UKC

Choose one!

Which would improve your climbing the most and why?

In reply to bouldery bits:

Well, lighter and stronger are 2 ways of achieving the same thing if done right (a better power:weight ratio) so one of those.

In reply to AJM:

Good answer!

In reply to AJM:

Being lighter would help with your strength endurance as well though.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

It would, although I'd argue if you train strength correctly (and by this I mean correctly for a route climber) there will be some carry through as well.

But for me strength is probably the most pressing weakness, so the carry through into endurance is a secondary concern.

In reply to bouldery bits:

In answer to my own question I have got lighter recently (a whole stone!) And it's been worth a grade in itself.

Having said that I think now I need to get more flexible as my new focus.

In reply to bouldery bits:
Get stronger, then get lighter.

In reply to bouldery bits:



Totally dependent on where you're starting from. If you not climbed much because you've been running, then it's better to work on strength. If you've been on an eating and drinking holiday, you'd be better off loosing weight. And so on. It's partly about identifying your immediate weaknesses and partly about looking where you can make easy and effective gains most easily.
Another answer might be: all of them. They're not mutually exclusive, so why not do all three?

In reply to bouldery bits:



Oh, and it also depends on what you mean by 'climbing'. Limestone? Probably strength/weight. Granite slabs? More likely flexibility.

In reply to bouldery bits:

Stronger without a doubt. Being stronger at the same weight carries future advantage if you choose to get lighter. If you get lighter you will be stronger at your new weight, but once you adapt to it you will be weaker on an absolute scale.

Personally I think as long as you have the flexibility to do most ordinary climbing moves, it's not worth spending too much time on. The people I see doing a lot of flexibility work at the climbing wall tend to be very flexible, but not very good climbers.

In summary, getting stronger will improve my (and most people's) climbing more than anything else other than improving technique.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


But it might be detrimental to your overall strength. Ondra says he boulders better when he's a little heavier than his ideal weight for route climbing.

In reply to RockSteady:

I tend to agree though being more flexible is definitely helpful for some moves. You can also train flexibility alongside strength training, ie. without any detrimental effect.

In reply to stp:

Depends whether you want to boulder or route climb then.