[jwi]

I am going to Kalymnos over the eastern holiday. I've never been there before so I am looking for advice about what to train for. I am looking to onsight routes from 7a+ to 7c+.  I've been looking on some photos and it looks like the climbing there is mostly about stamina on jugs?

[TobyD]

you may not need massive standard sport stamina like you do at Rodellar or Ceuse for example, as the omnipresent tufas give you so many rests, hence a slightly longer fatigue period similar to trad may be appropraite for many of the routes.

There are some that are a bit bouldery between mega rests.  Training core and legs to hang out in knee bars for hours would not be wasted!

... and finally some extensive ego preparation for the inflation it will recieve from the world's best holiday grade destination.

[jwi]

Thanks! So routes are mostly boulderproblems/short sprints between massive, if slightly uncomfortable, rests?

[shark]

If climbing in the Grand Grotte / Panaroma area the routes are very long and steep but you can get rests so stamina recovery is a good thing to train. I found that the Aerobic Capacity preparation I did starting 7/8 weeks beforehand helped massively with onsighting and climbing 6 days on. I will certainly prepare for another trip there by doing a lot of AeroCap sessions though obviously not to the inclusion of everything else. Once you get going with it the AeroCap workout is almost a recovery session though that might appear hard to believe when you start.

The AeroCap session I do is on 38deg home board and the circuit was just below my onsight limit. I do what is called a 20/10. This is 20 moves and take 20 sec rest then 10 moves and take 10 secs rest repeating until I've done 120moves to form a set. Take 10 mins rest and work up to doing 4 sets. Once fit you should recover from it easily within 24 hours and with a bit of a break you could combine doing it with some bouldering or some other more intense work in a session. Another thing if you really get into it is to shake out on a jug for the rests.

Obviously if you are already an endurance monster relative to the grade then ignore the above.     

[jwi]

Thanks! No, my endurance is not that hot tbh: due to available facilities (fancy speak for my neighbour's woody) my font grade is probably higher than my onsight french grade.

My plan is to try to maintain my bouldering form or letting it slide a bit (i.e. boulder once/twice a week), focus on aerobic strength endurance (4-5 short sessions a week), and train anaerobic strength endurance the last 2-3 weeks before going.

[shark]

Sounds like you don't need advice and have it already nailed. You'll have a great time. Believe the hype. Kalymnos is awesome. 

[jwi]

Well if the routes turn out to be mostly cruxy starts followed by short desperate strength endurance on edges I know whom to blame....

[SteG]

Thanks! So routes are mostly boulderproblems/short sprints between massive, if slightly uncomfortable, rests?

not really, they're mostly steep jugs to massive rests. It's easy to get really pumped on the juggy bits but if you can employ some tufa-trickery this can mostly be avoided. There are of course routes of all styles and you can play to your strengths at any given grade if you wanted to. The grotte is mostly jug-plods to comfy hands free rests, other sectors have just off-vertical crimp walls with 35m+ PE routes with few rests.

Grades. some of the older sectors are slowly seeing some downward pressure on the grades, the newer ones tend to be a bit hit-and-miss depending on who bolted the route, some grades are spot-on others need a pinch of salt; if you do a lot of routes it would be great to leave your comments in the new routes book in the Glaros Bar, which also contains details and topos of new sectors not in the latest guide. pm me if you wanted any other info.

[jwi]

Thanks again!  Lots of useful info!  Good to hear that there is some off-vertical crimp walls too, I really enjoy that style.