[Duncan campbell]

I agree that this is probably the biggest driver in general top-end improvements - bigger pool of people taking up the sport younger.

Exactly so it chafes a bit to see companies and individuals charging large amounts of money for "expertise" in a phenomenon which they likely had little or no influence over.

This is an absolute mug off to the coaches at lattice, especially Ollie Torr who is very very knowledgeable about training for climbing.

Yes there is a bigger pool from which we can draw talent from now and Lattice aren’t solely responsible for top-end improvements, but I’d say they can take credit for an amount - especially of our current crop of top Brits:

Bosi multiple 9A wad, multiple 8B+ flashes

Aiden - 9A, close on Burden and his midnight project sounds potentially as hard or harder.

Josh ibbotson - 9b wad and has basically ticked all the hard routes in Yorkshire!?

Toby Roberts - Ollie has personally trained Toby for a number of years now and to my mind there is no doubt that without Ollie Toby wouldn’t be our most successful competition athlete (bar Shauna) and certainly wouldn’t be in the Olympics. (I think Ollie coached him
for free for much/all of this - could be wrong on that)

The lattice coaches all do a lot of CPD both in house and with people from other sports and universities giving lectures on a wide variety of topics…

I don’t think you could say they aren’t very knowledgeable if you actually knew any of them tbh…

I might be biased because both my partner and some of my closest friends are coaches/lattice droids but that also allows me to see how much work they put in, how knowledgeable they are and how many people they help achieve their goals and more in lots of cases.

Not to mention all the free stuff they put out.

Rant over… 

To counter what I’ve just said - good on you though if you do remain open-minded whilst you take this course…

 and I also hope you don’t claim any sort of expertise or take any money in your professional life whatever that may be 

[Wellsy]

This is a conversation that would just not be happening in the majority of sports. Coaches and sports science are just such an obvious part of the process for them. Interesting to see the cultural response to climbing becoming more like that

[teestub]

Yes there is a bigger pool from which we can draw talent from now and Lattice aren’t solely responsible for top-end improvements, but I’d say they can take credit for an amount - especially of our current crop of top Brits:

Bosi multiple 9A wad, multiple 8B+ flashes

Aiden - 9A, close on Burden and his midnight project sounds potentially as hard or harder.

Josh ibbotson - 9b wad and has basically ticked all the hard routes in Yorkshire!?

Toby Roberts - Ollie has personally trained Toby for a number of years now and to my mind there is no doubt that without Ollie Toby wouldn’t be our most successful competition athlete (bar Shauna) and certainly wouldn’t be in the Olympics. (I think Ollie coached him
for free for much/all of this - could be wrong on that)

It’s obviously a great shame that all these people didn’t have twins so we could have seen how they might have got on without Lattice’s benevolent guiding hand. Aidan was certainly doing ok for himself with some guidance from Varian prior to jumping on the massive Lattice ship!

[tim palmer]

I agree that this is probably the biggest driver in general top-end improvements - bigger pool of people taking up the sport younger.

Exactly so it chafes a bit to see companies and individuals charging large amounts of money for "expertise" in a phenomenon which they likely had little or no influence over.

This is an absolute mug off to the coaches at lattice, especially Ollie Torr who is very very knowledgeable about training for climbing.

Yes there is a bigger pool from which we can draw talent from now and Lattice aren’t solely responsible for top-end improvements, but I’d say they can take credit for an amount - especially of our current crop of top Brits:

Bosi multiple 9A wad, multiple 8B+ flashes

Aiden - 9A, close on Burden and his midnight project sounds potentially as hard or harder.

Josh ibbotson - 9b wad and has basically ticked all the hard routes in Yorkshire!?

Toby Roberts - Ollie has personally trained Toby for a number of years now and to my mind there is no doubt that without Ollie Toby wouldn’t be our most successful competition athlete (bar Shauna) and certainly wouldn’t be in the Olympics. (I think Ollie coached him
for free for much/all of this - could be wrong on that)

The lattice coaches all do a lot of CPD both in house and with people from other sports and universities giving lectures on a wide variety of topics…

I don’t think you could say they aren’t very knowledgeable if you actually knew any of them tbh…

I might be biased because both my partner and some of my closest friends are coaches/lattice droids but that also allows me to see how much work they put in, how knowledgeable they are and how many people they help achieve their goals and more in lots of cases.

Not to mention all the free stuff they put out.

Rant over… 

To counter what I’ve just said - good on you though if you do remain open-minded whilst you take this course…

 and I also hope you don’t claim any sort of expertise or take any money in your professional life whatever that may be 

I dunno,  what is expert?

These guys were all superb climbers who started young, I don't think pointing at those guys as proof of the efficacy (especially to those of us over 40) of lattice is necessarily valid. 

