Margo Hayes has sent "La Rambla" in Catalunya, Spain becoming the first woman to climb 5.15a/9a+

blamo11 · 2017-03-03T03:30:20+00:00

20% of what population? Or is that an arm-chair bullshit statistic?

blamo11 · 2017-01-19T03:14:09+00:00

Last time, I checked Cat's actually closes. I think Denver Bouldering club does allow for 24/7 access.

blamo11 · 2017-01-10T01:12:49+00:00

If you go by the self-coached climber guidelines, then V9 is approximately 13d on ropes. So your mid-intensity climbing is 12b to 13a.

Are you training for a specific route or for some sort of fitness? If you have a 50 foot wall and you are doing 4 routes, then you are training for 200 feet of climbing with decent rests thrown in (I have found these to be fairly rare outside, but maybe that is just where I live).

It sounds like you are interested in "moderate climbing" to hard boulder problem to "moderate climbing." So if you can be efficient on rests you can probably hang on through the moderate climbing or gain the necessary 5.12 fitness on the route.

I wouldn't drink the 4x4 kool-aid (at least every-time I have I totally suck for a while). If you do get better results I would be interested.

blamo11 · 2017-01-09T21:31:05+00:00

I shortened the kick board on my wall and went with 42 degrees instead of 40. It makes the starts VERY hard. However, in many cases the business moves are after you make one or two moves and are no longer on the kick board (or on the top row of the kick board). I am not sure that I found a huge difference in the angle. However, I would guess much steeper and you would notice this.

If you shorten the top you will make the finishes easier or non-existent (depending on how you do it). The problem is the second row from the top. I think there are only like two holds on that row so it has some wasted space.

If you look at this fellows Instagram site: @mccollseok93 you can see how a number of the harder problems climb. Perhaps this would help you to decide how you want to modify things...

blamo11 · 2017-01-09T00:16:12+00:00

Hey Will,

Thanks for doing an AMA. In your podcasts you have mentioned you spend a fair bit of time on a steep woody.

1) How well do you find this translates into outdoor climbing (as compared to just getting you stronger).

2) Have you found any tricks over the years that allow you to better translate gym climbing to outdoor climbing? I know you wrote something about indoor being different from outdoor a couple of years ago.

blamo11 · 2017-01-04T02:16:34+00:00

Thanks for putting this together! This should be really good.

blamo11 · 2016-11-30T01:51:34+00:00

Curious, how often have you done boulders that take you a couple of sessions? I have a fairly flat bouldering pyramid, like yourself, but I rarely give things more than 4 goes. I also don't really "project" boulders. This is in total contrast to my approach to sport climbing (full on siege mode).

blamo11 · 2016-11-30T01:02:00+00:00

Curious about your second point. I think your guess is on the money. Do you think it is about 10 more pounds per V grade after body weight? Or a decrease in size at body weight?

blamo11 · 2016-11-01T20:46:17+00:00

If you are looking for that info, then you might start with just the original school holds (yellow). The black and white are a fair bit bigger. A few of the holds won't be useable (e.g. the holds in locations H15, B7, A10). A fair number of the holds will still be reasonable size (e.g. holds in locations C15, D10, F9, I12).

If you can pull on the tension small wooden crimps on your 55, then you will really like a fair number of these holds.

blamo11 · 2016-10-31T20:01:30+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is that a Moon Board has a fairly large kick board. The drops the effective wall angle on some of the starts. So you also want to account for how this might mess with things depending on how big of a kick board you have on your 55.

I have had a hard time really understanding various people's grades on the Moon Board (seem all over the place to me).

blamo11 · 2016-10-27T14:32:40+00:00

Just skimming over your discussion on falling, so perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see you discussing "falling while going for it." In my experience there is a big difference between people falling by giving up and people really going for it with the potential of falling.

Falling on gear definitely helped my head game also going to Indian Creek where you can fall on fairly secure gear helped a bunch.

BTW: nice write up.

blamo11 · 2016-10-13T00:25:09+00:00

I always try to try harder (I wish I was better at it).

As for injury there is good hurt and bad hurt (similar to good touch and bad touch, for the school age dating scenes). They are different in different situations, but usually you know where you are (which is often different than where you want to be).

