Hard bouldering @ 40+... guys and gals who still crush, how do you do it?

Peter Beal wrote:http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/video-raw-power-vs-flawless-technique

The German wunderkid has plenty of raw power, but I really dislike these types of "power vs technique" comparison: I'd characterize anything you can quickly figure out more as experience/beta refinement than technique: IMO true techniques should take a lot of practice & refinement to master. Conversely, there were plenty of awkwardness with tries on the wunderkid's problem & that's an attribute of lacking certain movement technique.

To boulder consistently at high level you need technique and power. The young guns of bouldering in addition to being incredibly strong are extremely technically competent climbers. They work hard-boulder problems endlessly constantly reflecting on their movement and refining their technique. But they have power to make technique work. Technique alone will never be enough. There a lot of technically skilled climbers out there but they don't boulder real double digit problems.

To boulder hard into your 40s and beyond is tall order because hard bouldering requires hard training and hard training is necessarily deleterious to your body especially when you are older. The more you train the more you will expose yourself to injury and once injured, the older you are, the harder it is both mentally and physically to come back from. This is the nature of the beast. Kale and hgh and sweaty yoga are no help in the long run. You can't fight time.

The best hope for over 40s is change their mindset. Being fit should no longer be considered in terms of possessing maximum power but as being able take part in a physically challenging sport without getting injured. Instead of more training this often requires dialing it back, resting more, not pushing yourself, not repeating moves too much, etc. This is not always a fun way to climb or train so the mental part is another challenge. Paradoxically if you are really psyched about bouldering it takes more discipline to train less.

All that said, no matter your age, if you can boulder consistently 2-3 times a week over a long period of time without injury you will likely make gains or at least maintain a high standard.

Old Timer on this site is real inspiration that way. He's in his mid-50s and started climbing relatively late in life. He gets one or two times a week, and consistently puts up high numbers of FAs. He still climbs V8. He never goes to the gym. He doesn't spend a ton of time projecting stuff and if he really did I'm pretty sure he could climb at least a grade or two harder. But he's smart about avoiding injury and just having fun.

My two cents.

Jim

"The best hope for over 40s is change their mindset. Being fit should no longer be considered in terms of possessing maximum power but as being able take part in a physically challenging sport without getting injured. Instead of more training this often requires dialing it back, resting more, not pushing yourself, not repeating moves too much, etc. This is not always a fun way to climb or train so the mental part is another challenge. Paradoxically if you are really psyched about bouldering it takes more discipline to train less."

This is good advice as far as it goes but getting to the range that the original poster mentioned is definitely going to require dialing training up, not back. The hard part is knowing how far is too far and what training is most productive for your goals. That is the problem that older boulderers really have to face. It's going to mean a lot of gym time and plenty of time outside working hard moves. Unfortunately a laid-back approach will not allow achievement at V13 for a 45-year old.

I would suggest buying a dirt bike and start "moto-cross-fit". I have excellent results with overall fitness aside the herniated discs, broken bones, disjointed knees and concussions.
Other than that just work on the mental game. At my age my "psyche" is the bigger struggle. After so many years you have to come up with ways to get motivated and not concentrate on grades and focus on things that matter.
Other cross-fit options:
1 Manscaping stones(keeps you light)
2 String instruments (finger strength and callus mutations)
3 Porn (see 1&2)
4 Battle Front 2
5 Trolling (psyche)

thomas ellis wrote:I would suggest buying a dirt bike and start "moto-cross-fit". I have excellent results with overall fitness aside the herniated discs, broken bones, disjointed knees and concussions. Other than that just work on the mental game. At my age my "psyche" is the bigger struggle. After so many years you have to come up with ways to get motivated and not concentrate on grades and focus on things that matter. Other cross-fit options: 1 Manscaping stones(keeps you light) 2 String instruments (finger strength and callus mutations) 3 Porn (see 1&2) 4 Battle Front 2 5 Trolling (psyche)

Excellent advice! Plus if you play electric guitar, you will have no time or money for climbing anyway solving the problem by default

Peter Beal wrote:This is good advice as far as it goes but getting to the range that the original poster mentioned is definitely going to require dialing training up, not back. The hard part is knowing how far is too far and what training is most productive for your goals. That is the problem that older boulderers really have to face. It's going to mean a lot of gym time and plenty of time outside working hard moves. Unfortunately a laid-back approach will not allow achievement at V13 for a 45-year old.

But I'm not really arguing for a laidback approach. What I'm saying is that the older you get that more you have to dedicate yourself to staying healthy and one of the ways of doing that is making sure to train and climb sensibly in order to avoid injury at all cost. This often means dialing it back, avoiding repetitive and awkward movements, being super cautious in rock gyms, and spending more time resting, etc. The strength above all else approach advocated by young climbers (like Megos) is not going to work for older climbers, who are likely to trade any gains made in power and strength from training with cycles of injury lay-offs that as they age they will be increasingly lucky to come back from.

