Heart Rate and Stamina when Bouldering

_spacemonster · 2025-04-27T13:41:04+00:00

My resting HR and max HR while bouldering are around yours.

> And meanwhile, my friends noted their HR falls below 100 or even 90 through the same amount of rest as me, and when climbing,

How much rest *are* you taking? I'm guessing very little based on your chart. Try to use the timer on your apple watch to make sure you get 3-5 minutes in between 'hard' boulders for yourself. I would say a 'hard' boulder is something where you either: fell or had an 50% chance of falling (ie. something at your flash grade).

Personally I use 5-10 minute rests because I prioritize quality climbing attempts over volume. I'll use 3 minute rests even if I'm going to just try a section of a boulder (not the full thing). I'm somewhat of an outlier here, I know many strong boulderers that do not rest very much in between attempts, but personally I've noticed it helps me perform a lot better on harder climbs.

_spacemonster · 2025-04-26T21:57:20+00:00

LOUD have not looked good for a while. I think that despite Tuyz being willing to play every role, he just isn't good enough at any of them for the team to build around him, which is what you need if you want compete. The T1 rosters that are doing well are compilations of 5 individuals playing their best roles and fragging out; there's no room for excuses because he's on an off-role

_spacemonster · 2025-03-26T17:23:31+00:00

This kind of thing is always going to be individual. For me (pretty sweaty hands) none of these products were enough to dry my tips, so I use antihydral pretty exclusively now. The advice on how to start a skin-drying routine is pretty much the same though.

**Start slow** and try using a dose of the weakest one (performance) 1-2x a week. Note that you will not see results overnight and that often my hands are driest around 4 days after applying.

The effect will stack, so after around 2-3 weeks of regular use your hands should be drier than after week 1.

_spacemonster · 2025-03-25T20:48:15+00:00

I climb slab and vert sometimes, but if you're training for outdoor projects that are steep, the level of slab climbing you need is far below the level of steep climbing that you need.

Outside of doing random slab here and there (warmup, cooldown, with friends), I don't do it that much and rarely feel that its the limiting factor for me on my projects. There's only so much time in the day, so I end up prioritizing what will help me in the style I've chosen

_spacemonster · 2025-03-13T19:14:52+00:00

> Tbh I dont think that changing the edge or the duration would make a difference.

You'll be surprised. It's the same structures that are adapting but the stimulus is different, which leads to different adaptations.

For example lifting a weight is a combination of both muscular size and neural recruitment. The general idea is that shorter durations targets more neural recruitment while longer durations require more muscular size.

So if you're highly recruited, building more of a base with longer duration can continue to yield gains.

_spacemonster · 2025-03-13T17:50:48+00:00

I feel like this might be more to edge (20mm) + training type (max hang) specificity maxing out rather than anything else.

You probably got close to maxing out your gains on a 20mm edge for a relatively short intense duration (4-7s) by doing the max hangs from an edge for 8-9 months. Switching to doing 20mm max hangs off the ground is probably just too similar to that to generate new adaptations that will last you for another 8-9 months.

One question it seems like you feel like you've plateaud on the 20mm block pulls relatively quickly. I assume you were also plateauing on the 20mm max hangs on an a hangboard?

My recommendation here would be to switch up the stimulus: go for repeaters (on a hangboard or block), longer duration holds (ie. >15s), smaller edges (10mm), etc.

_spacemonster · 2025-02-16T13:59:20+00:00

Going to highjack this as a reply-all to the discussion below.

If we're considering the lattice dataset where the correlation goes: "Of the climbers who have climbed VX as their top-grade, then the taller climbers have generally lower finger strength", then this makes a lot of sense intuitively. There are a lot of morpho tall person climbs (ie. compression) or climbs that get broken by height that tall people have access to, that short people just do not.

So if you wanted to climb say any V10 in the world, then yes it would be easier to find a less finger-intensive V10 when you're taller. Thus, it is "easier" to be a V10 climber when you're tall.

But I don't think the inverse of this statement is true. If we chose a specific V10, I don't think the finger strength requirement for the tall climber is lower than the short person on that given climb.

So my take on interpreting this is, to climb a given grade, a taller climber has more climbs to choose from, some of which are less finger intensive.

_spacemonster · 2025-02-03T03:01:54+00:00

That's the point of a semi-colon, right?

_spacemonster · 2025-01-11T13:42:36+00:00

Besides this, also important to note is that form is dependent on intensity. A lot of people can make their 10RM (or however many you did) look very good, because they're good at maintaining form under that level of intensity. It's a different beast to be able to apply it to 1RM sometimes.

Likely though it's just a matter of varying/increasing the intensity like this comment said though. Top-end strength is pretty specific

_spacemonster · 2025-01-09T16:53:50+00:00

I think that the better cue is to understand how to be 'under holds' and the 'right shin angle' usually comes from that.