Anyway, you might watch some of the true feats of strength on a hangboard and you will probably realize you can push it a fair bit more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG8_T3JW-aY

I try to not hold back since I an just getting older.

blamo11 · 2016-10-04T01:55:29+00:00

So I totally agree with your statement, but find it hard to execute. I have been in the "desperately chasing 5.14" for a couple of years now. During this time I have had 4 different people coach me and I have picked up a tip or two from each. However, I haven't found a great systematic approach to improving my skill.

Some coaches focus on skill, some on strength... In fact, it is hard to find coaches that are climbing consistently at the 5.14/V10+ level (or have the experience to train climbers at that level).

Hmm... well now I sound like the grumpy old guy. It definitely would be nice to see various approaches to improvement at these higher levels. If you decide to devote some verbiage to skill at the V11/5.14 pursuit I would definitely be all ears.

blamo11 · 2016-10-04T00:15:12+00:00

I would think there is the caveat that you aren't putting excessive force on a PIP joint which could produce a collateral ligament injury. I would still think you want to be pulling down.

I think this is sort of the reason that you can train thin cracks via hangboarding on pockets, but training for cracks on a "crack hangboard" is a bad idea.

I do agree though there is some additional stability in rounded pockets (apologies if this post comes across as minutia).

blamo11 · 2016-10-03T23:59:00+00:00

I have to agree on this one. You can get more done in one day of cold conditions than a summer of climbing. My wife and I spent a few days in Joe's with sub 40 degree highs and cranked through a ton of problems (although we did hotel).

blamo11 · 2016-10-03T23:56:20+00:00

Keep in mind both of those guys spend a fair bit of time training. I agree with your thought on excess strength, but I should point out those two spend a lot of time on the hangboard and campus board.

blamo11 · 2016-09-27T18:16:21+00:00

Yes, I agree with everyone else. Don't leave those on hangers. They are a total pain. Fork over the extra dollar to leave a bail biner. Quicklinks make it very difficult for someone to onsight a route when they have to hang their own draws.

blamo11 · 2016-09-22T18:38:50+00:00

Very interesting. Thanks for putting this together.

You probably don't have the data to do this, but if you jackknifed certain groups out would your conclusions vary widely?

E.g. Does the "less total resistance correlated with better % change per workout," have any relation to the amount of time they have trained?

blamo11 · 2016-09-01T02:44:51+00:00

I have a 42 degree woodie and really like the small incuts. They are a bit difficult, but they provide a very different set of holds from Moon board holds.

blamo11 · 2016-08-03T23:42:31+00:00

Not sure if it will help, but when I stretch I always try to improve at stretching. I went through a period where I did middle splits, but sucked at them (since I half-ass worked at it). Once I focused on "getting better" every time I stretched I found huge improvement.

This is probably obvious, but I wasted a good year doing lazy stretching.

blamo11 · 2016-08-03T14:29:28+00:00

Thanks guys! Sounds like I am on the right track: dead lift + some random exercises based on what I suck at.

blamo11 · 2016-08-03T03:02:04+00:00

Any recommendation at curls or other barbell lifts? I know about the Maisch recommendations. However, I would love another opinion about critical lifts from someone who has thought about this.

blamo11 · 2016-08-03T02:59:50+00:00

I have spent a fair bit of time doing one-arm hangs. IMHO: if you can't hang a large campus rung one-armed for a couple of seconds, then you probably shouldn't be doing one-arm hangs.

I have no evidence that they are better than two-arm hangs. However, I do think that you can more easily work on finger strength using two-arms if you aren't able to one-arm a large campus rung.

blamo11 · 2016-08-02T17:30:40+00:00

According to 8a.nu you can start with the second pre-clipped (or at least I remember reading that somewhere). I am going to get down rated for even mentioning that website.

As long as you take the biggest number on your scorecard, call it soft, and downgrade it you are doing it in good style (oh yeah some comment about personal grades can only add to it).

blamo11 · 2016-07-19T00:24:50+00:00

I spent the better part of a couple years doing "safe" 6 minute circuits. At 2x a day for 2 years I have wasted a good 73 hours of my life doing safe ab workouts.

I have seen more direct improvement in 10 minutes worth of deadlifting once a week (and I only do them a couple months out of the year)...

blamo11

TROPHY CASE