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Training for outdoors indoors

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Hi

With many climbing walls now giving their walls a rough grippy texture, can outdoor features like grooves, corners and aretes be trained indoors?

IMHO yes and the instructor at CWI training talked about this.

Sav

PS. The blog has gone international - intercontinental as the their was a reader from North America.

Post edited at 16:01
9
 Climber_Bill 17 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

I'm not sure what you mean by "now" because as long ago as the eighties manufacturers were making walls with a rough grippy texture.

Also, many of the original post brick edge style walls had more natural features such as grooves, corners and aretes as they were emulating, from my experience and memory, a more outside style of climbing.

 jezb1 17 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

Show me a decent wall that doesn’t have grooves, corners and aretes?!

In reply to Climber_Bill:

Mile End has and The Castle has a huge restructuring.

SteongHold and Yonda are very recent walls.

Sav

1
 bouldery bits 17 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

I looked at this and thought 'this reads like a Sav post.' Low and behold....

In reply to jezb1:

I think you are right hombre. 

2
In reply to bouldery bits:

I'm back 

1
 bouldery bits 18 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

Glad to hear it!

In reply to bouldery bits:

Blogs gone Oceana as there is a reader from NZ

In reply to Mountain Spirit:

There is another side of the trip that I gave not told yet. Who is interested in reading it? 

The Groove (E9 7b)

3
 Wiley Coyote2 19 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

There are obvious benefits for strength and fitness but I remain dubious about the actual crossover climbing gains indoor to outdoors (and vice versa). This is based on nothing more scientific than my own experience over the years.

1) Every winter I train indoors (up to 3 times a week, lead wall and bouldering) with a winter sun rock trip to keep motivated and I show measurable improvement yet every spring I hit the rock and struggle. Every time I am left thinking 'Well that was a winter's training wasted).

2) Every winter I get burned off (well tbh more comprehensively incinerated rather than merely burned off) at the wall by lots of people yet the first evening outside I gleefully (I'm only human) watch them flounder on stuff I can cruise. Their indisputable wall advantage  seems to evaporate on rock.

3) Every autumn I go back to the wall after what feels like a successful summer on the rock and find I am absolutely rubbish indoors again.

I accept this is purely anecdotal and perhaps my indoor regime is wrong but every year I find this same disconnect, going in both directions, between indoors and outdoors. I have a couple of theories. One is the holds are completely different outdoors (not as square, incut hidden pockets rather than obvious  edges, more choice of holds rather than the handful setters offer). Indoors offers fewer opportunities to be creative and use experience and cunning to overcome impasses. Basically you have what you given and you can either pull them or you can't. But, whatever, the reason it happens twice a year, as inevitably as changing the clocks.

1
 LeeWood 20 Nov 2019
In reply to Wiley Coyote2:

Well put ! I have quit trying hard indoors, never on lead, never push the grades. Tendon injury incidence indoors is notably higher so when the opps come up I want to be on form for the real thing, which is always more interesting more compelling and more satisfying. Just take it as it is, flex the biceps and share some chatter ... 

1
 Climber_Bill 20 Nov 2019
 Rob Parsons 20 Nov 2019
In reply to Climber_Bill:

Where is that? It reminds me of one I used in the early 80's down in Kent.

In reply to Climber_Bill:

Looks like something out of Full of Myself or Statement. 

 philluu 20 Nov 2019
In reply to Rob Parsons:

I have very hazy memories of The Vertex at Uni of Surrey having a wall like that

In reply to Mountain Spirit:

Blog has been read in Switzerland and Indonesia to. 

2
 planetmarshall 20 Nov 2019
In reply to Wiley Coyote2:

> 2) Every winter I get burned off (well tbh more comprehensively incinerated rather than merely burned off) at the wall by lots of people yet the first evening outside I gleefully (I'm only human) watch them flounder on stuff I can cruise. Their indisputable wall advantage  seems to evaporate on rock.

I suppose it depends who you climb with, but I have not found this to be the case.  Most of my climbing partners are fairly well-rounded climbers who are as capable burning me off outdoors as they are indoors.

 Wiley Coyote2 20 Nov 2019
In reply to planetmarshall:

Sorry. I may not have been clear. These are not friends I climb with, just people I see at the wall from time to time in wintor and then occasionally out and about in the summer

 C Witter 21 Nov 2019
In reply to Wiley Coyote2:

I more or less agree, but I think there are ways around this and that the standard concepts from training literature cover this well, e.g. fitness, strength,  recruitment, schemas and specificity.

