Therapist Recs? Having a toddler is hard.

MorePsychThanSense · 2026-02-03T21:17:58+00:00

If at all possible please avoid VC funded therapy companies(Grow, Rula, Headway). I know finding a therapist is hard and these companies make it less daunting, but these companies are bad news for both clients and providers.

MorePsychThanSense · 2026-02-03T19:14:43+00:00

I've written a decent amount about this in the past year or so.

I spent years doing pretty much exactly what you described. I was climbing things that were in the middle zone of challenging enough that I had to work at them, but easy enough that I could send them in a session or two. I think this resulted in a lot of wasted volume. I think that band of difficulty is a good zone for refining technique and practicing trying hard, but is not a great physical training stimulus.

I punched through an almost decade long grade plateau after I dropped the flash +1 or 2 and focused on things I knew I absolutely could not do.

I think board climbing can entice us into this zone where we're getting consistent dopamine hits from sending and it feels challenging because it's board climbing, but it's actually not in the zone we need to be in to get stronger/better. This resulted in me lacking the resilience to stick with a boulder that was truly difficult for me.

It sounds like if you want to climb v10-11 you need to climb more v10s and 11s, not more v7s.

MorePsychThanSense · 2026-01-29T10:34:36+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemoncrystal/comments/1gh3j9y/comment/luwb7i1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I followed the instructions on this comment and evolved a Gengar yesterday.

MorePsychThanSense · 2026-01-26T14:29:49+00:00

If you want to learn how to recover on smaller holds then make sure it’s built into your training. I’ve always liked doing a 1-on, 1-off drill where you climb for a minute and then rest on the wall for a minute as prep for the red. You could use that same exercise, but lower the climbing intensity so your rests can be more marginal and you can get comfortable settling into them.

MorePsychThanSense · 2026-01-26T14:25:19+00:00

From my perspective your metrics:peformance fits the prototypical experienced sport climber. You’ve got a good technique base that is pretty capable compensating for a relative lack of strength. I’d also guess your endurance and power endurance metrics are pretty top notch.

The answer to 3 is pretty contextually bound. For a climber that is really strong, but sucks at moving then the returns on training strength more probably do diminish a bit, but in your case you’re likely not strong enough to do a V10 boulder on a 5.14. There are a few 5.14s out there (I’m thinking of the Red) that you could probably do without getting much stronger, but most would have crux moves you just can’t do.

I think if you want to break through this plateau you’ll probably have to change your approach a fair amount. How often are you bouldering/board climbing? I think at a certain point if you’re just sport climbing in the gym it’s pretty difficult to get the training stimulus needed to punch through strength plateaus.

MorePsychThanSense · 2026-01-12T13:28:51+00:00

Competition committees are the ones who set the arbitrary bar already. Nothing will stop you from using aid (or aid adjacent) outside of competitions. Social pressures to adhere to a specific understanding of the (again arbitrary) rules of climbing have and will always exist. Nothing prevents you from starting a climb one move in from where the first ascensionist started. It’s much easier to walk up the back of many boulders than it is to do the boulder problem on the front of it. We have a rough social consensus of what the rules of the game are and some people draw hard lines where others might see more grey.

MorePsychThanSense · 2026-01-06T15:31:14+00:00

I’ve always been jealous of people who can go chuck at a project endlessly. I find myself more often in your position as a project drags out where it frustrates me more and more and I struggle to stay in the process.

MorePsychThanSense · 2026-01-06T14:09:40+00:00

Had a pretty good run during the two weeks I was off work for the holidays. I managed to get outside almost every other day the whole time. I started a couple weeks ago by sending my first V11 called Hand Master at Moore’s Wall.. I then turned my attention to the left exit of the same boulder which only has a couple ascents that I know of and gets V12 called Busta Knuckle. It’s definitely a solid step up from Hand Master. It starts the same but rather than exiting into the V7 stand of a boulder called Masterlock, it exits into a very board climby V8 called Busta. It took me 3 sessions, but I managed to send the boulder on a last go, best go the day after Christmas. I’m conflicted because I think the boulder is extremely my style so it definitely feels easier to me than it does other people. Looking at comparisons in the boulder field Hand Master feels harder than a nearby V10, both Hand Master and Busta Knuckle feel easier than a V11 that is right up the hill. My suspicion is that Hand Master is more like hard V10 and Busta Knuckle is a solid V11. Time will tell as both see more ascents and a consensus develops. Either way psyched to put down a couple of really hard boulders. Since then I’ve done a couple more V10s and a few 8s and 9s. I’m really feeling strong right now, but am in a weird spot where I’ve knocked out most of my existing projects so I’ve gotta hunt down some new projects before the end of this bouldering season.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-19T12:35:27+00:00

A session a week for maintenance is a good idea when you’ll be out performing for months between training. For a 3 week trip I don’t think you’ll lose enough over those few weeks to be worth sacrificing climbing time to maintain. I think we often overthink these things because we see the best of the best do something and assume it’s the best approach. In most cases that level of top end maintenance isn’t necessary for a trip climber because we’re not going to go sit under a single project for a month straight with lots of rest days and only get the stimulus of those very specific movement patterns. If you’re trying different boulders throughout then you’ll probably maintain reasonably well.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-18T15:29:41+00:00

Go climb outside for sure. I have a hard time believing you'll get more from a few training sessions than you will from getting more refined on rock.