Edit:  I did write my qualifications but that was too nauseating

[Duncan campbell]

I bought them up because in the quote it said “in general top end performance improvements” in Barrows’ post and then you said “it chafes me a bit to see companies and individuals charging large amounts of money for “expertise” in a phenomenon they most likely had little or no influence over”

Those guys all have natural talent and have worked hard, they might have got there without. But they might have also not. Schrödinger’s boulderers.

I never mentioned 40yr old boulderers who by the sounds of it are really handy in spite of having kids… though I bet they have helped loads of 40yr olds too though can’t give any names + cvs to prove it.

Also sounds like you have done some academia! Shockingly a lot of the lattice people have letters too… and also practical experience.

Anyway enjoy your free course! Maybe you can get some more letters? LttceF.An?

[stone]

and I also hope you don’t claim any sort of expertise or take any money in your professional life whatever that may be 

I know this was said in jest. And I agree with all you said about Lattice. But I'd like to take the opportunity to express admiration and thanks to pathologists and say how I think they should be well paid and highly respected (irrespective of whether I'm in a muddle as to who does what).

When I had lymphoma, the doctor told me that the component of the medical system that I had most cause to thank was the pathologist -even though patients never have contact with them.

[kac]

 I get the impression that most of the cynicism with lattice comes more from the selling of training plans than the coaching. The assessments that seem y to be based around going around a seeming now defunct latticed wooden board haven't helped. If I won the lottery I'd love to have some coaching but would never pay for a training plan unless it was part of the actual coaching. Anyway loads of great lattice videos online so don't doubt the quality of the coaching.

[Duncan campbell]

and I also hope you don’t claim any sort of expertise or take any money in your professional life whatever that may be 

I know this was said in jest. And I agree with all you said about Lattice. But I'd like to take the opportunity to express admiration and thanks to pathologists and say how I think they should be well paid and highly respected (irrespective of whether I'm in a muddle as to who does what).

When I had lymphoma, the doctor told me that the component of the medical system that I had most cause to thank was the pathologist -even though patients never have contact with them.

Is that what Tim Palmer is? A pathologist? Oooooh! 

 I’m just a knuckle dragging rope tech so didn’t know what half of them letters were!

Was defo said in jest!

[tim palmer]

I didn't want to make things personal,  I am sorry if I have upset you Duncan.

I just feel that maybe the trend toward everyone paying for coaching is maybe not the best for the individual or the sport.  I think a lot of it seems over priced.   I am more than happy to be proved wrong hence my taking up remus's kind offer.  Anyway I will leave it there.

[User deactivated.]

While I'm in the camp of 'training works' and I believe some of the more contemporary training methods are better than some of the old methods they've replaced, I understand Tim's reservations.

People have trained and improved at climbing, but that does not mean the training resulted in the improvement. I think it probably did, but I'm biased because I want to believe the improvements I've made myself are the result of my meticulously planned and executed training... I can say with confidence that the training I'm doing now now is making me stronger, but not that it's better for improving climbing performance than training of old.

The Lattice data set is probably the closest thing we have to evidence on what works (e.g. climbing performance being loosely correlated with the ability to hang on a 20mm edge), but it is flawed IMO (though commendable).

[Hoseyb]

I think this is the second thread tangent to discuss the phenomenon of modern coaching in as many weeks, maybe it deserves a dedicated post.

When I started climbing back when Thatcher still held the reins, I learnt from a family friend. When I got to university, the model was learn from those who were better than you ( believe it or not Andy Farnell). I stayed in our uni climbing club far too long as I settled in the area, and as it was a flat land university with little local climbing, I soon became that "best" climber. This pool of climbers was quite similar to our world today, loads of people new to the sport, compared to the smaller pool of peer taught experienced and grizzled climbers, to maintain that peer led system.
The mags threw out some training advice, and many walls sprouted a campus board. The coaching that was around was personality led, and training advice was a commodity to be hoarded and passed on at a price.
There came a time when it was realised that this culture was without moderation, and so some ( successful) coaches chad it all correct and some.. didn't.
A coaching symposium was held at plas y brenin, was held, and the conclusion was that properly sharing information, moderation and actual science was the way forward.
I believe this was the starting point of modern coaching in the UK. It was just over a decade ago I think.

Lattice get a lot of stick for their production line of training plans and Tom's ( successful) business model. However, they have some of the best one to one coaches I know.

I head up coaching for the climbing wall I work for. Most of the clients I gain are time poor and lacking the peer lead climbing community we older climbers grew up in. I'm pleased that I've been able to develop enough coaching skills to help them. Certainly if we had the knowledge we have now, just thirty years ago, my climbing journey would be very different.

[jwi]

I think we should split the topic.

