UKC

Family, work and other life commitment mean I only get to climb once a week, for about three hours, plus outdoors a handful of times a year. I'm 171cm/70kg, 44 years old with slightly dodgy elbows (tennis/golf elbow if I'm not careful).

After around 12 years, I'm still bimbling around the 6a/6b mark. Any tips for nudging up to steady 6b/6b+ ?

In reply to FrankBooth:

If you've been climbing 6bs once a week for a long time, I guess you need something different to stimulate some improvement.

It could be how hard you try. You haven't given any indication of your typical session, but for example if you usually climb 10 6a-b routes fairly steady, why not throw yourself on a couple of 6b+'s.

Longer rests, harder attempts. Just an idea. There are so many ideas.

Generally, something different is good.
"If you want what you've never had, you must do what you've never done"

In reply to FrankBooth:

Any chance you could setup a finger board at home? Or even better build a small home wall?

Depending obviously on your body composition, you could probably loose a little bit of fat mass, which would make a difference.

What about coaching sessions to improve your technique?

I know that family and work are probably things that you can't change, but what about the other life commitments? Can they be dropped? Basically if you want to climb more and get better, you have to make changes.

In reply to FrankBooth:

in a similar boat mate, rarely get a good wall session in, best i can expect is an hour or an hour and a half now and again, but I never drop below 6a font. So I guess I could stand still at 6b+/c with one good long session a week, if I had a few weeks training with regular sessions etc first. but i have the advantage of relative youth.

I suppose the answer is to make the most of your time there: an hour warming up on enjoyable easy problems, then working some harder problems or doing routes then finish off with some training stuff eg footwork on small holds or finger board, campus etc

In reply to mattrm:

yeah, loosing a bit of body fat has already helped and trimming off a bit more wouldn't do any harm!

Coaching is also probably a good idea, as is the suggestion of changing the pattern of my weekly climbs. Currently, I typically do ten climbs, starting with a couple of 5s to warm up then a 6a, 6a+, 6a+, 5+, 6b, 6b, 6a, 5+. 6b is about as hard as I can bag (and even then its the softer ones to be honest).

Other than climbing, I also enjoy cycling and running. With four kids and running a business there's not a lot of manoeuvre! I've always maintained we should switch to a ten day week - six days for work, a three day weekend and a 'me-day'.

In reply to FrankBooth:

I've just watched both these training videos from James Pearson / Wild Country and they might help in focussing your sessions to achieve the desired results.

Endurance training (routes 30+ moves): vimeo.com/63348777

Power Endurance training (15-30 moves): vimeo.com/63348779

Once a week should easily get you to 6c. Better still if you can supplement this with a second wall/crag visit, or alternatively a f/board or woodie session at home.

First of all though, you need to establish what your real target is: long, easy-ish 6b+/c indoor route or short, punchy, bouldery outdoor route? Once you've done that, you should tailor your training accordingly. Specificity is key.

In reply to FrankBooth:

How's your flexibility? If it's not good (and all that running and cycling won't help) then some yoga/stretching focusing on various aspects of hip flexibility could help you improve by a grade or two. Can be done at home without consuming too much time.

In reply to FrankBooth: Are you happy to fail on harder routes? If you middle route was 6b+/6c and you accepted that you would dog it, learn how best to climb it, prcatice it/repeatedly try it each week until you get it you may find the improvement you're looking for. Once you have nailed that one do another an dkeep going, you will ( I think) find that you get them more and more quickly with less and less hanging on the rope. Eventually your grade may well increase.

In reply to FrankBooth:

As said above, start getting on 6b+ or 6c routes. Could be worth trying them more then once in a session, red pointing style - that way you can LEARN what you need to do to get up them onsight. Beware of injury, make sure y our well warmed up before and not knackered from other stuff like running.

Expect to have to fight hard and try and be honest with yourself about why you fail, as fear of falling might well be the problem. To analyse this check out your toproped grade - shouldn't be much different. If you regularly toprope 6b+ cleanly then falling is likely something to be worked on.

Another idea is to focus on your weakest style of route. Suppose I asked you to do all the 6bs at your wall, which are the ones you'd dread? Focus on that style of climbing exclusively for 4 weeks or so, at all the grades, until you get better. Tough for the ego but good for your climbing.

Read Dave macleods 9 out of 10 climbers.

In reply to FrankBooth:


Try the couple of 5s to warm up, then a 6a+, then a 6b+ or 6c. If you need a few rests to get up it then ok, just keep trying routes at that grade and try to eliminate the rests.

Do you fail to get up routes owing to lack of stamina, or are the moves too hard? If the latter try lots of indoor bouldering to do harder moves. If the former, just push yourself on routes a bit too hard for you and accept that you'll need rests, but try to minimise them.

