This One Simple Thing Might Change How You Climb

Last spring, I worked the classic Moab V8 Chaos, which requires hanging from a right-hand crimp and stabbing a foot into one of three possible divots in a dihedral to the left. The lowest divot was the easiest for me to reach, but I needed to be on the highest to transition out of the crux. In a breakthrough sesh, I envisioned a foot-walk—left foot in the low divot, right foot in the middle, then left foot in the highest. The first time I tried it, my body tilting horizontal as I walked up the sidewall, I broke into a grin because it was undoubtedly the silliest move I’d ever done. Though I fell on the lunge to the lip, I knew this was the beta for me.

But on the next several attempts, I couldn’t repeat the foot-walk. I’d grit my teeth and bear down, and punt every single time. What was so different about that first attempt? I sat and listened to the birds and the babble of the Colorado River, replaying the initial try in my mind. Suddenly, I realized what made that burn so special: the smile. The next time I latched that right-hand crimp, I pasted a grin back on my face, and like magic, the foot-walk felt effortless again.

Watch the author send Chaos using the smile beta

The science behind smiling

If I’d been paying attention to the long-distance running world, I might have discovered the smile beta much sooner. Back in 2017, when marathoner Eliud Kipchoge approached the mythical sub-two-hour mark, running news outlets reported that periodic smiling had been an essential tactic. Kipchoge claimed his smile would “ease him to the finish line.”

Later that year, researchers at Ulster and Swansea Universities conducted a study that confirmed Kipchoge’s instincts: in a group study on runners, participants saw a nearly 3% increase in efficiency in their running when they smiled. In addition, the “smilers” self-reported significantly lower levels of pain and exertion than the “non-smiler” and “frowner” test groups.

We might think we smile because something makes us happy, but the causality runs the other way, too. We can feel happy because we smile. When the muscles associated with smiling contract, they trigger a release of stress-reducing serotonin and mood-enhancing dopamine throughout the body. In physiological terms, these chemicals lower blood pressure and reduce sensitivity to pain. But more broadly, a smile activates a lifetime’s worth of embodied associations: memories of prior positive outcomes and moments we’ve experienced with a smile on our face.

Does smiling = sending for climbers?

Though it hasn’t yet been empirically tested, anecdotal evidence suggests that smiling improves performance and mindset for climbers as well as for runners. A good case in point: the 2023 documentary Smile and Fight about Natalia Grossman’s dominant 2022 bouldering season. When she underperforms at a World Cup event in Salt Lake City, commentator Meagan Martin observes that Grossman is “clearly not having any fun” in the semifinals. She was climbing timidly, afraid to lose. But when she chalks up for the finals, the beaming grin has returned to her face, and she climbs like a beast—a happy, smiling beast—winning gold in front of her hometown crowd.

It turns out that the key to her strong performance had been reconnecting with her mantra “smile and fight,” which she had devised with USA Climbing National Team Head Coach Josh Larson. As Larson explains, “I don’t talk about winning World Cups. I just remind the athletes, you have to have fun, and if you start with that, everything else will fall into place a lot easier … That is success: enjoying what you’re doing.”

This attitude is widespread, not just on the US National Team but throughout the competitive climbing sphere. Because comp sets—especially for bouldering—are meant to be slightly sub-limit, every competitor is theoretically capable of doing every problem. It’s often just a question of whether the competitor believes they can. As a result, mindset work is a central pillar of comp preparation.

On an episode of The Nugget about training the mental game, climbing coach Justen Sjong says of watching the World Cups: “I look for that smirk [that means] ‘I don’t know what the outcome is, but I’m psyched.’ It’s the walk to the base that names it for me … You can see when an athlete’s going to send, when you see that moment of confidence.”

Ever since hearing that interview, I’ve tried to walk to the base of every climb—the warmup, the proj, even the Kilter Board—with that same optimistic energy. The boost to my own performance has been astonishing.

Tips for applying the smile beta

• Identify the points on your project (either by recording yourself and watching afterward, by having a friend watch and report, or simply by attending to your own body) when you’re scowling, and see what happens when you smile at those points instead.
• Train your body to associate a smile with difficult moves or sequences, both during visualizations and actual attempts. Picture the feeling of doing each move perfectly, and the grin that perfect execution will put on your face.
• On onsight and flash attempts, take note of your facial expressions while reading the route; it’s common to furrow your brow when eyeing a gnarly crux, but try to coax a smile, cultivating positive anticipation of what’s to come.
• Ask your belayer or spotter to cue you with the word “smile,” or something similar, where necessary. (A phrase I heard and liked recently was “eyes bright.”) Or just have them remind you, when you hit the crux, that Chris Sharma’s favorite car is the Volkswagen Passat.

Reminder: Climbing is fun

Beyond the measurable physical effects of smiling, a smile also has the subtler power to change the vibe of a session. From elite athletes competing on the global stage, to mere mortals logging hours on the proj, I’ve observed this phenomenon over and over. If you’re scowling on a climb and fall mid-crux, the scowl is likely to turn into a scream of frustration. But if you’re grinning when you fall? You might just erupt into laughter.

I’ve written in the past about the power of screams (they have a time and a place!), but I know that at least for me personally, it’s a lot more pleasant to be laughing than screaming. I also suspect it’s a lot more pleasant for everyone else at the crag, too.

After all, we climb for fun. Our sport is a haven for grownups who never outgrew the joys of the jungle gym. Sometimes climbers (myself included) forget this, and get wrapped up instead in a results-oriented mindset that owes to our sport’s longstanding focus on conquest—conquering literal mountains, battling figurative demons, and sending hard.

Now, on every new project, I identify the most important moment to smile, and I drill it into my muscle memory along with every drop-knee and gaston. The pain recedes and the dopamine flows. The smile beta is a deliberate step away from that outdated tone of aggression, toward an experience that rightly centers joy. Goodness knows, with our beloved public lands and National Parks under attack and our friends in federal agencies in constant upheaval, we hardly need more reasons to scream. But I, for one, am glad to be learning to smile in the middle of Chaos.

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