[lagerstarfish]

shall I enter my pre-anklefook stats?

current bouldering grades are a bit low

do you want the front lever times in minutes or seconds?

[nai]

I was thinking most people would have access to a campus board at a wall, which I've presumed generally to have a degree of standardisation ie: 15 deg?

If folk are using a wall/campus board would it be useful to have a basic endurance based test, e.g.:

Perform 1-3-5-5-3-2-1-1 (leading with alternate hands) on small rungs using a crimped grip until failure.

how many reps did you manage?
what was the duration


Perform 1-3-5-5-3-2-1-1 (1 rep) on medium rungs using a open-hand grip until failure.

how many reps did you manage?
what was the duration

Or are pure strength tests alone a suitable way to assess route climbing?

[slackline]

shall I enter my pre-anklefook stats?

If you know them all from the same time-period then thats fine.

What I wanted to avoid was people putting in their best evers for each field which may not correlate with each other due to perhaps injury meaning they've spent a lot of time fingerboarding.

current bouldering grades are a bit low

do you want the front lever times in minutes or seconds?

Seconds please.

[ghisino]

I'm surprised no one has raised the issue of variation in the style of problem or route ascended (i.e. does it make sense to have your max boulder problem 7A on a slab comparable to a 7A roof). 

i'd say that it is an implicit and hopefully accepted flaw of any such benchmarking attempt.

but on the other side if you take out the most extreme outliers, i'd expect to see a sort of correlation at least in terms of "minimum required fitness for each grade".
Because of how we use the grading scale, problems or routes that really don't require any special strenght and are purely technical tricks will never get past some grade...probably font font 7A and sport 7c, or even less.

I think several hard "slab" boulder problems are a good example of what i mean.
Eg. "the storm" at stanage.
Of course you need to be quite flexible and have good footwork to do it...but would someone succeed just by flexibility, footwork and technique??? Or does it require some kind of strenght once your left foot is placed?
(i dunno, i couldn't get very far once my left foot was in place- maybe because of poor footwork and flexibility  )

[nai]

I'm surprised no one has raised the issue of variation in the style of problem or route ascended (i.e. does it make sense to have your max boulder problem 7A on a slab comparable to a 7A roof).  Far more important than the relatively minor differences in rung size/angle/conditions/etc. of a finger board.

Hadn't raised it but been thinking about it and people's ability to perform on better on a certain type of problem. So I came up the following dead simple, utterly foolproof, solution 


Max OS grade
Consistent OS grade (could think-of-a-number required)
Max grade you've climbed a minimum of four* problems/routes
Max grade you've climbed

And maybe:
Consistent one-session grade (implies multiple ascents of said grade but could specify, e.g. six*)

*being numbers plucked out of the air

[nai]

(i dunno, i couldn't get very far once my left foot was in place- maybe because of poor footwork and flexibility  )

Try your left heel?

[ghisino]

(i dunno, i couldn't get very far once my left foot was in place- maybe because of poor footwork and flexibility  )

Try your left heel?

poor beta, one more possible way to fail a rockover! 
(honestly i don't remember if i did try the heel as well.  But i do remember seeing several people getting perfectly in place for the move, somehow starting to move up, and then hitting a wall...)

[nai]

i found the heel helped but I think crucial for me was reaching a little farther right than the obvious sloper and finding a small seam at the back of the hold that I could curl a crimp into.  Keep both hands on as you rock up then keep stretching a little bit further and further...

[Sasquatch]

shall I enter my pre-anklefook stats?

current bouldering grades are a bit low

do you want the front lever times in minutes or seconds?

Really!!!! Minutes as in plural?  That's bonkers.  I can't even hold it for a second.

Slackers - THANK YOU FOR DOING THIS!!!!!

Loving all the ideas, but I think Slackers has the right of it.  Lets leave it for now and see what comes out.  Once we get some results, we can look at modifying if we wanted at that point. 

[Nibile]

I don't know if this can be of any help, but: the tests I did during the summer were
- max added weight on 1,5 cm flat wooden edge for 5" (slightly rounded )
- max time on 1,5 cm (bodyweight)
- max time on 1 cm (bodyweight)
- max time on BM one pad monos (middle fingers)
- max time on BM small pockets (front2)
- max number of one armers (on 4,5 cm flat edge)
- max time 90° lock off

I don't know whether and/or how these data could be useful.

[Fultonius]

I tried to fill it in but got so confused about max redpoint grade that I gave up  .

 

Cheers for the delivery matt!

[slackline]

I don't know if this can be of any help, but: the tests I did during the summer were
- max added weight on 1,5 cm flat wooden edge for 5" (slightly rounded )
- max time on 1,5 cm (bodyweight)
- max time on 1 cm (bodyweight)
- max time on BM one pad monos (middle fingers)
- max time on BM small pockets (front2)
- max number of one armers (on 4,5 cm flat edge)
- max time 90° lock off

I don't know whether and/or how these data could be useful.

