When I first walked into the weight room of a climbing gym two years ago, I thought I had accidentally wandered into a training center for circus clowns. The people in this gym were some of the strongest humans I had ever seen, and yet I didn’t see a single 45-pound plate off the rack. Nobody was doing weighted squats or bench presses. Instead, I saw guys hanging on tiny edges by their fingertips, girls doing one-armed pull-ups, a guy doing a one-armed handstand on a plyo-box, a couple hanging upside-down off a pull-up bar by their legs, another girl meditating silently in the corner.
If you’ve ever been to a climbing gym, you know this is fairly typical. Climbers do weird workouts because, well, the sport of climbing encourages insanely weird strength. And no, you don’t just need to be good at pull-ups to climb well. The sport demands the entire body–from toes to finger tendons–as well as the mind.
Two years into my climbing journey, and I now go to a new gym in a new city. But it’s the same vibe. Yesterday, as I warmed up for my climbing session, I looked around the weight room and noted what I saw. A very bendy man with his legs behind his head, a girl doing a handstand, another guy meditating, muscle-ups, a million variations of pull-ups, fingerboards, a guy doing the side splits, another doing forearm curls, and my favorite, a guy wrestling a medicine ball. Yes, he was going full ‘Connor McGregor’ on an inanimate object.
Climbers do weird workouts, but the climbing gym is one of the most motivating and inspiring places I’ve ever been. Climbers are regular people who go to regular jobs and live regular lives, except they have superhuman strength. Do you see what I’m saying? The guy doing one-arm pull-ups is just someone’s teacher. The girl hanging from one finger is someone’s doctor. For the most part, these are not professional athletes, they’re just people who have dedicated years to getting better at a sport they love and now they have Olympic-level gymnastic strength. And the key word here is “years”.
Sometime after my first encounter with these circus clowns…uhmm I mean, climbers…I saw someone doing a front lever. If you’ve never seen a front lever, it’s a calisthenics move where a person hangs from a pull-up bar and then lifts his or her body until they make a completely horizontal line. My descriptive powers are failing me, so allow this image below to illustrate what I mean:
If you ask most professional climbers or coaches, they’ll probably tell you that the front lever doesn’t necessarily make you a better climber and that you can be a great climber without being able to do a front lever. But for me, this party-trick move has been the benchmark for how I measure my strength gains over the last two years.
“I will hold a front-lever for ten seconds” I promised myself in March of 2021. And so began two years of rigorous training for a goal that most likely no one but me would care about.
This week, I hit a new personal record. I held the ‘front lever for seven seconds. It wasn't the full ten I have been working for, but still, it felt like an incredible victory. While it was tempting to bask in the glory of this milestone, I don’t think I’d be doing it justice without writing about the mindset that allowed me to (almost) achieve this somewhat silly goal.
If there’s one thing great climbers have in common, it’s that they have all bowed at the altar of incremental progress. What I mean is, there’s no such thing as immediate gratification or overnight success in most sports, especially not in climbing.
The goal of climbing is to get to the summit of a defined route without falling. Of course, the best climbers are the ones that can climb the hardest routes, which are graded on numerous different scales. One of the most common grade scales in bouldering (which involves climbing short boulders without a rope and falling onto cushioned pads) is called the V-scale. A V1 boulder is beginner friendly. A V10 boulder is incredibly difficult. And only a handful of people in the world have ever climbed routes above V14.
You may notice that the scale doesn’t go very high. That means the difference between a V5 and a V8 could be multiple years of training. Tracking my climbing progress has felt like watching grass grow. It’s been slow, gradual and at times frustrating, but it’s also been a constant reminder that anything worth pursuing in life will unfold incrementally if I dedicate myself to getting a tiny bit better every day.
We live in an age of immediate gratification. It can feel discouraging when we don’t quickly see tangible results for our efforts, but the truth is meaningful success rarely happens overnight. Championships, novels, masterpieces, promotions, pay raises, and college degrees, are all the results of countless hours of dedication and consistency.
Whether you are an athlete or an artist, do not quit before your masterpiece just because you are not yet seeing results. Just know that every time you show up to do the work, you are adding another brick to your foundation. Expand your timeline from days to years. Build now, and reap the rewards years down the line.
When I first tried to do a front lever, I could only hold the position for half a second. Then, I consulted YouTube and the algorithm gods gave me dozens of videos about how to gradually achieve a full front lever. First, start by just hanging on the bar. Next, hang for thirty seconds with your legs tucked into your chest. Then, hang for thirty seconds with your right leg tucked and your left leg pointing straight out. And, switch legs for another 30 seconds.
I have been doing this progression about two to three times per week for more than two years. That’s more than 105 weeks and still, I can only hold this position for seven seconds. Two years of work for seven seconds!
This isn’t meant to be discouraging. Look, I know that a front lever is a silly goal. But this mentality of celebrating gradual progress has leaked into every area of my life and helped me stay consistent in my endeavors.
Searching for immediate gratification, on the other hand, has only prevented me from actually building something. Whatever it is that I am doing, I know that if I just focus on getting a tiny bit better every day, then eventually I will be rewarded in some form or another.
Whatever faith you subscribe to, just know that the divine rewards those who dedicate themselves wholeheartedly–those who show up every day to better themselves.
Show up. Put in the work. And, enjoy the process of growing and getting better. You will be rewarded, even if it takes some time. Don’t believe me? Then go to any climbing gym and ask the circus clowns how long it took them to do that weird one-armed pinky handstand pull-up lever split thing.