I have tried climbing before but just for recreational purposes only. I live in a very small city and the only wall we had was so far away and it got closed. I had so much fun.
this was like two years ago.
Now recently, like a month (or two) ago, my friend invited me to climb to a private wall. I was hyped as fuck since finally I could have exercise and fun. The place was pretty cool! It had two bed mattresses or foams as make shift crash pads. The wall had a 40~45 degree angle which also includes crimpers(?) and HIT Strips. It also had a fingerboard too!
We went there at first doing routes and stuff. The owner usually visits us and chat. My friend also filled me up with the place's history. It was called the "House of Pain" and it was before a very large wall. They trained for like a whole day, 4 times a week here. Our city's climbing legends used to train here (they had their names printed on the lower right side of the wall). They also had the paper records of their training which were pretty damn impressive. I couldn't believe they did all those exercises. It was nice learning at least a bit of my hometown's climbing history.
We only climb like 2-3 times a week. Sometimes never since we have other priorities. After like a two weeks of recreational climbing, we were kinda bored. There some routes we can't exit and we get exhausted very easily. The owner suggested that we should train first so that we might enjoy bouldering more and that's when we decided to take it more seriously. Every time we climb, we do this exercise called '100 holds' where, as the name suggests, you try to get 100 holds. It's hard as fuck! I can't even get past my personal best of 17. It's very frustrating since I expect myself to get better. I want to climb more but my body won't let me. Do I lack willpower?
I'm hoping very much in improving myself so if there are professional or veteran climbers here could give me some general tips it is pretty much appreciated! :D After improving my endurance, I'll probably move into improving my finger strength. We'll climb again this thursday
I started bouldering again after 15 years of pause. I spend 3 week in France in Fontainebleau going almost everyday, it was really magic. so now when I came back to Finland, I found out they had opened this quite big climbing arena, 300m^2 of bouldering, 300m^2 of wall climbing...
So I have now one month of bouldering behind, the stomach is a bit melting :D, some gripping strength is coming back, technique is also very rusty (Like riding a rusty bike). And I have 50 pounds more for the same height than I was when I was 15 and I don't live anymore 800 meter from the best natural bouldering spot in the world.
Anyway, all training is nice but don't rush things, the most important thing and it is slow to build is finger grip, the rest follows, climbing is really about technique.
Grip needs your tendon to get stronger, so it is no only about willpower and muscles... If you rush things, you will just hurt yourself.
Here is the climbing arena I've been now three times, that picture has nowhere near the amount of tracks that there is currently, the walls are almost fully covered. Those picture were too big to embed in my post.
Here are some picture of boulders in France, featuring sister's boyfriend.
Excited to see I'm not the only bouldering enthusiast on TL, I've only be climbing for 3 months but I did gymnastics (flying trapeze, tumbling, russian bar, etc..) for like 6 years. For the first few days my forearms would get really sore the next day (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, DOMS for short). This is typical when exercising underdeveloped muscles (my grip strength in this case). I've climbed 3 days a week for 3 months and progress from day barely being able to climb v0s to v5s and one v6.
From what I've read, been told by other more experienced climbers, and figured out on my own, climbing is a lot less about finger strength than I initially thought. Once you have enough grip strength to hold yourself on the wall you're good to go. The number one mistake I made when I started was pulling myself up with my arms. Climbing with bent arms is a sure way to wear yourself out, keep your arms straight and hang off your shoulders while you prepare for your next move, and when you want to move your hand up to the next hold, use some momentum and swing from your core and legs to reach the next hold, and then go hang again with arms straight.
Once you have this simple technique down you should have no problem climbing v0's for 2 hours straight. It will take a few days, maybe a week or two at 3 days a week to get to the point where you forearms no longer ache the next day. Once you've built this strength up you'll find the V1s and V2's doable. This is where more technique comes into play, you'll inevitably find yourself in a situation where your left hand is further left than your left foot, causing you to swing sideway away from the wall (called Barn Dooring in climber lingo). To prevent this you can put your right foot on the leftmost foot hold, and press directly into the wall with your left toe. This prevents the swinging action and allows you to more easily reach the next hold.
After getting comfortable flagging you'll probably run into the next problem: getting your feet up in really awkward positions. A technique that can be employed here is called the drop-knee, basically you turn your hips and both knees one direction and then drop the knee down so that you can kind of press backwards and tuck your foot right up underneath you. It's kinda awkward at first, but once you get used to it you'll find yourself doing it all the time without realizing it.
