How many other Trad Climbers out there do Sport to get Strong! I do!

I sport climb very rarely...as in, almost never. I realize that this may have impeded my progression through the grades a bit, but the focus on purely traditional routes, mostly onsight has provided me with a solid base of skills and experiences that I feel better translates to bigger routes, even if at a lower technical grade at the moment. I haven't progressed as fast, strength-wise and in the grade at which I climb as I would have otherwise, but my "program", in retrospect, has provided a richer experience for me personally. To each his own.

Yes it helps. On a different note, I think trad climbing has made me a better onsight leader for both trad and sport. Hanging on long enough to get good pro in taught me how to get in the best position to minimize fatigue. This allows me to work out sequences. On sport routes it is a lot easier to just hang on a bolt. It is easy to do so with good trad gear but funky trad keeps you motivated to hang on and get the next piece. It is all good.

I climb to get better at climbing. Once you get proficient at placing gear it's all just climbing.

It definitely goes all ways. Sport has really helped my technique and strength. It is also very fun. Trad really has taught me to look for the good rest stances, or push it to the next placement, or just grit it out and place the f%&$ing piece as quickly and efficiently as possible. On the last two times I have climbed rosy crucifixion, on the second pitch I have hung out on this tiny flake to get a cam in to protect the exiting moves of the pitch. Kind of stupid, but it seems to be necessary how I climb it.

Bouldering makes you damn strong, much more quickly than sport, if that's what you're into. Also some of my most gratifying sends have been while bouldering. I have the patience to work the route into submission while chilling with my friends. When cragging I jump on a route, flail up it, and then move onto the next one, which is the least efficient way to gain good technique. But I enjoy this aspect of climbing the least, as I like to get high off the ground. Soloing is only good for the workout, imo. At least at the level I am willing to solo at.

Ice climbing is scary and expensive. Don't do it.

What I think for myself is while sport climbing helps to make me a stronger climber and improves my technique, it actually hurts my mental game for trad.

I just started leading trad a year ago so have very little experience.

But what I have noticed that helps the mental aspect of trad is soloing(highball bouldering basically) super easy routes that are maybe 20-35 feet high. I don't do this often because I get enough of a rush off trad leading and don't advocate soloing, especially heights where death is almost guaranteed. But soloing something where if you fall, chances are you won't die and will only sustain minor injuries I think has helped me with trad a lot.

If you are 15-25 feet off the ground with no pad or spotters or rope you don't want to fall, and if the climb is well within your range it forces you to focus on the easy moves ahead that lead to safety. If you do fall from a height of 15-25 feet, immediate death is improbable, but still the consequences would suck so it might not be the best way to train.

Like I said i don't do it much, but I think when I do it helps a lot.

BirminghamBen wrote: mostly onsight has provided me with a solid base of skills and experiences that I feel better translates to bigger routes, even if at a lower technical grade at the moment. I haven't progressed as fast, strength-wise and in the grade at which I climb as I would have otherwise, but my "program", in retrospect, has provided a richer experience for me personally. To each his own.

well put...I share this view with you

, I'm dubious. Like you, I own a resume of almost exclusive trad climbing. I might even explain (rationalize?) that in terms similar to Ben's. But really? Do we climb so much that adding some sport has to squeeze out the richer trad outings we prefer?

I climb more trad because it's what I grew up doing and I'm more familiar with trad venues. When climbing calls, it's simply easier to go do what I'm accustomed to. But truthfully, I'd love to mix in more sport, and not just for the strength training. I'd like to enjoy the pure, steep fun of it, with a bit less of the pucker that trad can provoke.

If I can add more sport outings to the mix next year, I'll consider my experience richer and more interesting, not less so. And I hope it'll help me crank harder trad, too!

I have led way more sport climbs than climbs placing my own gear.

My most memorable and enjoyable experiences climbing have been placing my own gear.

This is because you have only yourself(and belayer of course) to depend on for your safety and it brings about a whole other element that I don't get from sport climbing. I love sport climbing because it is fun, safer, and physically challenging. I prefer to lead placing my own gear because it requires more self-reliance which I feel equates to a more powerful experience on the rock, regardlesss of the grade.

pacoarg9 wrote:I prefer to lead placing my own gear because it requires more self-reliance which I feel equates to a more powerful experience on the rock, regardlesss of the grade.

Fair enough and I agree 100%. I guess I was parting company with Ben who thinks his experience is richer for the near absence of sport climbing; I'd like to enrich my experience with a bit more of that. But I can't argue with Ben's bottom line: to each his own.

Shawn Mitchell wrote: But truthfully, I'd love to mix in more sport, and not just for the strength training. I'd like to enjoy the pure, steep fun of it, with a bit less of the pucker that trad can provoke.

I agree, sport gives me the ability to enjoy purely climbing without really being scared for my life the way I sometimes have been trad climbing. I don't go sport climbing because I think it is going to make me stronger for trad. Thats what the gym is for. I go sport climbing because it is A LOT of fun and I am able to climb more pitches. More climbing equals more fun!

However when I compare the ascents I have made sport climbing to those I have made on trad climbs, I realize that I feel a much stronger emotion when I top out a trad climb.

But that't not to say that I wasn't super psyched the first time I onsited a 5.10 sport climb(underdog at rumney).....that climb was sweeeeeet!

Shawn Mitchell wrote: I guess I was parting company with Ben who thinks his experience is richer for the near absence of sport climbing; I'd like to enrich my experience with a bit more of that. But I can't argue with Ben's bottom line: to each his own.

