UKC

OK, how to I gain these, particularly strength?

I've been climbing (mainly indoor bouldering, top roping & lead) for the last 5 years. I'm 45 and a vegetarian (in case of any diet advice) and usually get in 3-4 visits per week. On a typical bouldering session I will find that my strength lets me down before my technique: I can only climb for a short period at my hardest problems before my arm strength is no long sufficient for those angled walls, overhangs & ceilings and one day I can do a route, the next I don't have the energy to complete the move though I know the sequence involved. I have gained some muscle over the years but it seems a very slow accumulation!

In reply to Flinticus:

Take your top off and scream loudly.

In reply to martin.p65:

Don't think I would need to supply the screams as well.

In reply to Flinticus: If it was easy we'd all be bouldering Font8a.

Got any benchmarks to compare with others? One rep max number of pull-ups? weight assist needed to do a one armer? fingerboard or campus board stats?
How are you when it comes to other strength and conditioning exercises? press-ups? plank? sit-ups? L-hangs? side levers? front levers?
Have you being doing doubles or 4x4s on routes or blocs? if so what grades can you manage?

The short answer is likely to be try harder, work harder. I don't know many people (including myself) who couldn't up the quality and intensity of their training at the expense of it being a little less fun and a fair bit more boring and repetitive.

The long term answer might be to get some professional coaching, although there is a good chance you might be able to identify some relative strengths and weaknesses by discussing things on here and trying to compare yourself to other climbers at the wall.

In reply to Flinticus:

Currently running a series on this on the company blog:


http://horizonexpeds.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

New posts every couple of days.

In reply to Flinticus:
What grade can you reliably boulder indoors? Reliably as in you've climbed the vast majority of the problems set at that grade and could do multiple problems in a session.

In reply to Flinticus:

Not sure if you don't do do this already but taking a ten minute break every half hour to have a bite to eat has helped me loads (also veggie). Try a banana or half a flapjack and a good slug of water. This has improved my staying power no end.

In reply to Flinticus:

I really don't see what the problem is. Everybody's strength 'runs out' before their technique surely?

If you run out of 'oomph' after only a few steep problems the solution is just to climb more steep problems until your endurance increases. There's no magic bullet. Try dropping your grade slightly and getting more volume in. If you could climb your hardest problems all session they wouldn't be your hardest problems would they?

In reply to The Ex-Engineer:


Well that would be.... one ?

In reply to Oldsign:

Thanks. Will try to be more disciplined in that regard.

In reply to RyanS:

Great. Will check this out

In reply to Flinticus:

What do you actually do at the wall when you go bouldering?

In reply to jsmcfarland:


No, I don't think so. Before I started hitting the harder problems I had strength to throw at them but not the technique to complete them. Now I can do some of them with improved technique but find I cannot stay at them for long.


I suppose some subtext to my initial query would be: why is my strength / endurance so slow to grow? I spend a fair bit of time on the 'easier' problems as well. I would expect myself to be stronger by now.

In reply to Flinticus:

Given you climb 3 times a week, it's probably your strength. Upping your strength with will improve your endurance indirectly (i.e. if you only use 40% of your max to grip a hold that used to take you 90% you'll go further). Google for some hangboard routines, and then look at campus routines for power-endurance, there's loads of advice out there.

My personal favourite for getting endurance up however is doing 4x4's on lower grade problems, you will see huge endurance and 'technique while tired' gains from them www.cruxcrush.com/2013/03/11/climbing-endurance-4x4s/

In reply to martin.p65:


Also add a beanie once you've taken your top off, that's an extra grade of power at least!

In reply to Flinticus:



.... let me introduce you to the phenomenon known as "tiredness"!

It is hardly unusual to be unable to climb at peak power two days in a row. It's why training regimens often recommend doing any power element when fresh - because max power / strength is rapidly eroded and needs a couple of days to recover. It is the curse of the weekend-only climber - when I am red-pointing near my limit, the Sunday session is usually a write-off, as I have invariably taken the edge off my strength on the Saturday.

In reply to Flinticus:

I am a veggie boulder who is 47 and goes 3-4 times a week, and I've been climbing for about 15 years now. I almost thought the post was from me for a second! I have climbed font 6c outdoors, and am aiming for Font 7a. I am also a bit on the heavy side (92kg!). My body has changed over time, but more in the chest/shoulders than the arms.

I find my weakness is raw strength, as my technique is pretty good, my fingers are reasonably strong, and I can do some nice dynamic (power) moves with the strength I have. I find my limit is often where I have to lock off, as I just don't have the strength to hold the position and reach. The problem is that I find press-ups etc dull, and am worried that they are not climbing specific enough. So I am trying:

1. Hover hold bouldering - take a problem that is hard but you already know, ideally with a slight overhang. Hover your hand over the next hold for 3 seconds before grabbing it.

2. Touch hold - grab some holds and footholds, then try to touch as many other holds as possible, ideally holding the position but not grabbing the hold. The idea is to vary the start holds as much as possible.

3. Foot touch - same idea but with footholds on a roof/overhang. Start hanging, and then raise a foot to a hold, then bring it back again. Quite tiring for the upper body too, but the idea is to engage the core.