Best of luck with your climbing, my favorite part of climbing is the community, being able to go down to the gym any day at any time and always knowing that there will be people there giving me tips on techniques and beta for the routes, and some newbies I can give encouraging words and maybe a few pointers to. Solving bouldering problems with other people is a ton of fun and there's nothing quite like it.
My girlfriend moved to a new city (working in academia and long-distance relationships TT) and we found out, that nearby her appartment there is a climbing gym. I`ve never been climbing/bouldering so far, but it`s kinda appealing to me to try it out seriously. Do you think it takes a lot of time, to get to a non-newbish level (I`m pretty decent in terms of body strength)?
Climbing is not competing and body strength means very little as you will need a whole different set of muscles :D.
But to answer your question, you probably need 1-2 year to catch up if you really put everything into it. The thing is that the joy of passing a problem is the same no matter your level, if it was at the limit of your capacity, you will feel like you overcome yourself.
I think someone with the right shape with some sport background that requires balance and synchronization can catch up really fast.
That wall looks pretty brutal, OP. Definitely scarier than anything I can boulder. I've been climbing a long time, but I've never had the discipline to develop real upper body strength, so my M.O. has always been to show off on gross, crimpy slab endurance trials, and then go get schooled on like V2's by my friends who have been climbing for 1/10th the time I have :\ .
What 0x64 is saying about getting better being its own payoff is super true, though. I've never tried anything else besides climbing that makes it so obvious how much you're improving. If you project a really hard route a few weeks in a row, and you can't get it and can't get it and can't get it, and then you get it, you know you've got nobody to blame but yourself for making it, and it feels fucking great. Doesn't matter if the route that was hard for you was a 5.8 or a 5.14d.
Wow nice to see so many TL'ers boulder. The only ones I knew so far was PhiLtheFisH and Stratos.
At your place is there only overhanging walls? You should probably start climbing some more walls that don't have too much incline. Get your technique up on some slab. It feels like you're trying to a lot of strength and endurance when what you really need is the right technique to utilize your current strength.
Before I started climbing I had been working out some time in the gym prior to it. I couldn't really climb and 5c without getting super tired, even though I was supposedly strong. After climbing on slab and low incline walls for a while I built up some proper technique and did 6b's in just a few months. With some more climbing on higher incline I kept improving my technique and did my first 7a after just one year of climbing, after another six months I'm now doing 7b+ max.
I didn't really exercise much other than actually climb. The times I did spend in the gym after I just did pull-ups on bars/fingerboards, some forearm exercises, and campus rungs.
Those are pretty nice rocks! Me and my friends will probably do a local project when we're ready I'm really excited to try real boulders. Yeah, I've been rushing things, I'm kinda impatient but I'lll be patient from now I tried finger pull ups on the fingerboard but I can't even 'hang', it was too painful lol.
CatNzHat
Thanks for those tips! The owner of the place also suggested that, he said when climbing to conserve energy, we should apply the 'open palm' technique where you grip with an open palm. Yeah, lifting myself and hanging with elbows bent I learned the hard way ._. I also have a lot of problems with technique but we help each other in improving it Its really fun having friends when climbing.
Irrational_Animal
I don't know how long you get past the 'non-newbish' level but most of started just doing this for fun you should try it too so that you can gauge how much time you need to invest. I think there are various difficulties of climbs (vb, v0, 5.something etc).
ASoo and Epoxide
Yes, it's really brutal due to the angle. We're fine with it since we really don't have any other place to go lol. We were doing routes to develop technique before but unfortunately we can't climb for so long so we decide to improve our endurance first I'm really excited how I would do like a year from now. It's really a nice feeling if you can see yourself improving I can't imagine how hard it is to do pull-ups with fingers @_@
Thanks guys! I tried searching for a climbing thread but only found travis' blog I hope you guys share your climbing stories/pictures too! Im interested how other people climb in other places especially if you are going out on a project!
Freelance Tramps looks fun to climb. When did you start to transition from walls to rocks? Did you place the hooks yourselves or they were there already?
I started climbing in middle school, and went on a couple small-scale field trips with my school's club outside, but mostly stuck to the gym. I really started hitting the outside in grad school, when I started being able to afford my own gear. That said, I still do plenty of my climbing in the gym; the pictures just aren't as pretty so I didn't bother posting those .
