UKC

I'm collecting data on this topic!

How many pull ups can you do and how relevant is this to what grade you climb? 

ANSWER BELOW in this ANONYMOUS spreadsheet please!

-how many pull ups you can do (0 is also an OK answer)

-and then say what grade you can climb.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lLvgteGod9PF_m-CnLw-8v-BcuWbB08Con6...

Would be interesting to see the results. The thing will pull ups is they can be trained fairly specifically and that doesn't directly translate to getting better at climbing, you just get better at doing pull ups. However there's bound to be a correlation between higher grades and being able to do more pull ups.

I'm not sure there's going to be that much of a difference between highest grade and highest grade x3. Now if you say highest grade and highest grade consistently or something like 10x, that may be more helpful. Though someone has logged highest E7 and highest x3 only E2, which is mind boggling!

Also its says highest grade climbed - I assume you mean led, not seconded or top roped, but either redpoint / headpoint or onsight (above E6 most will probably be headpoints).

Well, I've had a personal theory on this for some time. A problem for me in answering your exact question is that I never just do one set of pull ups. So I don't know how many I could do. And I'm not about to visit my Beastmaker to check as I wouldn't do that without first warming up.

What I do regularly is a pyramid of pull-ups. I do one pull-up, then rest 30 secs, then do 2 and rest 60 secs, then 3 and 90 secs etc. When I've got as far as I can I reverse the pyramid back to 1. The real training begins on the reverse back down. Every set is then a real effort (and by then I'm well warmed up of course). 

For a long time, I have roughly equated my success, or otherwise, on this pyramid to the grade I can expect to comfortably lead at that time. If the top of the pyramid is 6 pulls, I can expect to lead VS, 7 pulls, HVS, 8 pulls E1, and 9 pulls (very rarely) E2.

This will seem daft to many readers I'm sure, but it has worked for me. Possibly due the my style of climbing. I probably rely overmuch on arm strength, but particularly (very much a middle grade trad thing I think) on the ability to hold onto relatively big holds on steep ground when placing gear. 

I should say that, apart from currently in lockdown, of course, I also do lot's of climbing wall sessions in addition to, perhaps weekly, pull up sessions. And I use the middle row of the Beastmaker 1000 - quite forgiving.

Martin

Nice. For future reference it is quite easy to make google forms that populate spreadsheets. You could then provide a viewing only link so we can see the data.u froze the top

I've been  told that pull-ups don't correlate well to grade, but hangs do. 

At the mo, I can do 9 pull ups - I haven't done any in yonks but a few weeks into lockdown I dug out a pull up bar. When I used to do pull ups all the time I was working to 20 but never quite got there, maybe 18? No real difference in my climbing grade between the times.

I could probably boulder bet back then - regular V6 outdoors. Now it's regular V5 outdoors. As for trad grade, who knows, it's all in the mind. And sport I've never put any effort into - before lockdown I could onsight around 6c+.

When I led Our Father (E4 6b now I believe) I could do one proper pull-up from a hanging position, could never get a second one out!

Chris

My coach (really worth getting one if you can afford it and want to avoid injury and get off a grade plateau, I found) prescribed me a 5 week strength phase for lockdown. This consists of a lot of hangboarding but also a lot of supporting strength training for the fingers to work off - so I do 5 sets of 5 rep pull ups with 10kg attached, three times a week, plus loads of other boring stuff. 

why am I saying this? Because I have been convinced by said coach that whilst pull ups alone won’t get me climbing 7b, they are an essential part of a rounded training programme that will help me to get there in conjunction with other things. I was previously reliant on sneaky tactics and bags of endurance to get up 7a sport climbs - but I was really weak compared to your average 7a climber so that needs to change if I’m to progress.

tl;dr - how many pull ups you can do won’t nearly correlate to grades across different body types, but if you want to be a better climber and stay injury free you should do pull ups (and other cross training).

sorry for the rant - I have a bee in my bonnet about people saying “pull ups are irrelevant to climbing”. Nope. 

There are several research papers that cover this already. Check out Beta Angel website for an archive of climbing research. IIRC the general outcome seemed to be little/no correlation in males, and a slightly stronger one in females up to a certain number of reps. 

Finger strength is by far the strongest indicator (at 7b upwards), followed more weakly by shoulder girdle strength and hip mobility. 

There's very little correlation between pull up ability and climbing ability, at least in the sense that being able to do lots of pull ups doesn't make you a good climber and good climbers can't necessarily do a lot of pull ups.

