[Tommy]

Below is in 2 sections. My thoughts and then Luke's thoughts (for the purposes of this thread and outside of the doc).

Tom comments:

Ok...... so if anyone on here saw a thread a while back on the Lattice Board, I suggested (me being rash?!) that Moose do a "blind" Lattice test. I confidently stated that I'd be able to guess his grade within 1 for bouldering and route climbing and that I'd get his main weaknesses correct without knowing anything about him aside from what I could glean during an assessment.

What I couldn't know: Grades, age, training/climbing history, detailed injury history, goals and projects completed.

What I could know: Height, gender, job, that he likes Malham and that he mainly climbs in the UK

Luke and I (with a couple of trusted friends of his) have put together a document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZRRq-5YZe1V-OCsbh8C60XdsSeNxGptneRGQRf2GsBo/edit) for anyone who wants to see how wrong or right I got it! I hope that some of you find it interesting and also can discern that as a coach I'm prepared to put myself in a deliberately difficult situation because I'm interested to see what happens. Don't shoot me down in flames too much!!

MANY MANY thanks to Moose/Luke for being such a willing victim in all of this.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Moose comments:

This challenge grew out of my general misgivings about mathematical models; those I've encountered professionally tend to require so much information about the likely outcome, they are more a confirmation exercise than objective measurement.  Also... I have a romantic belief that some aspects of climbing are best left inexplicable and intangible... the physiological equivalents of low gravity days and sticky damp!

So, given Tom's assessment didn't quite hit every measure, I guess I could feel slightly vindicated.  But to be honest, I think he did bloody well.  I am such a physiological freak, I am surprised he didn't run away when he first clapped eyes on me, mooching around the Foundry woodie like a depressed Angle-poise lamp in trackie bottoms, recovering from the rigours of a morning spent dismantling a tumble dryer.

What most struck me about the assessment was the seeming truthfulness of the initial observations, based on a a few deadhangs, some bar and floor exercises, and performing short sequences of specific movess.  Tom correctly assessed I have very weak shoulders (I'd forgotten to tell him about my intermittant shoulder / neck / elbow problems, diagnosed by various physios as due to poor shoulder stability). He surmised my bizarre, always side-on, every-move-a-layaway, style is to avoid any need for shoulder engagement. I have long known shouldery moves are my Kryptonite but never explicitly twigged a connection with my preferred movement style (in a word: twisty). 

To my mind, Tom was most accurate with his initial, intuitive views, and led astray (slightly) by the data.  Presumably the Lattice dataset is based around the mass of more well-balanced folk; so, they perhap under-estimate how, with sufficient cunning, a mass of flaws can be partly mitigated by one great strength.  Given that I look like a village idiot recovered from an Irish peat bog, I cannot blame anyone for underestimating my deviousnes: I can turn almost every move into a straight-arm hang, and every route into a stamina plod (somewhere there is a recording of me shaking out half-way up the power-endurance test-piece Raindogs for well over 2 minutes)!

So, would I recommend a Lattice session?  Well the assessment identified most of my relative weaknesses (lack of power / upper body beef, and relatively poor power-endurance), it maybe underestimated how much of a get-out-of-jail-free card being a tall crimp beast is!  I feel I gained a lot from the experience and would have been happy to pay for the prompt to finally do something about my shoulders.  I have taken Tom's insight seriously enough that my winter aims now involve Therabands, a TRX, and scapular pull-ups!  That said, in different, less manufactured  circumstances, or with a different, less learned coach who perhaps relies more on the numbers, it might have been less impressive; as with all such matters, YMMV and any positive outcomes will always owe most to personal effort and attitude.
.
Moose / Luke

PS Thank you to Tom to being such a good sport and listening to my grousing about work throughout the assessment... he now knows more about domestic fire hazard than any sane man should!

[Tommy]

Actually, I think this URL for the assessment doc may be better for access....?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZRRq-5YZe1V-OCsbh8C60XdsSeNxGptneRGQRf2GsBo/edit?usp=sharing

[Duma]

6'3" and 9st 4lb!!!!
I've got a lot of sympathy for any model / coach that struggles...

Interesting document, thanks Tommy and Moose

[teestub]

Thanks for getting this sorted, interesting that the model was pretty much bob on for bouldering, I assume this grade assessment relies heavily on finger strength?

Actually are the finger strength results usually included in the assessment data? I was wondering if poor shoulder engagement strength would negatively impact the one arm with assistance fingerstrength testing?

[lagerstarfish]

are Oak-Slave's results available in the public domain yet?

[remus]

Actually are the finger strength results usually included in the assessment data? I was wondering if poor shoulder engagement strength would negatively impact the one arm with assistance fingerstrength testing?

