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Working out your weaknesses

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 snoop6060 07 Nov 2016
Afternoon,

So the books always say 'work your weaknesses'. That will give you the biggest gains in climbing. Well I have absolutely no idea what my weaknesses are. Well, there is one, my total lack of motivation for indoor route climbing despite much preferring routes outside. My aim next year is simple. I want to climb an 8a quickly* (in a single session). I have never even done an 8a, let alone quickly (but I've been very close in a few goes though) so it would seem I am probably going to need to get a bit better over the winter.

I have access to a bouldering wall with all sorts of training stuff. All the usual stuff plus a fancy symmetrical board that is not brutally steep so looks useful. I figured if I make up a problem on this and can do it one way but not the other, i have identified a weakness to work until I can do it?

Any other ways of easily working out a weaknesses? Even down to really simple stuff like measuring the range of your shoulders. Mine are different, i can reach far further up my back with one arm than the other. I really should sort that out.

Thanks,
Si

* Yes, I am aware this is grade chasing pure and simple. I promise also to get to Cloggy over the summer and pay my dues to the Trad gods old and new.
 planetmarshall 07 Nov 2016
In reply to snoop6060:

> Afternoon,

> So the books always say 'work your weaknesses'. That will give you the biggest gains in climbing.... My aim next year is simple. I want to climb an 8a quickly* (in a single session).

I would have thought that working your weaknesses is the approach you take for becoming an all-around climber, or for onsighting when you need to be capable with whatever a route might throw at you.

8a is way beyond my current abilities, but if you have a specific goal route in mind - I would say work your strengths, not your weaknesses - basically exactly what Steve says here, except for 8a rather than 7a.

https://www.thebmc.co.uk/how-to-climb-7a-10-tips-secrets-steve-mcclure

OP snoop6060 07 Nov 2016
In reply to planetmarshall:

Yes, normally I guess if you want to have a route in mind you could choose to just train towards that type of route and/or choose one that suits your strengths. Then siege it until its done. But I don't have any interest in that. My goal is to become a climber capable of climbing 8a in a session, not really specifically to achieve a single route. If that makes sense (probably doesn't )
 deacondeacon 07 Nov 2016
In reply to snoop6060:

Ask your climbing partners to tell you bluntly what your weaknesses are. They'll have a good idea, especially if you climb with people better than you.
Tom Randall's lattice board is supposed to be able to tell you what your weaknesses are and how to go abou rectifying them. I've heard good things about it, but it comes at a price.
OP snoop6060 07 Nov 2016
In reply to deacondeacon:

Feel free to list some Deacon since we have climbed together a couple of times. But in any case, I am much more interested in things I can measure. Most of the people I climb with will just sarcastically reply "Your too short and are a bit of a bellend" anyway .

I know of Tom's assessment thingy, which looks interesting, though it suggests a little more aimed at people who are already quite good, upper 8s and beyond.
 planetmarshall 07 Nov 2016
In reply to snoop6060:

> If that makes sense (probably doesn't )

With you. I assumed you had a specific route in mind. Since being an 8a generalist is even further from my realm of experience than an 8a specialist, I'll leave it to others to answer
 AJM 07 Nov 2016
In reply to snoop6060:

I don't think that's true about Tom's assessments especially since the wall-based lattice boards can be shallower than the original I think.

Also, bear in mind that to climb 8a in a session you need to ultimately (over multiple days) be working somewhere between about 8a+ and 8b+, at a rough guess, depending on how good your tactical approach is.

That, incidentally, steers my main recommendation which is that it's quicker to get really good tactics for in-a-day ticks than it is to get a few grades extra strength so focus on that as a key priority.
 1poundSOCKS 07 Nov 2016
In reply to snoop6060:
> I have never even done an 8a, let alone quickly (but I've been very close in a few goes though)

Why did you fail out of interest? I know my redpointing skills are terrible, so I could easily fail on a single session redpoint even when physically/technically well capable simply because I'd struggle to work out the best beta and climb it repeatedly using that beta. I can go through every move on the route in my head on the ground, but I still mess it up when I'm on the route.
Post edited at 15:41
OP snoop6060 07 Nov 2016
In reply to AJM:

There is no way I will be ever climbing 8b+ . To be fair the aim of getting towards 8a in a day is probably fairly fanciful given i have never even climbed an 8a. But i don't redpoint routes over loads of sessions anyway. All my hardest climbing have been done in a session or 2 sessions. On a good day I am not a million miles away from this goal, but that is not to say I will do it. But there are plenty of 8as to try I guess. My first one will one of the extensions to body machine which is a bit of a cheat as I already have done body machine (5th go). It always looked good that route.