Even Dave Macleod can't  do many

http://onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/2007/12/24-pull-ups.html

and here's an old thread discussing this

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/pull_ups_vs_climbing_grade-5714...

I think the correlation is tenuous at best. I doubt I've ever done more than 10 and I climbed some of my hardest climbs when I could do even less.  My best on sight leads were E5 and 7a.  I've also found a similar lack of correlation between running and being able to walk up a hill with a heavy pack.  To say there is none would be wrong but I once took a regular marathon runner climbing on Cloggy and he was unable to keep up with me and I was by no means fast.  That came as surprise to me at the time.

Al

I was thinking of Stoney too  lol I must have done 10 E4's/E5's down there and normally fail on my second pull up. 

Having pull-up strength obviously doesn't hurt. But it doesn't translate to finger strength. Nor will it help you much on that shitty runout slab ...

As usual: it depends!

That's interesting. I usually use 3x as an indicator of true strength level. 10 seems like a lot, also because it might take me a while time-wise and schedule-wise to finish 10 hard climbs haha!

But that's something to think about.

It might have to be grade climbed over a time period as well...hmm!

There is actually a way you can calculate your max using math without doing an actual max!

If you, for example, do weighted pull ups to a certain number, you can use that to calculate your max unweighted: www.quora.com%2FHow-do-I-calculate-1-rep-max-for-weighted-pullups&usg=AOvVaw0CNcUxNCZJN361cQCUaf7R

Your pyramid idea is interesting. I challenge you to try and see how many you can do at the top of your pyramid next time

 

Tell me more. Private message?

Thank you for weighing in your thoughts!

Answering the spreadsheet with help with data to confirm theories for sure!

Can you provide a link?

Interesting in regards to running up a hill!

Please answer the spreadsheet to help with data conclusions

Just because Dave Macleod says he can’t do a lot of pull ups, doesn’t mean he can’t do a lot of pull ups.  24 pull ups on any hold is a lot!  I bet he can do a few reps as well.  

I think it’s what they call a humblebrag.  
 

I can do about 20 pull ups without regularly (essnetially, ever...) doing such excerises. But I'm a complete punter when it comes to climbing.

So I'd side with the 'absolutely no correlation' opinion.

My experience:

a. People who are good at pull ups are quite often not good at climbing.

b. People who are good at climbing are almost always good at pull ups.

Haha don’t worry I did fill it in

+1

I am trainee coach and CWI. I had my fingerstrength measured on the PT1 course I did - I have good finger strength.

Our coach leader told me to do pull ups as I had trouble pulling through.

I have been doing frogging and downward dog to lizard pose/low lunge for hip mobility.

You can read about the workshop on my blog here.

Sav

GOOGLE FORM

PLEASE SUBMIT RESULTS HERE

https://forms.gle/ToGfXVJHAgkomjVG8

I would much rather read a list of these rated in order of difficulty with any interesting points for prospective ascensionists than a discussion of pull ups!

How do you do pull ups?

I was told to engage shoulders first then pull up.

Sav

+1 for interest 

But what is 'a punter'? The inaccuracies based on emotions are not science

No one is making you read this

Although very true, not very specific. Good at climbing is all subjective

Science devises experiments to test hypotheses, not to confirm them...

Hmmm, don't normally bother with pull ups, haven't tried for years. As I'd much rather climb instead. And I probably wouldn't enjoy the likely abject failure.

Last time I tried on a proper pull up bar at a mate's house, many years ago, the answer was zero. Pretty sure V Diff was my lead limit at the time.

I did find the most wonderful jug for pull ups in the Malvern Hills when I used to live there. Nice overhang above a flat grassy ledge. Think I could manage about 10 on that, but I was probably cheating with smearing under the overhang. Anyway, think I can contribute some correlation between inability to do pull ups and crap climbing standard.

Grab the bar, then try and get your chin above it. I can't help any further than that I'm afraid Sav

Thought this link might be interesting:

http://steviehaston.blogspot.com/2016/03/1000-pull-ups-and-1000-press-ups-b...

Climbed 9a I believe.

Love it!!  That's got my day off to a good start. Thank you.

Mick

Interesting.  I'm not sure how many I can do as a one off, but I will test it later today and add my data into the pool.

I think being good at pull-ups is something you can easily work on, and defo won't do any harm. Good quote below from Johnny Dawes book:

 "Aged 17 I loved pull-ups. A record of 77 on a thick scaffold bar without getting off, 48 in one go, shaking out on 1 arm to continue."

Obviously to be good at climbing you need to be good at climbing, but even those not really considered as strong clearly often are...

