Best books/practices for better lead head

What books, videos, mantras, methods, have you used to strengthen your lead head? What actual resources have you used not just saying "get over it" 

The Rock Warrior's Way and active fall training. Take progressively longer falls on good gear or bolts, with a flight path that is easy to navigate. Lots of volume at my onsight grade helped me start getting pretty comfortable with run out up to just below that grade as well. Getting experience with varying rock types and not always falling back on the same crag/routes.

Climb more

Second Lego on volume at onsight grade. Get lots mileage above pro when you’re comfortable.

Then Make yourself climb harder than your onsight grade and make yourself fall when the fallin’s good.

Hard is easy on YouTube helped me. 

Making your falls positive experiences is paramount imo. That includes taking progressive falls as mentioned, as well as doing them enough to make them routine. I also have found doing easy, somewhat runout multipitch has helped me deal with part of it 

Vipassana mediation, develop your bodhichitta, hombre.

I recommend a book titled Fear that interviews climbers and their approaches to fear

The thing people don't realize is falling fear is a circle. You reach a point where you don't care but it gets so dam annoying to whip on the same move 100 times that sometimes it just easier to aid up so you can clip/place the next piece and work the move on TR. 

Princess Puppy Lovr wrote:

"....falling fear is a circle"

  Hunh, Trevor, not what she asked?  :-)  

First of all, does "better lead head" mean fear of falling?  There are various types of fear.  They can be identified and worked on with various mental and climbing/falling exercises.

I recommend the book Vertical Mind by Don McGrath and Jeff Ellison.   Very thorough, definitely gives you mental "homework".  The Warrior's Way must be good too, but I haven't gotten through it yet....There are processes and habits to learn, beyond just practicing good clean lead falls.  I'm an older, weaker, injured climber, but I think I have a cooler head than when I pulled harder.  Have to, on the slabby crap I find myself on these days.

Also, study detailed technique manuals such as Crack Climbing:  The Definitive Guide (Whittaker) or How to Rock Climb:  Face Climbing (Long).  Fill your brain and body with technique and tactic ideas, and you may tend to focus on movement details instead of, "Oh no, I better not blow it!"

And remember, if you're never gripped, then you may have no sense, and you may never fully know the thrill of "ungripping" and willing yourself through the business!

Fall more. If you are climbing a grade where falls are safe and you are climbing dumb because you are gripped just take the whip. 

Mack Johnson wrote:

  Hunh, Trevor, not what she asked?  :-)  

First of all, does "better lead head" mean fear of falling?  There are various types of fear.  They can be identified and worked on with various mental and climbing/falling exercises.

I recommend the book Vertical Mind by Don McGrath and Jeff Ellison.   Very thorough, definitely gives you mental "homework".  The Warrior's Way must be good too, but I haven't gotten through it yet....There are processes and habits to learn, beyond just practicing good clean lead falls.  I'm an older, weaker, injured climber, but I think I have a cooler head than when I pulled harder.  Have to, on the slabby crap I find myself on these days.

Also, study detailed technique manuals such as Crack Climbing:  The Definitive Guide (Whittaker) or How to Rock Climb:  Face Climbing (Long).  Fill your brain and body with technique and tactic ideas, and you may tend to focus on movement details instead of, "Oh no, I better not blow it!"

And remember, if you're never gripped, then you may have no sense, and you may never fully know the thrill of "ungripping" and willing yourself through the business!

Thank you Mack! That was exactly what I was looking for I really appreciate it

The advice to climb more is excellent.  If 5.9s choke you up, lead more 5.6s.  

Top rope climbing on difficult short routes to find you limitations abilities can speed things up.  You know what your body can and can't do.  To much maybe-I-can/maybe-i-can't will mess you up.

The book Self Analysis by Hubbard helps me dial in the can-do attitude.

If you are going to advance you have to make some bold moves. Sometimes you do something because you have to and you swear you'll never do that one again.  It's where the fun is.

LSD 

"The Inner Game of Tennis" , Timothy Gallwey "The Soft Science of Road Racing Motorcycles", Keith Code are both solid instructionals for the correct "mindset" and work processes for technical endeavors.Inner Game is more "zen" based Soft Science leans more "scientific".

Greg Maschi wrote:

"The Inner Game of Tennis" , Timothy Gallwey "The Soft Science of Road Racing Motorcycles", Keith Code are both solid instructionals for the correct "mindset" and work processes for technical endeavors.Inner Game is more "zen" based Soft Science leans more "scientific".

Inner Game of Tennis was a life-changing book for me when I read it. I actually was playing tennis at the time lol, but it applies to much more in life. It's the OG "Inner Game" book, forget the others. Great recommendation. 

Also, the guy above saying they haven't read RWW and then casually dismisses it at as "clean fall training"....no. Just, no. That book is amazing and has basically nothing to do with that at it's core.

+1 to RWW. Vertical mind is also helpful, in a different (more bro-y) way than RWW which is useful for life, too.

In addition, Hazel Findlay is doing mindset coaching and was on this podcast talking about that -- she practices meditation so it is mindfulness based. podcasts.apple.com/us/podca…

TR harder routes than you're comfortable on, and lead routes that are easier. Learn to translate the relaxed nature of both of those into your actual hard leads.

Dave MacLeod, "Nine out of ten climbers make the same mistakes." Kind of low budget format, but invaluable advice.

Ward Smith wrote:

Dave MacLeod, "Nine out of ten climbers make the same mistakes." Kind of low budget format, but invaluable advice.

This is a good one if you like jumping around or just picking up a book for a couple minutes at a time. Covers so many topics too, in a pretty conversational format. +1

I've always heard the "TR hard routes" advice but that never worked for me. I think most folks can TR routes that they didn't know they were capable of doing, but leading is usually a mental thing. For me to finally start pushing grades on lead, I had to stop top-roping completely (unless you're following multi-pitch or cleaning a route that needs to be done on TR). But in general, only lead. It will force you out of your comfort zone. 

If you have to bail because your head isn't right, that's fine too. It's part of progress. Some days you may choke up on something easily within your grade and some days you will be totally cool taking 20 footers. The progress isn't necessarily linear, but you trend upwards.