UKC

Would like to know peoples views on training (ie. finger board sets, 4x4, addon, circuts.....) to push your grade up, or keep climbing at your max grade over and over again till you improve. Keep telling myself i will train more but get tunnel vision on hard boulder problems that i try over and over........

In reply to mike_r_c: Depends on what grade your currently at.

In reply to milkmandan:

and how often you can get to climb.

In reply to Duncan_S:

and what type of climbing you want to improve at

In reply to mike_r_c: I've replaced a lot of climbing sessions with bouldering sessions over the last year, and my leading grade has improved significantly. To improve technical ability, bouldering is the future.

In reply to mike_r_c: For sport and bouldering grades, can flash up to V5 or F6b (sometimes). looking to enter my work grade of 7a or V6 & 7, more often. Can train, injuries willing up to four times a week indoor and outdoor.

In reply to mike_r_c: Should have added spent a long time working on my bouldering grade, so my endurance is not to hot for sport.

In reply to mike_r_c: I'm on the same charge at the moment and by the sounds of things I'm at a fairly similar grade, maybe one harder.

I recently moved to a month of routes to up my stamina game with a view to going back to bouldering in another month. I think it's helping and my leading grade shocked me (in a good way) having been bouldering for such a long time.

Anyway, the other day I decided to assess myself on my weaknesses which is the be all and end all of good training. My weaknesses (in indoor sport route terms) are technique, stamina and pulling power. Not finger strength.

So, I'm now working on core strength to help make freaky techy routes easy to implement tech on. I'm doing this by doing front lever training and one arm push-ups hopefully moving to one arm, one leg push-ups. For pulling power my goal is the elusive one arm pull-up so I'm training that pretty darn hard.

Other than that I'm riding my bike 2-3 times a week to keep the cardio ticking over/I love riding my bike and leading at the wall 3 times a week.

Any suggestions, hints etc.

In reply to mike_r_c:

Crikey. If you can flash V5 you should be able to onsight 7a pretty easily. Sounds like you may need to work on a bit of power endurance and get on routes more often if you want to get the sport grade up.

In reply to Nom: Same mate. Finger strength is pretty solid. Technique and stamina is a massive problem for me. Trying to work on core to improve body tension, which hoepfully would help with technique in time. Also, weight train a couple of times a week just now. But, to be honest i have massive trouble taking rest days, i think i feel ok to climb but 20 mins in im done.

In reply to mike_r_c:

You maybe need to decide whether your emphansis is on bouldering or sports climbing. As said before if you're onsighting V5 (assuming this means you' ve climbed V6/V7) then you've plenty of strength to be onsighting 7a and above and redpointing 7b+ and above. As an old and weak sports climber its sometimes suprising how some very strong younger climbers don't seem to sport climb as hard as I might expect.

In reply to mike_r_c:

That sounds like you aren't warming up properly and are just jumping on hard problems. I find it is very important to warm up slowly. If I rush it, I am screwed for the whole session. Also, if you find you don't want to rest, try having a mileage session, either on routes, or up and down lots. Limit yourself to nothing harder than V2/3.

You have also admitted that your technique is not great. This is THE most important thing to climbing. I am nowhere near as strong as I once was but my grade has not dropped (probably gone up a bit) as my technique is reasonable. Focus on making smooth fluid movements, getting foot and hand holds first go, smoothly shifting position to optimise holds etc.

Easy climbing is also the way to hone technique, before slowly stress-proofing it on harder routes/problems. As you start to struggle physically, your technique will go out of the window, starting with the most recently learnt moves. One good way to train body position is to climb slowly and hold yourself dead still between each move for a few seconds. This forces you to think about using the holds in the most economical way. There are loads of other methods too. You need to practice technique when you are fresh though - a warm up or mileage session is the perfect time to do it.

In reply to mike_r_c: Ive been doing alot of 4 by 4s lately (once a week for a month or so). Its made a real difernect especially in power endurance.

In reply to mike_r_c:
assess your strengths and weaknesses and attempt to correct your weaknesses.

A climbing coach or instructor would do this better though.

In reply to mike_r_c:

what are 4x4's?