Gains in stamina will clearly cross over very easily into outdoor climbing. But, pretty much everything else is subject to the “disconnect” being spoken of, because we climb differently indoors to how we climb outdoors (different mediums, different degrees of confidence, different ways of moving). In other words, although sport climbing and bouldering indoors aims to be a very specific form of training, it is not specific enough and you need to develop very specific schemas to use the features of natural rock well.

So, the aim is to recognise this and:

a) make your indoor training as specific as possible

b) do better at recruiting/adapting your gains in indoor strength and technique to outdoor climbing.

The best thing in my mind is to keep getting outside during the winter, when it’s possible, and to ensure you get in the mileage. But, I think you can also try to focus the mind on how you climb similarly and differently, inside and out. For example, inside you could try to slow down your climbing and become good at making moves statically, finding rests and moving carefully and efficiently, to mimic how you might move outside whilst trad climbing. In short, you can try to drill specific things you want to improve in your outdoor climbing. Meanwhile, outside, you can try to use indoor strengths to boost your confidence so you can apply your new skills/strengths. E.g. I try to relish slabs outside in the way I relish them inside, even when gear is spaced; and even a little bit of finger strength training has made me less scared of crimps. Sometimes I need to tell myself: this hold wouldn’t be a problem if it were inside! I also need to consciously focus on the differences and, e.g., be on the look out for myriad foot placement possibilities outside and reattune myself to making smaller but more controlled moves than I usually make indoors.

That’s my 2p anyhoo.

In reply to Mountain Spirit:

List of countries just keeps getting bigger.

There is a reader from Germany. 

Post edited at 01:30
1
jason111 22 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

But my questions: Is indoor wall climbing can be an alternative to actual rock climbing?

If kids are trained indoors on a wall will it be helpful for them in real circumstances like real edges?

In reply to jason111:

Number 1: Tbh, I don't think it can. But it can developed into a separate sport.

Number 2:IMHO, yes it will be helpful for them on real edges.

 hang_about 22 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

Someone creative with a VPN could really mess with your mind here!

 springfall2008 22 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

> With many climbing walls now giving their walls a rough grippy texture, can outdoor features like grooves, corners and aretes be trained indoors?

 

Our local walls seem to lack things like:

- Jamming (hand jams and finger jams)

- Shelf mantels

- Traverses

- Chimney climbs

- Run outs! (head space matters too)

- Massive sand bags *grin*

 Bulls Crack 22 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

It feels like there are proportionally less walls with 'realistic' features on than previously which personally I miss.  Modern walls feel too samey.  Too many features limited a wall but the odd panel/feature/boulder are much missed imo. They  made you use your imagination and make your own problems up in a outdoorsy fashion.  The only wall problemsI actually remember are a few from the old Rochdale wall!

2
In reply to Bulls Crack:

Was that the one Ian Andrew Dunn used to own?

 hang_about 22 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

indeed - you can choose the geographical location of the end of the VPN

 Bulls Crack 22 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

No - it was in a school sports hall....it may still be there! 

 Climber_Bill 22 Nov 2019
In reply to Bulls Crack:

If you mean the wall in what was balderstone Community High School, unfortunately it's been demolished. The whole school, not just the wall!

In reply to hang_about:

Hmm... 

The countries come from stats in my blog. 

1
 jwi 23 Nov 2019
In reply to Mountain Spirit:

A girl I know did a techy 40m 8a her very first day of climbing outside having trained mostly on flat panels without features. I'm sure there is some transfer of skills from inside to outside.

Post edited at 01:51
In reply to jwi:

Awesome stuff!  

Freakin sweet!  

 nikoid 23 Nov 2019
In reply to Wiley Coyote2:

That all sounds familiar! Indoors and outdoors climbing are very different things. In my experience indoors routes often become a lunging between holds type of exercise where there is no requirement to hold awkward fixed positions for more than a few seconds. The conspicuous nature of indoor holds mean you soon learn which ones you can hang and which ones you can't at various levels of pump. This is not how outdoors climbing works, much more finesse and control is needed (at least it is if you don't want to scare yourself silly).

1
 webbo 23 Nov 2019
In reply to nikoid:

You’ve never lunged for hold when climbing outside. I can’t of time when I didn’t at least pop for a hold.

 webbo 23 Nov 2019
In reply to nikoid:

I take it you haven’t watched the Buster Marin video. I counted at least 7 lunges or dead point moves.

1
 nikoid 23 Nov 2019
In reply to webbo:

Maybe I'll try climbing like that next time I'm in Pembroke!

1
In reply to webbo:

Is it Buster Martin you are refering to? 

Post edited at 18:35
 webbo 23 Nov 2019
In reply to nikoid:

I’m sure if you get on the right routes you won’t doing all the moves static.


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