Yep, finger strength results are normally included with the assessment. The model we use looks like f(grade, gender,weight) = predicted fs (which we then compare with actual fs), so because we didn't have a grade to work with here we couldn't include the usual comparison against the fs model.

[cheque]

Quality infomercial that.

mooching around the Foundry woodie like a depressed Angle-poise lamp in trackie bottoms, recovering from the rigours of a morning spent dismantling a tumble dryer.

...Given that I look like a village idiot recovered from an Irish peat bog, I cannot blame anyone for underestimating my deviousness: I can turn almost every move into a straight-arm hang, and every route into a stamina plod

Moose you are a national treasure.

[SA Chris]

like a depressed Angle-poise lamp in trackie bottoms,

At 6' 32 and 9st 4, More like a few bungy cords strategically knotted together.

[moose]

Years ago, I went on a works day out, and my boss brought his 5-6 year old son along.  The kid saw me, screamed "it's the SKELLINGTON!" and burst into tears. Thankfully he recovered his composure and spent the rest of the day mocking me.  At that time, I weighed over a stone more than I do now.......

[Will Hunt]

There's far too much gold here to pull out individual quotes. Suffice to say that I have wadded Tom and Moose for how much they made me laugh with their respective write-ups.
This is actually a great advert for Lattice, to take such an outlier and to get things mostly right, it shows that it is doing something right and I find that very impressive. Obviously it needs to be used by a competent coach, but no model anywhere should ever be used by an inexpert practitioner who doesn't understand its limitations.

Moose, at the start of this year's lime season I asked for recommendations and one which came up was Trowgerbirge Wall. You said:

YMMV but I think Trowerbridge Wall is desperate; I failed to get up it on a day I got a 7c route there 2nd go!

I've been looking for an excuse (any will do) to humble (or not) brag about this since July and now, I'm pleased to say, my time has come. I flashed this, with the top being onsight putting the clips in on the way, and the crux is complete piss. But it is also the complete Moose anti-style. Grab an enormous jug, get your feet up, and do a big throw to another enormous jug. I'm not a coach or a computer model, but if this straightforward move has shut you down because of its mild dynamism, it strikes me as being an incredibly troublesome weakness. It's one that should be very easily addressed by doing some of the red and purple circuits at the Depot.

[Murph]

Moose...sounds like good fun and worthwhile but...59kgs at 191cms... how are you alive!? 

Tom - Tons of respect for you doing this anyway, but particularly with as unusual a climber as Moose!

Would you mind unpacking what “potentially mental approach”  means...?

Also, let me know if you fancy running another test on someone who is 170cms and 67kgs 

[moose]

YMMV but I think Trowerbridge Wall is desperate; I failed to get up it on a day I got a 7c route there 2nd go!

It's one that should be very easily addressed by doing some of the red and purple circuits at the Depot.
[/quote]

What makes it worse is that the "7c" is now given "7c+" with comments about how it must have lost holds as it's impossible; it hasn't (the FA checked), it just involves tika-taka between barely sufficient rat-holds.   I reckon Trowerbridge will be my "white whale"... like that f6c groove thing on the Flapjack at Caley!

Re the Depot, I generally flash most reds.  I don't like purples and typically cannot muster the enthusiasm to work them: too much sloper wrestling.  It'll come as no surprise that I really like woods and the 30deg board... perhaps this winter, I should embrace the humiliation and frustration of failing to jump between blobs.

[teestub]

... perhaps this winter, I should embrace the humiliation and frustration of failing to jump between blobs.

This blob jumping gets a bad wrap a lot of times for being too dissimilar to outdoor climbing to be any use as training, but there's definitely a very strong correlation between the people who climb hard outside, and the people who are good at blob wrestling.

[Will Hunt]

Moose, your last paragraph there reads as a classic example of a person who does not want to address their weaknesses and instead would rather seek comfort in the diminishing returns afforded by milking their strengths.
Stop flogging a dead Moose and go Strictly Blob Jumping!

I'll be at the Depot most Tuesday nights over the winter. I might make a point of coming to the back room first, seeing if you're there, and dragging you out onto the dance floor.

[cheque]

This blob jumping gets a bad wrap a lot of times for being too dissimilar to outdoor climbing to be any use as training, but there's definitely a very strong correlation between the people who climb hard outside, and the people who are good at blob wrestling.

It's no more abstracted from rock climbing than campussing or fingerboarding I suppose.

[thekettle]

Thanks for sticking your neck out and trying this Tom, and Moose for offering yourself up for scrutiny, interesting results

I'd be curious to see how our numbers compare, given that we're the same weight but I'm 28cm shorter!
If I had your BMI I'd weigh just under 43kg..

[moose]

Cheers John... For me the main personal takeaway from this (leaving aside what it says about the Lattice approach), is that I am like a reasonably pacy car with a broken steering wheel: I can get somewhere fast..... providing there are no obstacles!