Myself and Jamie Vardy have been coaching Richard Slocock on a weekly basis to prepare him for National and International competitions for GB Paraclimbing. Richard is a blind climber with 5% peripheral vision and competes in the B2 category.
When we first met Richard his drive and determination to succeed was very evident and he would be prepared to do all he could to improve his climbing. This drive did however mean he came to us with a lot of gym work and struggled to break from that routine of building heavy hypertrophic muscle. He would also have a hard time stopping when feeling tired and as such had quite a few niggling injuries in his elbows and fingers.
We started him off with some easy fingerboard routines and climbing fitness style sessions to get his body used to training and cut his gym sessions down with more focused stability conditioning rather than heavy lifting style exercises. Once we achieved a buy in fro him we then started to stretch his ability and develop training plans based around rehab of his injuries alongside focussed and deliberate training to improve finger strength and technical ability.
His condition also means that we really had to work on route reading with him and reduce his tendency to ignore the coach on the radio and go with his gut which often spat him off the wall.
Since coaching Richard, myself and Jamie have played around with several different training plans and strategies to get Richard to tip top shape for competitions including improving and developing his technique. This has lead him in 2018 to achieve a 1st place in Britain in B2 and some good results on International Stages including the World Championships in Innsbruck.