If you want to climb V12 at 45, you will undoubtedly have to train but you will also have to totally change your attitude to training if you want to be successful.

There is also a big difference between someone 45 who wants to climb V12 and already climbs V10 and someone 45 who wants to climb V12 and only climbs V6. I applaud and encourage the ambition of the latter-- and there is no reason not to try-- but the training attitudes advocated in countless climbing videos, articles, interviews, and books will only lead to injury, frustration, and the premature end of your late-flowering climbing career.

jim.dangle wrote: There is also a big difference between someone 45 who wants to climb V12 and already climbs V10 and someone 45 who wants to climb V12 and only climbs V6.

There is an even bigger difference in someone who is 45 trying to climb V12 (again) that already climbed V12 say back when they were 30....

Old Timer is an incredible exception. I believe that at higher levels the most important trait is ability to recover. Without it, you can't train often enough and hard enough to make any gains. Top athletes have the ability to train 6/7 days without (excessive) risk of injury/fatigue.

So.. guess what happens when you get older.. I can hit it hard once a week. Then after that I have to take care of kids, work, build stuff, cook, hang out with wife, see friends, walk the dog and (importantly) be 40. Gains are hard won and easily lost. Father Injury is always lurking in the shadows.

Lots of good points in this thread. No idea why someone thinks its trolling. Maybe because they can't come anywhere near the standard we are talking about?

I turned 43 a couple days ago. I've bouldered double digits every year of my 40s so far. I also work a regular white collar professional gig (9-5? I wish, it's more hours than that).

Peter's point about the nature of modern indoor bouldering is right on. You have to be willing to walk away from, or avoid a lot of the gym problems. Those dynos and especially the long dynamic moves into gaston or iron cross positions are injuries waiting to happen. Most setters are kids, early to mid 20s and the setting shows it.

The problem then becomes finding enough stuff to train on, because gyms tend to set very few problems in the range we need for training. The bell curve distribution in the gyms I train in peak around V3-V5. There might be 4 V10s and a couple harder things. If two of those have shoulder-wrecker moves on them...your pool of training problems is tiny.

Now add that lots of gym have gone to setting on hold color, rather than tape. With tape, I find most places set with greater density of holds on the wall. The ability for problems to share a hold or two led to tighter distribution. The point here is, it was easier to take a "make up your own" approach from holds on the wall. Since our gyms switched to hold color setting, it's very hard to do that due to lower density.

You Boulder/Denver based or SLC based folks (and a couple of SoCal gyms, but none of the one I use) have things like CATS, or Momentum with a overhanging wall with every t-nut filled. Those things are a god-send in trying to train hard movement.

My personal biggest issues these days outside is finding problems local to me that fit me, are in season enough, etc. Logisitics mostly. The other is that my finger joints are starting to degrade. Not tendon pulleys, but the cartilage in the DIP joints is getting and staying inflamed more. Harder to drop weight, but but that's about the least of my issues. Summoning that full-on try hard is more difficult because I tend to be "guarding" one minor tweak or another and subconsciously holding back a little.

Consider a high protein diet for speedy healthy recovery. 120 grams a day. Consume 20 grams every 3hrs. My 49yr old partner and I have been seeing excellent results. I don't feel any stronger, just don't experience fatigue. This is not Atkins. You still eat slim jims, ding songs and mountain dew kor what ever your normal diet consists of. You just try and get regular consistent protain hits.

Will S wrote: The problem then becomes finding enough stuff to train on, because gyms tend to set very few problems in the range we need for training.

Like Peter said way back in this thread, having a home wall is essential...

Will S wrote:... The problem then becomes finding enough stuff to train on, because gyms tend to set very few problems in the range we need for training. The bell curve distribution in the gyms I train in peak around V3-V5. There might be 4 V10s and a couple harder things. If two of those have shoulder-wrecker moves on them...your pool of training problems is tiny. ...

This may be a common issue. But all you need to do is to take some of those V3-V5s and skip a hold or two. Start by skipping one hold, then skip another. Repeat until satisfied. Or simply invent your own problem, with some blue holds and some red.

Before climbing gyms, we had artificial outdoor climbing walls in which we had to invent our own "eliminates". Nothing prevents one from doing the same in an indoor gym.

Jon Nelson wrote: But all you need to do is to take some of those V3-V5s and skip a hold or two. Start by skipping one hold, then skip another. Repeat until satisfied. Or simply invent your own problem, with some blue holds and some red. Before climbing gyms, we had artificial outdoor climbing walls in which we had to invent our own "eliminates". Nothing prevents one from doing the same in an indoor gym.

