Zero Judgement

After the last World Cup of the season in October, I took three weeks off. No climbing, no exercise of any kind, full couch potato mode. It was a much-needed mental and physical break after the longest season of my life.

While Zach and I generally compete in similar competitions, our goals and schedules differ just enough that our training doesn't always align. For example, while I was sitting on the couch for most of October, he was ramping up for the Pan American Championships.

In fact, he's in Santiago, Chile right now getting ready for Pan Ams which begins tomorrow afternoon.

I've been watching him level up his skills and flip the switch to performance mode while I've been relearning how to move on the wall and break my body down one long workout after another.

The first few weeks back after the rest month are always rough. Physically, my body is out of shape so the first month is very high volume. I do endurance on the wall, 14 reps in the weight room, and two long climbing sessions every training day.

To go from in-season training which is one short session, 1-2 reps in the gym, and ample rest days, to this, is a shock to the system, to say the least.

As a result, I'm forced into a phase of non-judgement.

While some days are better than others, my performance on the wall isn't where it was just two months ago, and for good reason.

Now is the time to build.

The 2024 World Cup season was four months longer than most seasons because the summer Olympics shuffled around the IFSC schedule. This means that the off-season is four months shorter this year. This also means that every day counts.

I need to break down my body now so that it builds stronger tomorrow. My performance needs to decline so that it can sling shot back up when the time comes.

Importantly, I need to reserve judgment of my performance on the wall until, well, competition day.

I've never been good at this part. I tend to scrutinize my performance at every phase of my training cycle. It's hard not to when your career is performance-oriented.

I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, the conversation I had with my coach, or if I'm simply tired of facing the same pitfalls season after season. Whatever the reason, I'm really embracing the judgment-free philosophy this season.

When I go to the gym, my goal is to try really hard boulders - whatever level challenges me at this point - and learn as much as I can.

It's so simple.

When you take the performance aspect completely out of the equation, all you're left with is improvement.

I no longer avoid the hardest boulders in the gym. I don't feel bad about taking too many attempts to get to the top of a boulder. I don't mind projecting something a little below my level if it means I'll learn something from it.

I don't care how I perform on the wall, I care about getting better.

During the season, I'm a mess. I think about what other competitors might have done on my boulders, and whether I would have been able to do them in a competition round. The world comes crashing down when we're weeks away from the first event and I don't feel good enough.

I've seen this from Zach as he prepared for Pan-Ams. I see him doing really hard boulders and out-climbing everyone around him, but he's not satisfied with how many attempts it took him.

Just the other day he fell off the second-last hold of probably the hardest boulder in the city, and he was unhappy with his performance.

From the outside, he looks great. He looks more than ready.

But competition pressure sets your standards too high, and hyper-judgment isn't a productive or healthy space to be in.

I've come to realize that I don't want judgment in my training at all. Not now, and not a week before a World Cup. The only time I want to judge my performance is at a competition - competitions where I'm rested, focused, fueled and peaked.

Judgment at any other time is only harmful.

With this in mind, I've looked at my 2025 calendar a little differently. In a typical season, I'll do the full World Cup bouldering circuit, Nationals, the High-Performance competition, and a handful of other fun, cash competitions.

I'm enjoying this zero judgment policy so much, that I don't want to derail it with a competition. Any competition I take part in where I'm not peaked and am in a high-volume training phase is asking for trouble.

Sure, sometimes I'll win anyway despite my form, but other times I won't. Other times I'll walk away disappointed in my performance and wondering if I'm as good as I thought I was.

I can tell myself that it's not the time for judgment and that we're not in season yet, but a comp is a comp, and I always want to win.

So this year, I've decided to let myself train, build, and focus entirely on the task at hand - the World Cup season.

This weekend is Nationals, and for the first time in 10 years, I won't be competing.

It's a strange feeling, but it's also empowering. I feel completely in control of my mind and my body.

Strangely enough, I even feel more ready for the World Cup season, and we still have five more months to go.