[moose]

From my limited perspective I think the difference in today's yoofs mainly resides in their quality of movement.  And this, I suspect,  is largely due to the prevalence of steep, crimpy indoor walls that have offered parents a means of keeping their spawn occupied from an early age.  I see spry shorties who have started young and, because they cannot reach the crimps, have been forced to develop a disproportionate amount of kinaesthetic skill and contact strength to climb even the lower grades.  Even the more modestly talented seem to climb in a kind of coordinated fury - doing to the wall what the young Mike Tyson did to heads.  

My own feeling is that this learned willingness to climb at the edge of control is what's resulting in the big numbers.  With enough training and the right genes you can get pretty strong relatively late in life.  In contrast, I  reckon that the movement aspect needs early adoption before fear and habit hardwire you.  

I know I can get stronger... I also know that, try as I might, I will always be 70 kg of slowly moving, static interference....

[dave]

I recon kids today are just taller than they used to be, and are just lanking through the hard moves.

[Andy B]

No. That's just you dave.

[SA Chris]

I reckon it's also a focus of youthful energy that helps. If I had focussed my time spent as a youth playing with star wars toys, sniffing airfix glue while sticking bit of plastic to my fingers and getting bored of scouts, who knows what I may have achieved? I may have climbed 7a or harder by now!

As mentioned previously, by the time most of us discovered climbing at uni we had been drinking for at least two years already, and were focussing energy on getting laid.

[Paz]

Walls.  They're introducing more young climbers to the sport.  Most of your improvement comes when you've just started climbing and the demographic of climbers is changing.  I wonder how many of these big sends and young men are down to more examples appearing at the top end of the ability distribution curve.  A certain amount of progress is inevitable, especially in a young sport.  but the point being it's theyoung rahter than the old who are pushing the boundares?  It's embarassing isn't it, that this new cohort's come along and demonstrated that actually, for all we have carped on and think we know and have learned, there's actually not a right lot to it. 

I'd far rather believe it's all about cartwheels and climbing really well and go away and watch some videos of Ondra on youtube.

[slackline]

If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants

[account_inactive]

Spending more time hanging on your finger and swinging around like an ape at a younger age is just one of the reasons for this increase in ability.  Team that with indoor walls and being a second/third generation climber (think Vickers/Parry/Smith etc etc) and a larger number of hard problems to throw yourself at and no wonder they are climbing harder than before.

Likewise I started climbing when I was young but spent years doing trad and not really pulling hard when it counted.  I'm not sure the young guns are just sticking to board like climbing, there are a fair few pushing the trad at the moment.  Most of the popular areas to go bouldering (apart from Font) have board like qualities, Swiss, Hueco, Auz.  If climbing choss was in vogue I'm sure that they would excel at that too.

What will be interesting, as Trav mention, is at what point the increase in grades will start to plateau as we reach human potential.  Personally I think we are years away from this as we are such a young sport (look I said sport!) Maybe climbing will break down into smaller specialisms and the cross over will be harder to make for the top end.......

[Johnny Brown]

Maybe climbing will break down into smaller specialisms and the cross over will be harder to make for the top end.......

This has been well in progress for the last ten years.

[Teaboy]

Last night I was down the wall and I got dusted by some lad who was probably about 13 or 14. We got chatting and it turns out he'd never climbed outside therefore there was nothing to hinder him getting strong fingers whereas in the past even those who started climbing at a young age probably wasted the first few years top roping trad, getting scared on VSs and going walking and even winter climbing and the alps. in the past by the time you settled doewn to get strong you'd missed the prime time for developing finger strength. I'd guess that it is easier to go from being a strong boulderer to good all round climber than it is the other way around.

The other thing to consider is that there has been an exponential growth in the number of kids climbing so there will be a larger number of good young climbers.

[Jaspersharpe]

Word.

It's down what your goals are too. Remember, bouldering for bouldering's sake (let alone training for bouldering) is a relatively new thing. It was always seen as a form of training for doing routes so kids starting out would never just boulder for the first few years (which is the best way of developing the relevant strengths at that age). It would have been like not doing the sport properly when I was a kid, unheard of. And as for just climbing indoors.....

[SA Chris]

Walls.  They're introducing more young climbers to the sport.  Most of your improvement comes when you've just started climbing and the demographic of climbers is changing.  I wonder how many of these big sends and young men are down to more examples appearing at the top end of the ability distribution curve. 

Actually this is the second generation that has ready access to walls. I think it's more decent walls (especially for bouldering), combined with applying the knowledge learned by the first generation of regular wall users.

[dave]

theres a lot ot be said for a traditional aprenticeship into climbing. since we've only just started to see young 'uns start by just bouldering indoors its yet to be seen if people with that introduction are still climbing in 20 years time, and if they enjoyed it. if you start young you could well reach close to your plateau at 17 and then chase diminishing returns for the next 30 years, but without the trad apprenticeship it'll be harder to switch to another discipline for a change without that background, you're basically starting again from scratch.

you may well have people who explode onto the scene and tick big numbers then disappear, but its the likes of ron, jerry, sellars, pritchard, dawes, myles etc that really capture the imagination and go down in history as great climbers as they were at it for years and mixed it up a bit.

