In this blog series, we’ve asked each of our six coaches about the top five lessons they have learned about training. First up in the series is Tom Randall; founder of Lattice, professional climber, and with a coaching career spanning 20 years. Tom has trained clients from GB junior and senior athletes, to Lattice clients aiming to climb their first 7a. In this blog, Tom tells us the lessons he’s learned as a coach and athlete about training for climbing. Over to Tom…

Training is one of those lessons that’s almost lifelong, and after 20 years of climbing and another 10 years in other sports, I still feel like I’ve got a lot to learn! Overall though, I’ve definitely picked up on patterns of training that are successful and others that result in poor results. For me, this comes from the perspective of being a coach, but also a professional athlete. 

1. Specificity

Specificity will deliver training results over almost every other factor. If you get the training stimulus to match your goal in movement, mental impact, volume, intensity etc, then you’re almost certainly going to move quickly towards your goal!

“Specificity will deliver training results over almost every other factor.”

2. Variety

Your variety of training methods must be changed continually over the years! I made big mistakes with this early on, where I thought that what worked in year 1 would work in year 2. Keep changing things up.

3. Don’t underestimate the importance of long term rest

Long term rest is just as important as our short term rest weeks. If you’re going after a massive one-off project that takes you 1-2 years you really should think about 1-2 months of rest from training afterwards. 

4. There is no secret training method!

There are loads of climbers and coaches who still think that there are protocols that should be protected and not shared with others. This is absolute nonsense in my experience.

“Learn to self-assess on levels of motivation”

5. Psychology

Psychology plays a bigger part in training than you think. Learning to self-assess on levels of motivation, working out what you’re internal and external drivers are and how you respond to success and failure is an underrated skill. It massively pays dividends when you master it though. 

Keep up to date with the Lattice blog for upcoming features from the rest of our coaches. Check out our Training Plans if you’d like to start your own plan with the Lattice team!