UKC

Just a quick one to say how impressed and how much fun I had with the new competiton problems tonight. They were really varied, technically demanding, fairly graded and seemed to be set with flare and a complete lack of contrivance - top moves, top holds, top setting! Please please please keep them up for a good while (or at least that crimpy green one on the back wall!)

Oh and the V grades for grading went down a treat as well I thought, and everyone else seemed to agree!

Cheers, Matt

In reply to Matt Maynard:

I agree the comp problems where ace and it was nice to see actual grades on the problems on a color indicating what it might be ie 5b-6a

Unfortunately I hurt my foot there last night so won't be climbing for a while

In reply to Matt Maynard:
a complete lack of contrivance?
How can indoor wall problems not be contrived?

In reply to Matt Maynard:

Ah, glad to hear that you liked them! As a route setter (and in this case a setter for the comp) it's always good to hear feedback.

Cheers, Tom

In reply to Tom Randall - Lattice Training:

Tom - is there any chance we can have some bail out / descent jugs for those of us who don't want to fall or jump off the top moves?!

In reply to Flatlander:

So thats the yellow tags I take it

In reply to Nic:

No of course not ya big wuss. This is Mile End, not bl**dy Portland.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Quite right the place wouldn't be the same if after desperatly making a top out move at the 6a end of 5b you didn't fall 5m trying to reverse the top moves as your only way down....

In reply to Matt Maynard: On a more serious note, the use of V grades (or any grade) on individual problems would go along way toward resolving a couple of mile ends cronic problems by both reduce the tendency to undergrade by up to 1 english number grade (i.e problems nominally english 4a or easier actually being english 5a or harder) and by reducing the related tendancy for all the routes of a band to cluster near the top of the band. So if you can do all the blues O/S or in 2/3 attempts but can't do any of the yellows...

In reply to davidwright: Under graded you say. On the contrary and this illustrates the heart of problem with indoor climbing and climbers, the expectation that one should be able to do every single problem at a certain grade.

I'd cheerfully argue that the problems at Mile End and, indeed, most walls tend to be over graded. It flatters the customers and few are likely to say that the problems are too hard for the grade. Save for and, this is the second difficulty, those who are scared of falling onto a deep mat 5m below.

I can assure you that there is not a tendency for routes of a certain grade, to cluster at the top of the band. It simply isn't the case. Rather, different route setters devise very different styles of problems. As with most things, it's particularly evident at the higher grades where one's options are more limited. Try a range of pink and white routes, if you don't believe me.

Indeed, even at moderate grades, the wide variety of, say, V5 and V6 problems set for Saturday's competition illustrate this very well. Do those before the chalk marks get worn off.

In reply to Tom Randall - Lattice Training:

also can we please please stop having the sit start as the hardest move on problems!

i can think of three I tried on Monday

In reply to rlovatt:

You poor thing

In reply to rlovatt:

Certainly agree with that. Plumb stupid.

jcm

In reply to Mike Highbury:
At a certain grade you should. A VS leader ought to be able to ONSIGHT all the blue problems at mile end if you can lead 4c trad routes onsight then doing 4a-4c bolder problems will not be a difficulty. If such a climber has difficulty working a nominal 4c problem (i.e does not compleate after 5 or 6 consecuitve attempts) then either the problem is undergraded or the grading system is meaningless. Yes when that climber moves up to their boldering standard of 5b/c then they will find that some problems come easier than others. However when E1/2 leaders can't do a nominal 4a traverse and have to have 3 or 4 attempts at some moves fresh the grade is wrong by about 1 english number grade. I am not comparing the grades of these problems with grades at other climbing walls but with grades on classic routes round the country. Somebody who onsights most 5b routes on southern sandstone and can work 5c's ought not to be struggling to work a nominal 5b max problem in a climbing wall.


The undergrading and clustering problems are most acute in the green,blue, yellow (all systematicaly and significantly under graded) and at the blue/yellow and yellow/orange boundries across all styles. The problem is not that yellow routes are all of the same style (they aren't) the problem is that they are all of the same grade (i.e about 5c).

