Discovered some interesting things about climbing in the recent months: climbing style is something that you'll eventually develop, can't really be forced. What you can do to help improve your style would be to pay attention to your training in the early stages, because they will lay the foundation for later and more specialised development. Knowing your style / inclinations during climbing will also help you to focus your training in the right areas later.
Maybe I can draw an example to illustrate.
My style is, in the words of Jups: strong. Alright... before you tear a muscle laughing, allow me to elaborate why. My physique is slightly mesomorphic, at least in comparison to my brother. My past sporting experience had been in strength-biased sports like competitive canoeing. I don't play a whole lot of soccer, so my feet haven't got any extraordinary talent.
Basically, this makes me a rather upper-body and strength-biased climber. Not that it's a bad thing really -- competitive bouldering frequently boils down to a matter of strength at the cruxes. However, when I pay attention to the way I climb, I frequently find that on long routes, my upper body and lower body seem to be somewhat dis-jointed. This can be seen with my uncertain / inconsistent footwork as I progress on long routes at Climb Asia. While I may climb alright for short boulder problems, my apparent lack of coordination on long routes could hinder my progress in climbing -- it stems from a more fundamental flaw in my style that I must correct.
Insufficient training? More like incorrect training. I haven't quite worked out the solution for myself, but I have an idea. While I should still push hard to work on basics like finger strength, contact strength, endurance, power endurance etc... I think I should focus on a few other areas too -- core body strength, full body coordination and mental training.
Core body strength will come from trainings that involve flexibility training, abdominal workouts and playing sports that require me to jump, twist and bend. Playing sports like volleyball, hand-ball and even soccer and basketball would not only serve to engage your entire body, they will also do your cardio a service. Finally mental training for me would come in terms of focus, route-reading and also visualisation. But that's another lesson for another time...
Anyone has more ideas?