Anyway, one of the few things we know absolutely for certain is that training should be individualised. For people who have not coached someone: you cannot even begin to imagine how much time this take.

Making standard training plans might be very cost effective, but standard training plans on unsupervised traineees is also a very effective way of sending big cohorts to injury*  or burn-out. Regardelss, unless the plan is truly moronic, the trainees who complete the plans should improve at decent to very decent rates.


*it took seven years for my bh to fix the shoulder injuries she got from her un-individualised and un-supervised training plan (and quite a lot of my time to plan and supervise her physio). I'm a bit pissed off at this model, that was/is very common in Catalonia.


More on topic: if someone wants to improve their lead climbing and has 180 euros to spend on a video-course, why on earth should they not spend it on one made by Adam Ondra? He is extremely articulate and if there is anyone who knows more about how to improve in climbing I would be much surprised.

[stone]

This all feels very akin for me to people paying for financial advice, in the sense that at heart managing your money for most people is really very simple and can be boiled down to a few extremely basic principles. And yet, I suspect the number of people who make it through life without ever worrying about money is vanishingly small. So whilst it really is very easy to learn the principles yourself and apply these to all the scenarios you find yourself in, most people benefit from having an "expert" guide them, especially as those scenarios get more complex and intricate, or when ego overtakes income / wealth (ability / strength in climbing).
The issue, which is what clearly happens in finance, is if the industry then ends up overcomplicating things for people, which generally leads to poorer outcomes if regulation doesn't intervene.

hmmm..... I see Lattice etc as an example of capitalism/free-enterprise doing great stuff. Meanwhile I see the whole pickle society has got into with a bloated financial sector as being an example of things going off the rails!

In the last 40years or so, we have gone from 70% of GDP going to wages to now only 50% with the rest going as interest/dividends/buybacks/etc. We get told not to push back against that because returns-to-capital fund pensions and insurance etc. But actually much of it gets diverted to fund expansion of the financial sector. The worst thing about that is that it employs many of the hardest working and cleverest people who then aren't available to do the things that society needs (or doesn't need but are nice to have such as climbing coaching I guess).

I'd prefer to see stuff such as ample government PAYGO pensions and excellent universal public services so that people had less cause for savings pots. But as things are, if anyone does have savings, then perhaps be aware that the interests of the personal finance industry are in conflict with yours. Perhaps pay Lattice/Ondra/etc to save some time and redeploy that time looking at excellent free info about personal finance eg https://portfoliocharts.com/

[cheque]

You could offer a coaching service on how to push forum threads further off topic Stone.

[stone]

You could offer a coaching service on how to push forum threads further off topic Stone.

Believe it or not, I hold back lots of worse topic slippage transgressions 

[Duncan campbell]

I didn't want to make things personal,  I am sorry if I have upset you Duncan.

I just feel that maybe the trend toward everyone paying for coaching is maybe not the best for the individual or the sport.  I think a lot of it seems over priced.   I am more than happy to be proved wrong hence my taking up remus's kind offer.  Anyway I will leave it there.

Hi Tim,

Sorry if that last comment on your profession sounded like a dig… it wasn’t meant to be - the problem with written word written in a hurry.

You haven’t upset me I just find the whole lattice bashing quite irksome probably mostly because I know well the hard work, psyche for climbing/personal progression and progression of others + how nice a company lattice is, especially considering we all do jobs for a living and buy stuff from companies that are nowhere near as well meaning.

Sorry if you felt snapped at/ personally attacked.

In all seriousness good luck with the course - I do hope you enjoy it and learn some good and useful stuff!

A sheepish Duncan

[Moo]

There's no doubt that climbing coaching works, and further more that it's better now than it's ever been before.

I've always preferred the autodidactic approach ( ooo look at me with my big words despite being a knuckle dragging rope tech ). The main reason being that I'm a cheapskate and also that if I do ever manage to drag my way up something then I think it enhances the sense of achievement. Thats just a personal feeling though I don't expect everyone should adopt this approach as, some seem purely motivated by improving at all costs regardless of how they achieve it. I also get that having a climbing coach will probably make the journey of improvement more effective.

I do however think that improving at climbing is a journey and it's a marathon not a sprint. Learning how to get better at climbing can be as rewarding as climbing itself and in doing so you'll meet a shit load of people and have a ton of good experiences along the way. To me these mean more when you try and get after it yourself instead of jumping on someone's training treadmill as I sort of feel like that as soon as you put a price on something like you take can end up taking away it's value.

Please don't read this as a dig at people who take coaching or at coaches themselves I'm just saying there's different ways of viewing the path we all take in climbing when it comes to trying to climb harder.

