[matts]

They built a 45 deg. board at my bouldering wall recently and I've got a question about how/if I should train on it.
There is a good selection of holds on the board including very small, small and juggy holds. Apart from the board, they have frequently reset problems on varying angles at the wall. Some of them are more comp style problems, others are more like outdoor bouldering, featuring small hand and footholds. I usually do the more realistic problems because I want to focus on finger strength, but I also do some comp problems if I feel like it.

On the board, I tried to make up some boulders of varying length. The problem is that I have to use quite big holds on the board, a lot of them have to be jugs with just a few smaller holds mixed in. I also usually fall off after 5 to 8 moves. Climbing on the board feels very good and I feel like it will hugely benefit my core. I'm also shit at steep overhangs so I think it's a good idea to train it. My only concern is if the holds are too big to effectively train my finger strength. So I guess my question is: Should I spent more time on the steep board or should I keep doing the preset problems where I'm able to use smaller holds? Will I just get strong enough so I can use smaller holds if I climb on the board a lot? What do you think?

[nai]

Mix it up, at the start of a session do a few problems involving big moves on the big holds (keep the feet poor) then do some more fingery stuff at a different angle.  If you really are wanting to focus on finger strength then fingerboarding could be a good supplemental exercise too.

[jwi]

Maybe big holds and long moves is you biggest weakness? Should you maybe concentrate on that? Maybe you're not good on big footholds with heel-hooks, bicycles, toe hooks and heel-toe jams? How could we possibly know?

[matts]

Holding on to small holds when I can't get a lot of weight on my feet is my biggest weakness (at least it's one of my weaknesses). I always have to twist, drop-knee, heel or toe-hook a lot because my fingers are weak. I'm useless on problems where I can't use such trickery (steep overhangs where you have to climb open). Big moves on big holds are usually fine, I'm quite tall and most moves don't seem that big to me.

[36chambers]

The only improvements I've had in the past year were due to climbing loads on my local 50 board.

Big holds or not, it takes a while to get into that style of climbing. I'd focus on using the big holds with bad feet and trying not to cut loose, and also big holds and big moves where you have to cut loose. You should see rapid improvements as you get use to it.

Will I just get strong enough so I can use smaller holds if I climb on the board a lot? What do you think?

Once you get use to the style you'll find that small holds are quite easy to use, it's all in the feet.

My favourite problems are definitely ones in which you literally can't hold on if you cut loose.