It is very regular to find climbers who can do most if not all blue or yellow problems within 4 trys but can't do any yellow or orange problems at all. Even if they spend an hour working them on 2 or 3 different visits. I think I am just getting out of that rut in the yellow/orange border with 3 or 4 orange problems now either ticked or feeling tickable. This has coincided with the same feeling about castle 6a's a point that I don't think is irelivent to this discusion given that is the top of the nominal grade band for orange routes.

There are differnces between setters, Priotek has no idea what grade anything under 6a is and his green and blue routes may as well have the same colour tags on as they could be anything from 4a-5b, Mike is strong and has little power endurance so his routes have sit starts that are 1-2 letter grades harder than the top moves of the problem and are genrally out of band, Tiggs has all the signs of a climber who was struggling to do 5c 12-18 months ago but can now climb solid 6a and has yet to realise this but is slowly getting better.

If it is not the case that these routes are clustering at the top of the grade ranges can you point out which orange routes you think are currently 5b and which yellows are 4c?

Try the moderate band comp problems in the V0-V1 range and compare them with the neigbouring yellow problems which ought to top out at 5b and thus go no harder than V1+ at a push. Particularly ilustrative are the V1's on the left hand arrete and wall of the main island (white holds) and the one up the corner at the rear left of the new wave area (red holds) together with the yellow(black striped) route up the right of the overhanging face of the main island, the yellow up the left hand wall of the wave area and the yellow(black stripe) that goes up the same corner as the V1.

The Monkey room traverses are just a standing joke. The green (3b-4a nominal) traverse contains flagged reaches of two joint slopers while in off-set balance on overhung ground. Most 4a climbers would struggle to hold the shape let alone make the moves. Prior to the london climbing festival last year the monkey room had a standing easy traverse at 4b-5a which provided a good resource for teaching overhanging technique and as a long anaerobic effort for power endurance/interval training. None of the 2 or 3 routes now nominaly that hard or easier are able to replace it solely due to the grades actually being in the 5a-5c range.


This ilustrates the source of the problem very well V5 and V6 require 6b or 6c moves and thus out of bounds for the majority of climbers who operate at the 5b/5c level.

In reply to Matt Maynard:

I really like the very loose grading at Mile End it stops people debating if that move is 5b or not etc and getting hung up over grades. Also trad tech grades feel very different to wall tech grades (mainly to do with the ability to use friction outside) so there's always going to be a difference in the grade you climb (IMO 4c is much easier outside). Provided there's always a harder problem available why does it matter? You just need to spend a bit of time trying problems this applies across all the colours anyway (pink goes from about V4 to at least V8) so doesn't just affect the lower grade climbers. The monkey room grades are hard but I don't really think you can have 'overhang technique' at 4a/b certainly never found anything which would fit this bill outside.

In reply to necromancer85:

The only reason 4c outside might feel easier than 4c inside is that the inside 4c problem is undergraded. relative lack of friction is not a problem if comparing to SS or slate or even a lot of limestone. The context of the moves while leading routes outside makes the grade feel harder. The problem with the yellow and orange bands is the total absence of routes at the lower end of the band orange ought to go from V0+-V3/4 it actually starts at V3/4 or a bit higher. While the yellow band concentrates around V1+/V2 rather than being spread over the Vb-V1 grades.

If people are going to learn to flag, twist and drop knees ect then it helps to have an easy slightly overhanging traverse to do this on. The monkey room used to have this, it was also of the right length to use for power endurance training at the lower end grades as well. It would be possible to reset it. To use green tags mearly to mark the "easiest problems in this room,even though they are far harder than anything else at this grade elsewhere" obfuscates rather than enlightens.

It matters in the same way that you couldn't train athletes on a track where the metres varied from 50cm to 200cm in length and shifted every night. Or if the weights in a gym were based on Kgs that sometimes had a mass of 550g and at others had a mass of 2500g. Some of it is ego managment on the part of climbers but most of it is that the grade of a climb sets a resistance and indicates how hard you are going to work.

