Bouldering/Climbing Training Sources

[Jake Lawrance]

Hey guys, this isn't really related to gymnastics but more of the climbing area. 

 

I know there are plenty of people who climb/boulder here for longer than I have (1 month) and I was wondering if they knew of any technique/training sources on the internet or a good book which could help teach me to 'move' better on the wall. Considering my first session I was climbing pretty much with my upper body and now I use my legs a lot more but I'm not that much better than before.

 

Plus if there's any finger strength training sources on climbing that would be appreciated too!

 

(I'm asking as I've looked briefly but with no luck and I'm going to be pretty busy for the next week it seems! ):

 

Cheers!

[Bobby Bogdanovski]

The is a great resource: http://www.amazon.com/Self-Coached-Climber-Movement-Training-Performance/dp/0811733394

 

If you're new to climbing, don't be concerned about training finger strength. The strength you develop by just climbing, especially in the early stages will be more than enough. Anything more than that and you're greatly increasing the risk of injury. 

 

Have fun. It's a great sport

[Jake Lawrance]

Oh nice, have you read the book yourself? I already train my finger strength a lot, I was just seeing if there was a need to be balanced in not only open handed strength but pinch, crimp and all others as crimping at the moment feels somewhat awkward. 

 

Indeed, bouldering and climbing is a fantastic sport

[Robbie Coker]

Flowstate, http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Flowstate/497571573605506?fref=ts is a fantastic source for climbing technique and training information, far better than most other resources I have stumbled across on the net.

 

[Christoph Pahl]

Don't train crimping for itself. By training open handed you train 1st and 2nd finger joint, so you're also training for crimped holds which need only 2nd joint strength. However, crimping is much more prone to pulley injuries. By training open handed you will hold more often open handed which is safer. I completely broke 1 pulley once, and several partially so I know what I'm speaking of. Be happy that crimping feels awkward, you still have a warning! After several years you will have killed these nerves and no more be aware that you're doing dangerous things with your fingers.

[Jake Lawrance]

Indeed, that is a great page, thankyou very much! I'll be buying the book second hand too

 

Haha thanks Christoph, you got me scared to crimp now! So should you also crimp during climbs or bouldering or stay open handed if you can? 

[Richard Hamilton]

Jake... open fingers is less stressful if you can manage it and try to only crimp where necessary. As time goes on the holds you crimp now will get easier and you'll be able to use them with more open fingers. I've never been a fan of crimping and most of my climbing has been on granite or gritstone which involves more jamming and lots of slopers. Are you climbing indoors or out?

As Bobby said... your time is best invested in just climbing for now, don't worry about specific finger training. I found that climbing with people who were several grades better than me helped me enormously.

Have fun!

[Joseff Lea]

A good exercise I found was to go back to a very very easy wall and try and climb it without using my arms, of sourse you'll need to use them unless possibly you're on a wall that slopes away from you but try not to. Really helps teach you how to get your weight as close to the wall as possible and forces you to open your hips. I wouldn't worry about training finger strength especially if you're bouldering as well always found that to be plenty of stimulus.
Oh and don't be afraid to ask a more experienced for pointers, I always found that people were more than happy to talk to me or help me with a particular route, made some good friends that way

[Jake Lawrance]

Thanks for all the tips guys! I do finger strength training because I can only get to the bouldering wall once a week when I'd like to go twice, so I find it beneficial

 

Hey Richard, I'm bouldering indoors at the moment and during summer I'm going to try get myself doing some lead or top rope climbing, but I believe you have to be qualified to be able to do so? As simply where I live if you wish to climb you have to have an instructor on the belaying device, and it costs quite a bit for a few hours :/

[Richard Hamilton]

Nice one, what part of the UK are you living, what wall do you go to and what's your nearest bit of outdoor rock?

 

I never had anyone instruct me, not for the first few years at least. After doing some mountain walking/scrambling in school me and a friend decided we wanted to start climbing, bought a couple of books, some top roping kit and practised belaying eachother in trees to get the basics. We eventually got on the rock and started toproping but soon started leading. I'd say if you get the chance to lead on bolts then go for it but there's a certain skill to placing wires and cams so you'd be better seconding someone more experienced for a while to have a look at the way they place their gear, and try to remove it.

