UKC

Hi all,
What would you consider to be a typical learning curve these days? Trying to get a guage as to whether i'm doing ok or should be pushing harder!

I'm 43 and come from a background of watersports and mountain biking, started climbing in February this year. Typically climb once a week sometimes twice indoors and have had a few outdoor climbs, Harrisons, Yarncliffe (trad), Froggat (trad) and Castle Inn (sport).

Been stuck on 6a's, 6a+'s indoors for a few months now. Done the occassional 6b but very rare. I don't seem to be getting any better now, is this normal? Do I need to climb more?!

Cheers

In reply to Steve-J-E:

Try something a bit different on your wall sessions; especially bouldering. You've reached your first plateau!
Twice a week at the wall or outdoors would also help (advice I wish I could follow myself!)

In reply to Steve-J-E:

3 times a week is the recommendation to see a fairly rapid improvement in technical ability but IMO progress in climbing is not simply measured by progress through the grades. I see plenty of people cranking f7a but they cannot "climb".

Al

In reply to Steve-J-E:

Yes.


Always

In reply to Steve-J-E:

I guess you should ask why, is it:

1. You can't do the 6b moves - technical
2. You can do the moves but you get pumped/don't have the strength to finish - training/efficiency
3. You could do the moves and complete the route but you don't have the confidence to commit.

If it's 1. then bouldering will certainly help - focus on short technical problems
If it's 2. then maybe more training but perhaps you just aren't climbing efficiently and you need to use more feet, less hands etc... perhaps you need coaching or someone better than you to guide?
If it's 3. then indoor leading, falling practice etc.

For me indoors it's a combination of 1 & 2 once I hit 6c...

In reply to Steve-J-E:

Sounds normal ish to me. If you're having fun I wouldn't worry about it.
jk

In reply to Steve-J-E:

I generally find, when learning anything, that I progress most quickly if I come up my own learning curve at my own pace. Trying to force the pace does not seem to work for me.

In reply to Steve-J-E:

Thanks for the advice. I'm still loving it just want to get better quicker! Got some coaching booked for Thursday so I'll see how that goes and I'm building a traverse wall at home

In reply to Steve-J-E:

You've probably got terrible footwork, but since it's very likely most of the people you climb with also have terrible footwork, you won't have noticed.

In reply to Steve-J-E:
Not an expert, but I have a theory that most people (including me) max out at about indoor-6a/6a+ unless they start working on their technique. I might be wrong...

In reply to climbwhenready:

I think you're right, as many have said, I'm sure I have poor technique. Went last night and struggled on some basic moves but I'm blaming that on my weekend in Brighton for the rugby!!

Going to see what the coaching guy says Thursday, but reading the 'Feeling depressed' thread makes me realise I'm not doing too bad at 6a/a+.

In reply to Steve-J-E:

I read a article about being a better climber and basically it said climb loads of 5a, then 5b then 5c etc.. It's all about building a good foundation to build up the grade.

Like what Gridnorth said about people cranking 7a but can not climb

In reply to Steve-J-E:

Oh Dear. What a shame. Learning curve and climbing? Look Steve, don't worry. Climbing is not about what you can do indoors.

Its about being out in the open. Blue skies, distant views and rock and heather and grass and birds and scenery. And your climbing partners. And the adventure of it all.

Its not always about pushing the grades on something someone else has made and charges you for it. Just get out more and enjoy climbing for what it is. Being out!!!

In reply to Dave Perry:

Yeah I understand all that and I get that with my climbing trips and other adventurous pursuits but I'm talking about improving my climbing so I can climb better routes outdoors, surely nothing wrong with that??

In reply to Steve-J-E:

You don't have to climb hard to climb good routes.

In reply to Steve-J-E:

In a word, YES!

At the risk of making gross generalisations, if you really want to improve and are already consistently climbing sport grade 6s you should probably climb around 3 times per week. [For some context, at sport grade 7s the ideal is probably 4 times per week and for sport grade 8s more like 5+ times week.]

Obviously, in practice an average of 3 times means that on some "easy" weeks you might only climb twice but conversely you should probably have some "hard" weeks where you might climb 4 times.

HTH

In reply to Cheese Monkey:


But you do have to climb hard to climb good hard routes...

In reply to GridNorth:

Please, someone teach me how to 'just crank' 7a.

I can crank a 6c at a push but then I just can't crank no mo'

In seriousness, with the physical attributes needed to crank a 7a, surely if they learned to climb they would be pretty phenomenal with a bit of technique?

As a better contribution to this thread I found my progress in grades to be very much in jumps, and for a month you will climb great, then you'll feel rubbish for a while. Climbing outside seems to push me past boundaries indoors.

Watching good climbers - in videos or in real life certainly helps me.

Not being frustrated about grades is important too. If you convince yourself you should be climbing a certain level, when you can't really climb at that level, you will suck all the fun out of it pretty fast.
Enjoying all the good routes, easy or hard, helped me move past a few grades. And finding the funny side when you fall off a relatively 'easy' one makes it a lot more enjoyable.

I imagine that it all only gets worse as you get better

In reply to harrison:


Absolutely. A group of us used to climb a lot together and pretty much all got up the same grades but we were always joking that if Mark ever learnt to climb he would have us licked hands down. He was a roofer and relied mostly on strength and one of the problems is that if you are that strong it can be a disincentive to learn to climb better.

In reply to Steve-J-E:

Climb with people who are better than you. I'm climbing with a guy who has been climbing for 18 months and he has just done his first e3 and he is climbing F6b inside. You just need to target set and train for these routes, be single minded and get on the routes and give it a go. plan to train and drop the weight. You will soon be improving, you can't help it.
Good luck.

In reply to Ban1:

It makes sense. I'm not climbing anything difficult but besides whittling down the confidence problem that appeared I decided early on to get a good foundation and one of those things was footwork then getting better at using different holds with my hands. I can't see the point in really pushing myself on harder stuff until I feel I've got a good base to work upon. Sometimes indoors I'll climb rainbow routes on the walls containing the harder routes but that's because they have the holds I'm not so familiar with. Besides that I just try not to stress out too much about it and just enjoy it. When I start thinking too much that's when it goes and that's what can lead me to loosing confidence as I overthink my climbs.

In reply to Steve-J-E:

I'm sure someone else has already said this, but it definitely helps to go and climb in different gyms and on different types of rock. I find, for example, that climbing on Southern Sandstone, though it's all top rope, gives me huge amounts of confidence because the rock is so difficult to grab on to, so you really have to trust your feet!

In reply to Steve-J-E:

there's usually a bit of a plateau around 6a+ ish in my experience, I got stuck there a bit while my left arm got as strong as my right and fingers got stronger, then it was slow but steady after

In reply to Steve-J-E:

Thanks everyone, excellent advice. I had a small training course last Thursday and that has definitely helped with my footwork. My climbing partner who is very good noticed the difference in my climbing last night. Just finished my traverse wall at home so I'm going to concentrate on footwork and finger strength on that. Did a 6c+ indoor route last night but don't think it was graded right!
I agree about the Southern sandstone, I love climbing on that!