If the bands had routes set through out there range and those grades were consistant over time rather than steedly creeping upwards then it might not be too bad but right now given what has happened over the last year or so I think individual route grades are needed on the start tags english tech up to 5a/5b and V grades from V0 up (note the overlap) and french grades on routes/top ropes in order to give a discipline to the setters when grading problems and routes so that they fix there mistakes rather than just ignore them as seems to happen now.

In reply to davidwright:


That's a poor analogy as weight and distance are fixed, they are definate. A metre is a metre, a kg a kg.

Climbing grades on the other hand are a guess, are subject to many factors that are unique to each person trying the problem and are indefinate.

Surely it doesn't really matter? Can you not measure progress by getting further up a problem then eventually doing it?

The wall I use back home has 3 grades, easy, medium and hard. Some of the mediums I find easy, some hard, some ok, others think differently.

In reply to davidwright: Surely as long as the routes are god and fun to climb it does not really matter whether they are correct for the grade! I believe that if you look at the route setting notice board there is a notice re grades that states there are only 2 grades those taht you can clomb and those that you can't! Hving been a mile end regular since 1994 I can say that the route setting is probably as good as its ever been, interestingly the current grading system of colour tags used to just mean that on any given wall a blue would be easier than a yellow and harder than a green but not of any spcific grade and I believe that this system still pervades to some extent. Ultimately grades are only truely relevant outside and even then do they really matter?

In reply to carnie:

David is a far more interesting than that. He is not simply concerned about getting to the top of things but climbing routes or problems that will enable him to develop the techniques sufficient to progress further. So, he is not merely asking Mile End to be consistent in its grading of problems but to set routes that are useful for his training schedule.

A friend of mine who is a very serious athlete once described climbing as a sport for people who are not interested in sport. To a degree this is true and, although he was not referring to this, it does, nevertheless, seem particularly apposite when one sees what people do when they go down the wall.

Most strong young men can pull on crimps all evening, but can they climb? We have all seen plenty of people who are beasts down the wall but slither all over a wet sandstone 5b. There is little desire to become a good climber, E2 or E3 outside is the height of their ability and ambition. Yet, the majority of many problems are set for these strong but linear climbers.

In reply to Mike Highbury:

>So, he is not merely asking Mile End to be consistent in its grading of problems but to set routes that are useful for his training schedule.

So set your own problems. I don't see the issue.

I actually agree that ME was a more useful training resource (if that's what's being said) before they made all the walls modular and samey, but that's a different issue.

jcm

In reply to Mike Highbury:

I agree with carnie, one of the good things about the grading system at Mile End is the attempt to get away from putting a number to the route that you're doing. From what davidwright is saying not enough, maybe they should remove the grade band key altogether and just let people know that a green is easier than blue which is easier than yellow etc


You say that David wants to develop techniques sufficient to progress further and that Mile End should not only grade more consistently but also set routes that are useful for his training schedule.

This prompts 2 questions
1. What does he want to train? More technique? More stamina? Particular muscle sets?

2. Is it not possible that a new method or technique may actually make the route easier? I remember the first time I went to Font as an English 5a/5b climber wondering why I was being spanked by Font 4b problems. Then we noticed that there was usually an easier solution and that the routes always felt hard until we solved how to do the problem

In reply to everyone :

A while ago i started a thread about grading systems and height dependency in MECW whilst trying to improve my grade, i was constantly stuck because of a height issue. This flared up some anger amongst everyone but people have been very gracious and have given short people like me an option without stopping me from having the chance to climb harder. add a few footholds or an additional screw-on here and there and i'm off! that worked pretty well. Route setters also have been kind enough to allow two options to their routes. ie. Mike's yellow route on the blue wall in the main room; there was a short sit-start and and a tall sit-start. I thought that was genius and very generous. But, people still make a total joke of his routes by <<NOT READING THE LABEL!>> In my humble opinion, if people took the time to read the label before climbing it, it will clear up alot of issues.