If you think what people like Stevie Haston were doing pull-up wise in the 80s (a training regime which included up to 2,000 pull ups a day https://tinyurl.com/y9nrcyuq ) then 24 isn't much at all, especially for someone who was probably the best climber in the country.

As a kid I could do 24 (max grade then VS), struggle to do 7 now (max grade E2). There's little correlation between grade and pull up ability.

Try getting back up to 24 pull-ups now and see if it help your grade now. Don't just rule it out.... 

Alice, 

Although there might well be a correlation, as those climbing hard will on average be strong, young and fit, cause and effect is a very different thing. 

There being no real link is kind of proven, by women climbing well. The walls are full of women climbing 7b who can do 1 or 2 pull ups and men struggling on 6b who can do 12 since they were 12 years old. 

Maybe this breaks down at higher grades, but for most of us men the awful reality is that we can totally crush our female climbing partners wrt pull ups and finger hangs, but regularly top out with every muscle screening, after having hung off the bolts on the crux, repeating the song of must get stronger, must get stronger, for our female partner, who can't do a pull up, or hang a campus rail, to dance up the bloody thing. 

I sometimes cry. 

It's always entertaining to see highly muscle bound body builder types (who can undoubtedly do pull ups forever) turn up at a climbing wall for the first time, assume they'll be able to climb really hard and the realise that all that hard won excess bulk is useless.

I feel you are exaggerating the numbers slightly.

Me and my other half both climbing around the grades you talk of. We often training one the board together and are very similar in terms of pull-ups. I am maybe slightly better. I think pull-ups often provide good feedback on strength/weight ratio, so yes I am probably stronger but she's lighter... So it's not that much of a difference.

If you never do them, how do you know how many you can do?

My climbing partner can do 1 pull up, on good days 2 pull ups. She recently redpointed 8a.

I do sets of 5 reps with 20kg added, I occasionally redpoint 8a+

You make a good point about being too bulky will lower you strength/weight ratio.. however in my experience those bodybuilding types often aren't that good at pull-ups.

My friend who is a very good gymnast and the best at pull-ups I have ever seen, turned up and climbed V5 first session..

I find that pretty crazy... Maybe just pure skill and finger strength helping her? Plus picking the right climbing to suit her strengths ?

There is a classic story about Steve Hastons girlfriend getting shutdown on the rasp, at the time she was a competitive champion... Maybe certain types of climbing require different strengths too ?

If you mean Laurence, she probably just wasn't used to all that meaty thugginess. I'm sure if she had a little think and a readjust, she'd have been up The Rasp faster than we can do Flying Buttress.

Once Stevie said to me, "Laurence is crap at ice-climbing."  She was with us, her face expressionless. I was cringing. As I recall, she was the world ice-climbing champ at the time! For some reason (can't think why!) I omitted to point this out to Stevie. And it wouldn't have made any difference, bless him.

Sometimes folk just can't win...  Doesn't necessarily mean they're not shit hot though.

Mick

Go start a thread!

Nothing crazy about that. I think it highlights the relative importance of technique, mental approach, finger strength, and general conditioning over basic pull up strength.

I was asking about yourself Deacon. 

I do the pull up work out from Crimpd. 

Sav

I wish this logic worked for me. I can do 24 pull ups in one go and a few weeks ago i tried that corona 100 challenge...100 pull ups, press ups, crunches and squats which took me just shy of 20 minutes. 

Yet ive never lead harder than E1.

Absolutely. 24 pull-ups on a bar, on crimps, on slopers and on openhanded pockets is phenomenal.

There will always be anomalies. As we have seen in this thread. Good climbers who can't do many and crap climbers who can do loads obviously do exist but they are the exeption not the rule.

From my experience of being crap and never being able to do more than 12 and never climbing harder than 7b BUT having climbed with some of the world's best climbers (Mark Leach could do about 12 one armers at Bolton Tech wall in the late 80's) being able to do lots of pull-ups definitely correlates to grade climbed.

If you can do 25 pull-ups and climb E1 go and buy a bike

E

I could do 23 pull-ups and climb E4.

I could still do 23 and almost (but not quite...I think I'm going to cry) get up one 8a.

Where's the bike shop?  (Whattaya ya mean, tricycle?)

Mick

Sav thats correct. Engage your shoulders means engage scapula. You will be at a slight angle as you pull up in that case. That uses your lats rather than just arms and shoulders. For the record I'm a crap climber but okay at pull-ups. I'm not filing out a spreadsheet - it would be too embarassing....