But I guess the overall goal isn't the issue here, i want to be able to work out my weaknesses in a systematic way that i can return to and prove that i have improved them. Simple stuff that is measurable.
 Siderunner 09 Nov 2016
I reckon most people know what their weakness is, at least subconsciously. If you were going out climbing with a couple of people you wanted to impress, and there was a choice of 3 or 4 routes of the same grade - 7b say - what would you pick to onsight and what would you avoid? If you think about length, angle, hold types, move types, amount and types of rests, etc then that may help narrow it down. The antithesis of what you would seek out is another way to find the weakness.

An alternative approach is to try every V4 (or whatever suits your 1-3 try bouldering ability) at a well-graded and varied climbing wall (or crag, I guess). Doesn't have to be "every", but it defeats the point if you avoid those you're not good at This is good done with a few mates perhaps, to help normalise out the vagaries of the grading (a sandbag doesn't make something your anti style!). Can also be done with routes (say 10 of same grade), though fatigue is a factor to adjust for.

My last idea is based on "what you do you become" ... Instead of looking at your climbing ability, instead look at your training diet. Whatever you train least is probably both a (relative) weakness and the easiest avenue for improvement. That does presuppose you haven't already converged to training your weaknesses already, obviously! There is a big psychological element here: it's common to assign lower value to attributes at which we're weak (witness all the flexible women stretching at the end of climbing sessions while many already-strong guys do pull ups). It's simply much less fun, and can be demoralising or even embarrassing, to train our weakest attributes.

HTH, Andy



 stp 09 Nov 2016
In reply to snoop6060:

I think weaknesses show up when you ask the question: why am I not getting up this climb? The simple, go to answer for many climbers is 'I'm not strong enough'. This is a pretty useless answer because it means you'll never do that climb until you've gone away, trained for a good while and come stronger.

Weaknesses don't even have to be physical, very often they'll be mental. For me I know one of my weaknesses is making difficult clips when getting pumped. I could think I need to get fitter so I'm less pumped. But that would be running away from the real problem, which is the fear of falling after pulling a bunch of rope out.

Weaknesses can also be in technique. This doesn't necessarily mean you have bad technique overall, just lacking in some specifics. I remember last winter bouldering with someone who pointed out that I didn't use my heels that much. This was a great insight and it's something I've got better at but still need to work on more.

It's common for many climbers to have poor roof climbing technique. It's not surprising since we tend to do much less roof climbing than other styles of climbing. But the simple reason people come up with is 'I'm not strong enough'. That may be part of the problem but it gives people the excuse to stop trying and never actually get to grips with the technique side.

Bouldering with other people of around the same standard is good way to spot weaknesses and differences in your styles of climbing. You might notice that they're getting up all the steep problems whilst you're better at slabs (or vice versa). Working on styles of climbing you're worst at is working your weaknesses. Try to seek out routes or problems you find hard but that have relatively low grades, ie. a grade you normally find easy. Try to find what forces you out of your comfort zone and that will be a weakness.
OP snoop6060 09 Nov 2016
In reply to Siderunner:

Thanks, good post.

Well if i was to chose a route to avoid at 7b it'd be a wide crack .

I honestly don't know otherwise. I'd normally say a long, euro style enduro monster. But i have had a fair bit of luck on them recently (probably as i've been away a lot this year). So I suspect it would be something mega cruxy. Which I guess suggests I could do with a bit more bouldering skills. Realistically I boulder upto F7A. I don't consistently climb harder than that bar the odd fluke/soft/very specific problem.
OP snoop6060 09 Nov 2016
In reply to stp:

Thanks - fear of falling is a weird one. I rarely think of myself as having a fear of falling, but sometimes I know I am not climbing as efficiently as I could, or at my absolute limit. It feels like I am putting more focus on the clips than I should, rather than being actually scared. I can normally snap myself out of that, and climb much better when I am not thinking about clipping. Well outdoors at least, indoors I find it harder to deal with for some reason. But then i can't stand routes indoors.
 Siderunner 10 Nov 2016
In reply to snoop6060:

Reading that it sounds like you're a pretty well-rounded climber. In that case maybe there's no shortcut (which addressing a weakness is, sort of).

Then perhaps the answer is to get a bit better at everything - ie a full cycle of training that loops through various blocks e.g. Anderson brothers schedule.

In reply to snoop6060:

Probably go for one that suits the moves you like best even if you can't identify what could be weaknesses. Sounds fun and I hope you get one done in a session.

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