Theories & Rules

I like to start solving (or describing) a problem at the highest level of abstraction. Training for climbing is like chess: you can't predict all possible outcomes of a move, it's a matter of feeling what works and what doesn't, of reviewing your training history, reapplying what's worked well in the past, and testing new theories. It's a blend of science and art. Also like chess, there are some highly abstracted principles that should be understood and followed before they are broken.

For chess, my rules are below; play by these rules and you'll beat 75% of the people out there.

1. Play with the pieces, i.e., never push a pawn if you don't know what to do
2. No early queen sorties
3. Castle, remember you are the king, defend yourself
4. Develop pieces with an attack, this keeps your opponent on the run
5. Don't have "grand schemes" for what's going to happen 4 moves from now, it never works.
6. When your opponent has made a move with an "obvious" response, avoid playing it. If you can find an equally good, or better move this can throw them off.

For training, my rules are (not priority ranked)...

1. The Basics
1. Listen to your body
2. Don't injure yourself
3. Start slow, then add workload
4. Train smart, not hard

2. Strength Principles
1. Strength comes from stress
2. Variety
3. Periodization
4. Don't train fine muscle movements tired

3. Force Multipliers
1. Objective landmarks
2. Set goals
3. Learn what is possible
4. If you don't have it, don't hit it

My next several blogs will go into what these mean.