[remus]

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.

I dropped Ben an email (says hi etc.) and he confirmed Jerry wasn't climbing by the time he did voyager.

[gme]

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.

You have very much got the wrong end of the stick from me. I think lattice is amazing and really love how the modern science based approach is moving the sport on leaps and bounds. Despite considering myself very forward thinking i would never have believed that 9a would be onsighted, although i always could imagine 9A boulders and 9c redpoints.
I really think the olympics is going to herald more breakthroughs in the sport and we are only just seeing the first gen climbers to benefit from this.

This however is all about the top end and what i dont think is good, other than for business, is that they sell the concept to people climbing in the 6s and 7s when you really dont need to follow a lattice plan to achieve this very average level of climbing.

Not sure how long you have been climbing but did you know that when they started they would refuse to train or do plans for anyone climbing under 7b+. It should have stayed like that.

Like i have already said, with modern facilities and access to crags its almost impossible not to get to the 7s. Just watch people, talk, ask questions and importantly try hard either on stuff that's similar to what you want to do and you will get there pretty quickly.

And re the finger stats, i know so many people who can one arm hand the BM middle edge and less with added weight who cant climb past mid to high 7s its ridiculous, and i also know a few 8B and above boulderers who cant hang it. Its lots to do with hanging on an edge and little to do with climbing.

[seankenny]

Just to go back again to the graph that Stu posted, there are perhaps a few easy ways that it could be a bit more useful. As I understand it, the outcome variable is "max grade" but without any caveats I'm not sure it's very clear what that means. If one subgroup just does things in a day (perhaps because they live a long way from the crags, or they are time limited) and another sieges the living daylights out of a problem, what counts as "max grade" is essentially two different variables combined. I've not taken the test so I don't know, but do they narrow it down to "max grade in a session" or "max grade in ten sessions" or similar? Clearly easier to do for routes but "max redpoint" faces a similar problem.

The other obvious thing is that the population isn't divided into male and female to account for very clear physiological and behavioural differences. Apologies if it is, but simply not labelled.

Thinking about how you'd get something that could have a bit of predictive power, I guess if you considered a training cycle (or several) as a treatment you could analyse the effect of various changes in the test results on the grade post-training. This way you could include finger strength, max pulls, some kind of flexibility metric and see what effect any changes in those had on the max grade (however defined). I was thinking about what you could use as a proxy for technique, try hard, those hard to measure soft skills, but I reckon you could just use starting max grade as something that rolls all those into one. This is not ideal as it is clearly affected by all the other physical things you're measuring... Perhaps one way around that would be to use "highest grade that you can flash/do three goes or fewer every problem in an averaged size well-set climbing wall/reasonably varied outside boulder circuit" to try to get a measure that is less biased by the climber's raw physical ability.

One really obvious problem is that most people don't advance that many grades over one training cycle, and it would be an awful lot of faff to go through for "the data shows that if you increase you're fingerboarding from x%BW to y%BW you'll go up one V grade". Hmmm, yeah, great insight But over a longer period you might start to see something useful.

I'd be very suprised if Lattice haven't done this already, or perhaps there is some really obvious flaw that I haven't considered which invalidates the whole thing.

[yetix]

Also I don't recall any advice on not nestling... I can add at least 10kg to a 2 arm hang if I nestle my pinky into the edges, but in my eyes that wouldn't count. Admittedly their own edge would negate that effect...

[jwi]

seankenny, I know of a few intervention studies in climbing. I agree that this is something that is needed if you want to investigate certain types of training. I am not aware of an intervention study on hangboarding but I read one on campusing (which much to my surprise showed that campusing worked... so I demand more studies!)

[stone]

This however is all about the top end and what i dont think is good, other than for business, is that they sell the concept to people climbing in the 6s and 7s when you really dont need to follow a lattice plan to achieve this very average level of climbing.
Not sure how long you have been climbing but did you know that when they started they would refuse to train or do plans for anyone climbing under 7b+. It should have stayed like that.
Like i have already said, with modern facilities and access to crags its almost impossible not to get to the 7s. Just watch people, talk, ask questions and importantly try hard either on stuff that's similar to what you want to do and you will get there pretty quickly.

When out climbing, I sometimes chat to people who are accompanying their teenage children to sport crags but not climbing there themselves. I guess the typical such person will have climbed regularly for over 20years, doing onsight trad up to HVS. My guess is that if such a person wanted to be able to climb where their children wanted to climb, Lattice would do a great job of helping them achieve that.

I'm sure they could manage it without Lattice too if they had sufficient inclination and time. But you could say the same about writing computer software or repairing cars or anything really.

