How Climbers Can Control Fear

Fear of falling affects everyone, even the pros. If you climb with a rope you need to watch this video. If you don’t, you still need to watch this video because it applies to bouldering too! We're talking about the science of fear!

We first need to understand what happens to the body when we experience fear so that we can best take control of these processes. Cue the fight or flight response!

Fight or Flight is a fear response - As soon as you anticipate a dangerous situation your amygdala gets to work and triggers the sympathetic nervous system, signals are sent out to release ‘stress hormones’, like adrenaline. These kick the body into high gear, so it becomes tense and alert. Some can be good but too much is not a good thing. It will become difficult to focus on small tasks since your brain is preoccupied with the fear.

However, the brain also releases dopamine during the fight or flight response. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter “chemical messenger” that plays a role in how we feel pleasure. So when the fearful situation does not become overwhelming or traumatic we can end up enjoying the experience. This is why we like roller coasters and watching scary movies.

Controlling the situation to manage the dose and frequency of fear we can start to overcome our fear of falling. We also discuss how counterfactual thinking, visualisation, self-talk and ego play a big role in the journey to overcoming fear.

Climbing Partner checklist;
- Someone you can be open with (leave your ego at the door)
- Someone that understands the process
- Someone that won’t shout at you “go higher!” but will say words of confidence
- Someone that can give a soft catch.

Step 1 - Top Rope
- Bouncing and Swinging - get comfortable hanging
- Small falls to take up the slack - Focus on breathe, flow and relaxing

Step 2 - Lead
- Bolt-to-bolt + Bouncing
- Clip Fall
- Clip-Move Fall
- Above Bolt Fall

Step 3 - Lead Performance
- Redpoint where you’ll need to try hard and falling is highly likely.
Hyper-focused climbing practice. This is about attention and being in the moment while climbing. Focus on the body position, the tension in your grip, the texture of the holds, the depth of your breath.

Download the Crimpd App:

[markuswrede]

Just watching a video about the fear of falling gives me sweaty palms.... 😅

[ihateandreykrasnokutsky]

I've been climbing electricity pylons for some time now, and one of the best methods to reduce fear is to avoid your eyes from being unfocused. It's when you watch nowhere, as if your're thinking about something. In reality it's a frightened look. Focuse your eyes, as if you're watching at something close to you. Or you can actualy watch and concentrate on something nearby: your hands or better something you need to grab.
Don't look or think of something behind you (about that vast space), it can be very uncomfortable during the first climbs. Generally, don't think about anything except what you have in front of you. Imagine that you're in a small room, limited by your body, hands and the structure you climb.
Practice and experience is a second very powerful tool to reduce fear.
Don't use the words "fear" or "scared", even if you're scared. They have the effect of self-affirmations, and hence they not only describe reality, but they create it in some kind of psychological loop.
I think that removing the fear is relatively easy, you just need to be consistent in your tries to climb higher.

[Schockokekschen]

For me, finding people to climb with who do not make me feel uncomfortable but who are understanding when my fear kicks in, was a big game changer. Now I don’t mind pushing myself a bit more (and ending up with a mental breakdown, crying my eyes out). They are cool with it and know it’s just me trying to push my limits. I also talked with them about things not to do, when I’m at my worst, and they 100% respect that, which helps a lot.

What didn’t work for me at all was fall training ^^ After I did my lead course (and cried through it 90% of the time) I was told to do fall training on a regular basis – which I did 1-2 times a week. However, it really screwed up my mental game after a few weeks. At one point I even got mental breakdowns the evening BEFORE going to the gym and it felt like a huge pressure. And yes, I normally only did little falls and always top rope. And I'm quite a rational person, so I know my belayer is great and the equipment is safe and also that most of the time I'm more than 100% capable to do the route - and I'm having this talk with myself every time I go climbing/bouldering on every route I do.

When it got so bad, that I even started panicking and crying just by looking up on my warming up route (on top rope I’m fine climbing up to 7a on a good day), and one time just by entering the climbing gym, I decided to stop fall training and give myself a break.

Now I’m just trying to listen to my body and mind during the warm up. If it’s a bad day, I do not push myself too much on that day. I might just try harder routes, where I will have to work on a crux like 5-6 meter above ground. Or I will d o a few easier routes and celebrate if I'm be able to take a little fall above 7m even once purposely, or getting myself to let go of the holds and swing out or even being able to sit in my belt 10m above ground for a bit.
If I have a really good day, I might push myself hard (which is basically a “normal” session for everyone I climb with^^).

So what I’m trying to say: everyone is different and it’s worth trying different things and see what works best for you - which might be different from everybody else. There are also good days and bad days, and it's good to know which one today is and take it easy or having a good understanding of how much you can push yourself before it becomes counterproductive 😊 Btw, just watching this video gave me anxiety, so for me today is probably not the best day to push my limits^^

[iggimoore]

Brilliant strategies. I fell and broke my back 22 years ago and it still holds me back. My last climbing partner used to make me lead routes but not clip the chains; resulting in a fall but so high up it was safe. Even this, initially, was hard but I did get used to it. However, leave it for a few months and I am back where I started! 🙃😂

[jonlyons]

I do fall training as part of my warm up routine and made a game out of it.

This distracts me from the fear and makes it a positive thing instead of training your mind falling is scary.

