Happy New Year!
It’s a great time to reflect on last year and see where we can improve. Often, most people will make goals or resolutions. The thing is, we often overlook how we will achieve these goals. I think in general, we all want to be a better version of ourselves, a healthier, fitter and wiser self.
In saying that, I wanted to share a fantastic concept with you that I learned from reading about the British cycling coach who took his team to win the Tour de France. What he did was examined all aspects of cycling and personal life of his riders, and believed that if they improved in every area by just one percent, then those small gains would eventually lead to a significant improvement. They looked at the nutrition of their riders, the quality of their sleep, the weight of the bikes, the position of the body on the bike etc and made small changes in each of these areas. All of these good decisions turned into winning the Tour de France.
So if you have any goals that you would like to reach in your personal life or climbing life, take a closer look at how you can improve just a little in each. For improving your performance in climbing, sometimes even the most seemingly unimportant things can make a difference. Experiment with different chalks and see which one feels the best, using good quality hand creams to build up the skin on those strong hands, doing one extra pull up after each session, hanging for one more second for static hangs, having the right fitting shoe to edge on those tough footholds, proper nutrition right after climbing to improve recovery. These are all examples of how to become a better climber, and the list goes on.
Finally, if you want to make some behavior changes and reach your goals, it comes down to decisions that you make each day, so if you can make decisions that can improve you by 1%, and you do this in 10 different areas in your life, that’s a 10% improvement by the end of the year!
Slow and steady wins the race.
– Mercedes Pollmeier, MS, CSCS