If you've met the routesetters and have a chat or even climb with them, you will find out that they have different styles of climbing. I believe that every person have strengths and weaknesses. In that instance, it makes alot of sense to have a grading system that works. Take the yellow routes for example; there are easy yellows and the difficult ones. Whilst some are able to climb the lower graded yellows, when a more difficult yellow creeps up, they throw a big fuss about how it's not a yellow. Like many of the others on this forum has pointed out, it is not just ONE grade but it consists of 3 different grades. I think until you can climb all of them consistantly, don't knock the routes. Notwithstanding the slight confusion of <<'that pink is easier than that orange!'>> such moments, look at how the grading band overlaps each other. The colour grading is put there for a more general form of a grading system which works just as well as 4a's or 5c's.

Just look at an easy 3a climb. Some people make a 3a climb look so difficult whereas some make it look easy. Instead of focusing on how many colours of the grades you can climb, why not focus on how well you can climb it? Climbing it well and climbing it sloppily says alot more about the climber rather than the routesetter.

I reckon that opinions about Mike and Tig's routes in this instance are not at all justifiable. I think the injustice of saying that M's all beef for the first part of the climb and then weak at the end is not right as he is a very strong climber and a sensible one at that. His routes are set with larger, more positive holds at the end of the route because he wants to avoid accidents and it allows people who are a little more cautious about the height issue a chance to try something more difficult. In any case, he gives alot of us short and tall people alike an opportunity to dabble in a little more than just a powerful climb throughout. It's all about the feet and all about thinking for oneself before attempting the climb. Similarly in Tig's case, her routes are a fantastic challenge for everyone. The yellow traverse on the Peggy day is a good example of a move that stumped alot of people. Where is the challenge if we keep flashing routes easily? What makes it a good climb if you are barely pushing boundaries to finish a route? In that case, the routes are overgraded and should be brought down a grade or two because then, one is obviously not climbing to their full potential. Their routes teach us how to climb creatively and gives us a more ingenius approach to climbing.

In that aspect, look at how the routes for East vs. West at the Mile End round were set. There were technical, simple, creative, strong, height dependent and ingenius routes. I for one was very happy with the quality of the competition and how it was plotted out for people of different weaknesses and strengths. I think the organising committee should be given a pat on the back for a successful outcome especially for the routesetters who worked all day and night finishing it in time for us to climb the following day.

Before jumping to conclusions about what kind of a climber route setters are, I say, make the effort to try getting to know them first. I think Mike should keep up with the difficult sit-starts because it gives everyone an opportunity to see what a difficult sit start is all about. It's not always about having the crux at the top of the route - if only mother nature was that consistent about her rocks, we wouldn't have so many grading systems and neither would we be having this conversation. An indoor climbing wall is a place to train for the outdoors, not a place to show off how big ones guns are!

Besides, climbing is about having fun, not... having unjustified comments made about the people who work hard to keep giving climbers a playground when we can't make it outdoors. I say thumbs up to MECW for constantly putting up new routes for everyone!

In reply to jinxxxy: Well said!

In reply to jinxxxy: Who are you trying to curry favour with? It won't work you know.

Mike

In reply to Mike Highbury: i'm not looking to curry favours with anyone. sadly, you seem to be doubtful about my response. if i wanted to be an apple polisher, i would have phrased things differently. besides, everyone's personal interpretation is different and sadly, over intellectualisation of a thread posted on UKC happens and certainly often. despite what you may think, i knew someone will come right out and disagree with my opinion. and looks like your elucidation of my response to this topic has proven me correct.

In reply to jinxxxy: Not at all. I'm only teasing you.

170cm, 60kg, rides a Colnago, drives a Porsche 911.......

In reply to Mike Highbury: Is that you Mr Pollack?

In reply to carnie:

Yes, but what does the 'c' in Pollak stand for?

In reply to Mike Highbury: Hmm i could think of many suitable answers!

