[User deactivated]

Jeez, proper clickbait title that. I'll nibble anyhow.

Imo it's just different for everyone, Nick you say four sessions a week outdoors are needed, I'd wager I could improve my current state drastically by doing one outdoor session a week for the next couple of months. Dan you say rock trumps all, I'd like to see one of the young comp wads improve by just climbing on rock, the load they do would be impossible to do on rock. It's simply different for everyone, no one size fits all. Just my opinion.

TB you reckon confidence is the main factor, I'd rather be as strong as Megos and down in the dumps than as weak as Doyle and feeling top of the world.

[mrjonathanr]

Even on LH Red Wall?

[abarro81]

TB you reckon confidence is the main factor, I'd rather be as strong as Megos and down in the dumps than as weak as Doyle and feeling top of the world.

Yeah, I remember spending a season in Santa Linya and seeing people on everything from 7a to 9a+. It felt like fitness, confidence, fluidity on rock and the like determined whether you did your project in 5 days or 15, but raw oomf was the biggest factor in whether your project was 8a or 9a...

[TobyD]

TB you reckon confidence is the main factor, I'd rather be as strong as Megos and down in the dumps than as weak as Doyle and feeling top of the world.

Yeah, I remember spending a season in Santa Linya and seeing people on everything from 7a to 9a+. It felt like fitness, confidence, fluidity on rock and the like determined whether you did your project in 5 days or 15, but raw oomf was the biggest factor in whether your project was 8a or 9a...

Conversely,  if one were on North Stack Wall, you could have as much oomf as you  friggin well like,  but it'd still be all about how big your balls are. (Figuratively,  of course,  I fully appreciate that any gender can be extremely good at terrifying trad routes)

[Rob F]

But, can you tell the difference between a British or Spanish 9a climber, or a male or a female 9a climber by the way that they move?

[Bradders]

Jeez, proper clickbait title that. I'll nibble anyhow.

Imo it's just different for everyone, Nick you say four sessions a week outdoors are needed, I'd wager I could improve my current state drastically by doing one outdoor session a week for the next couple of months.

Yes completely agree. My underlying point was that most people just can't climb on rock that often, so really for the majority getting on rock should always be the priority.

Then once you're on rock, if you want to improve at climbing you need to bring that attitude to your rock sessions. I think one of Steve's points, which I agree with and am guilty of, is that many don't.

TB you reckon confidence is the main factor, I'd rather be as strong as Megos and down in the dumps than as weak as Doyle and feeling top of the world.

Each to their own, and I've definitely felt like this myself before, but this sounds like a pretty unhealthy attitude to have towards climbing to me. After all, it really doesn't matter whether your project is 7a, 8a or 9a. Or it shouldn't anyway. It's all a personal journey. no one wants to be as weak as Doyle.

[abarro81]

But, can you tell the difference between a British or Spanish 9a climber, or a male or a female 9a climber by the way that they move?

I'm not quite sure I understand the point, but you can often tell the difference in style preference (which may be driven by where you live, but probably not nationality). E.g. back in 2010 watching Ste Mac and Tom Bolger it became apparent to me that Steve moves in a way very appropriate for vert/slightly overhung climbing based around smaller, precise movements... while Tom moves in a more flicky, aggressive and momentum-orientated way that's more suitable for steeper climbing. Not to say one has "better" movement or technique than the other - Tom's is better on certain terrains and Steve's on other terrains..

[abarro81]

if one were on North Stack Wall, you could have as much oomf as you  friggin well like,  but it'd still be all about how big your balls are. (Figuratively,  of course,  I fully appreciate that any gender can be extremely good at terrifying trad routes)

No doubt. I'm pretty sure if I went tradding now for the whole summer I'd be climbing the same level as back when my hardest ever sport route was 7c and hardest boulder 7A...

[Stu Littlefair]

To engage with Steve's point a little more seriously, we all know people who have relentlessly chased ever decreasing gains in a particular aspect of strength, whilst ignoring potentially bigger gains that could be had in, for example, flexibility or movement efficiency. 