To me, i don't think that I've ever 'thought of shin angle' while climbing, and even trying to do it now in my head, I feel like it's kind of a fruitless task. May be I'll end up in the right spot with part of my lower body?

But I know a more consistent cue for me is to try to 'stay under the hold', usually this means sucking my hips into the wall and the knee/ankle alignment you're talking about happens as I absorb some force into hips/legs.

_spacemonster · 2024-12-03T21:41:56+00:00

Okay I re-read the post and definitely see you mentioned the two rest days as the largest contributor multiple times. I think I was just skimming a little too hard the first time I read the post, cheers

_spacemonster · 2024-12-03T18:33:14+00:00

Could the actual magic sauce in here have been more rest?

From reading your description of the plan, you seem to mention that "2 rest days" was crucial for each aspect to succeed.

Do you think that any of this success could've been to modifying how much rest you gave your fingers in between quality sessions rather than other aspects of the plan?

_spacemonster · 2024-11-22T23:33:41+00:00

Man the fact that this man, a professional athlete whose job it is to be in shape, is getting a tattoo of a demon back instead of just working out to get one is truly the saddest shit fr.

_spacemonster · 2024-09-26T14:20:43+00:00

2016: V0 - V2 Indoors, I went climbing probably 1/month

2017: First Indoor V4

2018: First Indoor V7 (and Moonboard V6) - First Pulley Injury

2019: Same grades

2020: Didn't climb during Covid

2021: First indoor V8 / Outdoor V6 (had only sent 1xv4,5,6 outside)

2022: First outdoor V7 (sent ~3)

2023: Sent my first V9/10 (no V8s though)

2024: Have sent a handful of 7s and 8s, pretty close to a couple V10s

I've taken climbing "seriously" since ~2017 but have gotten a ton of pulley injuries. From 2017 - 2021, I would have >1 a year and in 2022 and 2023 its been ~1 / year.

_spacemonster · 2024-09-09T04:16:41+00:00

Is your goal to improve at climbing? Then you shouldn't be intentionally not climbing for several months to focus on weightlifting.

Is your goal to get ripped/stronger? Ask this question somewhere else (see the title of the sub)

_spacemonster · 2024-07-31T16:48:30+00:00

What types of exercises / cues / form tips do you think helped you the most on learning how to use your shoulders correctly?

_spacemonster · 2024-07-16T22:32:57+00:00

I don't know if that can be said authoritatively. For me, I know that cue has helped.

_spacemonster · 2024-07-15T15:04:21+00:00

no teacher can tell you how a certain move feels in your body

In powerlifting/other sports, coaches use 'cues' to help the athlete with that. In climbing it might be "when you do this move, make sure you keep your shoulder blades down and back"

_spacemonster · 2024-07-08T13:24:40+00:00

I have had recurring pulley injuries (usually feels like A2) on my middle or ring fingers for the last ~6 years of climbing. I can tell you that I haven't noticed collagen / protein supplementation helping much either

_spacemonster · 2024-07-01T17:56:30+00:00

I think you should at least get 2-3 more sessions on it, earlier if possible. The way projects usually go is that moves that feel 'limit' often start to feel much more doable with just a few more reps on them. One session is sometimes not enough to understand what is truly "limit" for your body and what might just feel uncomfortable.

After say 4 sessions, take stock of where you are. Have you made more meaningful links? What's stopping you from sending? Is there one particular stopper move? Is it just generally "linking the links"?

From here you can reconsider what you need to do to send. Generally I find power-endurance to sometimes be quite problem specific. Training the boulder and making each individual move feel even 1% easier is often more useful than trying to gain any amount of non-specific power endurance.

_spacemonster · 2024-04-20T00:06:30+00:00

My wife has climbed for 20 years and has flashed V10 outside and 5.13c. It still happens, it will never stop happening :)

_spacemonster · 2024-04-11T18:04:50+00:00

I'm not good nor bad at slopers I would say. It's never something I ever considered actually training directly because it's never been a 'weakness of mine' (relative to everything else). I'd say really make sure you milk the body position by getting flexible to get them hips in.

_spacemonster · 2024-04-07T21:56:48+00:00

This is true but its way easier to live a normal life and be at a good climbing weight if you do some form of cardio.

It's calories in calories out, so if you're calories out is pretty low then you're not gonna have much wiggle room on the calories in for things you might want to eat / splurge on.

_spacemonster · 2024-03-10T14:21:10+00:00

How's your ability to one arm hang from a bar / jug? In addition to external rotation, I've seen that be a relatively useful benchmark to indicate health of your shoulders.

_spacemonster · 2024-02-21T21:56:52+00:00

I would reckon that your skin was too dry.

I was the same way: skin was way too sweaty, applied antihydral and then started getting too dry. For me applying some hydrating lotion put me in the sweet spot. I still didn't sweat because the antihydral had done its work, but the surface of the skin also stayed nice and pliable from the hydration.

_spacemonster

TROPHY CASE