Start out high clipping and letting go as quickly as possible, try to beat your previous clip and fall time. When it's seamless move on hold up and repeat.

Once you get above the clip I pick a hold and smack it like a buzzer or a speed climber finishing their run. Now I'm at the point of moving to the side 6 inches above the clip and it's like starting all over. 😭😂👍 Just gotta keep taking small incremental falls, I do 3 each climbing day.

[timandrews]

This was really helpful, but I did notice that most of the climbing shots were on indoor overhangs (falling on those can even be fun). Interested to hear some tips on how you cope with steep but not overhanging walls where a fall results in sliding down the wall and especially in trad leading where you know your last couple of gear placements are a bit sketchy.

[BrunoAxhausen]

Good one! Definitely something you don‘t „get“ once and for all! More like staying in shape, have to keep working on it to make progress but also to maintain…
Going for harder routes definitely helped me though. Often harder routes are better protected as well as steeper and therefore nicer to fall on… falling on 5b’s usually sucks outdoors no matter how good your head is…

[greyemrednus]

Falling into a bouncy rope is more fun than scary, but after a badly sprained ankle I find myself severely limiting my effort when a (bouldering) problem reaches higher than around 2.5 meters.
Especially if it relies on sketchy holds/slabs and the fall scenario seems particularly dangerous, examples:
- Holds positionied between you and the mat, specifically when relying on small holds/slabs.
- Overhang footlocks threatening to get jammed, causing you to involuntarily swing around on one leg should your hands fail (this might be the most irrational one)
- generally: Putting weight on limit-pushing holds that, in (not so unlikely) case of ones failure, would send you on a trajectory that leaves your body arriving at the mat in a particularly unfortunate orientation (looking at you - full scorpion), at an unfortunately high speed.

[BeliefInLeif]

As Don Miguel Ruiz says in his book the mastery of self, you have to change whether your story is coming from the ally narrator or the parasite narrator.
I tried lead for the first time yesterday and was not expecting to be scared because I don’t mind heights, but I took a couple big wippers and got nervous. I’m scared of actually falling, but being in that fear state is uncomfortable for sure.
My story about that first time could be that it was terrifying and I’m bad at it because I fell a lot and barely passed the gyms test because I couldn’t clip the final bolt. It was uncomfortable and I shouldn’t do it again.
OR my story could be that I did great for my first time and handled falling really well. Even tho I was scared I pushed through and didn’t give up. Lead is fun and a great opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and improve my mindset.
Our minds are our most powerful tool, they create our reality.
Thank you for this! 🙏❤️

[Alex.i]

One of the most proficient videos on fear of falling and perhaps one of the best videos from Lattice. Congrats to the people documenting and creating this, nicely done! Looking forward for a video on fear of falling while bouldering, indoor and outdoor :) Especially now that commercial bouldering gyms are becoming taller and taller in a try to mimic the worldcups

[Leo-ryzh]

Can you do a video on how to do soft catches?

[SirSereni]

This is just the video I needed thank you! One tip I was given was to not clip the final clip on a route and do a practice fall on each route you do. But this might be going into overdose territory!

[hellsangel]

Jesus crist he is speaking my language. I took a bad fall and now im scared of falling.
Thank you for this video

[matteobmaontube]

Thank you very much for these valuable teachings. This is certainly one of the biggest limiting factors in climbing. 🙂

[GlitchMan]

I really needed this video. A few months ago my belayer fumbled with the device and let me free fall on top rope for a couple of seconds and it was the scariest thing ever. Since then, I’ve stuck to bouldering or auto-belay routes. Every now and then I let someone else belay me but I always ask them to let me down slowly but I also cant break away from the wall and simply hang there anymore. Now my friends want to start leading but I have opted out of taking lessons due to this and its been bothering me for weeks.
Edit: The belayer is my friend who now wants to lead climb, but I have expressed multiple times how I still may allow her to belay me on top rope now, I can’t put my safety in her hands on lead.

[nickfoulds]

What a great video. Love the breakdown. The most comprehensive video I've seen on understanding and starting the journey of combating fear in climbing. Thank you for this! 👍🏼

[meganh]

I just came out of a bad slump of fear and anxiety in climbing. I’m quite predisposed to worry as it is and I found that the fearful part of my brain was in the front seat. Challenging sequences just totally short circuited my brain and I couldn’t push through the fear. People kept telling me to just not think so much, advice that I frankly found incredibly unhelpful. I can’t say for sure what it was that got me out of the slump, but rather than trying to… stop thinking, I’ve been trying to focus on meditative qualities like breathing and flow. And when I find that I am starting to get psyched out, practicing calming breaths and compassionate self-talk. Trying to deactivate yourself when you’ve spiralled into a full blown panic is a lot harder than continuously practicing mind-body awareness.

[uploadsnstuff]

Yeah that fall at 2:18 was definitely ending upside-down. I'd love to see a video on how to practice those.

[lianaroemer]

Really helpful, the steps you mentioned for fall training, I did fall training and realised how big of a game changer this was back then and also that it literally is like a muscle. What you don’t use you lose. About time to practice again 😊💪

[robertomarreiros]

Really nice video on a such important subject.
I'm really felling that i'm "stuck" because of the fear, but for me i would call Fear of Falling trying to clip

Any tips?
Cheers