All good to consider for the future, although my concern is that once holds are standardised people will then start quoting the relative humudity/amount of time holds have been in direct sunlight/other inane variable that might make a fraction of a difference.

Thats not to say that the proposals aren't useful, more to highlight the high degree of possible variables becomes insanely high (e.g. 90° lock off, on what hold?).

I'm not a fan of dredging data because ultimately if you test enough variables something will come out significant (this can be countered by an often overly conservative Bonferroni correction) and would rather have people suggest the training benchmarks that they think are most important to guide variable selection.

[Sasquatch]

I would tend to agree on the idea of keeping the measurements as simple as possible.

For example, it's much easier for a comparison survey to use:

Can you do a one arm lock off?  (full lock at chin) - yes/no
Can you do a one arm pull-up? (no swinging/kipping) - yes/no

These are simple to measure and accurate to compare. 

Max OS grade
Consistent OS grade (could think-of-a-number required)
Max grade you've climbed a minimum of four* problems/routes
Max grade you've climbed

And maybe:
Consistent one-session grade (implies multiple ascents of said grade but could specify, e.g. six*)

*being numbers plucked out of the air

Would defo agree with this.  It should help to eliminate odd outliers. 

[lagerstarfish]

do you want the front lever times in minutes or seconds?

Really!!!! Minutes as in plural?  That's bonkers.  I can't even hold it for a second.

no, I was taking the piss

[Nibile]

do you want the front lever times in minutes or seconds?

Really!!!! Minutes as in plural?  That's bonkers.  I can't even hold it for a second.

no, I was taking the piss

lagers, you mofo!
Taking the piss, were you? So yesterday I nearly spat my guts off to get to 35 seconds for nothing!!!???

[tomtom]

Time stands still when Lagers gets on the Beastmaker... (but only when Brian Cox is on the shitter)

[andy_e]

I've now got a sketch in my head where Brian Cox is describing his last shit in a Wonders of the Solar System style... It was vast, imagine the distance from one side of the bowl to the other, then double it. Beautiful. The whole thing is incredibly green and shaped like a giant plate, flecked with sweetcorn...

[lagerstarfish]

do you want the front lever times in minutes or seconds?

Really!!!! Minutes as in plural?  That's bonkers.  I can't even hold it for a second.

no, I was taking the piss

lagers, you mofo!
Taking the piss, were you? So yesterday I nearly spat my guts off to get to 35 seconds for nothing!!!???

you owe £870 motivational consultation fee

remember that paid for advice is more effective than the stuff you get for free

[andy_e]

paid for advice is more effective than the stuff you get for free

How much did that knowledge set us all back?

[Dexter]

do you want the front lever times in minutes or seconds?

Really!!!! Minutes as in plural?  That's bonkers.  I can't even hold it for a second.

no, I was taking the piss

lagers, you mofo!
Taking the piss, were you? So yesterday I nearly spat my guts off to get to 35 seconds for nothing!!!???

well not nothing it will get you stronger right?
plus new benchmark to aim for

[Pebblespanker]

Done the survey albeit my contribution is at the old git punter end of the spectrum

For info the smallest edge was that on a BM 1K (guessed at 8mm)and I assumed you want 4 finger hang times, . Also have data on hanging other holds with fewer fingers if you want it.

One suggestion would be that age would be an interesting factor - apologies if is already there and I missed it on the form

Also after checking training diaries realised my 1RM for a pull up is 24kg not the 20 I put - DOH!

[slackline]

One suggestion would be that age would be an interesting factor - apologies if is already there and I missed it on the form

No, you didn't miss anything and I realised I should have collected date of birth (more accurate and consistent than asking peoples age as I can derive age based on dob and date the survey is completed).

Also should have collected gender and arm span (to either include separately or derive ape index).

Collating these and all the other suggestions to include in the summary under "What to improve".


For those yet to complete and thinking of doing so....

There's no point simply entering your height and weight along with climbing grade as the aim is to see how training performance relates to climbing performance.  Please enter at least some of the metrics (pull-ups, and edges are pretty straight-forward, if you don't have a finger board use a sturdy door frame).

[lagerstarfish]

paid for advice is more effective than the stuff you get for free

How much did that knowledge set us all back?

I've added it to your individual monthly invoices

[nai]

For info the smallest edge was that on a BM 1K (guessed at 8mm)

Really?  I measured the smallest edge on my 2k and it's 11mm

[Pebblespanker]

For info the smallest edge was that on a BM 1K (guessed at 8mm)

Really?  I measured the smallest edge on my 2k and it's 11mm

Measuring now I am home and not guessing ...