UKC

afternoon all

Had a good day out at St Bees over the bank holiday and it got me thinking about what is the best way to improve my bouldering.

At present I boulder at V3 max, but over the weekend I didn't even try any at V3 and just did a load of V0-V2 problems concentrating on climbing them in good style. I reckon I enjoyed this more and probably got more out of it than if I'd tried V3 or even had a bash at V4.

Obviously you need to do both to push your grade, but in people's experience how much time should be spent trying the harder problems?

Cheers

In reply to geordiepie: Great question, and one that I've been pondering myself for some time now.

I used to know a guy who worked in Alien Rock 2 in Edinburgh who swore that climbing higher volume, below your grade yielded greater improvement than projecting, or climbing less but harder.

I've tried both, and I think the best approach (at least for me) is a balance between the two.

I now try to have targeted projecting sessions where I'll try V7-V9 problems over a number of sessions - this is proving quite productive, and I'm now close to linking 2 problems after 4 sessions in total (2, ~1hour sessions on each).

I intersperse these sessions with much easier sessions, where I'll not attempt anything above V4, but I get a lot more done. These sessions improve endurance, and give me a bit of a boost in satisfaction by topping out something!

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else thinks about this!

In reply to geordiepie:

Harder stuff. All the way. You just have to learn to accept failure though. I'm very bad at this, and always get massively depsyched despite knowing consequences of trying to push my grade. I've spent 3 days out of the last 7 falling off various projects and not actually sent anything significant recently. But this is what happens when your trying to push the grade.

Work hard and you'll produce results.

In reply to JimmyKay:

.... eventually. Or so they say.

In reply to geordiepie: didn't someone once say

"Power or endurance? without power there is nothing to endure"

In reply to geordiepie: The single biggest leap forward i've ever had in my climbing ability is when i decided to project something 2 grades harder than i'd ever managed before. I did it a couple of months later, and by that time things at the grade i'd been climbing at originally felt a whole hell of a lot easier, and where they would have taken quite a few sessions before, usually went down in about 20 minutes after.

In reply to pr1984:

I thought the answer/opinion would lie somewhere between the two. I guess it may also depend on what level your climbing at.

As a relative newby it may be that it's more beneficial for me to climb a higher percentage of easier stuff to ensure good technique development. Once climbing at a higher level this should be less of an issue so more time can be spent projecting.

In reply to @ndyM@rsh@ll:

Interesting.....I think I'll have a bash at this. A problem I often have is working out the correct/most efficient moves so I guess working on something harder will help.

In reply to geordiepie: Yeah, that seems like a very sensible approach.

Looking back on my climbing development, it's pretty much what I've done, although not consciously, i.e. start out doing everything easy you can find to gain experience and technique, then try to apply it to harder problems.

To those in the "projecting hard stuff is best camp" - has this always been your approach? i.e. When you were a beginner did you start by trying to project things above your ability? Or did your development more closely match what GeordiePie is describing?

In reply to pr1984: I started out trad climbing and route climbing indoors, then when i started bouldering and trying harder stuff i pretty much stopped doing the other two, except as a nice day out when i wasn't bouldering. Bouldering for me has always been about pushing myself to climb as hard as i can.

In reply to geordiepie:
Climbing easier stuff in good style will make you look cool and feel good about yourself. But it won't really help you improve your grade. If you never try V3, you'll never climb V3, it's a simple as that.

But is grade really everything? You said you enjoyed doing lots of V0-V2 more thatn failing on a couple of V3s, and that's great! If you're having fun, what does it matter?

My only caveat to that is that if you can climb higher grades, you have a broader spread of rock to enjoy yourself on...

In reply to geordiepie:

It depends on what your goals are, but unless you don't try harder problems, you can't improve. You need structure. Warm up by doing lots of easier problems. Work a project until you get it. Repeat.

In reply to pr1984:

Always tried the hard stuff! Although on a recent trip to font instead of climbing at my limit I climbed 28font 7a/+/b's. I think I learnt a lot about technique. Although that may just be because font is a magical place. Hmm.. When I stop bouldering and sport climbing for a while and climb trad for a few weeks, obviously I'm climbing something way below my limit. When I then go back to sport and bouldering I am noticeably weaker and have to work quite hard to get back up to the same lever again... Don't know whether this makes any sense?

In reply to geordiepie:
Personally I try to do a bit of both. A typical bouldering session would involve easy problems to warm up, then trying a project until too tired to make proper efforts, then easier bouldering afterwards to consolidate technique (and for fun!).

In reply to geordiepie:
There's a whole section about this in Self Coached Climber, IIRC.

It basically says that you need to develop technique over a range of grades to get any use out of it - so if you're trying to improve foot placement (say) then doing drills on really easy routes is a good start, but you also need to keep learning to apply it on progressively harder stuff until it actually starts to impact your performance on hard routes.

I've found that working a route that you could just about flash by thrutching and flailing and wobbling a bit and instead treating it as a redpoint to get it spot on and smooth is helpful.

But I'm still fairly crap at climbing...

In reply to geordiepie:

Some good stuff here......will def be picking a project to work on as it's not something I'd considered. I reckon a session a week on this along with 2/3 sessions devoted more to volume could be a good starting point.

In reply to geordiepie:

Organising a circuit is a good idea with a selection of different problems exercising differnt styles of climbing some hard and pumpy some crimpy etc to help you and one or two really tricky or at the top of your grade, if you don't succeed that you just move to the next slightly easier and hope the next time you come to it, style and ability have all improved - though it does help to have a lot of patience

In reply to JimmyKay:

Interesting comments JimmyKay - makes complete sense!

I too mostly boulder, however about a year ago I ruptured a pulley on my middle finger, and had to switch the way I trained or stop climbing for 6 months. I'd never got my head sorted for Gritstone Trad so I spent 6 months starting from VDiff and working my way to E1 as a means of lessening the strain on my fingers.

When I started bouldering properly again I found that once I'd regained my strength (didn't take too long) I was considerably better than I was before, jumping a few grades quickly (previous font 6a best to flashing a few 7a's). I think this was pretty much all down to technique and experience - there's got to be something to be said for the effect trying lots of easy-mid problems has on one's rock reading and therefore onsight-ability!

In reply to geordiepie:

Oh and one other thing, probably the most important thing. It is very easy to be intimidated by harder climbs. Especially if you climb harder than all of your climbing partners. All the effort of putting the draws in. Having to back off. Wasting everyone's time. Because the route is too hard. It really isn't! You just need to break the mental barrier and get on it!

(this is mainly for sport but applies to bouldering and trad.)

Good stuff here, for those who climb around/beyond 4 times a week. Having days that are high volume, low intensity are a great way to stay dialed whilst letting the body recover, adapt and improve from the hard stuff.

I have been bouldering for a long time now and beasting yourself at max limit stuff every session only lasts for so long before you find yourself entering injury zone.

Al

In reply to alx:

I think there is a lot to be said for high volume, lower grade sessions. I've found by working on good quality, fast foot and hand placements I am addressing problems and routes around my limit more efficiently. Before I would spend ages fannying around trying to find that placement or working out how to position my body inbetween holds. I do this with traversing also which helps with the harder stuff. That said, I am a relative newb so anything will help me at present

It's always good to mix it up in any pursuit you undertake.