The pics there are all sport climbing, so there are small metal bolts already in the wall, and you place quickdraws into them to hook your rope into as you ascend. You can also place your own gear to climb unbolted walls, but I don't (trad racks are fucking expensive, and I'm scurred).
If you're thinking about starting to branch out from the gym, I say DO IT. Outside is a little scarier than gym climbing, but it's not any harder. As long as one person you go with has gear and knows how to lead climb (and one other person knows how to lead belay, but that's easy to learn), everybody else can just top-rope away like it's the gym. I've gone on trips outdoors with people who had never climbed a wall in their lives, and they had a blast.
The only caveat is that my experience is all in the states; I have no idea what the climbing scene is like in the Phillipines. Do a little research to make sure that there are bolted walls around (unless you're looking to jump straight into trad climbing), and ask the guys who work at the gym you go to for some advice about making sure the bolts are solid. You don't want to take a fall and find out halfway down that the gear you're trusting to keep you up is 30 years old and rusted out.
I don't think I'm really ready for sport lol, im still afraid a bit of heights that's why I envy your Freelance Tramps climb. Yeah there are local rocks here we can climb but I'm not that confident yet most of them are for bouldering tho but I will definitely try them in the future with my friends!
Does your overall weight matter? I'm thinking losing some weight so that I can climb easier and also, is climbing every day recommended? just curios.
On September 03 2013 17:19 icystorage wrote: I don't think I'm really ready for sport lol, im still afraid a bit of heights that's why I envy your Freelance Tramps climb. Yeah there are local rocks here we can climb but I'm not that confident yet most of them are for bouldering tho but I will definitely try them in the future with my friends!
Seriously, if you know anybody you can go with, just hit some rocks. Lead climbing is scary as hell when you're first learning it, so that's something I'd probably try a few times in the gym until you're more confident, but like I said, only the first guy up the wall has to lead when you're outdoors. After that, it's smooth top-rope sailing. And nothing's better for curing fear of heights than getting up high and feeling that, yeah, the rope really does have you, it's gonna be okay.
That said, if bouldering is your thing, go boulder some shit!
On September 03 2013 17:19 icystorage wrote: Does your overall weight matter? I'm thinking losing some weight so that I can climb easier and also, is climbing every day recommended? just curios.
Weight matters (strength-to-weight ratio, more than just weight), but it's not the be-all-and-end-all of climbing. I know tons of people heavier than me who are as good as or better than me (to be fair, that's partly because basically everybody I know is heavier than me). If you can do anything on that problem you posted in the OP, then you're not too fat to climb .
I don't know if climbing every single day is recommended (ask a real expert), but if you're serious, you should certainly climb a lot more than most people (me included) have time for. I've honestly never had a lifestyle that let me go more than 2-3 times a week, but then again, maybe that's why I've plateaued pretty hard in terms of skill.
hmm thanks for your insights! its very helpful since I'm kinda new there's a national comp this october and we'll gonna go and watch so I'll probably post about it
On September 03 2013 07:56 Epoxide wrote: I'll make a thread tomorrow ^_^
TL climbers unite~~
make it gogo!
Just came from climbing, broke the skin of my right middle finger but passed one 5b that was so close last time... This time it was even hard.
The thing is that I could only climb at my top for a very short time. Now with those tips about flagging and body rolling, I could do smarter moves. Also passed a 4 that I had troubles, now I did some strange moves that put my weight to the wall, I was feeling like Michael Jackson dancing :D
EPT
I had so much fun.![[image loading]](https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/225703_2234462311119_3331400_n.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/q71/s720x720/972050_10201562295249290_958809635_n.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/F2fKTVw.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/luxTa0y.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6iuO4Dc.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cHMbM81.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/81TkFiZ.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/q1dKp1p.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pMoI7Tp.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5QLDaNZ.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2K7PWnz.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/rockporn1_zpsf616da36.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/rockporn2_zpsd6f1ae37.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/rockporn3_zps06e35338.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT01_zps837baf36.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT02_zps76c1f8d5.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT03_zpsd017b706.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT04_zps42436bf4.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT05_zps05cc36d1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT06_zps34d96f86.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT07_zpseb7867e5.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT08_zps7b6f2d8c.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT09_zps46ebbba5.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT10_zps4a013f1d.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/FT11_zps3bdef081.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/jackson1_zpsc228077f.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/jackson2_zps42bb256e.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v322/azurasstar/jackson3_zps39224ce3.jpg)
.
