TSR Climbers Thread

Yo guys, i just got into bouldering and ive got a few questions maybe you could help me with? Firstly, any advice on pushing grades, i can usually get V4s and sometimes the easier V5s, but anything after that and i struggle. Its the small crimpy/fingery holds that i struggle on, any tips for improving these? Another problem is arm pump, im good for about 45 minutes, then my grip just goes. I ride my bike quite alot and i never get it then? any pointers?

Thanks alot people

Tom

Reply 183

OP

Original post by rbnphlp

Have any of you guys watched this ? Thought might post it here ,quite inspirational.

Absolutely great film and like you say quite inspirational... have it on DVD of course :biggrin:

Original post by roboff

Yo guys, i just got into bouldering and ive got a few questions maybe you could help me with? Firstly, any advice on pushing grades, i can usually get V4s and sometimes the easier V5s, but anything after that and i struggle. Its the small crimpy/fingery holds that i struggle on, any tips for improving these? Another problem is arm pump, im good for about 45 minutes, then my grip just goes. I ride my bike quite alot and i never get it then? any pointers?

Thanks alot people

Tom

Hey Tom,

How's it going? Welcome to the thread. Couple of questions. How long have you been climbing? Do you exclusively do bouldering? Indoors, outdoors or a mixture of the both? How often do you train? What's your long term grade goal?

Ok a lot of the advise will depend upon how long you have been climbing but i'm going to assume less than a year. If this is the case then V4 is a good level to be at. Bouldering requires a mixture of skills, however the short and hard nature of the routes leads them to require explosive strength, good technique and less endurance. Now you could get a quick fix by taking slightly longer recovery times between each route, but increase the overall duration of the session.

However my main advice will be traverse for 1hour plus, do not get off the wall, look for spots to rest on the wall. This will have many benefits:

1) It will improve your endurence on the wall (hopefully help the amount of time before you get pumped)
2) It will improve your foot work, technique and body positioning (this will mean you use your arms less for pulling and hence reduce how quickly you get pumped)
3)It will improve your ability to spot rests (not really a huge deal for easy bouldering, but can be an issue much higher in the grades.
4) it'll introduce you to more holds.

With regards to fingery and crimpy holds, these are my favourite :biggrin:

Firstly as they are your weakness spend 60% of your time trying routes with these on, especially those you can onsite V3's and 4's this should naturally build your ability with them. Look for ways to get your thumb involved, whether it be over your fingers to add pulling power or on the hold to increase your pinching stregnth, but your thumb is the key.

Are you having problems using crimps in an open or closed hand position?

No well the difference between biking and climbing, is the amount of force exerted on your forearms consistantly to maintain as many POC's as possible is very intense!

If you have been climbing a year or more then you may be ready to, gently use a finger board, such as the bestmaker or campus boards, but don't over do it, or you'll most likely get injured, for the next grade or two, you'd just be better to keep pushing hard maybe try using a pyramid style of training to push your endurance and grades.

Good luck, just give me a shout if I can help... hope some of the info is of use to you.

Climb hard :biggrin:

EDIT: there is a TSR climbing meet going to happen in August if you are interested... take a look at this thread http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1679621

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 184

Thanks for the reply, its much appreciated, i'll have to give those things a go.

Well we started climbing in PE in year 10, so i went once a week for about 5 weeks, then never went after that untill i did it again in year 11. Then i started going once a week and ive been doing that for about 4 months. As for the type of climbing its indoor and its a bouldering specific wall, never climbed outdoors or with ropes to be honest.

As soon as we went i could do V3s pretty easy and most of the V4s, so i just feel as though i havent really improved, but im sure it takes longer. I think my main problem is technique, i go swimming quite alot, so i just have the strength to drag my self up the wall, which is probably why i get arm pump.

Something else i thought of is my flexibility, its awful. I cant touch my toes with out alot of effort, so when foot holds are a bit high up, its a lot of effort to get my foot up there, and i cant do it gracefully, i just have to swing it up and hope it catches. Curling up into a ball is a no go aswell, im 6ft 1, which isnt rediculously tall, but on some sit starts, i cant even bring my legs up to the holds. Any advice on that?

Again thank you very much for the tips, i'll give it a bash

Cheers

Tom

edit - I have also seen 'Touching The Void' it is a very good film. I recomend the book aswell, I rate it lot more than the film. The only thing i dislike about it is how Simon Yates recieved quite alot of stick from the climbing community for what he did, even though i think he didnt really have a choice. If your into stuff like that, read 'Endurance' by Alfred Lansing and 'The White Spider' by Heinrich Harrer, two great books.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 185

OP

Original post by roboff

Thanks for the reply, its much appreciated, i'll have to give those things a go.

Well we started climbing in PE in year 10, so i went once a week for about 5 weeks, then never went after that untill i did it again in year 11. Then i started going once a week and ive been doing that for about 4 months. As for the type of climbing its indoor and its a bouldering specific wall, never climbed outdoors or with ropes to be honest.

As soon as we went i could do V3s pretty easy and most of the V4s, so i just feel as though i havent really improved, but im sure it takes longer. I think my main problem is technique, i go swimming quite alot, so i just have the strength to drag my self up the wall, which is probably why i get arm pump.

Something else i thought of is my flexibility, its awful. I cant touch my toes with out alot of effort, so when foot holds are a bit high up, its a lot of effort to get my foot up there, and i cant do it gracefully, i just have to swing it up and hope it catches. Curling up into a ball is a no go aswell, im 6ft 1, which isnt rediculously tall, but on some sit starts, i cant even bring my legs up to the holds. Any advice on that?