Essentially, if you're trying to claim 6c, then you need to get on 6cs, cruising at 6a and 6a+ won't help much. Don't worry about the "onsight", worrying about the onsight is the enemy of improvement!

In reply to FrankBooth:

To get better, you probably need to do harder moves. Dogging harder routes until you can do them or bouldering are your two options.

You might want to completely change what you do in a session to shake up the feeling of being stuck. You could do something like:

- a few laps on an easy route to get warmed up, then
- spend an hour bouldering on successively harder problems until you're failing on ones that you won't get up that session
- do a couple of routes around your top grade, then
- spend whatever time is left dogging the life out of something harder
- warm down on an easy route

That would be a good session that would help you improve a lot more than just plodding up the same 6as and 6bs. It's not very 'organised' because you've only got one session to work with, but there's some ideas there to help use the time more efficiently.

In reply to FrankBooth: In general I would say that once a week isn't really enough but I understand that people with families have far less free time than I do As others have said, making the most of your time at the wall by getting on a really hard route and dogging it over and over until you can redpoint it is the best method for improvement. If you can get a hangboard and do some training at home twice a week (a decent session needn't take longer than half an hour including warm up) it would benefit you greatly.

In reply to FrankBooth:
. Currently, I typically do ten climbs, starting with a couple of 5s to warm up then a 6a, 6a+, 6a+, 5+, 6b, 6b, 6a, 5+. 6b is about as hard as I can bag (and even then its the softer ones to be honest).

Can't remember who it was who said that madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

I'd say it's time to do something different.

You have a few options:

(1) Focus more on technique. Read the Self-coached Climber and use your warm ups to do all the exercises they recommend. Over-emphasise footwork and flagging.

(2) Focus more on volume. 10 routes is not much in a session, especially if you're going once a week. Why not do double laps on the routes you find easy in the 4s and 5s? If I push it a bit I can get 20 routes done in a 2 1/2 hour session. Why not build up to that, adding an extra route each week for the next 10 weeks?

(3) Focus more on intensity. I'd have thought this might be a better bet, as with a weeks rest between sessions you can really push the intensity. Warm up and then try a 6c+. First go just go bolt to bolt. I bet you can do all the moves. Second go try for some longer links. Third go etc. You'll probably only be able to have 3 or 4 good goes in a session. Then warm down. Try this for 8 weeks, then try some 6b+ onsights.

Alternatively go bouldering instead of doing routes for 8-10 weeks. I reckon 4 weeks just focusing on doing the easier boulders perfectly. Then 4 weeks focusing working a couple of problems 2 grades harder than your current best. Then try some routes sessions again. Maybe in the last 2 weeks warm down from your boulder session doing 3 easier boulders in a row without resting.

Report back in 8-10 weeks and let us know how you get on!

In reply to FrankBooth: All good advice above, but I guess the first thing is to determine what is holding you back and working to improve that. Is it technique, strength, stamina, time, psychological, etc.

It may be that you just don't have the time to put in to improving your grade and you might have to accept that, or if it's technique then book coaching sessions for the time that you do have.

As I say, it's important to know what is holding you back so you know what you need to change (or accept as your limitation).

In reply to Coel Hellier:


Wise words indeed. To succeed / improve, you first have to fail. Repeatedly.

In reply to Fraser:

Word

In reply to FrankBooth:

I've found a combination of a powerbar and some rock rings pulled over the top with Krabs have really helped my general finger/arm strength and because they're in the house opposite my bedroom they get used a lot more than the beastmaker I had in the garage.

In reply to FrankBooth: A big improvement (for a while until uni work stepped up a notch and took over all my time) came from daily traversing. I would go to the tiny uni wall and just traverse back and forth on about a 15-20 degree overhang trying to get as many times across as possible. Then break then do it again. For about 30mins to an hour a day (it's more fun than it sounds!) and that helped tremendously. Found I wasn't getting pumped as soon as it was more than a few moves on overhanging stuff.

In reply to FrankBooth: I'd suggest if your wall has a decent bouldering area use that for a few weeks. You'll get so much more done in your hour/and a half. You can warm up, try hard things over and over, try ridiculous things a couple of times, warm down and go home exhausted after 90mins. You'll probably find the strength/foot precision/balance etc will develop quite quickly from that and will translate back to roped climbing very nicely.

And do some yoga/stretching at other times when you get 15mins. And don't forget a few antagonist exercises for those elbows between climbing sessions. Again, doesn't have to take long.

In reply to FrankBooth: Pull upbar/rock rings/balls may help, do a load of frenchies on them.

Also bouldering style circuit boards may help, work on them till you can do the whole circuit, then repeat with no break, and also try the moves reversed.

In reply to FrankBooth:

Sounds similar to my position, be interesting to hera how it goes. I'm starting a attempt to sort getting my grade up as well with one session at the wall a week, although I might end up adding a bouldering session as well, and I'm trying to get outdoors once a week too.