Perhaps it's a bit like how being able to run 5k (at a gentle pace) might not require ground breaking sport science, but the "couch-to-5k" plan has helped thousands of people to enjoy running who otherwise wouldn't have done.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/running-and-aerobic-exercises/get-running-with-couch-to-5k/

[Paul B]

I'm sure they could manage it without Lattice too if they had sufficient inclination and time. But you could say the same about writing computer software or repairing cars or anything really.

But you'd expect most people would be able to work out how to correctly inflate their tyres, check the oil level and coolant etc. wouldn't you?

[stone]

Explain "couch to 5k" then.

That really has been transformative for thousands of people. That may seem goofy, but it's true.

[Paul B]

I think it's completely different to what we're discussing here; from my limited look, it's a health initiative to encourage people who may not have exercised for the majority of their life into being active by giving them a defined step by step guide?

Also, I don't think running has the same skill bias as climbing and, as I've tried to highlight, doesn't carry that risk (that I perceive) of detracting from learning those skills?

It doesn't appear to be trying to make the best runner that person can be. I'm not arguing, and never have been, that a training program adopted 'too soon' won't deliver the 'result' or progress (or, if that's what that person enjoys that this whole shebang even matters, I mean who doesn't like steep board climbing?).

[Wellsy]

Genuinely, board climbing might be my favourite form of climbing, and Kilter Board sessions especially are so much fun. My coach has limited me to one a week though cos I got a bit shit at climbing over the last few months

[spidermonkey09]

Explain "couch to 5k" then.

That really has been transformative for thousands of people. That may seem goofy, but it's true.

Comparing apples with pears. One is a commendable one size fits all plan encouraging people to get active, even if they literally never have been. The other is a paid for plan specifically set up for them.

I reckon a "couch to v2" plan could quite easily be written up and freely made available. That would be comparable.

[stone]

Someone told me he was a happy Lattice customer because, although he hadn't been told anything he couldn't have come up with himself, he actually followed the plan because he had paid for it. He had been training for climbing for 20ish years and had done a few 8cs. But that same phenomenon could be just as true for eg a middle aged climber who was wanting to convert from VS to 7a to climb with their children or whatever.

[spidermonkey09]

Someone told me he was a happy Lattice customer because, although he hadn't been told anything he couldn't have come up with himself, he actually followed the plan because he had paid for it. He had been training for climbing for 20ish years and had done a few 8cs. But that same phenomenon could be just as true for eg a middle aged climber who was wanting to convert from VS to 7a to climb with their children or whatever.

What's your point? I think that would be widely agreed on, and I agree it's not a bad thing per se (as Paul said, who really cares?) Nobody is saying there isn't a market. They are saying that it's an unnecessary market when thag same improvement could be obtained by just turning up and going climbing.

Also, youve swiftly moved on to another point but people who can already climb VS are not a corollary to people who have rarely if ever exercised, which is who couch to 5k is aimed at.

[edshakey]

They are saying that it's an unnecessary market when thag same improvement could be obtained by just turning up and going climbing.

Would it be fair to say that anyone who does just turn up and climb (let's say 3 times a week, since personally my skin can't handle more), and is no longer improving, could benefit from a training plan?

I know plenty of people who have plateaued while only climbing (no 'training') and so telling them to just climb in order to improve seems unhelpful.

[spidermonkey09]

I guess it kind of depends doesn't it. If people are turning up and just trying to flash problems it's probably no surprise they've plateaued. If they're putting an effort into training but it's not working then they would probably benefit.

Ultimately it doesn't matter, a lot of training plans are unnecessary but there's a lot of unnecessary things in the world.   

[stone]

The people who had climbed VS for 20years may be just as daunted by the transition from VS to 7a as an entirely inactive person is by running a 5km.

It is very normal to climb at VS level or below for decades. Many such people climb regularly and regularly go to climbing walls.

[Hoseyb]

As a coach, my viewpoint is that as long as I can see how to help someone progress then I've won. It doesn't (actually quite rarely) always involve a training plan, although for some the discipline of a plan is enormously beneficial. The vast majority of those looking for coaching nowadays are in the 6a to 7b bracket, bloc or route. Although I enjoy it when some of our more elite customers curse me when a well placed question unlocks whatever they've been working on. ( I'm that annoying floor walker). Basically every one can benefit from an outside perspective, however the human touch tends to work better than a list of exercises

[edshakey]

I guess it kind of depends doesn't it. If people are turning up and just trying to flash problems it's probably no surprise they've plateaued. If they're putting an effort into training but it's not working then they would probably benefit.