Again thank you very much for the tips, i'll give it a bash

Cheers

Tom

edit - I have also seen 'Touching The Void' it is a very good film. I recomend the book aswell, I rate it lot more than the film. The only thing i dislike about it is how Simon Yates recieved quite alot of stick from the climbing community for what he did, even though i think he didnt really have a choice. If your into stuff like that, read 'Endurance' by Alfred Lansing and 'The White Spider' by Heinrich Harrer, two great books.

No worries at all, Between James and I we seem to try and answer most queries on here :biggrin:

Ok so at the moment you are going once a week, is there any chance you could up that to twice a week, you’d really start to see an improvement just from increasing the amount of time you spend on the actual wall.

4 months so you are still relatively new to the sport... glad you are enjoying it... it only gets better :biggrin:

You should definitely give outdoors and roped climbing a go you’d love them i’m sure :biggrin:

Ok so in 4 months you have improved 1 onsight grade and and a couple of redpoint/flashing grade that pretty good, don’t knock it :biggrin:

especially with only climbing once a week. Yeah it sounds to me like it’s your technique, footwork, footwork, footwork really concentrate on these. Focus on placing your feet very precisely and silently and monitor your feedback i.e. do you have to move them, if so you didn’t take the optimal position in the first place.

With your arms, i’m sure you know this already but i’ll say it anyway, keep your arms as straight as possible, bone is stronger than muscle and it will ware you out more quickly if you always climb with bent arms. On overhanging routes look for heel hooks, toe pulls anything to get your feet involved and some weight off your arms. As for flexibility unfortunately it’s practice, when your relaxing between routes, sit in frogs legs and bounce your body down, try touching your toes , flexibility is important especially like you say in big step ups :biggrin:

Lucky you 6ft1 is nice means you have a good reach bigger than mine I have to twist my body drop my knee and really work angles to make a lot of reaches.

Id still advise traversing, if the wall you go to doesn’t have one, find a circular circuit on the bouldering wall and continuously work that without stopping for as long as possible, this really will improve your stamina and mean you can climb longer before burning out.

Climb hard

Reply 186

Yeah im sure i could go more, finished my exams, so to much free time on my hands. Whilst im asking questions aswell, what is this flashing/redpoint business? ive seen it everywhere and i dont really get what it is. Is it something to do with worked grades and how they relate or something?

Cheers again

Tom

Reply 187

OP

Original post by roboff

Yeah im sure i could go more, finished my exams, so to much free time on my hands. Whilst im asking questions aswell, what is this flashing/redpoint business? ive seen it everywhere and i dont really get what it is. Is it something to do with worked grades and how they relate or something?

Cheers again

Tom

No worries it's the way in which you send a route, the words are mainly used in roped climbing but are perfectly applicable to bouldering. Onsight is a climb with no prior beta information and getting it clean, a flash is like an onsight, but you have some beta (information about the route, holds etc) or you've seen someone send it. Redpoint is where you work each section resting between them with the hope that you'll be able to string it all together after a few attempts and getting use to the holds, positions and route.

For example I can onsight V5 flash some V6's and am trying to redpoint V7's with limited success in my bouldering at the moment, but i'm a sport and trad climber mainly.

Hope that helps

Reply 188

Ahh okay, i knew what onsighting was becasue i watched a programme on extreme sports about it once, was pretty good.

Thanks for all the help anyway, much appreciated.

Cya around

Reply 189

OP

No worries Tom any time :biggrin:

Reply 190

Chillaxer

15

Just did Kinder Scout, that was fun, and only a stone's throw from Manchester.

Reply 191

OP

Original post by Chillaxer

Just did Kinder Scout, that was fun, and only a stone's throw from Manchester.

Sweet hope you had an awesome day :biggrin:

I wanna go play in the hills :biggrin:

Going climbing on Dancing Ledge in Swanage on Saturday so that will be fun :biggrin:

Reply 192

Chillaxer

15

Original post by dipless

Sweet hope you had an awesome day :biggrin:

I wanna go play in the hills :biggrin:

Going climbing on Dancing Ledge in Swanage on Saturday so that will be fun :biggrin:

Yeah, views were great, whole area is good and not too remote. Didn't get to kinder downfall though

Reply 193

Chillaxer

15

Really really want to do Snowdonia again. Longing for that

Reply 194

Good climb today, pulled a few V5's off. I had to do them a few times to prove to myself they weren't flukes. Fancy having a bash on some real boulders, is it true that its a hell of alot harder than indoors?

Reply 195

JollyJelly

13

Thought I'd bump the thread with some pics of me in Cornwall at roche rock :smile:

See: I don't just climb easy multipitches all the time :wink:

This one's a VS the overhang was nails :biggrin:

Reply 196

OP

Hey that looks cool,

This is the joint hardest trad route i've ever done The Swan at the Roaches E3 and i'd say it's at the hard end of the grade... but what an amazing climb if you get chance to try it :biggrin:

Sadly it's not me my camera ran out of bettery this day :frown:

Reply 197

*Mikada*

Hi to you all climbers! I've only climbed a few times but I absolutely love everything about it. Even the arm ache after! Did a 6a indoors the other day which was fun times... Can any of you tell me exactly the difference between rope climbing and bouldering-which I've never tried. I reckon bouldering is harder? :smile:

Reply 198

OP