[Mr.Burns]

I know we have pretty much done this topic already but after reading the Foundry vs The Edge thread it seemed FOAM was getting alot of stick for wanting to train instead of climb outside.

When do people thing is the best time to train? Is it just on wet days or should you have some sort of routine (i.e regular days of the week devoted to training).?

Should you even consider training when you are young (by young I mean under about 18).?

Do most people train with specific goals in mind? is it worth training if you don't have goals?

note... this is not an attack on FOAM cos if you enjoy training it must be good.

[MrBlue]

my personal take on training is that it's done for some specific target; for instance i started doing a lot of training a couple of years back because there were specific problems that i wanted to be able to do - life in a radioactive dustbin to name one, plus a few others i can't remember now because i haven't been up that way for a LONG time.

unfortunately, i ended up screwing my right shoulder up and have spent the last year and a half getting back to where i was before after a 6 months layoff/physio...

in hindsight i probably should have just stuck to pure climbing until around now, and THEN started doing a bit of training, instead of jumping in at the deep end. sure i read on here (or ukclimbing) about a suggestion that you shouldn't really start training until about 4 years after starting climbing, especially if you're fairly young when you do - muscle imbalances, you're still growing, etc. gymnasts are a good example - fucking impressively strong, but very susceptible to injury...and they tend to start losing their ability around the late 20s. presumably because they started so young?

think i'm going off on a tangent...

anyway. if i can, i climb as much outside as possible - mainly because climbing indoors is all very well and good, but i find i have shit technique when i try to put my strength into practice. so this is my current climbing pattern...

monday - rest
tuesday - possibly wall
wednesday - outdoors
thursday - rest
friday - wall?
saturday - rest
sunday - outdoors

oh, if it pisses it down then outdoors will be replaced with indoors, but (as i found out again yesterday) i tend to climb a LOT worse indoors than i do outdoors, as discussed with endless winter at the castle when we were both puntering around :poke:

then every day i have my physio stuff (with the theraband, twice a day) as well as 75-100 situps, as many pushups as i can do until it hurts (not many because of my shoulder), some pullups, leg raises, front lever exercises to try to improve my body tension...

anyway, that's my take on it - only cos i injured myself fairly badly when i was slightly older than foam. physio was talking about dislocated shoulders and surgery if i carried on the way i was going, and i was only 17 at the time. not a good thing to be contemplating at that age methinks.

 :injured:

[Mr.Burns]

I train for specific problems but also to get generaly stronger for much more long term projects.

I usually only train at night and weekends if its wet but climb outside as much as possible.

When your projects are at woodwell its cool cos climbing there is as good as any training wall and its one of the best bouldering spots in the country!! :D

[Graeme]

I only climb indoors on a Tiesday and a thursday, I may also climb indoors if the weather is crap at the weekend, however if I can't get out at the weekend I may choose to go running and do weights, or if I can't be arsed to that then its beer and playstation.

[Fingers of a Martyr]

note... this is not an attack on FOAM cos if you enjoy training it must be good.

yo tom, i no i may come across as a menopausal woman sometimes :D , but its pretty obvious u ain't attacking me. chill man. i ain't that touchy. :wink:

as for the training well...

ok, i know its the ultimate cliche but look at malc smith. tooled. mutant. machine. whatever u want to call him he's just plain strong and an amazing climber for it. did he get that good by climbing outdoors all the time? did he shite. and even he doesn't seem to be that much of a genetic freak if u look at how much work he's put in to get where he is.

as for starting young. i know nothing about this so watch dylan or t.h come on and tell me i'm talking shite, but i would have thought that hard training when your young forces your body to adapt faster (or fall apart ) and almost grow accustomed to the stress of hard training.

how do u train tom?
fingerboard? woodie?

[a dense loner]

there are so many factors regarding training. woodwell n the bowderstone are just outside boards anyway :wink:

i think training for training's sake is a good thing as is doing it with goals in mind. you can always stumble across new projects (for you) then the hours of "pointless" training you've been doing will be a godsend.

i have recently started campusing because of a particular project where i could do with a bit of contact strength, but the benefits of this far outweigh the one problem i'm doing it for. i obviously knew the benefits but could never motivate myself to do it b4.

i also regard climbing outside all the time as training tho :wink:

[Mr.Burns]

I did have a fingerboard but sold it so buy beer I think  :

I have a woody in my barn but am building a new one this week which is 16ft long, 8ft wide and 45 degrees  

About 2 years ago when I built my first board I used it alot and I think it got me stronger, then i diddn't use it for about a year but now I use it again and with my new board they will make for a good training session.

Also got plans to build a 30 degree board aswell.

[Greg C]

Slightly off the subject but I was wondering what peoples perceptions of training actually are, as I suspect they are lot different to what the likes of Smith and Gaskins's (especially) consider as training?  :?

[dave]

are you telling me gaskins training regime isn' t just 2 evenings a week  for a couple of hours tossing around at the wall till pumped, then to the pub for 4 or 5 jars?

[Graeme]

Well if you put it like that greg, I would say you should have some structure and discipline to your training, personally I spend about half hour to an hour warming up, depends how much I talk and then spend an hour or so doing laps on stuff just under my limit, for power endurance.
Other sessions can involve working problems with the element of lapping stuff involved.