Well said, I am sure Ben's first lead was trad climbing, and maybe he started climbing when sport climbing wasn't as popular, maybe not. Maybe he doesn't like the idea of trusting his safety to a stranger who placed a few bolts on a route. But like he said to each his own. I don't knock sport climbing at all because thats how I started leading and I was able to experience the joys of it wholeheartedly. But if one day I fall on a bolt and it fails, I will be so mad at myself (if im not dead) for putting my safety on lead in the hands of another person.

mobley wrote: I like that. since a 5.8 gear climb at the gunks could translate to a 5.10+ on sport in other places I especially like your quote. climbing is fun whether you boulder, clip bolts or do crack. how about this - specializing is for grade whores.

well said sir, well said

mschlocker wrote:Once you get proficient at placing gear it's all just climbing.

well put sir...

Yes, while sport climbing you can gain strength and technique. But, the best wayt to get better at 5.9 trad climbing is 5.9 trad climbing. The best way to get better at 5.11 trad climbing is 5.11 trad climbing. With some experienced you will realize trad gear is super solid when well placed in good rock. Many people may find this hard to believe, but I find sport more scary than trad for the most part. With trad, I know the quality of the gear, I know when it was placed and by whom. Bolts, not so much. I know nothing about the qualifications of the person that placed the bolts. Also, in the coming years many bolts will come of age and more bolt failures may occurs. Yet, most people blindly trust these aging bolts.

Shawn Mitchell wrote:I guess I was parting company with Ben who thinks his experience is richer for the near absence of sport climbing

Ben's sort of a special case. He was forced by Shannon Stegg and Paul Barnes to undergo aversion therapy, kinda like in the movie "A Clockwork Orange." They tied him to a chair and used specially-modified gri-gri's to hold his eyes open, then they made him watch hours of sport climbing videos while funnelling Milk of Magnesia down his gullet as Boy George tunes played at high volume in the background.

So maybe you can sympathize with why Ben doesn't enjoy sport climbing a whole lot. :)

JL

Phil Lauffen wrote:Ice climbing is scary and expensive. Don't do it.

Says who?? How are you to tell someone your opinion of something that you think is scary? And for being expensive, how do you know that he doesn't have some extra cash lying around. Ice climbing is great and when you are learning to climb, which will for sure be on TR, it is safe and if you are comfortable on a rope, then you shouldn't be scared. I for the most part climb traditionally and have little sport climbing under my belt. Just my opinion of you, Phil, telling someone about something they have never done and you probably have little experience with.

saxfiend wrote: Ben's sort of a special case. He was forced by Shannon Stegg and Paul Barnes to undergo aversion therapy, kinda like in the movie "A Clockwork Orange." They tied him to a chair and used specially-modified gri-gri's to hold his eyes open, then they made him watch hours of sport climbing videos while funnelling Milk of Magnesia down his gullet as Boy George tunes played at high volume in the background. So maybe you can sympathize with why Ben doesn't enjoy sport climbing a whole lot. :) JL

That explains the twitch you can feel in some of his posts too!

For the record, I value trad above all. It would just be fun and interesting to mix in more sport.

Greg D wrote:With some experienced you will realize trad gear is super solid when well placed in good rock. Many people may find this hard to believe, but I find sport more scary than trad for the most part. With trad, I know the quality of the gear, I know when it was placed and by whom. Bolts, not so much. I know nothing about the qualifications of the person that placed the bolts. Also, in the coming years many bolts will come of age and more bolt failures may occurs. Yet, most people blindly trust these aging bolts.

Agree trad gear can be bomber, but clipping is still easier than hanging and placing.
As to reliability, if you grew up (more or less) trusting 1/4" button heads, modern sport bolts feel like bridge anchors. They also look big enough to see if cracks and fatigue are present. Maybe that's an illusion.
Does anyone know the physics? Are modern bolts expected to "age" in time frames like a decade or two, or something much longer?

People never mention that sport climbing helps your footwork, but I think it really does. Sport climbing isn't just about yanking your way up the wall. It's about control, efficiency, and fluidity.

Every strong sport climber I know has impeccable footwork. This footwork is invaluable on any kind of climbing, be it trad, sport, or ice. Whatever footwork I have, I owe to my time sport climbing.

Plus, sport climbing IS scary when you have to slot that overhead heel-toe cam at the crux. Yikes!

This makes me think of what Jay was like when I first met him. He was still strongly in the old-school Devil's Lake camp at the time (anti-bolts, belay sitting down while drinking Pabst, shortest fall possible, strap your belayer to the tree).

Anyway, he was a train wreck at Rumney for several years, during which he developed better footwork and more nuanced belay skills (thank God). I remember him blowing past bolts in the middle of cruxes over ledges, terrifying locals who promptly evacuated the crag. Unaccustomed to dealing with moves at the very limit of his abilities, he skipped clips, blew clips, fell clipping, and avoided well-protected steep moves in favor of traversing wildly off-route up the line of weakness (great trad climbing skill, but not really the point when sport climbing). One time, onsighting with the subtlety of a stampeding elephant, he avoided an entire bolted roof in favor of traversing across the unprotected (and untraveled) vertical face below, risking at least a 40 footer into a corner. I don't know whether that was the bravest onsight I've ever seen, the stupidist, or just an FA of a weird, mediocre variation.

So, before sport climbing, Jay knew how to safely protect a trad route that was within his ability, and he knew how to not fall when falling was not an option. Through sport climbing, he learned how to fall safely, find rests, and push the limits of physical ability without damaging himself. This, in turn, sent his ability to onsight traditional routes through the roof (pun intended).

ouch.