Les projets et leurs préparations (ft. Tom Bolger)

Projects and their preparations (ft. Tom Bolger)

Project...
I firmly believe that choosing your project carefully is the most important part, there are thousands of paths but there may only be a few that will inspire you enough to dedicate yourself to improving your performance physical and mental.
Here I have my personal criteria and of course they are different for everyone, some like short routes or steep routes, slabs or crack lines, fine vertical climbing or crazy roofs on pockets ........
What I mean here is that you should not just choose a project based on the rating in the guide, give yourself the experience of arriving at the cliff and without looking at the guide, look for first the lines that inspire you the most, those that make you want to climb them.
Once you find the line that inspires you, the rest is easy hehe.
I would like to divide the preparation into two parts, physical preparation and mental preparation.
First physically, analyze the route, make a map of the route by drawing the sequences and take notes on the crucial movements.
These notes will be very useful for remembering routes if you can't return to the project for a while or for being able to build replicas on the climbing wall.
I work on the number of movements of the route, the type of grip it involves, whether it's crimps, pincers or slopers.
This way, you can develop a project-specific training plan, adapt with cues from the crux sequences, and focus on the weaknesses that are holding you back.
The mental part is really interesting for the project, ultimately the project is about pushing yourself to the limit, learning and progressing, but that also sets us up for failure.
Being comfortable with the idea that the more you fail, the closer you get to success is, I think, essential to mentally preparing yourself to attempt a path that is at your absolute limit.
On projects we spend most of the time falling, working on movements, etc.
I think to be successful on long term projects you have to enjoy the process, be comfortable with failure and be open to learning and improving, be aware of why you fall and have the ability to understand what we need to spend time on to improve on the project.

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