Could Cueing Revolutionize Your Climbing Progression?

what if I told you that if you perform an exercise at a fast pace you could get 10 percent more strength gains than if you performed it at an average pace now what if I told you it's okay if you can't actually move much faster as long as you're simply trying to you'd start trying it immediately right well those are real results from a 2012 study and it's part of a growing body of evidence demonstrating the power of intention in physical performance the implications of this concept are so huge yet so underutilized by your average climber I believe it could actually Revitalize or revolutionize many people's progression so in this video we're going to talk about how climbers can harness the power of intention to benefit strength speed coordination endurance and skill acquisition and we're going to do it by discussing intentions practical offspring cueing so what is queuing well it can take many forms queuing can be simple like consciously thinking crush the hold on terrible pinches and finding we can hold on better than before queuing can also be complex like visualizing our exact muscle engagement and spatial orientation on a climb so thoroughly that our body learns the movement without being on the wall queuing can direct our attention inward to specific internal Sensations like focusing on engaging our glutes during a dynamic move and finding we maintain Better Body tension cueing can also direct our attention outward to external or environmental targets like thinking get my chest to the bar during a pull-up and seeing that our form naturally improves as you can see the queue is just a practical way to apply a specific intention what I love is that rather than always trying to remember random tricks we've heard thinking in terms of cues helps us focus on identifying the prom we're facing coming up with a specific intention that could solve it and creating a cue that puts the intention into practice sounds pretty good right but why am I saying it could be revolutionary in short most climbers facing chronic plateaus and this feeling are experiencing the pitfalls of practicing with a lack of specific intention if we look at the science behind how humans learn including movement learning like climbing it's apparent why a lack of intention is such a problem as you can see the first two stages are heavily reliant on specific intentional practice if we remove intention from this equation we hinder our ability to learn what we like to hope our intuition will magically guide us toward our epic goals as long as we just keep showing up at the gym that simply doesn't work for the vast majority especially if our intuition is based on a shaky Foundation of skills to begin with in summary queuing reintroduces us to active intentional practice shifting us away from passivity and stagnation here's a practical example of why choosing the proper cue can be so important in achieving the outcome you want with a specific exercise take for example an inverted row this is a great example of an exercise that can very quickly become a shoulder and bicep exercise or a mid-back exercise depending on the cue that you use if your goal is to get more mid-back strength inactivation you'll need to use a different cue like having a proud chest at the top of the motion or squeezing that pencil between your shoulder blades so as you can see without the proper cue My outcome can completely change I may progress this as a bicep exercise for a very long time gaining little to no positive effect in the mid-back that I desire but switching and using the appropriate queuing I get the outcome I want I strengthen the mid back and I improve my climbing so what kind of cue should we actually use as we implied earlier there are two types known as internal cues and external cues which are useful for different purposes internal cues create an inward intention they promote greater bodily awareness by consciously regulating aspects of our body that we typically wouldn't allowing us to reduce unwanted activation or movement compensations whether it's improving our face pull form by focusing on our middle trap keeping our hips close to the wall by engaging the glutes or maximizing hypertrophic stimulus by zoning in on our bicep contraction internal cues are generally best when we need to focus on specific muscle engagement external cues create an outward intention they promote greater movement efficiency by allowing our body to take the reins and do whatever it needs to accomplish the goal reducing noise in the system or slowdowns due to internal Focus whether it's maximizing strength gains by performing the movement as efficiently as possible improving coordination by aiming for a simple Target or increasing Endurance by distracting us from fatigue gig external cues are generally best when we want to optimize performance and fluidity essentially we should use internal cues to help us exert granular control over a specific part of our body which will cost some overall performance in our motor control system we should use external cues to help us with the inverse we should of course allow for some variability here but that guideline will hold true in most circumstances and now a brief cinematic intermission from today's sponsor ag1 oh man I'm never going to finish this climb yo ow yeah what's what's all the yelling I've just been getting very worked up lately yo what there's like uh like what there's like this uh what is it it's like this I don't see it it's like you're missing oh that's new you've been sticking your nutrition goals uh well never mind I don't care just have this cool cg1 yeah right foundational