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