In reply to Mike Highbury:The question now is who is carnie?

In reply to carnie:

I thought at first that it was the huge South African man who sits on the board of trustees, but I'd be very surprised if he knew my surname.

This person is 33 but only claims to have led up to E3 and V4. So a useless climber who has also led ice W15. This presents me with a problem, I don't ever talk to anyone about their exploits on ice. It makes me shiver, it leaves me cold.

Tom? Too old and road racing? Nah. In any case, I am guessing that 'carnie' refers to bicycles and scrawniness.

So, could it be Sheridan? For sure he likes cycling and gardening, but what has Hampshire got to do with his experience of the world.

Fcuk, this is easy. 11 July 2007, 'a thread for roadies only': "Alan Carbon, Record groupset(only 9 speed)carbon seat post and saddle".

Ha ha, I arranged that purchase.

In reply to galpinos:

No the analogy is correct, if I want to improve my power endurance as a 1500m runner I will run a given number of 400m efforts in a given time with a given rest interval, If I get the number of efforts, the distance, the speed or the rest interval wrong by more than 10% the session will not achieve its objectives. That is my ability to run the 3rd 400m of a 1500m race in say 72 sec will not improve. genrally the first 2 parameters depend on what I wish to achieve the second 2 on the level at which I perform.

The same with weights in a given session I need to do a given number of sets of a given number of reps with a given weight on the bar. Only the last depends on me. If I ask for a bar with 40kg and actually get one with between 20 and 60kg on it I will either not gain any benifit from the sesion or I will get injured.

In climbing the only measure we have of intensity is the grade. If that is wrong or uncertain then I can't choose the right problems to advance my performance and there is also a great benifit in using problems set by somebody else as these are both harder (you know how to do the problems you have set) and more effective at advancing your set of availible techniques


right grades are (or at least should be) semi-objective. If we were both given a set of problems and put them into a list from the one we found hardest to the one we found easiest the exact order of that list would be different however if we then put them into a given number of groups 90% or more of those problems would end up in the same group provided those groups were sufficently large. Those groups are grades.


Yes it does because if that problem is 2 or 3 grades too hard for me then I won't make much progress up it and will get injured before I have the strength to finish it.

Also the point of climbing inside is not the satisfaction I gain from climbing a given problem its the fact that this is the best way I have of improving my ability to climb real routes in real situations on real rock. Hence a lot of what i do is not aimed at getting up specific things but at developing technique, improving specific areobic and anareobic endurance and developing a broad base of climbing specific strength all of which will hopefully mean that next summer I can go to the lakes or to snowdonia and climb routes that bit harder or that bit more securely than last summer. I never ran 400m efforts with 60sec recoverys because I enjoyed them (nobody ever enjoys those sessions) but rather because by doing them I knew I would run 1500's or 5000's faster.

In reply to Mike Highbury:

Mike P! Good grief. How's the shoulder?

And who is Carnie then?

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously: Good evening Mr Cox isn't about time we saw your face down the wall again, afterall the Christmas party approachs!

In reply to carnie:

Yes, I'm thinking of that. It's always so sweet the way - God, I can't remember her name, the girl with the son - takes me aside and asks me nicely not to climb on the bar. I dunno why; back when Bob was pulling Mia at one of these events the most ridiculous athletic feats used to get attempted on the occasions.

So when is it? And who are you, anyway?

jcm

In reply to davidwright:

No offence, but if you know so much about training and what it takes to climb hard how come you're still so rubbish after 11-20 years?

jcm

In reply to notgnarly:

That might be ok if you only want to go and try your luck at specific problems and regard it as the equivelent of going to font but if you want to undertake any kind of systematic training it would make it entirely useless.


grading consistantly and giving some indication (plain tags easy, stripy hard?) of where a problem lies in a band would be enough. The place is big enough and has enough problems that I can find the right routes IF I know how hard they are


It doesn't matter I can devise sessions that would target all 3 of those objectives so long as the intensity is correct. If a 4a traverse turns out to be 5a then I won't get the needed endurance or technique from doing it and by the time I have found out my ability to go elsewhere and do the same session on other problems will have gone.

