The Anatomy of Your Send: A Deep Dive into Your Performance Characteristics

Have you ever felt incredibly strong, yet found yourself repeatedly falling on a project that should be within your ability? The frustrating truth is that "strong" isn't a single quality. The power needed for a short, explosive boulder problem is completely different from the endurance required for a 40-meter pump-fest.

Your true strengths—and your most glaring weaknesses—are hidden in the DNA of your hardest sends.

The Performance Characteristics chart is your microscope. It dissects your top achievements to reveal the specific physical demands you excel at, and more importantly, the ones you've been subconsciously avoiding. This is one of the most powerful tools in the app for creating a targeted, effective training plan.

The Most Important Step: Curating Your Data

Before we go further, it's crucial to understand that this chart is unique: it requires your active participation to be useful. It analyzes the characteristics you manually add to your top sends.

If you haven't tagged your hardest climbs with details like their crux angle and energy system, this chart will be blank.

Think of yourself as a detective building a case file on your own performance. To get the clearest picture, take 15 minutes to go back through the climbs in your Performance Pyramid and add these crucial tags. The more detail you provide, the more powerful and personalized your analysis will be.

How to Read the Chart: A Quick Guide

This chart visualizes the characteristics of the climbs in your Performance Pyramid (your top 4 hardest-sent grades). It consists of several bars, with each bar representing a different characteristic (e.g., Crux Angle, Crux Energy).

Each bar is divided into colored segments representing your different grade levels. The size of each segment shows you how many of your sends at that grade have that specific characteristic.

Let's use a concrete example:

• Imagine your "Crux Angle" bar. You look at the segments for your hardest grade (let's say 5.13a). You see that the "Overhang" section is large, but the "Slab" section is nonexistent.

• The Insight: This tells you that while you are clearly capable of climbing 5.13a, all of your success at that level has been on steep terrain. You have a proven strength in overhanging climbing and a potential major weakness in slab climbing.

What Your Chart Can Tell You: Spotting Your Specialist Profile

By looking at the dominant segments in your bars, you can identify your profile.

The Steep-Terrain Specialist

• What it looks like: Your "Crux Angle" bar is almost entirely Overhang and Roof across all your top grades. Your "Crux Energy" bar is dominated by Power-Endurance.

• What it means: You are a beast when the climbing gets steep. Your weakness is likely the subtle, technical movement required for vertical and slab climbing.

The Vertical Technician

• What it looks like: Your "Crux Angle" bar is heavily weighted toward Vert and Slab. Your "Crux Energy" bar often leans toward shorter Power sections.

• What it means: You are a master of balance, footwork, and precise movement on small holds. Your biggest weakness is likely sustained, powerful climbing on steeper terrain.

The Power Boulderer

• What it looks like: Your "Crux Energy" bar is overwhelmingly dominated by Power (short, maximal moves of <10 seconds), and your length_category bar shows a heavy bias toward shorter routes.

• What it means: You excel at explosive, low-move-count cruxes. Your weakness is any form of sustained effort; you likely fade on longer power-endurance sequences.

The Well-Rounded Climber

• What it looks like: Your chart shows a healthy distribution of sends across a wide variety of angles and energy systems, demonstrating a broad base of skills at your top grades.

• What it means: You are a jack-of-all-trades. This is a strong indication that you have the necessary skills to start pushing your top grade. Your path to improvement lies in identifying your most subtle weakness and applying a focused training stimulus.

Putting Your Insights into Action

This chart provides a direct roadmap for your training.

1. Train Your Weakness with a Plan: This is the primary function of the chart. If your "Crux Angle" bar has zero "Slab" sends, you have found your next training focus.

   • Action: Dedicate the next 4-6 weeks to a focused "anti-style" block. Spend at least one session per week _only_climbing on your weakness (e.g., at a local crag known for its slabs). Success isn't sending hard grades; success is accumulating volume and improving movement in that style.

2. Choose Your Projects Wisely: Use this chart to find projects that play to your strengths or force you to confront your weaknesses.

   • To Perform: A Performer archetype wanting to send a new top grade should look for projects that match the dominant characteristics on their chart.

   • To Improve: A Technician archetype should look for projects that are in their smallest category to build a more well-rounded skill set.

3. Structure Your Training Cycles: If you are a "Steep-Terrain Specialist," your chart is telling you that your body is already well-adapted to power-endurance. Your biggest gains might come from a training block focused on what you lack.

   • Action Example: A 6-week hangboard cycle focusing on small edge recruitment will directly benefit your performance on Vert terrain.

What This Chart Isn't

• A picture of your overall climbing. This chart only analyzes your absolute hardest sends (your pyramid). Your profile for easier climbing might be completely different.

• A measure of mental strength. It shows what your body can do, but not your ability to execute under pressure.

This chart dissects your peak performance to give you an unfiltered look at your physical identity as a climber. Use it to stop training blindly and start training with purpose.

Now, head to the app and examine your Performance Characteristics. What is the true anatomy of your strength?