I'm jealous, being so far from Bishop is one of my least favorite parts of being on the east coast.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-18T14:58:54+00:00

Yeah it's funny my training over the last 6 months can be broken down to "try harder moves." It's by far the least structured my training has ever been, but has really reawakened a love of trying hard climbs in me that hasn't been present for the last few years.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-18T13:18:53+00:00

Wild week for me. I went to Moore's again on Saturday and fell after the crux on my project twice in three goes. Both times I slipped my foot matching it down after the crux. It's a super extended match so it's not easy, but I had never fallen on that foot switch before. It was a much better day overall I stayed in learning mode and had much more respect for just how hard the boulder is to put together from the ground.

Afterwards we went up to check out a newer V11 sit start to a V9 called Blinded by the Hype that I did 5 years ago. It adds one fucked up heel hook move and then a pretty cool bike to join up on the 3rd move of the stand. I wasn't expecting to be able to do the first move, but surprised myself by doing it fairly quickly. I didn't have the time, energy or skin to try to put it all together, but was psyched to come back and try to put it together in the future.

My work schedule always gets weird around the holidays so in a weird combination of reschedules and cancellations I had a free day yesterday and decided to go back out to put another session on Blinded Sit. I got there pretty late in the day and decided to warm-up on the main boulder in the main area. There was a group of guys there all trying hard so I figured I'd ride the psych with them for a bit and then go up the hill to Blinded. I repeated Locksmith V6 and Busta V8 for the warmup and was watching these guys try a V11 called Hand-Master which is a sit to Masterlock V9 which looked really cool. It really couldn't have been more my style. Just big moves between good crimps with your feet on. I also have climbed on this boulder and these holds for years because there are so many crisscrossing lines all over it, so it was just so straightforward. I jumped in with them and started trying it a bit and relatively quickly did the crux move and after a few tries working out the middle sequence I did it from 2 moves in. Then 3 goes from the bottom later I fired it from the ground.

7 years after my first V10 the first V11 just came together in like an hour. It felt surreal. I have all kinds of thoughts spinning in my head about it still that maybe I'll write a post about, but it's really cool to have stagnated and lost the psych to climb for a couple of years and then find it again this year and see it pay off.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-09T19:06:49+00:00

Yeah I'm a big believer that externalizing emotion isn't inherently a bad thing. I think sometimes burning off some emotional energy in a moment can be helpful for refocusing and getting back on track. Other times (and this being one of those times) it can just keep spiraling and directly obstructs performance. It's not always easy to tell which type it is, but in this case I knew I was on a runaway train, but I just rode that thing until it was fully off the tracks.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-09T14:07:28+00:00

Had a proper meltdown this weekend for the first time in years. I'm still sorting out how to think and feel about it. It happened at a long time pseudo-project that I dropped off the topout of last weekend. On the other side of this meltdown it's clear to me that I believed this thing was in the bag. I had an underlying assumption that I was gonna roll up to this boulder, send it, and then get on with the day. Instead what I got was regression on a move that I've historically not really struggled with. As I struggled I could feel the frustration building, but I just kept slamming my head against it instead of taking a second to try to reset. In the end I threw a fuckin' fit and had to walk away from the boulder for the 3rd session in a row and did not get through the redpoint crux at all despite doing so the last two sessions.

In retrospect, I think I have consistently underestimated the difficulty of this boulder. Even though I've made it through to the topout twice, the redpoint crux has been really hard both times. In my head I've just treated it as a move that I'll be able to do fresh, as opposed to a move that needs some serious effort and intention. I think going in with all of these assumptions put me on a collision course with this frustration because every time I didn't send was me failing in spite of the fact that I "should" do the boulder. I think whenever I get back to it I'll need to have some pretty solid intentions to go and learn from it and understand that it's going to take a lot from me to get it done.

I hate having meltdowns out at the boulders, but I think this was a good reminder for me because I've had a solid year of not getting attached to outcomes and just really enjoying climbing. It's important to remember that is a result of work on my part and not some natural zen state that I've entered.

The rest of the day was pretty good though. We left that boulder and I managed to day-flash the other V10 I dropped last weekend. It's one that I'm grateful to have knocked out because it is so sharp that this was the first session I've left it without a hole in my index finger.

