It took me 7 years to get to this moment.
Ha!
Finally I broke through the plateau and climbed my first V7.
If you are neither a teenager nor a talented climber, I bet you can relate to the joy of
breaking into the V6~7 range.
I want to share with you guys everything I went through, so hopefully you will find some
information helpful for you to break through your own personal plateau.
I started climbing about 11 years ago.
It took me 3 years to get to V4s, another year to get to V5s, and then I was stuck in V5s
forever.
To me, climbing was fun and I never attempted to train or seek out any help, so I plateaued.
It's not until last year that I decided to train on the hangboard for the very first
time, and I filmed the training process of myself for 30 straight days.
That video got really popular, and I got a lot of comments, asking me whether the hangboard
training results led to climbing a higher grade.
I always replied "not yet," but this motivated me to seek out ways to improve my climbing.
I started to listen to climbing training-related podcasts while commuting for my day job.
These podcasts include Training for Climbing and The TrainingBeta podcast.
Each episode is at least an hour long and I chewed them all up.
There is a lot of rich information, but to be honest, it's probably more geared to
high-level climbers.
Different strong climbers have different approaches to training, and I was not able to tell which
one would work for me.
But then I got extremely lucky to have a chance to be trained by Paul Robinson for one session.
The training plan he gave me is personalized for me and I have been following it ever since.
After following Paul's training plan for a month, my completion rate on V5s and soft
V6s shot up quite a bit.
I felt like I advanced for half a grade at this point, but I thought I needed to at least
complete one soft V7 in order to advance for a full grade to V6.
However, it was surprisingly difficult.
No matter how I trained or climbed, I wasn't improving.
On top of that, because I trained and climbed so hard, I injured my lower back and my fingers
were often on the verge of getting injured.
Then it dawned on me that I needed to shift the focus to recovery, so I first tackled
the most important issue in terms of recovery -sleep.
I discovered a company called REM-Fit that makes mattresses with "sleep and recovery
technology," so I decided to try it out.
The difference between this mattress and my cheap random mattress from IKEA is enormous.
My lower back sinks less on the REM-Fit mattress, and at the same time my upper back and shoulders
don't feel sore as they used to when I slept on a firmer mattress.
I am in deep sleep longer than before and my shoulders and lats recover from soreness
a lot faster.
To be honest, getting the mattress from REM-Fit is one of the best decisions I've ever made.
I also started to incorporate mobility exercises for my shoulders, wrists, hips, and ankles.
I also got a foam roller, so I can self massage my muscles with the foam roller every day.
After all these improvements on my recovery along with my regular training and climbing
routine, I started to make progress again and eventually climbed my first V7.
I also tried out some unorthodox ways to improve my climbing, such as getting trained by an
Olympian gymnast and working with a chiropractor.
Sounds crazy, right?
They helped and I will upload videos dedicated about them in the near future.
Here's what my typical week looks like nowadays.
At noon on Monday, I strength train my shoulders and antagonist muscle in the gym.
At noon on Tuesday, I climb.
At noon on Wednesday, I climb, and in the evenings, I hangboard at home.
At noon on Thursday, I go to the gym for mobility exercises.
At noon on Friday, I climb.
On Saturday morning, I swim to loosen up my muscles and get some cardio.
On Sunday morning, I play basketball to get even more cardio, and in the afternoon, I
climb and do Paul Robinson's personalized training workouts.
To recap, here's how I broke the 7-year plateau.
Number one, get a personalized training plan from an expert.
Number two, climb and train consistently.
Number three, focus on recovery.
Number four, don't be afraid and be open-minded about trying new things.
Here's the full clip of me climbing my first V7.
I also want to thank my long-time friend, super strong climber, Max, for giving me tips
on climbing this V7.
Ha! Thanks for watching.
Be sure to check out Rem-Fit in the video description below, and don't forget to use
the promo code GEEKCLIMBER to get 10 percent of your first REM-Fit mattress purchase.
Trust me, this will be one of your best decisions in your life.
As always, make sure to like and subscribe.
See you in the next video.