UKC

I work really close to a bouldering wall and climb there 2-3 times during the week. I'm wondering how best to train for for trad climbing in an indoor bouldering wall. I'm well aware that climbing routes indoor or outdoor would be better but its not really an option this winter. I fairly solid on E2 and have climbed a few E3s.
Cheers!

In reply to markflanagan:

Do lots, have fun.

Don't hurt yourself.

If your bouldering grade is low, work on that. If your ability to hang on forever is low, work on that.

After that ... It's more complicated.

In reply to markflanagan:
For strength/power, just go bouldering, and mix in some fingerboarding for periods of time if you have access to one.
If you need to build up your endurance, there are lots of different ways and the best depends on what sort of endurance you really need to improve (somewhere on the spectrum from the ability to put together 4 hard moves instead of 2, to the ability to move forever on very easy ground and recover quickly at a jug.)
Have a look at this:

The following training article by Alex Barrows gives an excellent breakdown on training the four main "energy systems" specific to climbing:
http://alexbarrowsclimbing.blogspot.com.es/2014/02/training-for-sport-climb...

The good news is that in my view, a good bouldering wall is the best place regardless. Routes provide very little flexibility and often aren't sustained enough to provide ideal training. However if the wall has a circuit board that's a great help.

In reply to markflanagan:

I rarely tie on indoors any more to train. You can train strength, technique, power endurance and stamina on a bouldering wall with imagination though training stamina is best done when the wall is quiet. If the wall has a fingerboard too then start using that too if you don't have one at home.

In reply to markflanagan:


Sit around eating sandwiches and drinking tea, then when you eventually get up to climb, do it really, really slowly.

In reply to markflanagan:

Turn a beastmaker upside down and use it to train your toes

The trad toe board , coming to a wall near you soon.

In reply to snoop6060:

No need to turn it upside down, just move it to knee level

To the OP - there is loads of stuff you can do. The staple (as far as I am aware) for route endurance is to do 4x4's on routes. You can easily do this on a boulder wall, by combining problems (usually 4 or 5) to count as one "route".

Plus everything everyone else has said.

In reply to ianstevens:


Aside from my joke reply, I've found Countinuous Intensity Repetitions to be a really good work out. See http://www.climbstrong.com/articles/20131021 for ideas ( under 'Circuit 1' ).

Also the traditional 4x4 or it's slightly more brutal variation - the linked bouldering circuit from RCTM - is useful for building a tolerance to that 'boxed out of your mind' feeling when you're hanging around placing gear.

In reply to markflanagan:

I don't think trad climbing will be any different to any other kind of climbing. I also would not necessarily agree that doing routes is going to be better for you either. Bouldering is a great way to improve for everything. Hard moves are the units of climbing anything so the better you get at them the better.

I think at a bouldering wall you want to spend most time on the style of problems you are worst at. Maybe it's roofs, maybe open handed, or crimpy walls or whatever. You also want to spend time doing problems near the limit of what's possible for you. So doing problems that you tend to flash every one is not really going to help you as much as stuff you have to work on, sometimes for days.

When it gets towards the end of the winter spend a bit of time traversing for endurance and/or doing harder problems you've done multiple (3-4) times with little to no rest which is good for strength endurance.

In reply to markflanagan:

Training for routes at the bouldering wall:
youtube.com/watch?v=6GiFnleR9OE&

I've done boulder 4x4's for power endurance. Helped me with climbing through the pump on routes and unexpectedly I've also really enjoyed the excersize in itself.

In reply to markflanagan:

I find one of the more challenging parts of trad climbing placing gear from a static but stressed (physically) position, and so will try to hold positions to try to simulate my fiddling with gear. Perhaps that could be added to the other ideas?

In reply to tmawer:


yep, this is really good practice. I find a quiet corner of the bouldering wall with a crippy slabby problem, then climb up and down it over and over again till I'm burst. Every move being about precision. I stop after every move then hold it for a few minutes, swapping handstand then feet when they get tired and getting a balanced body position right, just like when placing gear. Works even better if you can find a problem that's really thin, maybe on an arete or something.

In reply to stp:


I'm not sure about this, I think different ability at types of climbing relates pretty closely to what you train.

Firstly, a lot of trad climbing is about not getting pumped. It's not strength, or power-endurance, it's the ability to hang around in semi-strenuous positions placing gear and working out moves, for ages. Pembroke climbing, for example, often requires very few if any hard moves - it's all about not getting pumped. I've trained stamina (4x4 routes) all winter with just a few bouldering sessions to maintain finger strength to great effect for increasing my grade on these routes. It doesn't matter how well you boulder - if you get pumped, you fall off! I don't believe a bit of traversing is going to do much for spending an hour or so on an overhanging wall of pretty big, possibly greasy holds, placing gear, and managing the pump. Onsight trad on steep 40m pitches requires a lot of stamina, and not a lot else.

On the other hand, for natural grit routes, doing 4x4 routes isn't going to be any help at all, and just bouldering is probably your best bet.

Back to the OP, I find it hard to train stamina in the bouldering wall, but that's just a boredom-threshold thing. Get on the circuit board in stay on it for ages (in a systematic way) if you're training stamina, and train strength by doing hard problems too.

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I agree that bouldering isn't necessarily the best way to train endurance though that'll depend on the wall to a large extent. It also won't help much with lead climbing experience either.

But bouldering is very good for several things. Firstly it's the best way to expand one's repetoire of moves or engrams. You do harder moves and far more of them in bouldering session than other types of climbing. Climbing is primarily a skill sport and bouldering is the best way to improve climbing skills. Secondly it teaches you how to try really hard and to find and push your limits. And thirdly it's the best way to improve strength.

For pure endurance routes like those you describe bouldering is not the best form of training. But personally I think few trad routes are pure endurance routes anyway. Most are only vertical (or only slightly overhanging at most) and most have shorter hard sections punctuated with rests and the hard part is usually the crux moves. Those crux moves will feel easier if you're a competent boulder and you won't have to hang around so long to work them out in the first place.

I'm not saying endurance is not valuable too but given the OP said he's training at a bouldering wall I think he could do pretty well there if not better overall than at a lead wall with all the associated problems.