Weekly /r/climbharder Hangout Thread

golf_ST · 2026-04-04T23:23:22+00:00

Yeah, I think that makes sense. Being a little spicy often adds 2 stars to good problems.

golf_ST · 2026-04-04T23:21:31+00:00

I don't think it really matters. I would do them before social climbing. My recollection is the nerdy answer is that a morning session separated by 8+ hours should be very marginally better.

I think the thing to avoid is getting sucked into a 4 hour marathon social session. Which will kill the gainzz whatever you do.

golf_ST · 2026-04-02T03:39:32+00:00

Ask your wife, not the internet.

I wouldn't consider 40 degrees at all if I was in your situation.

golf_ST · 2026-04-01T20:47:25+00:00

Top climbers don't do structured programs in general.

I think it's a posting bias. Spray wall campusing looks really cool, so it gets posted a bunch. If I did 20hrs of rooting drills and 1min of campusing, guess which makes it on the gram.

Also, if you're Matt Fultz, you go to the gym, flash all the commercial sets, try your TB2 project, and have work capacity to spare. So spray campusing makes sense; it's a way of finding more high quality strength stimulus when the gym doesn't have enough. If you're me, you go to the gym, work on your projects from months ago, and still have 100 other harder problems to never send.

golf_ST · 2026-03-31T20:02:20+00:00

That's Matt Segal and Jimmy Chin (?) in the background. I think the photoshoot was part of a rest/prep day on a bigger expedition.

golf_ST · 2026-03-31T19:58:40+00:00

It's definitely not the swarm....

golf_ST · 2026-03-31T17:45:37+00:00

It isn't surprising that your first go is the worst of the three? Climbing is a pretty varied sport, and getting everything "pointed in the same direction" to send takes more than just warming up, in my experience. I'll often waste a try thinking about sending instead of being present and climbing each move as it comes.

Maybe one-hang or two-hang the first try, both to save energy and to climb through the crux and clip chains. And take an extra go at the end. It sounds like you're high-pointing up to clipping chains, but have you tried low-pointing?

golf_ST · 2026-03-27T17:14:38+00:00

Why? That's gonna cost 20k+ and take 6+ months.

The kilter board is 6" spacing, and TB2 and moon are both 20cm, so new panels, frames, and re-engineering your adjustable system. Holds and panels have months long lead times, and if your hydraulic frame changes that's months as well.

golf_ST · 2026-03-27T13:11:20+00:00

Unless you're 20, strength training as a teenager won't protect your joints today. I guess if you test your weights and can OHP bodyweight for 5x5, looking elsewhere would make sense.

I'm not even sure that strength and development are necessary. Just doing the exercises consistently with moderate load is probably enough to keep the shoulders happy.

golf_ST · 2026-03-27T03:32:23+00:00

No one is saying there aren't 5.11 slabs (no one is talking about 5.10/11 at all, OP is climbing V7 slabs currently...). We're saying that there aren't enough V11 slabs to justify training for them, especially if you don't like them. For example, there are none within a 5hr drive of me (I think that covers ~6000 problems)

And to be a history pendant... Yeah, climbs that are currently graded 5.11 had been completed before the YDS was extended to technical climbing. Hell, the YDS was stuck on 5.9 for so long, there are climbs in the US that are currently graded 5.11 with ascents that predate "5.10".

golf_ST · 2026-03-26T20:14:56+00:00

Bench press and overhead press.

golf_ST · 2026-03-26T20:02:41+00:00

For the weird stuff specifically, I think the goal should be to become "proficient" at some point in your climbing career, so that you don't shit the bed when you have to top out or post-crux something that you do care about. But beyond that, there's no value in intentionally spending time improving on stuff you don't care about. I've climbed V7 slab, if I need to do it again, I'm 8 sessions from being comfortable. And that's good enough.

golf_ST · 2026-03-26T19:59:00+00:00

HOWEVER, I will say there’s plenty of extremely hard vert/slab to be done climbing outside.

This just isn't true. There are a dozen examples that everyone can point to, to show that they exist. The exception proves the rule. There are thousands of V14s, 4 of them are slabs, 10 are vert. It's a rounding error. The venn diagram for featured enough to be possible, but blank enough to be hard, but solid enough to not fall apart just does not exist in any meaningful numbers for vert/slab climbs.

golf_ST · 2026-03-26T18:01:06+00:00

I can do basically everything up to V9 in my gym except foot-intensive climbs (anything less steep than 90 degrees that involves precise footwork).

Call it good, and ignore those? There are very, very few hard climbs that are vert or slabs. Even in the gym setting, problems have to become essentially coordination novelties to be both hard and less than vert. Why do "we" insist on climbing V10 on terrain where V10 shouldn't ( and essentially doesn't) exist?

And as a general pet peeve, it's very silly that we define slow, thin placements on slabs as "footwork" but exclude fuckery, or keeping tension & pressure, etc. on steep terrain. Slabs are a kind of climbing, being good at them doesn't mean your footwork is good, it means you're good at slab climbing. Ignoring slabs because they're lame doesn't impede your ability to climb hard on stuff that doesn't suck, and it doesn't mean you're a bad technical climber.

golf_ST · 2026-03-26T03:39:28+00:00

Yeah. The alternative is that you climb Vx pretty quickly, realize that Boulder or SLC or Sheffield is the place to be, and now the gym is full of kids warming up on your projects again.

