Lead Magazine 1 | Page 23

Young Climbers Training For Young Climbers Photo: by Juliet Sawyer With nearly every major town or city having an indoor climbing wall, each with their own youth squad, popularity in the sport amongst young people is increasing. Obviously, more young people showing an interest in climbing is fantastic, making more junior climbing clubs and competitions available. However, these days, some children are climbing just as hard as adults. It’s important to remember that youngsters cannot undergo such intense training, and need to be coached appropriately. Last year, we had two amazing performances from 11 year old Brooke Raboutou and 13 year old Ashima Shiraishi. Last July, Brooke became the youngest female to climb an 8c after redpointing ‘Welcome to Tijuana’. It’s not surprising that Brooke’s parents - Didier Raboutou and Robyn Erbesfield - are also climbing champions. Last year, Ashima became the second female to climb an 8b+ (V14) when she crushed ‘Golden Shadow’ in South Africa. But she didn’t stop there. In March 2015, Ashima crushed two routes, ‘Open Your Mind Direct’ and ‘Ciudad de Dios’, which are both thought to be around the 9a/+ grade. If so, at the age of just 13, Ashima could Photo: by Juliet Sawyer become the first climber and youngest to complete a route of this grade. These were incredible achievements, which will surely go down in climbing history, and inspire young climbers - especially girls - across the world. Also, proving young climbers can mean business, and can climb just as hard - if not harder - than adults. But how did these youngsters get to this level? It’s clear they must have followed an amount of training, which all young climbers can learn from. Often, climbers can be found guilty of overtraining, but it’s important to avoid this with children, as it can have serious health issues - particularly with their growth. Training should be a balance between strength and endurance. Making an 11 year old repeatedly perform pull ups on a campus board isn’t going to do much good for their health. Children have a higher anaerobic threshold, meaning it takes longer for them to get fatigued or ‘pumped’. However, they also have less sense to fatigue. This means they want to carry on climbing, without realising they are fatigued, and have less capacity to tolerate the lactic acid. Also, time