[slab_happy]

Pete, mrjonathanjr

I think you’ve fallen into the trap that leads to people being too dismissive of this test/data.

It’s not supposed to, and cannot, predict with ANY precision the grade you should be able to climb.

However it is useful to see “for the grade I climb, are my fingers strong/weak”?

That is a totally different question and a useful thing to know, because despite what jwi suggests for some people finger strength really isn’t a priority. That guy climbing by V4 who can pull 150% body weight - he can lay off the deadhangs.

Yeah, as I understand it, part of the purpose of the data is being able to say to some people "You're way stronger than you need to be for the grades you're actually climbing, the last thing you need is more strength training, you need to fuck off and learn to climb work on your technique instead."

Whether that gets lost in the messaging or in practice, I can't say.

[abarro81]

However it is useful to see “for the grade I climb, how much cash should I be spunking onto a generic finger-strength-focused training plan”?

Because writing non-generic plans focused on things other than finger strength is beyond the wit of commercial coaches. Or not.

[petejh]

Pete, mrjonathanjr

I think you’ve fallen into the trap that leads to people being too dismissive of this test/data.

It’s not supposed to, and cannot, predict with ANY precision the grade you should be able to climb.

However it is useful to see “for the grade I climb, are my fingers strong/weak”?

That is a totally different question and a useful thing to know, because despite what jwi suggests for some people finger strength really isn’t a priority. That guy climbing by V4 who can pull 150% body weight - he can lay off the deadhangs.

Honestly I'm not trying or meaning to be dismissive. I'm just asking questions and I'm curious about the data.

I get that the finger strength data is just one piece of data in a bigger set of tests. All combined it helps form a picture of a climber's ability. I can see if you measure data for this particular test of finger strength (as discussed, ideally you'd also get a load of other grip positions) and combine it with measures of: hip flexibility, different measures of forearm aerobic & anaerobic endurance and power, determination, fear, and overall resilience through general conditioning - then you'd get a useful picture of a climber's attributes and where they sit relative to other climbers.

I do think that you'll get those pieces of data fed back to you by the rock... if you go climbing a lot on different styles and if you pay attention and try to take an objective look at yourself. This stuff isn't new, all that's new is the means of feeding you the information of how much you suck or don't suck has been made synthetic, and commercialised.

The single 20mm finger strength measure by itself seems to get a lot of attention - probably because it's simplistic and people like simplistic things - but it doesn't really show anything very useful in isolation. I don't follow lattice or what they put out, so this is uninformed, but I get the impression from talking to others and reading threads like this that they market it quite a lot (the 20mm edge measure) ?

[abarro81]

I do think that you'll get those pieces of data fed back to you by the rock... if you go climbing a lot on different styles and if you pay attention and try to take an objective look at yourself. This stuff isn't new, all that's new is the means of feeding you the information of how much you suck or don't suck has been made synthetic, and commercialised.

I think this is all true, and for many people testing will just confirm what you already know... But, I think this assumes that you have both self awareness and a community of relevant people to compare yourself against in order to conclude what you're good/bad at. 

If you live in Sheffield and hang out a lot at the tor, Malham, Kilnsey, the school, the foundry etc plus do a lot of trips away then it's easy enough to benchmark yourself informally. If you live in a random town in the middle of nowhere, or somewhere where there are very few climbers at a similar level and with similar attributes (e.g., if you're a big person in a town where all the good climbers are short; or a woman climbing 8c in a town where all the 8c climbers are men) then it might be much harder so you might want access to a broader set of people to compare against? I know when I was younger and climbing 8a it was very easy to benchmark myself informally against all the 8b climbers I saw around the place in order to understand what was different about them to me. Now I find it very hard to benchmark myself against those who are where I want to be, because most people in the UK are not where I want to be (plenty of strong ones but not many into onsighting and not so many fit ones, so not that useful for benchmarking strength vs fitness vs skills etc. I might erroneously think my fitness was very good if I didn't benchmark against people outside of Sheffield!). I don't think you necessarily need to benchmark like that - I can evaluate where I think I'm lacking without it, and maybe the benchmarking leads you down the wrong path sometimes, but I think most people (including me) find it interesting and sometimes useful to benchmark in that way.

[petejh]

Aren't the people used in the lattice data mostly the people you say you wouldn't find it useful to benchmark yourself against? Genuine question! I mean it's mostly strong brits from the peak isn't it?

[Bradders]

Aren't the people used in the lattice data mostly the people you say you wouldn't find it useful to benchmark yourself against? Genuine question! I mean it's mostly strong brits from the peak London isn't it?

Fixed

[tomtom]

Just wait until Dave Brailsford gets stuck into climbing

[abarro81]

Aren't the people used in the lattice data mostly the people you say you wouldn't find it useful to benchmark yourself against? Genuine question! I mean it's mostly strong brits from the peak isn't it?

I don't know the figures, but I don't think that's the case nowadays (at least in geographical terms). Don't forget this is a company offering training plans to people all around the world and getting test data from people all around the world. The question of the selection bias towards "people into trying to hang 1-arm on an edge" is probably more of a realistic concern.

