I rewatched Free Solo a few nights ago (third time now) and I can’t stop thinking about how much Alex Honnold credits his climbing journal for the improvements and training that got him up El Cap. It got me wondering what I should actually be writing in my own climbing journal, so I dug into what belongs in one.
So what should you record in a climbing journal? The most important things to include are your weekly, monthly, six-month, and year goals. Every time you climb, write down whatever feeds those goals so you can measure progress and spot when something in your training needs to change.
Once you’ve got a goal in mind, it’s not always obvious what actually feeds it. Good news is that pro climbers and coaches have already done the legwork and figured out the stats worth tracking.
What Attributes Should You Record In Your Climbing Journal
When you keep track of everything that goes into a session, it gets a lot easier to see what you need to do, add, or change to actually climb better.
Everyone’s goals look a little different, so this list will shift depending on yours. That said, these are the most common things pros recommend tracking when you start a climbing journal.
Heads up that logging all of this can feel overwhelming and eat up time, so pick what you think matters and adjust what you record as your progress (or lack of it) starts to show.
- Weekly, Monthly, Six-Month, Year Goals And Review: One of the biggest reasons to keep a climbing journal is that it helps you actually hit your goals. The best way to do that is to write them down so you can track progress and figure out what your sessions need to look like to get there.
- Alongside your goals, jot down where you’re at right now. How many max-level redpoints have you sent? How many goal sends have you got? What’s your body weight? That kind of thing.
- It’s worth checking your goals against your progress every week and every month so you can see what to work on for the next week and the next month.
- Start And Stop Times: When you train (start time) can change how your body performs, especially once you factor in when you eat and sleep. The length of the session (stop time) tells you how much time you’re really putting in and can shift how much you get out of it. At the end of the week you can see how much you trained, and at the end of the month you can spot when you tend to climb best based on your energy.
- Drills: The drills you run change the improvements you make. Track them and you’ll quickly see whether they’re working or whether it’s time to swap them out. If you want a place to start, this bouldering drills guide is a solid one.
- Reps: Reps can cover weight lifting as well as the number of climbs you did in a session or the number of drills you ran through.
- Distance Climbed: You can track distance by counting your climbs and roughly how long the routes are, or you can use a climbing tracker like RedPoint (I run this on my Apple Watch while I climb) so it logs how far you go automatically. It’s handy for figuring out whether you’re climbing enough or need to bump up your volume per session.
- How You Feel Before And After The Climbing Session: Notes on grogginess, hunger, motivation, or belief before and after a session tell you a lot when you’re looking at how diet or sleep is affecting your climbing. They also help when you’re trying to read your head game and work out whether you need to find more motivation.
- Anything You Notice While You’re Climbing: If you notice you’re strong on crimps compared to underclings, writing that down helps when you’re deciding what holds to train. Same goes if you hit an energy slump an hour into every session. Recording it helps you spot the pattern and figure out what to change.
- Type Of Climbing (Bouldering Vs Rock Climbing): If you mostly boulder, you might benefit from cross-training on ropes, and seeing that in your journal makes it obvious (here’s a full breakdown of bouldering vs rock climbing if you want it). Logging the type of climbing also helps if you boulder three times a week and have one rough rope session, since it shows you might just need to get on ropes more.
- What Climb and Grade: Indoor climbs change so often that leaning on the climb or grade to judge your performance over time gets tricky. Outdoors is different though, so recording the climb and grade helps you see how far you’ve come when you get back on that route.
- Other things worth noting are the angle of the route, the type of moves and holds, and the style of problem (technical heavy, power heavy, and so on), plus how you did on it and how many tries it took to send.
- Warmup Routine/Time: Some people need a longer or harder warmup to climb their best. Recording what you do and how long your warmup takes helps you learn what works so you can dial it in and get more out of the session.
- Project Move Breakdown: One of the biggest reasons climbers keep a journal is to work a project. You can write down every move you’ve figured out or tested along with what happened, so next time you’re on it you don’t waste time relearning what you already cracked. You can also use those notes to rehearse the climb in your head.