4. Pull ups - slow pull ups locking at 45, 90, 135 and "top" and back down, again locking at the same points (Frenchies?). I try to vary the holds for a bit of interest, but I do find them hard/dull.

I tend to do one of these for 15-30 minutes at the end of a session, and change what I am doing each session. I have just started doing it this year, so I'll have to see how much difference it makes when I get outside in the Spring.

It is worth getting good feedback from other climbers/a coach on where your weaknesses are. I saw a coach about 5 years ago and found it very useful.

I do also take creatine, which does help me build power/strengh - it can hard to get lots of this from your diet as a veggie?

Good luck with it,

Robert

In reply to Pewtle:

I really like the sound of that. Training with an element of fun.

Just back from the wall, after deciding to focus on endurance: warm up on easy bouldering, break, then repeating some wall routes on an auto-belay, over a variety of grades (5 to 6b+*). all I had done before, varying how I repeated the routes (skipping holds, changing sequences etc.)

*Soft for the grade so individually it doesn't pump me out

In reply to RobertHepburn:

You gotta update your profile! 36

BTW the veggie food at the Glasgow Climbing Centre rivals that of pure veg cafés and is cheaper. Just had a duck egg panini with slow cooked courgette slices in a smokey spice mix. Lush. Even the throw away side salads are great and vary every few days. You get a variable 'slaw' and leaf mix as well. All that was £3.

I should try your suggestions: I got a hang board on the door here at home. Those locks offs sound brutal!

In reply to Flinticus:

I'm sure others will chime in but careful with lockoffs and doing pullups in general on a fixed bar or hangboard. Some people are okay with it but for most doing locking off pullups just seem to be a one way ticket to serious elbow problems. Gymnastic rings / TRX seem to be a bit easier on the body as your wrists can rotate as you pullup

I still would say not to worry, it sounds like you have milked all the low hanging fruit so to speak and have hit a bit of a plateau, nothing wrong with that. Improvement will be slow, all you need to do is be consistent and just target whatever areas you are weakest at on a regular basis. I'm a 5'11 ish vegan climber weighing around 68kg and I can assure you that every 'new' grade past font 6a has been hard work (Just breaking into 7's indoors atm).

Good luck : )

In reply to Flinticus:

I think one can improve strength by bouldering but after an initial improvement you have to know what you're doing and know what the limitations are in order to get past them. You can't just turn up several times per week go ticking a bunch of problems and expect to get stronger. Some kinds of strength, like core strength don't get worked that well in a typical session. You also need a pretty decent wall with enough problems at just the right level of difficulty for you. You need approach it in a way that instead of merely trying to tick off problems you are going to specifically work your muscles. You need to have the ability to climb perfectly when pushing yourself very hard. If you're not getting breathless then you probably not at sufficient intensity.

It might be better to just weight train for a while. This is what Ally Rainey suggests in a recent article...

http://allirainey.com/home/2015/11/10/bouldering-does-not-equal-strength-tr...

In terms of diet there's a popular idea that one should consume something sugary and some protein 45 mins after finishing to improve recovery. Vegetarian is fine. Just check out vegan Frank Medrano on Youtube if you're in any doubt.

In reply to stp:

The OP climbs around F6c/f6c - I doubt he's reached the limit of improving just through climbing. Turning to weight-training seems a bit extreme, presumably if he wanted to be a weight-lifter, he would have joined a gym, not taken up up climbing. Personally, I just think normal physiology is being mistakenly interpreted as an abnormal weakness / defect: yes, strength does develop slowly; yes, maximal power is only "on tap" for short periods; and, no matter what grade you climb, you never climb equally well two days in a row.

In reply to thebigfriendlymoose:

Very much depends on the individual but I see a lot of people climbing regularly year after year who never progress much beyond 6c. The reasons are pretty clear. Whatever the grade though at a certain point you have to start doing things differently if you want to continue improving.

I think Rainey is spot on when she says: "Whatever fatigues first in bouldering (and climbing) will limit your workout, so even if other areas haven’t been maximally pushed". But I'd also add two other limiting factors. First there is fear of falling. Secondly there is the complexity of climbing movements. Both of these limit intensity and intensity is key factor in gaining strength.

Top climbers like Ondra and Sharma get really strong from climbing alone. But they're able to push themselves really hard on every move - and that's something that takes a while to learn. It also requires access to rock or a good gym where you can find routes/blocs at the right level and style.

One thing that helped me gain single move strength was projecting Boulder probs.

After a 30 min warmup of gradually harder problems, I'd pick a problem a couple of grades harder than my in-a-session grade (abt V6 when I usually got v4s in a session). I'd work it for half an hour: first 10 minutes just pulling on and experimenting with single positions; then the last 20 minutes making max efforts to link a few moves, with long rests. I'd repeat for one or two more probs. My rule was to stop when attempts started feeling like less than 100%. Then I'd go home, even though I didn't feel that wasted and was tempted to do more climbing.

This was after a block of 5 weeks of heavy weight training, so I guess both helped I felt like I added a boulder grade over this period, after a multi year plateau.

In reply to Flinticus:

Last year I've experimented a bit with bouldering 4x4's. I found that it has helped to increase the volume of (hard for me) problems I can handle. You might want to give that a try.