Boulderer's transition to route climbing
Ross asked me recently about making the transition to routes from an apprenticeship in bouldering. With ‘bouldering only’ climbing walls becoming ever more popular, there is an increasing body of young climbers who have an entire apprenticeship on them and make a difficult transition to route climbing after a year or two.
These climbers get pumped really easily on F6s even though they can boulder Font 7s. Their initial feeling is to blame lack of endurance fitness, which is of course a part of the problem. But a few weeks of racking up the route laps will see a lot of progress in fitness.
The bigger, but less understood problem is hidden in their technique. These guys have spend 100% of their climbing time trying to learn to pull as hard as possible, on 3-10 move boulder problems. The technique of route climbing - to pull as gently as possible - is a totally different technique. You can’t learn it overnight.
Often, they want to find a training solution to climbing routes that still involves using the local bouldering wall - i.e. Circuits. That’s fine in theory, but it’s definitely the hard way. The reason is that to learn to climb efficiently for routes, saving energy as opposed to climbing explosively, is best done on long pitches that take 2 minutes to several hours (as in winter climbing). So the best thing to do is get out and climb some big routes, tons of them.
Fiddling with a wire placement for five minutes will always teach you how to relax and find the most efficient position much more effectively than doing circuits or lots of easy problems. Even a week of sport climbing will get you further than months of trying to learn route climbing technique on a boulder wall. Get out and climb at a standard that allows you to do 12 x 30m routes a day or more. That’s 2500 metres climbed in a week minimum - hard to achieve in the boulder wall. By the end of a week your movement and style will be so different.
10 comments:
It's so true. I spent a lot of time in the spring bouldering and very little time on a rope. As a result my fall rope season has suffered tremendously. I'm finally back into decent route climbing shape. Now I have to work out my head game!
Great post Dave!
Great post as always, Dave. What about us taller guys who you've recommended climbing more explosively (with momentum) in your book?
Is training on lots of 30m routes going to help if the ultimate goal is to climb short powerful routes? Does the idea of learning to squeeze less still apply in this situation or is there some other types of training (anaerobic ensurance?) that needs to take place to be able to climb a hard, short (sub 20m), powerful routes?
The general principle is to cover all the skills you need, but spend the right proportion of time on each component depending on what you're training for.
Think about short sport routes - sometimes they have 6 metres of fairly easy climbing and then a brutal crux. You still need to climb the easy bit very efficiently because you need every % of your power for the crux. Longer pitch experience helps you relax and use minimum effort. But you'll need to mix it in with the shorter sprint routes.
Boulderers with little or no route experience are often rubbish at spotting good resting positions and finding REALLY easy sequences on the easy bits. They are too used to boulder problems where it matters less. There are plenty of 25 move sport routes where the shake out or clipping positions and pacing of the redpoint will be the crucial factor when you come to link it.
I have already seen this in the gym. You are totally right about fiddling with a wire. That pumps even the best! Great post. Thanks. I'll be passing it on for sure
ok Dave
can you please elaborate on the point you made about when climbing routes, you should pull as gently as possible
any suggestions for climbers who dont live in a area where u cant access lot of sport routes and dont have decent lead wall , i am from India and train in my home bouldering wall
Korak - advice on this is in my book 9 out of 10 climbers...
Dave, I've seen this post and it makes a lot of sense to me.
On the other hand Sean McColl is a boulderer who uses circuit training and a very fast and fluid lead climbing style to achieve great results on the World Cup Circuit. By his own admission he doesn't rest well, so instead of taking the rests the sport climbers do and concentrating on climbing super efficiently, he usually just rushes through the entire route until the top or a fall.(if you read his latest posts at seanmccoll.com you can see his reasoning)
I think his goal is different than possibly dedicated sport or trad climbers, but it does seem like a really interesting for boulderers transitioning to sport climbing.
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