how do you feel a bit more complete micronutrients for days bro replaces my multivitamin too but could it be pray for gut health wow what if I want five free travel packs and what about one for your vitamin D3 and K2 wow how do I get that check your pocket how'd you do that nutrients wait what about this hole that's a hole in your heart bro how do I fix that great chasing so where's the proof of all this turns out there are tons of neat examples in the research so let's cover a few of the highlights and we'll link the in-depth materials in the show notes when it comes to strength my favorite study is that one from 2012 about completing reps quickly they studied 20 trained participants doing bench press and the ones intent on completing the wrap near Max Speed ended up with significantly higher increases in strength and speed than the control group despite both groups using the same relative weight one reason for this is likely that it recruited larger and faster motor units or muscle fibers additionally it probably increased the speed and efficiency of brain signals sent to the muscle optimizing rate coding finally it may have improved synchronization of action potentials as well these reasons are part of why we recommend experienced athletes consider performing their strength exercises with the intent to move as fast as possible as long as they maintain form in many circumstances this will lead to movement that actually is faster which is great but in some cases like with heavy weights the speed may not change much though the benefits of the intention can still be present queuing can cause more immediate strength improvements as well in fact this random Swedish YouTuber recently provided a great example when he noticed that cueing himself to literally squeeze holds harder led to better strength on pinches as it turns out multiple research articles support external cues for increasing acute strength including grip strength perhaps this random guy would be better at climbing if he imagined crushing every hold when it comes to other aspects of performance besides strength we see all kinds of interesting effects from intention research increased coordination with complex movements using external cues likely due to the better motor system performance we discussed earlier resulting in more reflexive movement and optimized motor learning increased Sprint speed with external cues probably for similar reasons improved muscular endurance using external cues probably for similar reasons but also because focusing too much on internal Sensations like muscle burn fatigue and lack of oxygen can make them feel exaggerated and distract from Optimal Performance increased hypertrophy with internal cues likely due to reduced movement compensations and more attention paid to fatiguing the Target muscle and improved skill acquisition as previously explained with the three stages of motor learning while external cues clearly steal the show for the majority of performance benefits we should be aware that both types of cues can actually be used together for further benefits cues used in sequence can further Aid complex learning for example we could use an internal cue to help us hone in on specific muscle activation once learned it could then help us Master an external cue on the wall that benefits from the improved awareness it can work the other way around too if we're having trouble engaging a particular muscle we can use an external cue that causes us to use it allowing us to learn that feeling and eventually activate the muscle on command with an internal cue finally cues can be used in tandem for example when we visualize our project off the wall we may rehearse specific muscle activation internal as well as the positioning of our limbs in space external in the most advanced stages when our skill Foundation has become highly optimized and reflexive we're able to narrow down our Focus to only the most Salient internal and external intentions entering the flow state with ease and maximizing our performance okay let's sum up what we learned many climbers suffer plateaus due due to lack of intentional learning or effort in general paying more attention to your intention while climbing and training has a vast array of benefits and cues are a simple way to put that into practice internal cues should generally be used when specific muscle activation is needed external cues should generally be used when optimized performance and movement learning is needed cues can be used together for further improvements in motor learning skill acquisition and Flow State sense if you take one thing away from this video it should be to come up with a useful new cue to practice during your next climbing session filming yourself will go a long way to help you identify issues and possible fixes thanks so much to everyone who supports free science-based content on this channel by subscribing buying t-shirts purchasing gear through our affiliate links and just generally sharing the psych until next time train climb send and repeat with intention

Channel: Hooper's Beta

Views: 58,547

Keywords: climbing, rock climbing, bouldering, sport climbing, rope climbing, climbon, climb stronger, climb better, rehab, physical therapy, doctor of physical therapy, orthopedics, strength, mobility, function, training, strength training, climb harder, sport, athletics, fun, education, sport training, training for climbing, climbing technique, climbing tips, climbing workout, climbing strength, climbing motivation, endurance training, cueing, internal cue, external cue, performance, enhance

Id: NrZnTSoQMUc

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 26 2023