- Sleep: Sleep hits your energy hard, and if you really want to optimize your training, tracking it belongs on the list.
- Nutrition/Timing Of Meals And Snacks: What and when you eat drives your energy and performance on the wall. If you want to do everything you can to climb better, logging your meals and snacks shows you whether you need to adjust, and it helps if you’re trying to drop or hold a certain weight.
If you want a simple way to fill those sessions with something worth writing down, the free Send Edition newsletter sends you one short climbing drill a week, roughly 15 minutes each. It’s a good way to give your journal fresh things to track without overthinking it.
Where To Get A Climbing Journal
Most of the time you won’t find a climbing journal that comes pre-made with everything above baked in. So most climbers just grab a bullet journal or a plain notebook and make it fit their needs. There are a few climbing journals online though that are either pre-made or that you can download as a PDF and print.
If you’d like the PDF versions bound like a book, reach out to a printing service near you. Most of them do binding at a decent price too.
Here are a few climbing journals.
Pre-Made Climbing Journals
Top Recommendation: Best Planner & Tracker for Climbers
Elevate Your Climbing: Training Planner & Tracker – $27.53
Unlock your climbing potential with this training planner and tracker. Start each session with a purpose, track your progress, and adjust your training with what you learn from your evaluations.
This planner is your tool for sharpening technique, strength, and mental game so every climb takes you higher.
What’s Included:
- Goal Tracking:
- Climbing Grade
- Technique/Skills Proficiency
- Strength PRs
- Mental Performance
- Pre-Session Plan
- Drills/Exercise Outline
- Mental Performance Focus/Elements
Evaluation and Pattern Recognition:
- Post-Session Evaluation
- Strength PR Tracker
- Climbing Grade Trends
- Mental Mastery Trends
- Drill Performance Trends
- Rock Climbing Journal by Journal Menu – $14.99
- Power Company Climbing Process Journal – $15.00
- Climbing meta Training Journal – $20.00
- Rock Climbing Journal for Best Climbs and Mountaineering Adventures – $9.95
- Three Season Training Log for Trainers/ Multiple Climbers – $3.95
- Record Climbing Trip (Water Proof) – $15.95
Climbing Journal Printables / Templates:
- Climbing Workout Printable Workout Journal – 12.99
- Ultimate Rock Climbing 12 Week Training Planner – $6.47
Climbing Journal Apps:
- Klimbz (track gym sends) – FREE – Apple Store on Google Play
- KAYA (track gym sends) – FREE – on Apple Store on Google Play
- RedPoint (track gym sends) – FREE – on Apple Store
Frequently asked questions
What should you record in a climbing journal?
Start with your weekly, monthly, six-month, and year goals, plus where you’re at right now. From there, log the session details that feed those goals: your drills, reps, distance climbed, warmup, how you felt before and after, the type of climbing you did, and anything you noticed on the wall. Sleep and nutrition are worth tracking too if you want to really optimize.
Do you need a special climbing journal, or will any notebook work?
Any notebook works. Most climbers just use a bullet journal or a plain notebook and shape it around what they want to track. If you’d rather have something pre-made, there are printed journals, printable PDF templates, and free apps like Klimbz, KAYA, and RedPoint.
How often should you review your climbing journal?
Check your goals against your progress every week and every month. The weekly review tells you what to work on next session, and the monthly one helps you spot bigger patterns, like when you tend to climb best based on your energy.
What’s the single most important thing to track in a climbing journal?
Your goals and your current state. Once those are written down, everything else you log is there to measure whether you’re moving toward them, so you can adjust your training before you waste weeks going the wrong direction.
Can an app replace a written climbing journal?
An app like Klimbz, KAYA, or RedPoint is great for logging sends and, in RedPoint’s case, tracking how far you climb automatically. For goals, project move breakdowns, and notes on how you felt, a lot of climbers still like writing it out, so plenty of people run both together.
Where this fits in your training
A journal is only worth keeping if it feeds a plan. The Climbing Training Hub shows how tracking, rest, drills, and strength fit together, and which one to fix first.