I guess I'm just trying to put in to words here one possible reason that a lot of us grumpy old people are a bit suspicious of the massive upward trend in people taking coaching. It seems like everyone who starts rapidly ends up in a coaching programme of some description and I can't quite articulate why but I feel like we're loosing something the more this happens.

[stone]

I guess I'm just trying to put in to words here one possible reason that a lot of us grumpy old people are a bit suspicious of the massive upward trend in people taking coaching. It seems like everyone who starts rapidly ends up in a coaching programme of some description and I can't quite articulate why but I feel like we're loosing something the more this happens.

I also haven't ever paid for coaching/training plans etc except for my first ever go at climbing, which was with an instructor, when I was a school kid, as a present from my parents.

But what I struggle to understand is the resistance many people seem to have towards people other than them getting coaching etc.

Are you trying to protect them from themselves (I guess like I how I'm for restrictions on advertising of gambling, smoking and ultra-processed-food)? Or do you feel that other people being coached impedes your enjoyment of climbing?

[Moo]

Fair questions stone.

I'm in no way trying to resist anyone getting coaching and I think that if it's something people want to do then they should crack on and I really hope it works for them and they they enjoy it.

Nothing anyone else does is going to impede my enjoyment of climbing it really doesn't bother me in that way. My relationship with climbing is between me and the activity and no one else.

I'm just saying I hope people understand that getting coaching isn't the only way to improve at climbing so that if the option isn't available to them then all hope is not lost in trying to get better.

I want climbing and all of it's aspects to be as inclusive as possible for everyone who is intrinsically motivated to take part.

[Hoseyb]

Motivation seems to be the key here, certainly I often feel in the minority nowadays when I state my primary motivation as adventure. In many ways the classic peer led pathways were adventure driven.
Now more and more are primarily driven by fitness, and other physical metrics (which coaching so readily satisfies), I can recognise a feeling of something lost.
However, physical training has given me more options and extended my climbing life, so I guess the question is how we can fan the spirit of adventure

[Dingdong]

People love min/maxing things including their training. Taking all the guesswork out of training is one of the many reasons people choose to sign up to coaching or training plans. Especially those who are time poor (and yeah I get that there are some exceptions out there of wads who crush without a plan but they are the exception).

This has essentially taken the age old climbing apprenticeship and made it more widely available through commodification. As others have said finding information in the past was done through whispers below the campus rungs, or a friend of your dads who climbed taking you out on weekends to do trad, not everyone has those opportunities and so coaching is an excellent way to accelerate the strength/power aspect of the sport. Not everyone has the opportunity to climb with groups or partners who are better than them to learn from. There’s a myriad of reasons. Some climbers just want to get stronger/better at all costs, there’s nothing wrong with that.

[abarro81]

(and yeah I get that there are some exceptions out there of wads who crush without a plan but they are the exception).

Looking through the prism of sport climbing, I'm not sure that this is necessarily true. I actually think quite a lot of (perhaps the majority of?) high level sport climbers that are focused on rock (as opposed to comps) are not coached and do not write down formal plans - but they don't necessarily need to, as they're thoughtful about the climbing they're doing and what they need to improve on. I think this seems especially true in places like Spain with lots of rock and good weather

[kac]

It's interesting that you say people want to get strong 'at all costs' and yes climbing is incredibly addictive. So its possible people are paying for coaching and training plans that they can't really afford and their money would be better spent elsewhere. I guess it's good we have the choice  - if I was a young climber now I think I'd rather spend my money on coaching rather than the mountaineering gear I spent my student loan on.

[Dingdong]

(and yeah I get that there are some exceptions out there of wads who crush without a plan but they are the exception).

Looking through the prism of sport climbing, I'm not sure that this is necessarily true. I actually think quite a lot of (perhaps the majority of?) high level sport climbers that are focused on rock (as opposed to comps) are not coached and do not write down formal plans - but they don't necessarily need to, as they're thoughtful about the climbing they're doing and what they need to improve on. I think this seems especially true in places like Spain with lots of rock and good weather

A lot of the crushers in the UK, both boulderers and sport climbers alike were forged in the crucible of teams which coached them from a super young age. Look at people like Pete Dawson and his cohort who all came up through kids teams and team GB all of which provide coaching (albeit not paid) - I’d agree it’s likely different in places like Spain where you’re not restricted to climbing outside twice a year because it’s snowed and then rained for 10 days consecutively, they can get a lot more mileage than we can. So I guess we try to make the most of the free time we have by min/maxing our training so when we do get to climb outside we’re in good condition.

I’ve personally had coaching for around 3 years and it’s helped my climbing loads. Being accountable to my coach means I stick to it and am consistent with my training year round!

[Moo]

As a hypothetical dingdong, let’s say coaching was no longer available to you. Would you still go climbing and try to improve ?