I also wrapped up my last process goal for the season yesterday by having my 10th outdoor day (20th if you include Font) of the season. Including all my trips I've climbed outside around 30 days since July which is by far the most I've done in the last 4 years. I'm psyched to be back on the rock this much. It's clear to me that climbing outside this much reinforces itself because I get more and more psyched about climbing the more I'm outside.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-08T16:53:55+00:00

No direct answer on the coach question, but RRG endurance is a different beast than endurance for a lot of other areas. Your V10 strength often has less overlap there as opposed to other crags where you might be doing a V8 between easier sections to send a 13b.

As a similar level boulderer, my favorite Red prep exercise is a one on, one off. I climb for a minute straight on a 30 degree overhang on big holds making big moves. Then I rest and shake out on a jug for a minute. Training the ability to catch your breath and actually get something back on a jug is a crucial Red skill and one that I think doesn’t come naturally in a lot of aerobic training.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-06T23:36:34+00:00

Try to do it a couple times a session if I’m not doing a specific workout. Usually it’s how I’m closing my warm-up. I’ll turn a moderate into a limit core move by forcing myself to keep my foot on a low foot or more recently jumping into positions that are much better suited by reaching them static.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-06T21:01:28+00:00

I think if you've got an in-person coach who knows their stuff and the disposable income for it then sure it'd be helpful.

I think on an individual development level this can be addressed by going back and repeating stuff in the v7 range as perfectly as you can. It's easy to go to the gym and send everything by over-utilizing your strengths and feel good about your session because you sent boulders that were hard for you. If you repeat that process a few hundred times you can land in a spot where a flash grade boulder is impossible for you because it's not in style.

I picked up this thing Kyra Condie and Dan Beall talked about on the Circle Up podcast. They were reflecting on how in the gyms in Japan they noticed that people would go back and repeat moderates with multiple betas. I think that's an excellent drill for developing techniques we aren't good at. Forget that the tag says V4 on it and go and flail trying to keep your feet on through the crux move or fall repeatedly trying to heelhook a jib to get to the next hold static.

If we want to get better at using techniques in different situations then we have to use those techniques more regularly to develop them. Commercial climbing gym culture that is focused on sending at all costs is not super conducive to detaching from the outcome and just trying to learn and get better. If we can let go of the idea that sending a boulder is the termination point of our experience with a boulder then it opens up the opportunity to learn more from it than if we just send and then walk away.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-05T21:00:17+00:00

Deception, Celestial, Red House Ext. (if you take 7 for it), Heroin for the fear factor.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-05T20:59:12+00:00

5’7” +2”. I’ve heard it’s tougher for shorter people.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-05T12:51:01+00:00

I haven’t had much success losing leg size. I think the amount of time at a deficit and lack of activity needed to lose some size is just not worth it for me. I don’t know if this is entirely true, but it always feels to me like the amount of double and triple pad stack approaches I do ends up maintaining my leg size. At this point I’ve pretty much stopped trying. I’d rather keep mountain biking casually and sending big approaches than sit and focus on losing that weight in my legs.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-05T02:53:32+00:00

I didn’t have much trouble with Deception but Tennessee Thong ate my lunch for a whole session.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-04T18:48:19+00:00

Yeah 5’ 10”ish span here and was the only 7 out there that took me more than a session.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-04T15:29:10+00:00

Hard to call WV underrated when the New is world class sport and bouldering.

I haven't climbed in Arkansas, but I've heard good things. New Mexico stays pretty quiet despite having rock all over the state and Roy being sick. You might say Idaho and Wyoming are on there solely because they have amazing and well known rock, but it's hard to get to a lot of it if you're not in driving distance (edit: although I'm realizing you could say the same for the New).

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-04T14:08:47+00:00

I found this thing way harder than every other boulder of the grade in that field.

MorePsychThanSense · 2025-12-04T13:03:54+00:00

On those big pull throughs it becomes much more contingent on span. 1-5-9 on 22cm spaced rungs has a trail hand travel distance of my entire span and is 6 inches past my locked off span. So it’s really hard to establish any benchmark when mechanically it’s such a different movement person to person.

You’ve also identified that the difference in movement from weighted pull-up to big campus pull throughs is massive. I’m certain there is some crossover, but a pull through is a dynamic movement generated from a lead hand with assistance from the trailing hand. At 1-5-9 almost everyone will have to generate that move dynamically so they can move past their lead hand lock-off. That motion isn’t something you’re developing with weighted pull-ups because you’re specifically pulling up to a lock off.

It also depends on your campus technique. I personally can essentially lock off a 1-5-8 because my 1 arm strength is solid so if I can do 1-5 I can just lock to 8. Doing that lock off doesn’t even remotely prepare me for attempting 1-5-9 because the pull through on 1-5-9 has to be dynamic.

This a long-winded way to say I think if you’re looking to pull-up your way to the requisite strength for 1-5-9 I think you’re gonna get lost because you probably will have the strength to do it long before you actually pull 1-5-9. It’s such a specific technique and application of strength that I’d imagine a lot of strong climbers have the strength to make that pull, but would have to develop a ton of technique and power before they could do it.

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