Route Pyramid

This is my current route pyramid. It's basically just a graphical representation of what grades you are climbing successfully. The idea, promoted in The Self-Coached Climber*, is that you can get a better feel for whether you are either not pushing yourself enough to climb hard (your pyramid will be flat) or if you aren't developing a strong enough base of moderate difficulty (your pyramid would appear top heavy and skinny).

I keep a journal of sport and trad climbs that I have done in a google doc spreadsheet. I have it set to tally up the number of climbs for each grade and the type of ascent. This is my sport pyramid. I am redpointing almost a full number grade above my onsight level, which is fairly typical.

I'm more concerned with the shape of the top of my redpoint pyramid, which is 4-3-4-5 and is a little top heavy. Ideally you want a pyramid that is 1-2-4-8. Basically I need to get on some more 11c and 11d routes and then work up to a 12c. You can also see that I tried many many 12a's without success and that is just because I was reaching for the grade.



*an excellent book for training, btw!