Simiarly if I want to train PE having 4 problems which are genrally ok but have sit starts in the hypertrophy or recuitment bands means the session ends up being too hard second time through I can do standing starts but by then the damage has been done and the session will only by partially effective or may risk overtraining injury.

By the time I want/need to train specific muscle sets I will be using their very good systems board.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

1) lack of basic ability, I never was a good strength athlete which is why I ran 1500/3000 chase/Xcountry not 100m.
2) a 6 year break that took me from an HVS/E1 climber to a diff/vdiff climber on return just getting back there again.
3) living in south east england for the whole of that time
4) 8-12 years as a competertive athlete with a knowledgable coach for the bulk of that time giving me a fairly good background knowledge of how to train effectively.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Carnie is Sheridan. The ex-cyclist who used to climb with Simon Tucker.... Ex-cyclist in the same way as you are an ex-chess player. He's now the route setting maestro.

My shoulder has been operated on, detached muscles tacked to bits of bone and sewn up. I cannot campus anymore but then, I'm not sure that I ever could.

In reply to davidwright:

Nonsense. Anyone who does athletics at all seriously has the strength/fitness ability to climb far harder than E1.


No-one's a Diff/VDiff climber unless they have serious head issues.


Rubbish. Loads of people do this and climb way harder.


Not for climbing, I suggest. Getting better at climbing is usually not about getting fitter.

Based on what you've said it's a hundred to one on that your technique and mental issues are what are holding you back and that your training is being misdirected.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously: Ah yes if those moves were on routes E12 would already be a reality, come on down the party is on the 21st dec starting at 20.30 (it's fancy dress).

And Mr Pollak has indeed correctly deduced my identity, just don't let anyone else know

In reply to johncoxmysteriously: Harsh but probably true!

In reply to Mike Highbury: heehee yep. i know it was a little rude of me to say that but patience isn't my middle name. it's all in good fun Mr. P!

In reply to davidwright:

so you're saying you've got endurance and no power. so why aren't you climbing slabby problems and technical routes instead of powerful ones. i'm short and not very strong either, so i prefer technical routes and slabby routes. you don't need power for that.


I climbed an HVS/E1 on my first time on grit; mind you, it was a slabby and technical problem. not a strong one.


are you saying that those who live in SE england are weak and have no chance to go outdoors then? because i think all it takes is a little planning and you can go anywhere you want to go climbing. if you feel the peak district is too far or wales... there's portland. excuses!


if you know how to train effectively, why are you banging on about 'indecisive grading systems' and 'bad route setting'? then why aren't you coming up with your own training and grading systems. i used to play competitive sports, a bad athlete blames everything else but themselves. "my shoes were too loose, the ground was too wet, the equipment was not up to date." a good athlete digests their losses and works on their weakness.

In reply to davidwright:
shouldn't you be training more on systems boards for uber-efficient power training if you really want athletics-style structure to your training?
boulder grades are usually pretty subjective, seemingly more than trad/sport in my experience.. perhaps because they tend to be so specifically dependent on 1 or 2 particular moves. i never look at boulder grades indoors really, maybe partly due to starting at the bristol wall where they don't put up any boulder grades and the circuits are just 'the easier one' and 'the harder one'..

In reply to Matt Maynard: I was hoping this thread would die a death: I can only sincerely apologise for the appauling spelling error in the title!

In reply to carnie:

Aren't you supposed to be ice climbing at the moment??!

In reply to Matt Maynard:

Don't say that! It's a quality thread with interesting content.

Appalling not appauling

In reply to carnie:

Beth is her name isn't it? It comes back to me.

Errr, fancy dress???? I take it my normal climbing outfit will suffice?

