boot camp and suddenly you will have no free will or friends ever again.
However, it’s important to remember that climbing is supposed to be fun, and you’re also going to improve way faster if having fun stays a priority. A good coach will recognize this, and will be able to structure your training in a way that includes equal parts rigor and play. Entering into a training program does not mean you’ll be completely giving up your autonomy in the gym.
Your coach should take the time to understand what you love about climbing and what you hope to achieve through coaching. They will then push you to be your best self in both of these areas.
After working with a 1:1 coach for a year, I can confidently say that I am having more fun climbing than ever before because of my decision to hire a coach. Firstly, I love being able to see and feel improvement in my climbing—that alone has made climbing so much more fun over the past year. My coach programs cool drills and exercises that challenge me in new ways and are aligned with my goals. Not everything is super structured, and I have plenty of time to project boulders and choose what I climb. I share videos of these climbs with my coach, and we spend time every week analyzing my movement and discussing new ideas that I can try out on the wall. In short, I love learning, and hiring a coach has helped me keep learning about climbing every single time I go to the gym. Climbing has truly never been more fun!
When is the right time to start working with a climbing coach?
A common misconception is that you have to be “good enough” to hire a coach, or that hiring a coach somehow means you think you’re hot shit and so good that you get to be coached. Firstly, no matter how hard you’re climbing, you are hot shit. Secondly, please throw these misconceptions in the nearest trash can.
If you want to improve at climbing, now is the right time to start working with a climbing coach. Any climber with goals can benefit from 1:1 coaching, whether you’re currently climbing V0 or V10. You don’t have to have attained a certain level to get started—you simply have to know where you want to go.
You can start when you’re feeling super strong or start when you’re in a slump. You can start with a project climb in mind or just with a feeling of wanting to level up. A good 1:1 coach will meet you where you’re at. Heck, when I started, I was coming off of a pulley injury and had barely been climbing for the previous 3 months. I had big goals and was tired of sidelining them. I was injured and feeling a bit aimless, and I wanted a kick in the pants to reignite my passion for climbing. In just a few months, I went from rehabbing an A2 to sending my first 5.12.
I knew I wanted to work with a climbing coach years before I actually made it happen. For me, the tipping point of when to get started was mostly a financial decision (more on that in a later question).
Why should I hire a climbing coach instead of figuring out my training on my own?
Most climbers are super self-sufficient. And, we don’t really like being told what to do. Climbers who are curious about training often start with self-written programming. This is how I started, and it did work for a short time—if you’ve never trained before, it’s fairly easy to see quick gains. But after some time, figuring out your own training starts to feel like a guessing game. There are so many different exercises and drills, and so many variables. How long do you stick with the latest cool thing you saw on YouTube before switching to the next cool thing you saw on Instagram? Which exercises actually move the needle towards your specific goals? How do you progress your skills in a way that builds them steadily and sustainably?
When you’re programming your own training, you’re often focused on choosing exercises and designing set and rep schemes. Most climbers don’t have a background in exercise science, and so choosing these exercises really starts to feel like throwing spaghetti at a wall—it’s hard to know what will stick. A good climbing coach will have credentials in personal training or strength & conditioning, and will be able to write a training program that is backed by exercise science. Your coach will consider your goals, map out a plan for the best way to train over the next couple of months, and then select exercises, drills, and skill focuses that fit within that plan. A coach is able to write a plan from a broader knowledge base, as well as with the experience of coaching many different climbers with diverse backgrounds and goals.
The biggest change I experienced from trying to program my own training to working with a climbing coach is the power of accountability. I check in with my coach every week, therefore, I do all of my workouts every single week. Additionally, she is in charge of when my training progresses and when it changes altogether. I no longer have to wonder how long I should stick with a training block, or if my workout was hard enough to “count.”
The second biggest change I experienced in hiring a climbing coach was actually trusting the value of rest. Prior to hiring a coach, I thought I had to be in the gym going as hard as possible 6 days a week. I believed soreness was a measure of effectiveness. In working with my coach, I’ve learned that wrecking myself day after day actually just makes training harder and less effective. These days, I’m in the gym 3-4 days a week, and I’ve never felt stronger.
Overall, having someone who is distanced from your climbing write your training makes a huge difference. An outside perspective will help you stay focused on where you’re heading, without getting distracted or losing enthusiasm.
This seems expensive. Is it really worth the money?
Working with a good climbing coach is not cheap. If you’re stuck on the dollar signs, my question to you is, what is improvement in climbing worth to you? How big of a priority is climbing in your life? Are you fine with staying where you’re at, guessing at training, and maybe or maybe not finding out what you’re fully capable of?
Many people enjoy climbing casually and want to let their emphasis on climbing ebb and flow in the larger context of their lives, and truly, that is awesome. I’m not here to convince people to care more about climbing, and I love that people can enjoy this sport at different intensities. But I know there is a subset of climbers that care deeply about improvement and yet find themselves spinning their wheels and plateauing. To those climbers, I say: you could keep grinding in the same way for the next year, and maybe climb a little harder, maybe not. Or, you could spend the next year working with an expert, staying laser-focused on your goals with accountability and support, and find out what you’re truly capable of.
I’ll share more about my journey to climbing coaching in Part 2 of this series, but the short version is that climbing is a huge priority in my life. I have chosen climbing over many other life paths. This sport is where I learn the most about myself and where I feel the most like myself. It is entirely worth it to me to spend a chunk of cash on climbing coaching every month. Climbing is one of the best parts of my life, and I’m happy to invest in something that gives me so much back. I’ll also add that finding a coach you really vibe with is key. It’s worth it if you’re fully on board, trust your coach, and are willing to invest your time and energy as much as you invest your money. It’s less worth it if you’re just trying to find the cheapest option or if you’re skipping half of your workouts every week. Like most things in life, you’ll get out of it what you put into it. So when you’re ready to invest, be ready with more than just your wallet.
Will I still be able to climb with my friends?
This was definitely a concern that I had when I first started training. I was worried that sticking to a training plan meant that I wouldn’t be able to say yes to spontaneous lead sessions with friends, or that my workouts would be so regimented that I’d have to convince my friends to do them with me if we wanted to climb together.
Hiring a climbing coach does not mean selling your soul and saying goodbye to your friends forever. Remember, climbing—and training—is supposed to be fun! Sucking all the joy out of something will not help you get better, and the friendships we build in this sport are a big reason why we love what we do so much. A good climbing coach will listen to your priorities and can build a program that allows you to balance training with social climbing.
But, there definitely are times when I’ve said no to a ropes session with a friend because I needed to get a specific training session in instead. Or, there’ve been times when I’ve convinced a friend to boulder with me because that’s what was in line with my training block at the time. When you hire a climbing coach, you are choosing to prioritize training and improvement—so you should be ready to make some compromises. If your top priority is to always climb whatever your friends are climbing, hiring a coach is probably not the right move for you.
Your friends will still love you. I’ve actually had a number of friends take interest in what I’m learning through training, and it’s been really fun to build stoke for intentional improvement. Just because you do your own thing sometimes does not mean you’re losing ties with your climbing partners. Heck, you might even find an excuse to make plans to hang out somewhere other than the climbing gym!
Hopefully this helps give you a glimpse into the experience of working with a climbing coach. If I missed any questions that are on your mind, drop a comment below!
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I’ll dive deeper into why I chose to hire a climbing coach, as well as recount a few specific changes I’ve seen in my climbing over the past year.