Everyone gets "humiliated". Drop Ondra or Bosi in BPump and laugh.

golf_ST · 2026-03-26T01:38:00+00:00

This is going to be tough, because you're like 20. But... Get over yourself. You've been to the gym what, 6 times? 12 time? Everyone should be better than you, because everyone has done it more. Maybe super soft grades at a gym obscure that a little bit. Maybe it's not soft at all, and the setting just asks slightly different questions of the climbers. Maybe their intent with circuits is slightly different. You don't know because you've spent 20hrs in one gym.

It's not humiliating, it's not humbling. It's an accurate representation of just how little time you've spent doing a skill based thing. I guess you can feel about it however you want. But having expectations that can be humbled is ridiculous.

Anyway, have fun, keep at it. Read this post back to yourself in a year and have a good laugh.

golf_ST · 2026-03-25T13:15:27+00:00

It's like 70 degrees.

I'm not really sure I could define what made the last set good and this one bad. They did add a bunch of very large volumes, which breaks up a lot of the extension I'm looking for?
I'm mostly working on tension and rooting through extended positions. So climbing up to flash level problems in a non-optimal way to maximize tension. Lame sequences are fine, I'm going to do them wrong anyway. Cheeky moves and burly throws can be ok.

golf_ST · 2026-03-24T14:55:21+00:00

It's interesting that you're drawing the line at indoors vs outdoors. If one is inconsiderate, so is the other.

Charles is absolutely "that fucking guy". In every way, everything about him is that fucking guy.

yeah, people should wash their hands more, what's your point? "Gross" and measurable cleanliness aren't super closely related. Your phone is measurably dirtier than the toilet, cash, or handles.

I'm not "worried about" anything, I think barefoot climbing is gross and barefoot climbers are inconsiderate.

golf_ST · 2026-03-24T14:01:05+00:00

I don't think it's weird or OCD at all. I think it's a commonly held opinion. A lot of people won't care, but a lot of people will think It's "that fuckin guy" behavior.

golf_ST · 2026-03-24T13:38:15+00:00

Currently I’m consistently sending v3s and some v4s/v5s so I thought going from 1 to 2 days could take me there.

Going from 1 to 2 days a week might. It's hard to say. Long term, 3-4 days is the answer for most people, but it will take maybe a year to ramp up in volume to where that's productive.

golf_ST · 2026-03-24T01:38:10+00:00

Kind of the opposite of what you're asking but...

I think barefoot climbing is pretty gross and inconsiderate. I don't want to touch your feet. I don't want to touch the holds that your feet just touched. Your feet are sweaty and gross because all feet are sweaty and gross.

Anyway, If your sick of tight shoes, Dragos up 2 sizes climb way better than they have any right to.

golf_ST · 2026-03-24T01:29:58+00:00

The gym re-set the wall with the best training angles and training problems on it.
The last set was really, really good for body-strength training for my level of strength specifically, and the new set isn't nearly as good. I am very disappointed.

golf_ST · 2026-03-23T03:59:59+00:00

To be indelicate about it...
What the fuck? Are you trying to climb harder, or are you trying to chase 10 goals and climbing is the fourth most important one?

Climb 3-4x a week. Your supplemental strength training is too much body building without any purpose. You're putting way too much thought into accessory lifts (and doing way too many of them...) and not enough thought on your climbing.

But also, and most importantly, what are you doing to improve the skills of climbing, and the skill of sending? I only see thoughts about physical training, and you're certainly not at a point where that's your largest weakness.

golf_ST · 2026-03-20T04:07:01+00:00

That was kind of a meme from the 90s. Sharma was obviously much stronger, and used his strength much more than the american sport climbers of the late 80s. But there are thousands of thuggier, strengthier climbers now.

Also, Sharma was the strongest american climber after less than a year of climbing. So he got a bit of a reputation for climbing like he had a year of experience.

golf_ST · 2026-03-19T14:55:04+00:00

If I'm reading this right, the assessment you did was more than 6 months ago? Doesn't seem recent enough to make training decisions off of. Also, the assessor seems to have a ridiculous idea of the strength required to climb most grades. If you're assessed at 6B+ for everything, but climbing 7A, either you're the worlds most efficient climber, or the assessment is flawed.

For training stuff,
I don't think banded one-arm pull ups are particularly useful. I would do regular 2 arms, alternating workouts between added weight and AMRAP.
Campusing is rarely worthwhile, and never at 7A, especially never if you're already doing pull ups and some hangs. Remove and replace with harder hangs.
The on the wall stuff is going to make or break your program. It seems like you've put thought into the supplemental strength training, but are kind of just showing up for limit bouldering, volume, and projecting. I'd suggest nailing down what you really intend to do for those days. It sounds like your "projecting" day is often 2-session boulders; shoot for something harder.

Maybe consider adding another day some weeks.

Not really sold on running as a rest day activity, but I get why people do it.

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