[slackline]

... some lad who was probably about 13 or 14. We got chatting and it turns out he'd never climbed outside...

Its great being at the top of a particular game and often this requires dedication from a young age, but isn't it often to the detriment of actually having a childhood.

I used to do trampolining when I was younger, I was never very good, but it was fun (although the school team I was part of won the national championships, not that hard though).  But the elite at the club were there every day, day in, day out and didn't seem to have much of a life outside of training, and I'm sure that theres a good proportion of the current young guns who don't do much else other than climb.

Its a shame this lad's not been outside climbing, going outdoors fosters a great appreciation for the countryside and the beauty of nature that results in a greater respect for the environment in which we live.  Thats not to say that he doesn't get out there, just that he hasn't climbed whilst out there, but why not combine the two?

There's also the potential problem of how such intensive training is going to affect young bodies that are still developing and are going through some quite drastic changes.  Its  guess as to what long-term effects it may have on joints and tendons.

A further question ir raises of how much influence the parents have over some kids activities (not all, but some).  I remember seeing the film of Cicada Jeneril in Return2Sender climbing Lowrider V10 at the age of 10 and it didn't look like she was enjoying some of the training in the gym (sorry can't find it on YouTube to link).

I'll no doubt get  for having such a blinkered view, and I guess it comes down to whether your ultra-competitive and want to be the best in the world, but its a very small rostrum up there and the world is a big place.

[Paz]

decent walls. 

Decent Walls then.  Then as above. 

[Johnny Brown]

The first generation of walls turned out static crimpers like Jasper and Arthur, able to steel their way up any brick wall with the odd bit of mortar chiselled out.

[Jaspersharpe]

 

[dave]

The first generation of walls turned out static crimpers like Jasper and Arthur, able to steel their way up any brick wall with the odd bit of mortar chiselled out.

and the second generation of walls turned out climbers like Banks, who can rockover their way up any 30degree territory, and also a dab hand a dynoing to horizontal scaffolding bars.

[travs]

Don't quite agree with that Adam, we made what we could of the walls which were available. Sure the first wall I really trained on was Sobell and whilst that will probably be best remembered for its infamous brick edge traverse there were also a number of horrendous dynos, one finger pocket pulls over overhangs and some truly terrifying climbing at the top of the nasty plastic main wall. Some of the dynos involved leaping of banister railings to latch opposing sidepulls as if you were trying to open up an elevator with your feet smearing on the wall. In addition some the dynos we had on the campus buildings at Imperial would be worthy of the main wall at The Works. The only thing we really lacked were systems and campus boards which are obviously unbeatable in building campus strength, but not necessarily finger or lock strength.

[Paul B]

theres a lot ot be said for a traditional aprenticeship into climbing.

without it I think a lot of people skip over being educated as to what is and isn't acceptable.

There's no reason why the two can't be combined though?

[Johnny Brown]

It was meant as a flippant summary Neil, not a comprehensive statement. I'm from that generation too, went to Altrincham wall mainly, and did a lot of dynos too. Either the early walls lent themselves to leaping about, or what else they had to offer rapidly became boring. I certainly found them a poor substitute, and as soon as I could moved somewhere where I wouldn't need to use them.

[travs]

Ah that's interesting Adam, because reading between the lines, what you're saying is that you didn't use the wall as a training aid to increase power or improve technique but as a substitute for what you couldn't participate in which was climbing outdoors. Perhaps this is the main difference between our generation and the current one which is the wall is no longer a substitute but a complement which can provide improvement when used correctly?

[slackline]

Or not even a complement but a substitute for some as Teaboy highlighted.

[Johnny Brown]

Yeah, I think for the current yowths the wall is far more than just a substitute or a complement, its an end in itself. An improvement even. There are many very good climbers in London who aren't interested in climbing outdoors at all. Look at Gabi, spent a grit season in Sheffield but moved back to London because she felt she could do more climbing there. That was before The Works opened admittedly.

[travs]

Well for pure competition climbers sure but these are still few and far between. The top bods like Tyler are still outdoor focused and I'm sure this will remain the norm unless of course competition climbing starts to become a big buck sport and with it starring in the olympics in 4/8 years time who knows?

[Jaspersharpe]

I've met a few lads down The Works who have said they prefer it there to climbing outside. Now if they'd only been somewhere shit outside then I could almost understand the attitude (although they will surely have seen magazines etc  ) but one had just come back from Font!!   

I don't get it. Unless your only goal is competing then what's the goal you're working towards by only climbing indoors? I suppose taking the training v technique argument full circle there are now people who enjoy climbing on walls to the point where it doesn't matter that they aren't actually ever going to tick anything, they're having fun?