Of course it's a balance. Spend all of your time on rock, or all of your time on a 20mm edge and neither approach will be optimal. Alex is right too that what you do on the rock matters. You could spend all summer outside sieging a single project and learn zero movement skills. And the balance is personal; if you've not trained your whole life you're going to get more out of a month on the fingerboard than another month on rock. And the balance is time-specific. One of my best year's climbing came after spending the summer climbing large numbers of mid-high 7s because I was going to crags my partner had projects at. The other came after spending the whole summer ignoring outdoors to train at the Foundry.

I dunno, I would have thought this stuff was obvious?

One of the ways Steve is shooting at an imaginary target is that he makes the mistake that what people post on social media is what they spend their time doing. If I had a training session that was one hour of stretching, followed by two hours of playing on boulders for movement skills, followed by a FB session in which I one-armed the Lattice Edge holding a small dog in my arms, which one do you think is going to make it onto instagram?

[SA Chris]

Jeez, proper clickbait title that. I'll nibble anyhow.

Imo it's just different for everyone, Nick you say four sessions a week outdoors are needed, I'd wager I could improve my current state drastically by doing one outdoor session a week for the next couple of months. Dan you say rock trumps all, I'd like to see one of the young comp wads improve by just climbing on rock, the load they do would be impossible to do on rock. It's simply different for everyone, no one size fits all. Just my opinion.

Indeed. There should be a big asterisk at the end of it with 2 pages of caveats
Does not apply if you are weakness is your weakness
Does not apply if you are a  grade 9 climbing wad with a massive baseline
Does not apply if you are time or location limited with very little opportunity to actually get on rock.
etc
etc

You'd swear that an Insect Overlord was posting links to spurious claims to generate conversation.

[User deactivated]

Each to their own, and I've definitely felt like this myself before, but this sounds like a pretty unhealthy attitude to have towards climbing to me. After all, it really doesn't matter whether your project is 7a, 8a or 9a. Or it shouldn't anyway. It's all a personal journey. no one wants to be as weak as Doyle.
[/quote]

Ah yeah it does sound bad now I've read it from another point of view. I just meant in terms of chances of success on a climb, so I'd rather be an out of confidence Megos on an 8C boulder than a confident Doyle. I definitely wouldn't wish to be down on the dumps etc. Also I'm not sorry for using you as an example Chris!

[shark]

You'd swear that an Insect Overlord was posting links to spurious claims to generate conversation.

       

[User deactivated]

You'd swear that an Insect Overlord was posting links to spurious claims to generate conversation.

       

I just wish I could comment on the 'Want to know who is best in the UK?' article.

New title needed.

[shark]

I just wish I could comment on the 'Want to know who is best in the UK?' article.

New title needed.

Britains top crushers  🙌 🇬🇧

[tomtom]

Sharkbait

[Teaboy]

I’m wondering how someone who has previously red pointed 9b can be said to have improved because they managed a quick red/head point of an 8a+

[Bradders]

I’m wondering how someone who has previously red pointed 9b can be said to have improved because they managed a quick red/head point of an 8a+

Because grades are an irrelevance and it's all about working through things that challenge you regardless of someone else's perceived level of difficulty?

[SA Chris]

But given a huge volume of difficult climbing under his belt, he must have a pretty high baseline of fitness and a huge technical arsenal compared to the average 8a punter.

Same as I could go out tomorrow and do just about any route 4 or so letter grades below my hardest redpoint, even though that was over 20 years ago, and I've sport climbed once in the last 5 years.

[Rob F]

The trick is in knowing, which climbs to climb...

[Tom J]

To be fair most of the people posting in here have probably been rock climbing for decades and relative to the global climber populace have immaculate technique. So getting stronger is the low hanging fruit.