I'd train more, but my mrs would kill me

[Fingers of a Martyr]

Slightly off the subject but I was wondering what peoples perceptions of training actually are, as I suspect they are lot different to what the likes of Smith and Gaskins's (especially) consider as training?

i would consider a structured fingerboard, campus board or arms only climbing session as training. i wouldn't consider going down the wall and just bouldering as training per se, but u cud turn into a training session by working on particular grip positions or doing various other excercises. for instance lets say u have a 6 move crimpy problem. perform the moves with your feet on but after each move remove feet and deadhang for 5 seconds. oh and of course gradual warm up and warm down go without question for a serious training session.

disclaimer - these aren't the only things i would consider 'training', there r loads of more possibilities.

how do u train greg? just climin outside a lot or do u session the walls and campus board as well?

[Nigel]

Training is anything that helps you improve.

Greg has to climb indoors the least of any climber in Britain!

[dave]

i wouldn't consider going down the wall and just bouldering as training per se

why not?

v. trained, train·ing, trains
v. tr.
To coach in or accustom to a mode of behavior or performance.
To make proficient with specialized instruction and practice.
To prepare physically, as with a regimen:

[Bonjoy]

i would consider a structured fingerboard, campus board or arms only climbing session as training. i wouldn't consider going down the wall and just bouldering as training per se, but u cud turn into a training session by working on particular grip positions or doing various other excercises. for instance lets say u have a 6 move crimpy problem. perform the moves with your feet on but after each move remove feet and deadhang for 5 seconds. oh and of course gradual warm up and warm down go without question for a serious training session.

 Riiight, i've got you now. So if your feet are on it's climbing and if your feet are off it's training. Brilliant, you should write a book. :wink:

[Fingers of a Martyr]

take the piss all u want guys. :wink:

of course bouldering for bouldering isn't 'training'. its bouldering. i can see how a routes climber may consider bouldering as training. but a boulderer isn't training when he boulders. he's perfoming his chosen sport.

when a gymnast does a routine in a competition he's not training. he's combining all the different elements and moves that he will have worked on indivdually etc and putting them together. just like u r combining all the different areas (strength, body tension etc) when u climb a boulder problem. i personally cannot see how just climbing more boulder problems is training.

but hey i obviously have a very diffrent outlook on climbing to u guys, and thats just my opinion.

[Nigel]

Just bouldering IS training, as long as you get better.

[dave]

so hang on right, basically on every subject fingers has posted on, its generally the case that fingers is right, and everyone else in the english speaking world is wrong. theres only one other person i know like that......

fingers, are you my mother by any chance?

[Fingers of a Martyr]

never said i was right just said it was my opinion. just like everyone else posts their opinions on the subject.  i don't consider just bouldering as training, u do. no one's 'right' or 'wrong' on something like this dave.

hence the end comment to my last post dave

but hey i obviously have a very diffrent outlook on climbing to u guys, and thats just my opinion.

on several other threads i've openly admitted to talkin shite and retracted statements/apologised for them. sorry for not bein perfect.

[Graeme]

of course bouldering for bouldering isn't 'training'. its bouldering.

So when I used to go to swimming club to train for various local and regional competitions I wasn't training for a competition, I was just swimming, and every run I've done to get fit for a race wasn't training it was just running, so the fact is it was pointless. I'm not surprised Radcliffde couldn't be arsed to finish the marathonm or 10K because after all its just a bit of a jog. :?

[Bonjoy]

of course bouldering for bouldering isn't 'training'. its bouldering. i can see how a routes climber may consider bouldering as training. but a boulderer isn't training when he boulders. he's perfoming his chosen sport.

 Sound's a bit pedantic semantic to me. No I don't mean jewish. :roll: Where did you come by this definition of training, which excludes  practice of the activity you are trying to improve in?

[dave]

as the old saying goes, the only training for climbing is climbing.

[Bubba]

Surely the definition is purely down to the boulderer's intentions

Suppose climber A is out for a days bouldering doing V5s purely for the enjoyment of doing those problems - That's bouldering.

But then climber B is out doing as many V5s as he can in a day in preperation for some bizarre V6 marathon the following week. That's training.

[squeek]

In Reply to the original post, I do a fair amount of climbing inside, probably twice a week on average for about 2.5 hours.  I won't do this on set days though because if the weather's nice I'll go outside.  I don't climb indoors at the weekend, I'll just do something else if the weather's bad.  

When I'm there I tend to just try the boulder problems, but have recently started to do some traversing and circuits to try and get some stamina for Spain.  I'm trying to improve my technique more than my strength indoors at the minute, especially when climbing things that I have to pull hard on.

[the_dom]

I train indoors, and climb outdoors - that's how I draw the distinction.

I tend to climb indoors during the week and outdoors on weekends, but that'll change as summer's here and it's light for long enough to get in post-work sessions.

I used to campus a lot too, but I'm not really training for anything specific, so I can't really motivate myself to do it now.

[a dense loner]

that's basically my philosophy. indoors is training, outdoors is climbing. my previous statement about climbing outdoors is training was referring to going to the same crag day in day out etc.