Using myself was a bad choice of example, or I worded it badly. What I meant was there's no-one in the UK who's onsighted 8c, so no-one I can benchmark against in terms of where I would most like to get to. Ste is close but not a useful benchmark! I.e. any data set would be better than the UK dataset since it doesn't exist. But yeah, would probably want to know who was in it and want it to cover both the comp beasts and the underground Spanish crushers spending 10 months of the year on rock... which I suspect would all be covered in the lower grades even if the average is skewed by selection bias.

But this is a distraction, my broad point is just that not everyone is lucky enough to live in places where comparisons are easy to come by (or to be able to travel to those places repeatedly for extended periods) so having a dataset to compare to might be much more useful for them

[stone]

I feel slightly anguished by all of this Lattice knocking.

The people I've climbed with who use them (or Dave Mason) have all been full of praise. They've been a fairly varied bunch of climbers too and their climbing all seemed to improve.

Paul B seems to now regret the approach he used even though it got him up Voyager (not using Lattice BTW). I've not heard any such regrets from people who use Lattice. Perhaps they might is ten years time or something, but Fiend also seems to now regret his approach (unless he was just joking).

The vibe I've sometimes detected in some climbing circles in the past, has been one where people wanted to be better than other people even if that was by way of other people being worse rather than themselves being better. My sense is that Lattice are the total opposites of that -great.

Perhaps Lattice are disliked for commercialising climbing. I'm impressed by how much free stuff they put online. To me, it seems wrong to begrudge them being paid for what they do. Almost everyone gets paid for doing whatever we do. I see no shame in that. The only shameful thing is to do something bad -and I don't see Lattice as doing that.

[petejh]

It isn't knocking.

Skepticism is healthy.

This isn’t meant to knock, I’d be genuinely curious to see some robust significance.

Honestly I'm not trying or meaning to be dismissive. I'm just asking questions and I'm curious about the data.

[Fiend]

but Fiend also seems to now regret his approach (unless he was just joking).

I regret my approach of not balancing out the ledge shuffling with more focus on climbing that would have helped maintain or possibly even build strength and fitness, specifically redpointing on awful UK limestone, and also projecting harder boulder problems, both of which I have put very little time into. Possibly a bit of working harder problems indoors too. And of course doing prehab and conditioning.

I don't regret not having a tail-wags-dog miserably shallow focus on grade-chasing, trophy-fixation and having a tediously regimented, joy-deprived militant training focus (or dictatorial edge-hang-based training plan) to tick numbers as the end goal - which is an aspect of the whole situation that was nagging at me reading some earlier posts before it got all technical about edge sizes and percentages.


(As usual I'm probably the worst of both worlds - all the regret and dismay of someone who missed out on being a half-effective goal climber, mixed with all the snobby contempt of a holier than thou wannabe soul climber).

[stone]

Fiend, a couple of the people I was thinking of were totally fitting the stereotype of being on a mission to do whatever it took to get up a particular grade. They seemed to be having a ball doing that.

We can have fun climbing in a vast variety of manners. That's great. To some extent whether something is life affirming joy or militant grimness is all within our heads. I guess the ideal is to align what we choose to do and our perception of it such that the combination feels great for us.

To me as an outsider, both you and Paul B have done plenty of awesome climbing and could continue to derive a lot of joy from climbing if you so chose. I don't really see much to regret in either case. I realise that in both cases you are just offering helpful pointers to others though.

[Bradders]

Paul B seems to now regret the approach he used even though it got him up Voyager

Completely off topic (not that we're on the original topic anymore anyway!)....

Is this right? Awesome if so, and a rather significant omission from the list....

https://climbing-history.org/climb/174/voyager

Edit: it is!

https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,6413.0.html

Get him added Remus!

[remus]

What an omission! Right under my nose this whole time! Now added.

[Bradders]

Poor chap, sat there all this time not wanting to toot his own horn but quietly thinking "surely someone will remember I did the 3rd ascent of Voyager.....someone....anyone...?! Fuck it, I'm going cycling" 

[tk421a]

Who did the 2nd ascent?

[Bradders]

Jerry I think, who else?

[yetix]

I thought it was baby Ty at 15

Edit is Ty according to 8a.nu https://www.8a.nu/news/landman-15-climbs-voyager-8b

[yetix]

When did Jerry do it though?

[Bradders]

Ah fair enough, I stand corrected.

[Paul B]

To me as an outsider, both you and Paul B have done plenty of awesome climbing and could continue to derive a lot of joy from climbing if you so chose. I don't really see much to regret in either case. I realise that in both cases you are just offering helpful pointers to others though.

Ok, so perhaps regret was the wrong word. What I was trying to imply is that I wouldn't recommend focusing on training too early and to the detriment of focusing on skills/efficiency. I don't really think that's an outrageous statement.

