THE PROBABLY BIGGEST MENTAL CHALLENGES FOR PRO CLIMBERS IN THE PAST WEEKS
These past few weeks have been really interesting and in many ways challenging for all of us.
If you are a pro climber, you might be used to crisis like this. There is no elite sport without crisis and setbacks. As a pro climber you learn to deal with injuries, you are are regularly confronted with defeats (at the end of the day, only one person can win and only three people stand on the podium). You learn to manage vast pressure and expectations by sponsors, coaches, federations… and yourself. You body has to perform at a peak and maintain this fitness level for as long as a season takes – year after year over and over again. You learn how to deal with uncontrollable variables such as the final outcome of a competition (particularly in climbing which depends on so many external, uncontrollable factors and even more so with the Olympic format where the scores of each discipline are multiplied for the end result). You also know that you have an expiry date. One day you will be too old. One day someone younger, someone stronger, someone fitter might come along.
All these things make pro athletes what they are: (most of the time) mentally strong, confident, resilient & crisis-proof. So what’s the difference this time? Is there even a difference? In my experience over the past few weeks, I found pro athletes to be dealing with this current crisis better than e.g. hobby climbers or youth climbers (who haven’t had as much experience in setbacks and crisis yet), particularly at the beginning. But yet I reckon, the longer this world-wide crisis has taken (or in some countries still takes), the more mentally challenging it has become – also for pro climbers. Why?
No matter what setbacks, challenges or crisis pro climbers had to face during their previous life as an athlete, they would have always had a goal in sight. With most setbacks you know exactly when the next competition takes place and when you have to be fit again. Your big vision and goals guide you. Even with most injuries, you have an estimated time frame – sometimes a shorter, sometimes a longer one – until everything is back to normal. Based on that, you can create an action plan and steer your motivation and volition towards this goal.
What’s different this time is that there is no such time frame of when everything is back to normal again (for everyone), when all borders are open and fair and safe world competitions may take place again. The IFSC has just released that world cups will take place at the end of August in Briancon and the US in September – dates when some athletes won’t even be allowed to travel due to travel restrictions yet, when some borders still will be closed, when insurance for these trips will cost so much that it will be a decision of who or which federation has enough money to pay for it. An equal, fair competition?
The biggest difference to other crisis athletes might have had to face in the past is that, this time, we don’t know when it’s back to normal. We don’t know whether there is going to be a second wave. We don’t know when vaccines will be available. We don’t know yet when all borders are going to be open again. Two of the best mental strategies to deal with all of this is to clinch to the only somewhat controllable variable: preparing for the planned competitions from August onwards and the hope to actually be allowed and able to compete. The current schedule – whether athletes may compete there or not – creates a new structure which, in turn, makes it easier for athletes to train, to physically and mentally prepare for these competition and generally better deal with the crisis.
It’s arguable of whether world-wide competitions so early make sense location-wise or from a safety and fairness perspective. However, I believe in order to get back to normality from a psychological point of view, the IFSC did a good job in planning something at all within these uncertain times. We will still see of what will happen and whether these competitions can take place as planned. But for now… that’s not in our control. So let’s focus on what is.
There is another big mental challenge which I do not want to leave out: what if the Olympic Games would have been your last competition? What if you have to maintain your fitness level for another year – after maybe having had to deal with injuries for many years and your body might just wait for you to stop? What if – I’m sorry this might sound a bit rude, but it’s true – but, what if your body just gets older and needs more and more energy to maintain this extreme fitness level? As much as we all wish this wasn’t happening (at least not to us): we all get older. But if we perform at such a peak level for so many years, our body eventually feels exhausted more easily and finds it harder to recover. What if you are a female pro climber and you dedicated all the last years of your training to qualify for the Olympics, hopefully making this competition the last one you enter? But now that this is postponed, you biological clock is ticking…
These current times are not easy. In contrast, they are highly challenging, particularly on a mental level.
What are other mental challenges you can think of? Let me know in the comments below.