Well, if you actually read my post, there IS something that prevents you (or me anyway) from doing that. Low density of holds on the wall in the "make it up" case, and injury-prone moves in the "skip holds" case. As I said, some facilities have high-density, or have training walls with every t-nut filled specifically for the "make up your own" type training. I train through a gym that has about 7 facilities in an 1.5hr radius. None of those have a filled tnuts wall, and when they transitioned from tape to hold color setting some years ago, the density went down by 1/3 to 1/2.

This isn't just a problem for us old guys, in training the youth team I have similar issues. In that case it's that the low density doesn't allow me to add holds from one problem to another to accommodate reach issues for the little kids.

Will S wrote: Well, if you actually read my post, there IS something that prevents you (or me anyway) from doing that. Low density of holds on the wall in the "make it up" case, and injury-prone moves in the "skip holds" case. As I said, some facilities have high-density, or have training walls with every t-nut filled specifically for the "make up your own" type training. I train through a gym that has about 7 facilities in an 1.5hr radius. None of those have a filled tnuts wall, and when they transitioned from tape to hold color setting some years ago, the density went down by 1/3 to 1/2. This isn't just a problem for us old guys, in training the youth team I have similar issues. In that case it's that the low density doesn't allow me to add holds from one problem to another to accommodate reach issues for the little kids.

You should ask them to keep a section of wall filled with holds for training. They are usually pretty receptive to that sort of thing.

Will S wrote: Well, if you actually read my post, there IS something that prevents you (or me anyway) from doing that. Low density of holds on the wall in the "make it up" case, and injury-prone moves in the "skip holds" case. As I said, some facilities have high-density, or have training walls with every t-nut filled specifically for the "make up your own" type training. I train through a gym that has about 7 facilities in an 1.5hr radius. None of those have a filled tnuts wall, and when they transitioned from tape to hold color setting some years ago, the density went down by 1/3 to 1/2. This isn't just a problem for us old guys, in training the youth team I have similar issues. In that case it's that the low density doesn't allow me to add holds from one problem to another to accommodate reach issues for the little kids.

I'm in my mid 30's. Not quite there, but I plan to eventually live to 40+.

For what it's worth, I'm not sure that this is going to be the thing limiting me personally from hitting V11/V12, because so much of climbing that grade is finger strength and power.

When it comes to training specific movements for specific climbs, then more often than not, that's going to come through projecting. You're not going to project a climb if you think it's going to injure you.

For the last 18 years I 'trained' by just climbing. I plateaued for about a decade on-sighting V5s and projecting V6s.

I started actually training in mid November. The most useful thing I've found to advance my own training for bouldering hasn't been hard boulder problems or hard boulder moves.. it's been the campus board (for campusing, duh) and fingerboards with weight assist (for one arm hangs on small holds).

I now only climb one day a week, with campusing a second day and fingerboard a third day.

Results in 2 months? Now on-sighting V6's, getting V7's in a single session, and projecting 8's. I know that kind of progress doesn't continue, but it really does show what simply training power/strength can do for you.

christopher adams wrote: it really does show what simply training power/strength can do for you.

If you've never trained it before.

Will S wrote: Well, if you actually read my post, there IS something that prevents you (or me anyway) from doing that. Low density of holds on the wall in the "make it up" case, and injury-prone moves in the "skip holds" case. As I said, some facilities have high-density, or have training walls with every t-nut filled specifically for the "make up your own" type training. I train through a gym that has about 7 facilities in an 1.5hr radius. None of those have a filled tnuts wall, and when they transitioned from tape to hold color setting some years ago, the density went down by 1/3 to 1/2. This isn't just a problem for us old guys, in training the youth team I have similar issues. In that case it's that the low density doesn't allow me to add holds from one problem to another to accommodate reach issues for the little kids.

You're right, I did not notice your mention of the low hold density issue. As you say, a low hold density does make the "make-up-your-own" problems more of a challenge to find. Sorry for not fully reading your post.

I guess another training method on the low-density case would be to do the V3-V5s with added weight. I've never tried it, and I suppose it could be a bit of a hassle. But I've heard about other people using that method.

bouldering with added weight is a really bad idea, particularly if you are over 40. it's bad enough cratering from the awkward sideways sloper dynos that are at the top of pretty much every gym bouldering problem these days. now, do that with some weight strapped to you....

Tim Lutz wrote:don't know who this guy is, but seems to fit this thread: dpmclimbing.com/articles/vi…

Timy Fairfield would be an outlier, much like someone such as Fred Nicole. No kids, job in climbing industry, climbing hard for 20+ years.

A great place to turn for discussion of these questions is ukbouldering.com especially this forum ukbouldering.com/board/inde…

No, he is an outlier because he has the first ever onsight of V11 by anybody, done in the mid 90s, and is the first American to win a bouldering world cup. The guy always has been an animal.