[Wellsy]

I think this is 100% what I have done. I'm not sure I really know how to fix it tbh

If I were being flippant I'd say find a partner who's relatively new to climbing, quit your jobs and go travelling around Europe sport-climbing with a bit of bouldering before venturing onto some more adventurous multipitch stuff and a bit of trad. Fall in love with the Verdon Gorge and return repeatedly to terrify yourself each time vowing never to return. Get engaged and realise that weddings are expensive but not in Vegas ($120!!!). Get married in the parking area for Lev 29 and then spend the next 6-7 months living out of a Ford E-150 mostly doing trad and then finally in 2019 book a trip to Madagascar to climb run out techy MP routes. Get bitten by a dog on the first day, require hospital treatment and suddenly realise that you might have pushed it too far taking your adventures to a third world country where it could all get a bit Blood Moon. /selfindulgence

Less flippantly stop focusing on training geekery (and I mean it, step away), prioritise getting out (including when the weather is less certain) with other people who are better technically as climbers, embrace failure and enjoy the journey. Repeat problems you feel you might've overpowered in the past. Look at things like flexibility that might mean you choose to climb things in an inefficient manner without realising it (an example of this was a trip to the NW slate quarries with a member of this forum where it was evident his hip flexibility made thin rockovers significantly easier!) etc. etc.

I'm still puzzled by this. If it is just about long-term damage to the fingers from repeated severe training injuries, then that is easy to understand. But you (Paul and perhaps Wellsy) seem to be saying that there is more to this than that. That being strong before being experienced at climbing causes almost irreversible impairment to the capacity to gain efficient climbing technique in the future. That is what I'm struggling to get my head around.

The GP this week scared me a bit when I went in for a screening and she was immediately fascinated and quite alarmed by my fingers ("have they always looked like this") as apparently I have 'clubbing'. I checked with a physio I hold in high regard and he said it's common in climbers due to repeated trauma from training. When people Google, no they don't look like the severe images you first see!

A good example Stone would be Noir Desir (accepting you've not been to Font). The first few moves are through a small roof then there's a series of slaps up a wall with scooped holds. A Frenchman turned up and pulled on from after the roof and cruised the top (and I mean absolutely p*ssed it) including some faux hold on the right with a flat palm as he adjusted his body. We chatted for a while and he said he simply couldn't do the first move. I was absolutely astonished by this but that was the case, he spent the entire session not doing the first few basic pulls. Meanwhile I thrashed away for the entire session pulling far too hard on everything following the start moves as it's incredibly hard not to rely on that strength and know how little you can get away with if you really nail the positions.

I tried to look for a video on Bleau.info and found one of Willackers absolutely brutalising it. Instead this one perhaps is a bit closer to my experience although he doesn't milk the heel in the same was I'm remembering etc.:

Interesting thoughts

I will say, I enjoy training. And I enjoy climbing! I like feeding them into each other. I try to get out when I can but obviously finding people who are weaker but better who are also available when the weather is dry etc can be a bit tricky! Although I do do that at times and I have definitely improved. Going to font repeatedly helped a lot. But then when I've been training I climb better too, as I think it makes me feel stronger and more confident.

To be honest I also should probably remind myself at times that it's only been four years and I'm not a particularly talented natural athlete.

So honestly I'm just a baby, and I've still done plenty of things! I'd just like to climb harder things, and I'm at the Conscious Incompetence point where I used to think I was strong and good, then I thought I was strong and shit, and now I think I'm not particularly strong and shit as well, whereas realistically I'm probably stronger and better than ever before, just only on the cusp of realisation as to what actual strength and technique is.

As far as being a numbers related goal climber goes; I am actually not and have never been particularly either. I just like getting better at things and grades are the most obvious expression of that. I think all this goal climber/soul climber distinction is actually just kind of a myth. Achieving my goal of getting better and feeling good about my climbing has made my soul feel wonderful. I think some people are just a bit snobby about other people want to do the things they can do, rather than just stumbling across it. Yes I had to train really hard to get to 7A, and others just breeze it in six months, but that doesn't make it a soulless achievement at all.

[Tom de Gay]

When did Jerry do it though?

According to Grimer's book, Jerry hung up his climbing shoes in 2002, three years before Voyager's first ascent. But maybe he sneaked in for quiet repeat and didn't bother to tell anyone, he is a legend after all.

[yetix]

Whilst a legend I can't imagine Jerry doing anything quietly!

[petejh]

I think all this goal climber/soul climber distinction is actually just kind of a myth.

I think they're archetypes. I think it's a myth that there exist many people who are one or the other. I don't think it's a myth that both archetypes exist within most of us. We're all a tension of external and internal reward.

I listened to this by Morgan Housel recently, which expresses the idea of goal climber / soul climber quite well (his angle is finance but the wisdom applies more widely). It's probably a story well known to many on here. I'd read a few books in my teens about that Vende globe race and the two characters Housel talks about, great stories if anyone's unfamiliar. I'd love to think I'm more Bernard Moitessier than Donald Crowhurst but there's bits of both in most of us I imagine. Most likely most of us are more like the other sailors in the race (who are mostly unknown) who probably weren't at either extreme.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3tuq9pSVAPdtBG8S1B1iEe