What I Do: I don’t use reach/height/gender/weight as excuses or self-imposed barriers. (I also don’t use age as an excuse, as I discussed in a previous entry).
The Science Behind It: I’m not going to rely on scientific studies so much to back me up here, but rather, common sense and observations, though I do think there is a scientific basis to support not using any of these as excuses for a lack of climbing/athletic ability.
Let’s start with reach and height. I’m a midsized climber (5’6”) with a plus 2 ½-inch ape index. Have I seen taller climbers and/or climbers with way more reach than I have do moves with much more ease than I apparently can? You betcha. Height and reach can be really helpful, because they make moves relatively shorter lots of the time, requiring less strength and power to move from hold to hold, obviously.
But to start with, who cares? If you’re a full-grown adult, you’re probably never going to change your height and reach (unless you’re really inflexible; you might be able to gain a bit then), so why hang onto them as excuses or reasons why you “can’t”? It’s pointless. It’d be a like a football player complaining to his coach that another player was faster and bigger than him. He’d get kicked off the team or told to find another sport. So everyone needs to just deal with their height and reach and make the best of it, instead of hanging onto it as an excuse or self-imposed barrier.
Shorter people with less reach do have some advantages, too, as I wrote about in The Unsung Benefits of Being a Shorter Than Average Rock Climber. They can also train to improve their issues with reach, as I explained in Shorter Rock Climbers Can Learn How to Extend Climbing Reach.
Finally, real-world examples often provide us with the best evidence that the too short/too reachy excuses are a load of B.S. most of the time. Three of the strongest male climbers I personally know are all around my height and weight, and all three of them have shorter wingspans than I do. They also all can climb MUCH harder than I can – simply (or at least, mainly) because they’re much stronger than I am. I also know a bunch of ladies who are significantly shorter than I am who can crush hard routes; in fact, at those times when I feel the “reachy” excuse well up in me, I can often just remind myself that I know of a shorter female climber who’s done the route I’m trying, and that shuts the “reachy whiner” up really quickly.
As for gender, it’s much the same story – being female doesn’t mean being weak, and while it’s true that probably from now to all eternity the strongest climber in the world will be male (sorry, but that’s just pure genetics – see my first What I Do and The Science Behind It for more on this), I can guarantee virtually every woman climber out there that there’s pretty much always a woman who can out-climb you or climb whatever you’re climbing. So using gender as a reason for not being able to perform is usually just a cop-out. Better to say, “I’m not willing to put the time needed into training my weaknesses to be strong enough to climb this,” which I’d venture to be true in more cases than not. Of course, I’m sure there’s some people who have trained themselves so close to their genetic potential (of both genders) that gains are miniscule and hard to come by, but that’s less of a gender-specific thing and more a genetic/individual issue. To sum it up, unless you’re planning on
getting a sex change operation, it’s best to just accept your gender and work with it, instead of falling back on it as an excuse or self-imposed barrier.
Finally, the weight thing – people who really are overweight can and should consider losing some weight for climbing. However, people who aren’t should focus on being more proactive and productive in training their weaknesses instead of simply saying, “I’d climb so much harder if I just lost X pounds.” Maybe losing weight would help with your climbing ability, but there’s no point in blaming it or whining about it, especially if you’re not going to do anything about it – and it’s not necessarily a magical recipe for climbing success. People of all healthy heights/weights can and do climb hard routes, including people who are the same height but might weigh as much as 50 pounds different from each other. It’s more about strength to weight ratio – being strong enough to move your mass effectively and efficiently on the rock.
For more on weight-loss for rock climbing, read Weight Loss/Diet Program and Tips for Better Climbing Performance.
