I want you to start a diary. This diary doesn't care about your emotions or secrets - this book should be focused on cold hard numbers and facts because its a training log. Boring, right? Well, what really seems boring is doing the same thing over and over because for some unknown reason you aren't getting any better while your buddies are climbing stronger. Instead on focusing negative energy on what they are doing you could instead be turning the scrutiny on yourself. Everyone usually assumes they are progressing at a continual slow and even rate, but this is rarely the case. Having your training schedule notated offers you the opportunity to concretely see what has been holding you back. The benefits of looking at your workouts and accomplishments in black and white (rather than hazy memory) are numerous. Not only does the diary keep a record of your training, it also doubles as a ticklist of actual climbs you've done outdoors. Also, as you analyze the peaks and dips it may give insight into what caused an over-training burnout or a stagnant slump. When an injury occurs many of us start to do some cross-training with weights and other sports or activities and the diary offers you the ability to focus these workouts in more effective way, rather than just doing "something" for "some amount of time".
Here are some the essential things to include in a training diary:
Activity: details of training session or climbing on real rock and what you did
Effort – how hard you were pushing yourself: could include low or high intensity or how severely your pump became
Time spent actually doing activity: regardless of how long you were at the gym, how much of that time was really spent climbing?
General feeling or attitude about work done: How did you feel the next day? You could also think about using some sort of rating system.
Trust me, I know that is hard to not only to begin this process, but to keep it up as well. I can only hope that once it becomes a routine, the improvement in your climbing and new found structure in your training will be motivation enough.
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