I’ve always been crap at pull ups and climbing. During the lockdown I’ve been doing a few pull ups and my max in one go has gone from 6 to 8(33% increase!). I think if your trying to find a correlation then sport grade is probably most likely. My 6 pull ups equates to 6c, hopefully there is a numerical correlation and my 8 pull-ups will equate to 8c.

Maybe you right, defo agree that finger strength and mental approach are probably more important. Proper opinion splitter this.

Ben Moon also suggested that pull-ups were a fundamental base exercise for climbing. One finger pulls, slopper pulls.. but all about the pulls..

Alas I’ve not done any of them!

I could be wrong here but I think Adam Ondra was climbing 9a before he could do a single one arm pull up.

Someone mentioned earlier about Mark Leach being able to do 12 one arm pull ups, extremely impressive but it didn’t get him past 8c. His generation were the first serious trainers, they probably thought all that raw pulling power was essential, I think the modern elite climbers focus far less on this.

I’d be surprised if many of these 9b climbers could do 12 one armers.

Agree, wasn't trying to have a dig, just maybe using it as a example of a different climbing style, some biceps and back power maybe help over finger strength for stuff like that?

When doing Don willans routes you can see how maybe pull-ups helped him. Lots of thuggy pulls and big layoffs etc..

It really depends on the style of climbing. There's not much need for multiple pull ups on the Etive Slabs for example. 

When I climbed I could easily do 1000 pull-ups in a training session however this didn't transfer to climbing. I climbed mid E's and didn't really fare well on overhangs.

Think that's true, if your doing one armers whilst climbing you clearly doing it wrong.

I know a chap who was knocking  on the door of 9a, he put a lot of effort into training 1arm lockoffs but maybe didn't overly focus on pull-ups as such. All came down to weight, core, fingerboard mainly though tbh..

There's bound to be a correlation because in general the best climbers are stronger, have good strength to weight ratios and their training incidentally improves pull up strength but correlation is not causation.

They aren't good climbers because they can do more pull ups, they can do more pull ups because they are good climbers.

But even having said that if you looked at 10 climbers all climbing 9a and above there will be a big variation in their pull up ability because it's largely incidental to actual climbing ability.

Personally I never saw any correlation. AT my strongest, 19-21yo I couldn't count the pull ups if I ever tried, I was strong, weighed nothing and climbed about E1. Mid 30's I could do a handful of pull ups, probably <20 and F7b/c ish. Now I can do a few and about HSev.

Jk

Obviously!

Although all of that may be true for you, these are all personal experiences, which don't always lead to conclusions overall.

For example, I have many female friends who are brutally strong but quite bad at technique.

So it's all a case of your spectrum of experience! 

 

It's anonymous

Hi MM. As far as I can remember, when I did them I was at an angle.  

Thanks

S

I'm sure that's true, however when looking at correlations, one is by definition looking at the mean. 

I still think that if you take 50 male and 50 female climbers operating in the range 6a to 7b and spread evenly over those grades, then there will be a very large difference in the number of pull ups between these two groups.

Pull ups don't translate well to climbing grade, 10-15 might indicate some base power endurance but there isn't much need to ever do more than that. Unless your climb is some sort of 20m high overhanging campus problem.

I've never done more than 20 and that's when I was training them. I'm climbed much harder when I could probably only do 10 off a bar.

I remember reading somewhere that Steve Haston was capable of 5000 squeezes of one of those hand grip strengtheners. I got to 250 once. His forearms must have been huge. 

Sounds similar to my training quantities, pull-ups are good for warm-up on the board.

Although I tend to also do pull-ups on the board together with finger strength workouts. So don't aim for quantity but single finger, slopper pulls etc.. few weighted pulls etc.

So all that said, I would have thought anyone who uses a fingerboad would probably manage 10.. if not you must only do hangs, no pulls or lockoffs, which seems slightly out of character with most fingerboard training routine's.

Theres no link.

Pull ups dont train your mentality and fear 

Single finger work outs? You must me a turbo wad if you need to train them!

You saying you can't do any then? 😉

I can do 4 pull ups on a big sloper right now - not sure what that translates to a bar because I don't have one. I normally boulder V5 and climb 6c indoors.

I'm don't think I'll ever be good at either but I'm definitely more motivated for one than the other - I think the mental motivation and adrenaline threshold for individuals will always mean training abilities and what you're actually capable on real rock are always going to be asymmetrical. Give me a pull up bar over a canyon and we'll see how many I can do then verses a scary trad route - that might be a better translator in symmetrical situations with a bit of adrenalin in me haha

Isn't climbing more about balance and footwork, than how many pull ups you can do.