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Not in those discaplines, fitness yes, had aerobic fitness by the bucket full, anareobic fitness yes could do 12x400 with 60 sec and hold 68-70 sec at my best. How many push ups could I do lets see I could count those on the fingers of one foot. I mean that literaly when I started climbing I couldn't do a single one yet that year I was ~900th in the senior national XC. It took 3 years of climbing before I could do 3 pull ups.

Yes people have crossed from distance running to climbing succesfully however that happened 30-40 years ago now and it was the attitude to fitness and training aligned to ability that really made Ron Forwcett and Pete Livsey the climbers to push the standards forward.


Don't climb at all for the next 6 years in any shape or form and you'll be back to climbing at the level you did when you first started. First day back on real rock I got up a 5a on a top rope but O/S trad lead is the standard and that requires mileage and it is a rare climber who can O/S lead what they can top rope or head pointing wouldn't happen.


Funny but when I have been at my strongest, boldering at my hardest and been climbing at least twice a week at a climbing wall has been when I have done my hardest outdoor leads. Somehow I don't think that was coincedence. The other required factor is and always was the amount of recent climbing on the lead, near my top grade on real rock. Also I could say the prevelance of that attitude was why Fawcett and Livsey could push the standard by 3-4 grades mearly by actually training effectively.

In the last month I will have been up to the peak district 3 times and will have had about 1 days worth of actual climbing. That is the life of a climber in the SE England.

In reply to jinxxxy:


That comment shows just how little you have to contribute to this thread. Lets put this in for the 4th or 5th time because you obviously haven't understood it. I know how to train, I go to a wall with a plan of what I want to do. I then have to choose problems from a whole bunch I know nothing about that will provide the right level of resistance to meet my training goals.

How on earth is a grading system that only I use going to help with that? I have to use the grades given by the setters, I haven't done the problems remember. If I had they often wouldn't be as useful to me. The only way I have of finding the right problems for me to try is by looking at the grades given by the setters if they are not acurate or at the very least consistant then I can't set the training programs I need. try training to play hockey with no ball.

In reply to davidwright:

>In the last month I will have been up to the peak district 3 times and will have had about 1 days worth of actual climbing. That is the life of a climber in the SE England.

Then you're an idiot. You have Swanage, Avon, Cheddar, Brean Down, the Wye Valley and Ogmore all in easy reach as well as the Peak. If rain is forecast for all of those, either don't bother or go to New Mills Torrs. If you're getting rained off two days out of three, you're not doing it right.

jcm

In reply to davidwright:

Let me put the same point a different way. I must have known 15 or 20 people who've progressed from HVS/E1 to climbing E5 or so. Not one of them would have given a toss whether boulder problems down the wall were 4a or 4c. If you're stressing about that, I doubt whether you're doing it right.

jcm

In reply to davidwright:

I'm sure you said it yourself earlier in the thread.
Grades are a consensus, an average.

So on average I get 6a+ after 2-3 tries. But there'll be some I'll get on sight & some I just will never be able to do.

You need to find a set of problems that took you, say several goes to work out. If you can then do four of these with 1 min rests between but fail on the fifth & then on the next session you get the fifth then you have achieved overload.

Of course walls tend to complicate matters by changing parts of your routine all the time. Annoying isn't it?

In reply to davidwright:

like i said... a bad athlete blames everything but themselves. you're blaming the routesetters for not setting accurately and to YOUR standard. if you can't read a route and tell how difficult it would be for you to climb it then, where did all those years of climbing go? you don't need such specific training programs to train yourself. besides, if you don't have a ball to train hockey with, then go boil an egg and use that until you can find a hockey ball. climbers adapt all the time. besides, before fingerboards, rock rings, and training devices came along, what did early climbers do to train?

deal with it.

In reply to Tom Randall - Lattice Training: Indeed went skiied alot not much ice but about a metre of powder sweet! Hoping for more ice next weekend!

In reply to johncoxmysteriously: Indeed it will!

In reply to carnie:

Actually I'm afraid you're going to have to move the date. It coincides with my office Christmas do, which I really should go to, being the host.

But you've reminded me I must pay another visit. It's been too long.

jcm