Four Factors That Decide Lead Climbing Champs

Udo Neumann is one of the world’s leading climbers when it comes to breaking down the factors that make a climber a champion.

In this video, we see that there are no obvious differences regarding physical abilities, rather winning is about efficiency an avoiding mistakes.

Neumann breaks down the factors as follows:

Resting: We distinguish two different strategies for resting – Block vs Intermittent resting. More experienced and successful climbers display more flexibility in their strategy. If good rests are available, “milking” them (within the time constraints) wins.

Smoothness Factor: Successful competitors distinguish themselves with shorter hold exploration and contact time, less jerk, a more continuous movement, less chaotic force / time graphs and ultimately a better smoothness factor.

Adaptability: Not every climbing move can be planned. High Ambiguity tolerance allows successful climbers to view unexpected or ambiguous stimuli not as a threat, but in a neutral and open way.

Decision Fatigue: Moves in these routes are not limit for the shown competitors. Mistakes are often because of the deteriorating quality of decisions made by the climber after a long session of decision making. One more reason to climb as fluently as possible!