UKC

How many others find indoor climbing trickier than outdoor.

I am 67yo not as flexible as I used to be and seem to be struggling these days on indoor routes .

Outdoors usually can find something within my reach for foot or hand holds but really struggle with some indoor routes. Any other vintage... old but being polite 😄 😄 😄 climbers having same problem 

Just curious . Thanks

I don't enjoy indoor sport climbing particularly, as the limiting factor for me is usually how far I can get up the wall before my body temperature rises and the sweat coming through my soft sweaty fingertips causes me grease off the plastic.

Not helped by the usually humid and stagnant air at indoor walls.

I find indoor climbing really unintuitive. I personally hate resin holds, both for my skin and just in general quality as opposed to rock.

I feel as if indoor routes too are often more focussed on power and strength (at least in the walls I have been to), which makes sense given the trends in sport climbing and bouldering, however for a slabby trad climber like myself it always feels much harder. 

That being said I am not of the same vintage as yourself so understand that this may be coming from a differing perspective.

Grade for grade, I find indoor way easier than outdoor.  Partly physiological and partly, I suspect, because foot placements are generally a lot more comfortable. 

Yep, like you I find climbing indoors much harder than climbing on the real thing. Usually more options outdoors with possible sneaky rests. I find indoor routes generally more powerful and sustained.

Yeah way harder. I've redpointed 7c outside, onsight most 7a routes. And yet I don't think I've ever successfully led a 7a indoors.

Bouldering is the opposite though. Almost every centre overgrades everything, especially the ones that use V grades. Frequently onsighting "V7" indoors. Outdoors I can get shut down on a V4.

I find I get quite scared leading indoors whereas I'm quite happy leading trad outdoors. 

Another 67 year old here. I enjoy climbing indoors and think at the moment climb harder indoors 6bish compared to outdoors HVS on a good day. 

Bouldering - I’m crap indoors and out. 

I find indoor bouldering far easier than outdoor as the holds are so much bigger and the sequences tend to be very basic. On a rope, I find outdoors easier than indoors as your foot placements on indoor routes are much moor limited and clipping positions are often far from ideal. 

74 years old. My grade is about the same for leading both indoors and out (maybe Awesome Sheffield are good at grading?) My sport grade is better than my trad grade, 6b+ cf E1, but that is probably because I have recently been doing more sport, especially abroad. Currently trying to push my grade up as there are some great 6c/7a's out there. This weather is not helping!

I don't boulder as my knees are wrecked so even repeatedly dropping a metre onto mats aggravates them. Therefore I cannot comment on boulder grades.

My theory would be that reduced flexibility makes indoor climbing, where the holds are fixed to where they are placed, harder than outdoor where there's more choice of what can be used. I notice that some walls seem to set with different heights/ flexibility in mind so there may be ways around the issue. Grading is a whole other issue.