 

You don't need an instructor but it's beneficial when starting out... or going out with other experienced climbers. Looking back on my learning curve I feel lucky to be alive still, it's not something you want to be unsure about... the consequences  are fairly serious. As it happens I ended up qualifying with the Single Pitch Award so I could take groups of kids out climbing and moved into Industrial Rope Access work abseiling down most of the towers at Canary Wharf after that.

 

If you really want to look into specific finger training then have a look at the Beastmaker website here (seems the best resource): http://www.beastmaker.co.uk/pages/training

 

You can also check out the stuff on Ben Moons site http://www.moonclimbing.com/blog/school/fingerboard-training-plan/

 

You'll get the idea, you don't need a fingerboard... use the architrave above a door opening if it's well fixed, when you get into climbing you start to see so many opportunities around you!

[Jake Lawrance]

At the moment I climb in The climbing academy Bristol (apparently biggest in UK, but I think Glasgow is bigger). The closest bit of rock (at least I think) is Avon Gorge, it has several routes and a bouldering route which you have a rope on as it's on a slope  

 

Yes my cousin is a very experienced climber (although I boulder same problems as him), he also partakes in ice climbing and occasionally goes to France to do a week of various climbing (lucky)!

 

I was just looking at the award schemes and I'm hoping to do single pitch and then on to CWLA

 

Great resource, thanks. I have a pair of metolius rock rings at the moment which have been beneficial and just made my own mini campus board with slopers

[Andrew Long]

if i were you i wouldnt think about it just climb everything you want and try to mix it up with the different types of holds.  you will get a feel for what is easier and what is harder eventually and in having only done it for a month you really dont ned to focus on specific finger training it will come fast just from climbing.

 

i did no research into climbing technique i just used brute force and i got a hell of a lot stronger and as the months went by i learnt bits and pieces of technique by figuring it out myself or having nearby climbers give me pointers.  i think if i learnt the technique first then the strength wouldnt have built up so fast as it did due to my lack of technique.

 

in saying that i would suggest doing a few weeks of climbing hard pushing yourself a little bit more every week and then taking a week  or so to go back to the climbs you managed to complete and trying to redo them but without any dynamic movement.  making every move slow and controlled. so controlled that when you move your hand to the next hold you can let it hover over the hold for a few seconds before placing it.  also try to climb without making a sound.  so your movement must be completely silent no slapping holds or big leaps and no scraping loudly or bashing your feet against the wall.  precision is your friend in this week.
 

most importantly... just climb  it is what chris sharma does and look where he is.

[haui]

Books and internet tips are nice to have but

you will learn climbing only through climbing.

 

Go With people which climb better than you and you will learn how to climb.

Go Bouldering and you get the powre and technic.

 

Climb, climb, climb that's the best and easiest way

[Richard Hamilton]

What Haui said

You're well located in Bristol... I used to live there myself and there's quite a lot of climbers around. Have you been to Undercover Rock at St Werburghs Church? I used to go there pretty regular and improved a lot. The Climbing Academy was built a couple of years after I moved away so I've never been there sadly.

There's loads of climbing in Avon Gorge though I've mostly done routes at Cheddar Gorge, Goblin Combe and Portishead... all worth a visit if you can get out there. If you just want to practise movement and get stronger your best bet is probably sticking with the bouldering at TCA or St Werburghs and trying to get there a bit more often. You have two really good facilities at your disposal so make the most of them!

[Jake Lawrance]

Yes it's gone a bit mainstream but NO ONE in my school actually climbs or boulders so it's difficult to make contacts, but I have talked to a couple of the youth members there who showed me crossovers for a problem that I kept failing and then right after he did it, BAM, I did it so smoothly I felt like a king, so yes you guys are 100% right about being with other climbers I went to the church when I was MUCH younger, and I can just about remember it.. I'll check costs and stuff and see if a family member can spot me Plus I would love to boulder outside, it seems so much more magical (weird I know). Do you know of any 'beginner' routes in bristol that's worth a shot? Seeing as I read on forums awhile ago that you should half the grade you usually climb inside as it's pretty weird starting on new rock

[Vincent Stoyas]

Didn't want to make a new thread, so I'll bump this one. I'm climbing most v5s and some 6s indoor, and climbing v3 and 4s outdoor. My weakest point is definitely crmping/open hand strength. Any more experienced climbers here that would like to chime in with how've take crimps to the next level?