The gym I've been climbing at this year is full of bright eyed, psyched 20 somethings who've typically been climbing for a year or two, largely indoors, and have simply shocking technique. Its common for these kids to ask me if they would be better off campusing, fingerboarding or working on their cores in their quest for improvement.

For them the low hanging fruit is basic muscle co-ordination, simple footwork, hip movements etc. They just need do a bunch of different moves a bunch of times until their bodies know how to move properly without thinking about it.

They would all be infinitely better off doing a bunch of 5.10/.11's than mucking about on a fingerboard. Some of them employ coaches who they see through zoom and who design 'personalized' training regimens for them... It's a farce really, and that seems to be what Mclure is railing against.

[shark]

As a reminder his opening paragraph in the article is:

There is no doubt that training is required to reach your true potential as a rock climber. But we are quicly forgetting that there is more to rock climbing than pulling hard on stick screwed above the doorframe.

He then goes on to illustrate the above with examples of why the training aspect is not as overarchingly important as social media (and purveyors of training programmes) might lead you to believe and also stress that technique, tactics and time on rock are each as important to performance on rock.

In the nugget podcast he expands on this a bit with his model that the three equally important facets of performance are physical, mental and technique. Therefore by focusing on strength and achieving a 10% improvement here you might only achieve a 3.3% improvement to your overall performance and that’s assuming that your focus on strength hasn’t led to a decline in the other areas (which it might very well have done).

[remus]

He then goes on to illustrate the above with examples of why the training aspect is not as overarchingly important as social media (and purveyors of training programmes) might lead you to believe and also stress that technique, tactics and time on rock are each as important to performance on rock.

I think the issue is that many people (understandably) take the narrow view that training == fingerboarding. I think it's much more useful to think of training as 'stuff I do to get better at climbing', which can and should include lots of time on terrain similar to the stuff you want to improve on.

[shark]

One of the ways Steve is shooting at an imaginary target is that he makes the mistake that what people post on social media is what they spend their time doing. If I had a training session that was one hour of stretching, followed by two hours of playing on boulders for movement skills, followed by a FB session in which I one-armed the Lattice Edge holding a small dog in my arms, which one do you think is going to make it onto instagram?

I suspect it isn’t Steve who is confused as he knows what other ‘names’ get up to in terms of their on-rock/in-the-gym activity.

However, the audience who are less in the know seeing a massive bias in content featuring feats of strength from top athletes might draw poor conclusions on how to improve.

I think it’s good that Steve has stuck his head above the parapet in an attempt to redress the balance and ‘start a conversation’ as politicians say.

[Johnny Brown]

I think it's much more useful to think of training as 'stuff I do to get better at climbing', which can and should include lots of time on terrain similar to the stuff you want to improve on.

I don't think that's useful at all. In response to the fact that the best training for climbing is climbing you're just reframing training to include climbing. Where does that leave climbing? Is the only 'proper' climbing then what you do on your project?

The useful distinction to me is between praxis and practise. if you have limited opportunities to get out on rock, or have specific weaknesses you want to work, then training is useful. But doing the thing (praxis) will pretty much always trump doing an abstract reduction of the thing (practise).

[Stu Littlefair]

However, the audience who are less in the know seeing a massive bias in content featuring feats of strength from top athletes might draw poor conclusions on how to improve.

I think it’s good that Steve has stuck his head above the parapet in an attempt to redress the balance and ‘start a conversation’ as politicians say.

A random glance at any particular days social media feed shows me a series of posts from the best climbers in the world. Mostly they are trying crazy moves indoors, or climbing outdoors.

There are also a series of posts from internet celebrities who climb 4-5 grades below the cutting edge performing feats of strength.

If Steve feels the need to step in to avoid impressionable youths getting the wrong idea then that’s taking a pretty dim view of people’s intelligence.

There’ll always be misguided people spending all their time and energy on getting stronger, but I’ve seen no indication that this is getting worse. If anything it’s much much less prevalent than it was in the 90’s and 00’s.