[TheTwig]

So, I did my first campus session the other day and it all went well. By the end I felt like some kind of ripped greek god (soaring up large rungs but that's by the by..). It was strangely addictive and yielded some pain in interesting places. My elbows felt fine, forearms ached like a bitch (in a good way) and were fine the next day. Fun.

Anyway, how would the UKB massive go about quantifying how hard types of moves are on a campus board? Ranking exercises / rung sizes in order of difficulty and then doing exercise X rung size X successful moves = volume?

Maybe I'm thinking about it too much, it is 5am  I want to incorporate it into the pan-dimensional motivation generator that is my training spread sheet and just wondering about the best way

[kelvin.a.mann]

I just had a 5am beer... not qualified to answer.

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[Pako]

I don't reckon you can really grade campus moves. When you do a hard bouldering move, there are so many variables that go into sticking the move apart from strength that factor into how hard it is, like how you swing and catch the swing, how hard it is to keep the feet on etc. With campussing, if I can do a one arm then one arm locking feels fairly easy, but a ~v5 move can feel harder. It's such a simple move that you can almost always replicate it. Really the trouble with bouldering is that it is low percentage. A campus move isnt low percentage, once you can lock far enough to do 1-5-9 then it isn't as if you can forget how to do it. Dunno. The beastmaker boys tried to grade one arms on the bm 2000, but when I saw that they gave one arming the middle incut edge 7a I decided grading campus moves is useless.

[Boredboy]

All moves about 7b+, the grade where any campusing may start to make a difference. 

[J_duds]

You could use outside to grade inside, for example:
fast cars at porth ausgo 6C - good edges
happy campus at rivelin 7B - small edges

[ghisino]

Ask Lino Banfi

[GCW]

God, not this again   

[tc]

Not sure about applying bouldering grades to individual campus moves but if you are aiming for 1-5-9 the following "graded list" of progressions might be useful:

1-3-4
1-2-4
1-3-5
1-4-5
1-2-5
1-4-6
1-3-6
1-5-6
1-4-7
1-5-7
1-3-7
1-5-8
1-5-9


Roddy will probably be along soon to tell me I'm wrong....

[cheque]

i know gradings completely arbitrary but come on. i walked up a slight incline before, 2c i thought. then i carried a rather large bag up, my problem is whether to claim a bigger grade or just say i walked up the hill with a bag...
why can't people just say i did 1-4-7 instead of adjusting for a scorecard? beggars belief

Still one of the best UKB posts ever.

[andy_e]

I was going to say, where's Dan Warren when you need him?

[Sasquatch]

Let's see, in addition to being relatively pointless to assign grades, there are quite a few technical issues to deal with...

Moon(20cm), metolius(22cm), or some other arbitrary spacing.

Rung size???  moon(2cm), metolius(.75"), or some other.

Board Angle - 10, 15, 20 degrees


now then assuming you are asking about just the relative aspects of campusing itself for training, then for me this is about what I find for myself:

Max Ladders(sm)       Max Ladders(med)             
1-4-5                        1-3-6
1-2-5                        1-3-6
1-4-6                        1-4-7
1-3-6                        1-4-7


       

[tomtom]

Let alone conditions...

[DAVETHOMAS90]

To the OP.

In my opinion, not such a silly question.

I think there are two issues here.

Firstly, most of us want to chart our progress, to get a sense of how we're improving, whether or not our training is effective etc. in that context, a simple graded list can be very useful, and of course we do that with boulder problems anyway.

Secondly, a major purpose of training, is to get fatigued in a particular way - muscle group/range of movement - that we think is particularly useful/relevant to our skill set, so that we adapt and hopefully get better at that movement.

Knowing what to target, what to measure, and how to measure the improvement is going to be both very useful, and also a source of motivation - hopefully.

By analogy, I can record my 5° slope walking ability very easily, using three primary variables - rocks in my bag, repetitions or distance covered, and rate of ascent or speed. All pretty self evident.

On the other hand, campussing is a generic term to describe a complex movement, one that is hard to quantify in terms of "what's hard about it".

What do we/can we isolate to measure our improvement? What's the hard bit? What do we work, how do we get fatigued, to get better at it?

For example. Perhaps we want to do 1-4-6 on the small rungs. 1-3-5 is steady. Do we try doing 1-3-6, or do we repeat 1-3-5 with some added weight?

Of course, it's great to be able to chart our progress up the campussing "graded list", or to feel stronger at a particular stage - e.g. 1-3-5 with +5kg, but very often, the difficulty is making the transition from one stage to the next.

Knowing what to record and measure can help us understand what to target, and therefore hopefully improve.