Ultimately it doesn't matter, a lot of training plans are unnecessary but there's a lot of unnecessary things in the world.   

That's true, I think it all rides on "If they're putting an effort into training..." since plenty of people wouldn't know what this looks like, so that's where a training plan can help them.

Definitely... climbing as a whole is unnecessary too, but that ain't gonna stop us

[gme]

Explain "couch to 5k" then.

That really has been transformative for thousands of people. That may seem goofy, but it's true.

couch to 5k is free and its purely motivational as you become part of a group. Its about making people believe you can do it.

and 5k is barely more than walking, 5+ VS at most. Its not a training program.

[Paul B]

What Gav said, the equivalent in terms of grades is far less than 7a. You're effectively describing my Dad. 7a would need to be a long (long) term future goal.

[Fiend]

and 5k is barely more than walking, 5+ VS at most. Its not a training program.

Random off-topic DVT-patient outlier post here, but I'm not sure if I could ever do 5k, or if was possible, how many multiple months I could take to get. My best ever flat road-run in Glasgow (when I was doing it semi-regularly) was 3.4km and the last 400m of that was so hard I had be bellowing and swearing to get through it - of course being in the Weeg no-one batted an eyelid. The idea of reaching 5km was unfathomable.

Most VS-ey punters who have been conned by the industry into thinking they need a training plan need nothing of the sort, they usually just need to do a few basic tweaks to their mindset (like sm09's example of changing from always flashing problems at the wall to working them). I wrote an article on UKC about this many years ago and whilst it's very much NOT for anyone on this forum I think the core principles still stand up.

[stone]

couch to 5k is free and its purely motivational as you become part of a group. Its about making people believe you can do it.
and 5k is barely more than walking, 5+ VS at most. Its not a training program.

An essential aspect of any sort of teaching/coaching is imbuing self belief. Causing the person to genuinely believe that yes they are perfectly capable of running 5k, getting a PhD, learning to read, climbing 7a, winning a tennis Grand Slam or whatever.

Having a professional expert asses someones current climbing ability and physical attributes, hear about their lifestyle etc and then give a plan tailored to all of that and express an informed opinion that it could get them climbing 7a -That would be just what was needed to imbue self belief for some people.

[stone]

Most VS-ey punters who have been conned by the industry into thinking they need a training plan need nothing of the sort, they usually just need to do a few basic tweaks to their mindset (like sm09's example of changing from always flashing problems at the wall to working them). I wrote an article on UKC about this many years ago and whilst it's very much NOT for anyone on this forum I think the core principles still stand up.

Someone who I climb with (who climbs 8b) is on a Lattice plan. As far as I can work out, he seems to spend his time flashing problems at the wall. He certainly says I need to do that to be less crap. I'm suspect he is right about me, but I was surprised it was optimal for him since he has superb technique but is "weak for his grade". My guess was that Lattice worked around what got him psyched and trying hard or something.

For myself, my guess is that flashing problems at the wall would make me less crap in his eyes, in that I wouldn't be such a dunce in working out moves etc. But my aspiration is to eventually succeed on my sieges, not really to be able to redpoint with dignity at a sensible grade. My impression is that Lattice very much take into account what the climber wants to achieve however odd that may be.

[joe-m]

and 5k is barely more than walking, 5+ VS at most. Its not a training program.

Most VS-ey punters who have been conned by the industry into thinking they need a training plan need nothing of the sort, they usually just need to do a few basic tweaks to their mindset (like sm09's example of changing from always flashing problems at the wall to working them). I wrote an article on UKC about this many years ago and whilst it's very much NOT for anyone on this forum I think the core principles still stand up.

My impression is that most training plans for those at the lower end of things would mainly just be prescribing more focused climbing i.e a session being focused on projecting with proper rests or trying to flash everything, as opposed to doing neither while getting distracted by talking to your mates and drinking coffee, perhaps with a bit of fingerboarding and conditioning/injury prevention thrown in.

Is it necessary to progress, probably not, does it help especially if you’ve not got a training background, I’d say so. I certainly wasted a lot of time trying to get better by “just going climbing” which left we plateaued at font 6c+\7a projecting level.

[mrjonathanr]

Joe, from a position of relative ignorance, I always thought their great skill was in knowing how to structure intensity and rest to achieve the desired effect.

But my aspiration is to eventually succeed on my sieges, not really to be able to redpoint with dignity at a sensible grade. My impression is that Lattice very much take into account what the climber wants to achieve however odd that may be.

You might find Ollie Torr’s podcast with Nugget worth a listen. I thought he was really interesting, which is not always the case with climbing podcasts.

https://thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/ollie-torr