I frequent some climbing in forums, but a lot of their advice is purely anecdotal, and I don't think very solid. I'd put my trust more in this forum than another.

I try hanging from a campus board and to climb crispier routes, but I was wondering if there is a more systematic way to approach this.

Thanks for any replies in advance.

[Andrew Long]

This probably isn't what you are looking for but I would simply try to do open hand more. For example when you do a crispy climb rather that use a closed crimp simply switch to open. Really concentrate on your hand position every hold. Go to a crispy climb you can do and just switch from closed to open.

[Sean Whitley]

Open hand all crimps while climbing when possible, and as far as I'm aware repeaters on the fingerboard are one of the best specific way to train finger strength - 7 second hangs (open hand!) with 3 seconds rest, ~6 reps so about a minute per set, can't remember how many sets but you can move to a different hold for each set, so for example pockets one set to slopers the next. Also remember to train all fingers, pinkies can get neglected and hold your overall crimping back

[gravy]

For technique, YouTube improve climbing Neil Gresham.

[Adrien Godet]

Jake, you are probably quite familiar with how Coach Sommer's approach to gymnastic is particular and sophisticated (see BtGB's introduction, he is one of the few coaches that approach gymnastics training as strength first).
Most of the advices above are what you generally hear in the climbing community ("climb more", "you get better at climbing through climbing",...).

From my point of view these advices are very basic & simplistic compared to the level of advice on gymnastics you'll find here, and the climbing community overall, like many sports communities, have their myths and legends that just do not hold up if you compare them to what more competitive sports are doing.

So my advice would be, try to understand the essence of Coach's training philosophy (preparation, progression, perfection, strength), why it's so effective and apply it to climbing.

Two examples:

- Chris Sharma, symbolically the best climbers of all time, is in a video of him incapable of holding a simple frog stand. Many people would say it proves you don't need to train anything else than climbing, but I think there's more to it.
- Jan Hojer, recent bouldering world cup winner, trains significantly less hours than his competitors and has a video of his training on vimeo where you can see him state "my feet kept sliping all the time, so I decided I'd better not use them" (in other words: screw technique).

[Connor Davies]

I found this http://www.planetfear.com/articles/Fingerboard_Training__Beginner_1100.html

 

I have a question for the climbers out there: Is there any point in training crimp strength if you're not a climber?  Would the benefits outweigh the risks if you're just looking for finger/grip strength?

[Sean Whitley]

Somebody once said "real strength is tendon strength" (or something like that). I can't see how some finger strength training would be a bad thing. You might gain better grip strength, and extra finger strength would help with gripping the floor in handstands and such. Ido Portal once recommended 3x a week bouldering to help correct tendon problems in people. 

The general rule for finger strength training however is don't start on the fingerboard until you've been climbing about a year so your fingers have a good strength foundation (like coach saying foundation work before rings). For beginners your muscles will start to fatigue or you will lose too much skin before you are at too much risk of a finger injury. Fingerboard hits the tendons directly and are understandably risky without that foundation.

If possible get to a climbing gym or outdoors and start climbing! Its so much more fun than the fingerboard, and you can supplement it with some other pulling work if you feel you need to (mobility drills would probably help massively in the long run). Alternatively just use one of those powerballs, squeeze a tennis ball or use spring hand gripper things if you want to just get grip strength without climbing.

[haui]

Go climbing an bouldering as often as you can.

Try to go with better guys, they can show you tricks and techniks.

 

You will become fingerstregth and Power through bouldering.

Campusboard is great but if you do not have strong fingers you will "kill" your fingers.

[Andrew Long]

I have to say I was at the level where I could do pull ups hanging from just my middle fingers in a pocket and my grip strength has never been very good when it came to holding a bar or something

[Connor Davies]

In case there was confusion, my post was about CRIMP strength in general.  Given that it's a very specific type of hold, and can cause some quite serious injuries, is there any reason to train it if you're not planning on climbing anything.

 

Also, if you're just training say, 2 finger hangs, is there any benefit to using a fingerboard over a standard pullup bar?