As an aside, a pulley setup is a great way to help with the transition between stages, so that you can work those movements you can't complete with body weight. It's easy to chart your progress too e.g. 1-4-7 @ body weight-5kg .. -3kg .. +3kg etc.

Well, that's my nerdy meditation on the original post anyway, and a guess at the motivations of the OP.

 

[Sasquatch]

very true.

I'd say fewer total types of exercises is generally good.  Max ladders(two moves plus match finish), Max reaches(one move max plus match finish), and touches(max reach, but without latching the rung- nice feature is that these can be measured with a piece of tape so no extra rungs needed to see progress).  And in that order to me for general training value.  If you are needing a certain type of strength, then work that one more extensively. 

Adding 1/2 rings is a VERY good way to help progressions.  Then instead of going from 1-3-6 or 1-4-6 to 1-4-7, which is very hard to do, you can do 1-4-6.5, and 1-3.5-6.5, each of which have 1/2 of the 1/4/7 movement and will still be hard to progress.

I've never liked the pulley for campusing. It always seems to get in my way. I'm also generally not keen on campusing with added weight.  It scares my fingers.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Yes, some great points there. Especially the tape for the touches - takes the success/failure out of it doesn't it, and as you say, obviously easy to measure.

 

[TheTwig]

Thanks for all the great replies everyone. I had meant comparing the relative difficulties of different campus exercises and the extra effort of skipping rungs etc. Bouldering grades are about the most arbitrary thing I've encountered in life yet. Doing a v5-8 circuit problem on a slab and then being unable to do a v1-3 circuit problem on the overhang is a good way to stay humble! Campus boarding and fingerboarding by comparison are paragons of quantifiability! (tm)

TM and Sasquatch's posts came the closest to what I'm after so cheers for that. My biggest weakness seems to be 'board style' bouldering problems and big powerful moves with shit feet, so I'm hoping campusing will help with that. I think for the grades I climb my fingers are very strong, so going to stick with the large rungs. Especially as it's my first training cycle campusing. Apart from the now cleared up elbow tendonosis I've yet to have a serious climbing injury in 3 or 4 years.

  but my climbing has gone through the roof since rehabbing my elbows. Halfway through the year and here's my progress with circuits at my 'local' wall

[TheTwig]

very true.

I'd say fewer total types of exercises is generally good.  Max ladders(two moves plus match finish), Max reaches(one move max plus match finish), and touches(max reach, but without latching the rung- nice feature is that these can be measured with a piece of tape so no extra rungs needed to see progress).  And in that order to me for general training value.  If you are needing a certain type of strength, then work that one more extensively. 

Adding 1/2 rings is a VERY good way to help progressions.  Then instead of going from 1-3-6 or 1-4-6 to 1-4-7, which is very hard to do, you can do 1-4-6.5, and 1-3.5-6.5, each of which have 1/2 of the 1/4/7 movement and will still be hard to progress.

I've never liked the pulley for campusing. It always seems to get in my way. I'm also generally not keen on campusing with added weight.  It scares my fingers.

I was leaning on the fewer exercises things. The beginner campus routine in the RCTM is 4 sets each of matching ladders, basic ladders (skipping 1 rung per move) and then max ladders. I liked playing around with go-agains/bumps/double dynos but they really can't be that useful unless you are climbing 1zillionC+

The campus board at White Spider is pretty awesome and doesn't seem to get used all that much. The rungs get nicer the further up you get, always a good sign. 

[Pako]

Well if your feet come off you'd be better off practising climbing on shit feet in an overhang and getting better core - campusing will just make you more reliant on cutting loose and won't help you much. Especially if you say you already have strong fingers. imho

[TheTwig]

Well if your feet come off you'd be better off practising climbing on shit feet in an overhang and getting better core - campusing will just make you more reliant on cutting loose and won't help you much. Especially if you say you already have strong fingers. imho

What I meant was it's the campus type moves that I am bad at, e.g there are no feet, or just barely enough feet to get set up for a campus move to the next hold. It's a lack of power and contact strength, my body tension is pretty good. If you picture the stereotypical hyperflexible light slab climber with strong fingers and small arms and shoulders thats me!

[ghisino]

Try doing a 2 month cycle of 2-3 campus sessions per week (of about 50 hard campus moves per session) and see how you react.

Apart from injury, I can't see any potential drawback!

Also, powercompanyclimbing.com is currently running a nice blog series on campus exercises

[lmarenzi]

Nerdy and arbitrary question, nerdy and arbitrary answer:

Doing 1-3-4 on the big rungs with all 4 fingers is worth 60 points.

Google Lord of the Rungs if you want more details or if you want to sign up for the comp.

Good luck