The Mind Matters | Q&A With Team GB Climber Hamish McArthur

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Written by: James Roe

Last Updated: 07 Jun 2022

For someone whose training and competing schedule was interrupted in the most dramatic of ways, Hamish McArthur has made it all work out for him and, what’s more, he’s done so his way. The 20-year-old Team GB climber has two Youth World Championship titles to his name, as well as a bronze World Championships medal thanks to a blazing performance in Moscow last September.

“As someone who loves nothing more than to be out in the middle of nowhere, it definitely weighs on me that almost all of the climbing that I do is under a roof”

It’s not surprising that the climber has bigger things on his mind already, looking as far ahead as 2028 for a certain world sporting event (not just 2024). And who can blame him? He joined the GB senior climbing team at 16, placed third on the world stage at 19, and this February caught the attention of Arc’teryx, who welcomed him to their athlete team. It’s all looking up for McArthur, and he’s probably already figured out the fastest route.

Hamish talks about climbing with the same certainty he approaches the wall. For an athlete still so early in his career, it’s clear he already knows what a big part mindset has to play. There’s also a fluidity to his game, perhaps best demonstrated by his seamless response to certain global situations back in 2020; a time when he took the opportunity of a changing environment to focus on his strength and conditioning. Embracing unexpected developments in life, just like in climbing, is all part of the process it would seem. Ahead of the upcoming Arc’teryx Alpine Academy in Chamonix this month, we got a bunch of Hamish’s thoughts on the Olympics, the outdoors, and, well, his thoughts.

Firstly, how have you been? What are you up to at the moment? These last few months have been some of the busiest and most exciting moments of my career. Having been selected for all the bouldering and lead climbing World Cups, my training schedule has been pretty intense. Between World Cups in Switzerland and Salt Lake City, my coach has had me training twice a day to prepare myself for the demands of the competition season. A very welcome break in this training cycle came in the form of a weekend spent enjoying some beautiful scenery helping at the Arc’teryx Academy: Climb Lake District event in the climbing and bouldering clinics. There’s nothing like some fresh air to reset the training psych and it was great to connect with other outdoor enthusiasts too.

“These last few months have been some of the busiest and most exciting moments of my career”

You’ve mentioned that as a kid, before you began indoor climbing, you were already climbing your way around the heights of your family home; something which then led to your mum putting you in a climbing club. Are there any specific memories of those childhood climbing adventures that hinted towards your talent for the sport? Any serious dynos spring to mind? Like most kids, trees were the go-to for vertical exploration. I have such vivid memories of all the trees at my primary school. I remember sticking my head out the top of the biggest tree there, being the only person to scale the blank face of the silver birch and jumping between branches to get the cherries that no one else could reach. I think this says just as much about my competitive nature as my climbing talent. I still make time to climb trees when I can, it’s a way to reconnect with that childlike state of doing something just for the sake of doing it and having fun.

You’re quickly becoming one of the most exciting Team GB athletes, and not just in the climbing sphere. With a couple of years left until the next Olympics, all eyes (not least yours) are on Paris. Aside from the technical training, have you given much thought as to what it could be like to represent the country on an Olympic level? For me the desire to compete at the Olympics is not about patriotism or honour, instead the games simply represent the pinnacle of challenge for a sport. I find it hard to be satisfied striving for anything less than greatness. Whilst I know that the goal of becoming an Olympic champion may or may not happen, it is the act of doing everything in my power to make it come true that is fulfilling.

“Isolation teaches you to find intrinsic motivation, discipline, creativity, patience…”

You’ve spoken widely on the unexpected benefits of the 2020 lockdown for yourself, as an athlete, at the stage in your career that you were at the time. There’s been a huge focus around reconnecting in this post-lockdown era; perhaps even more than there was in 2019. For a solo sport like climbing where you’re often training in groups, how have you managed to maintain that important degree of isolation? I think it’s important here (as in most things) to find positives on both sides, rather than identifying with one and disregarding the other. For example, isolation teaches you to find intrinsic motivation, discipline, creativity, patience… whilst training as a team provides support, variety, collaboration, and all-round good vibes. Some sessions I do on my own, some sessions I do with a big group of athletes. You know what they say, “variety is the spice of life.”

It’s pretty clear that mindset is a really important part of your life as an athlete, whether it’s focusing on being in the moment at competitions or approaching training routines in certain ways. Where does that interest in mindset come from? I’m a believer that mindset is all we have. It goes back to the stoic idea that it is not the situation itself, but your response to it which dictates your life. Different situations require different mindsets, which can be provoked through conscious thought patterns. Some training sessions I feel the need to adopt a killer mentality to help me push through physical and mental boundaries (say in a particularly intense strength and conditioning set), where I’d put on headphones and blast whatever gets me in the mood. Other times I allow myself a much more relaxed approach, giving way to creativity and fluidity. The important thing here is to be adaptable and to find inspiration in whatever mood the situation brings.

“It is not the situation itself, but your response to it which dictates your life”

There’s an inherently important place for the outdoors in climbing, but with competitive climbing being an indoor sport there’s sometimes a bit of distance from that fresh air. How do you incorporate the outdoors into your life as an athlete? As someone who loves nothing more than to be out in the middle of nowhere, it definitely weighs on me that almost all of the climbing that I do is under a roof. With the volume of training hours, I’m putting in each week, there simply isn’t enough time to do both. I get a different kind of joy from training and competing, so I see it more as a compromise than a sacrifice. The rocks and the mountains and the lakes will all still be there in 10 years’ time, whereas the possibility of achieving greatness as a competitive climber will not. With small escapes to the wilderness every now and then I can maintain my hunger for competition with the comfort that the rocks can be a part of my life forever.

“The rocks and the mountains and the lakes will all still be there in 10 years’ time, whereas the possibility of achieving greatness as a competitive climber will not”