Climbing harder by not climbing hard?

John RB wrote:

Yeah, I noticed in RCTM that during the hangboard cycle you don't get to climb at all (or do any other climbing training).  Seems pretty harsh.

A letter grade per cycle sounds pretty promising, but (1) I don't even know what grade I climb (it depends A TON on the style of climbing, in fact) and (2) surely this "letter grade per cycle" must slow down fairly quickly, or we'd be seeing 5.52d routes.

I think both Andersons slowed down in mid 13, and are creeping along in mid to upper 14 but at a grade every couple years pace. 

Just at counterpoint here.   I was on a road trip with my girlfriend (now wife) and we mostly climbed nothing harder than 5.8, all day, long routes, for a few weeks. But once and a while I would get on a solid pitch, and 5.11 never felt easier. 

I was literally climbing harder by not climbing hard

Even still, Total respect for the hangboards and other dedicated training...it's done me wonders and I wish I had started training 15 years earlier. But it's not the only path

JohnnyG wrote:

Just at counterpoint here.   I was on a road trip with my girlfriend (now wife) and we mostly climbed nothing harder than 5.8, all day, long routes, for a few weeks. But once and a while I would get on a solid pitch, and 5.11 never felt easier. 

I was literally climbing harder by not climbing hard

Even still, Total respect for the hangboards and other dedicated training...it's done me wonders and I wish I had started training 15 years earlier. But it's not the only path

I was honestly quite surprised that everyone here said "no" to my OP about climbing harder without climbing hard.  I fully expected someone to suggest that maybe climbing (say) a ton of laps on an 11a would make me pretty capable of climbing an 11c endurance pitch (but perhaps not an 11c with one bouldery crux).  In other words, I thought someone would say, "it depends on the type of route you're hoping to climb."

In any case, I've decided to start hangboarding.  I need my fingers to stop being sore from all the bouldering I've done lately, so I'm just resting (or climbing up to 5.6) waiting for them to heal up.

JohnnyG wrote:

Just at counterpoint here.   I was on a road trip with my girlfriend (now wife) and we mostly climbed nothing harder than 5.8, all day, long routes, for a few weeks. But once and a while I would get on a solid pitch, and 5.11 never felt easier. 

I was literally climbing harder by not climbing hard

But we have to ask, at what grade were you physically able to climb at the beginning of your road trip? If 5.8s were your max, and after a few weeks of climbing only 5.8s you all the sudden can climb 5.11s, I would be super impressed. But I think more likely that you were already physically capable of climbing 5.11s when you started your road trip, a bunch of mileage on real rock just helped you get more efficient with your climbing.

John RB wrote:

I was honestly quite surprised that everyone here said "no" to my OP about climbing harder without climbing hard.  I fully expected someone to suggest that maybe climbing (say) a ton of laps on an 11a would make me pretty capable of climbing an 11c endurance pitch (but perhaps not an 11c with one bouldery crux).  In other words, I thought someone would say, "it depends on the type of route you're hoping to climb."

In any case, I've decided to start hangboarding.  I need my fingers to stop being sore from all the bouldering I've done lately, so I'm just resting (or climbing up to 5.6) waiting for them to heal up.

Probably because you specifically asked about getting STRONGER in order to complete crimpy routes that require finger strength.

John RB wrote:

I was honestly quite surprised that everyone here said "no" to my OP about climbing harder without climbing hard.  I fully expected someone to suggest that maybe climbing (say) a ton of laps on an 11a would make me pretty capable of climbing an 11c endurance pitch

The only thing one could achieve via climbing a top of laps on an 11a being unable to top out 11b/c is to polish theirs shitty technique to brilliantly shitty level.

Any time we do something we learn to do it better. When climbing with a shitty technique one learns how to make theirs technique more shitty. High volume training is not necessary beneficial.

Pavel Burov wrote:

The only thing one could achieve via climbing a top of laps on an 11a being unable to top out 11b/c is to polish theirs shitty technique to brilliantly shitty level.

Any time we do something we learn to do it better. When climbing with a shitty technique one learns how to make theirs technique more shitty. High volume training is not necessary beneficial.

I think building new skills is best done at a submaximal level, then later refined at your limit. As long as you're not repeating the same 11a over and over, and are constantly trying to climb them better, this is an ok approach to working technique (at least one aspect of technique). I would take it further and do it in the 10b-c range. Basically flash level or a letter below. Of course this type of work needs to be accompanied by much harder training, such as the hangboard, bouldering in the V4-5 range, and projecting limit routes. 

Jon Frisby wrote:

I think building new skills is best done at a submaximal level, then later refined at your limit.

It depends. BTW, talking about climbing technique skilss, there is a more or less detailed forum post on the topic: https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/113643425/progressing-from-v2-to-v3-boulders#ForumMessage-113645427

Basically the idea is to isolate the task in hands to have at least stress as possible. Ideally a student should have the only source of stress - the actual task. Limit (or near-the-limit) grades are stressfull. Thus, they could be good to learn how to e.g. deal with stress. Although not as good to learn how to e.g. climb effectively. Building different kinds of skills require different training environments.

Anyway, huge volumes of shitty climbing is nothing good in the context of learning and training for climbing.

What about Base fitness Pavel?  A lot of training programs recommend starting with huge volumes of low intensity climbing.

Ted Pinson wrote:

What about Base fitness Pavel? 

The must. With no fitness there is no climbing.

 A lot of training programs recommend starting with huge volumes of low intensity climbing.

Sounds smart.

Not to answer for Pavel, but there's an important distinction between low level, focused climbing and "huge volumes of shitty climbing." 

I'm not a huge fan of the ARC style level of difficulty. I prefer to do doubles or triples on climbs a couple letter grades below my onsight level. I think you need that 2-5 minute endurance more often than the 20 minute endurance, so I figured it made more sense to focus on that. My endurance and in-route recovery is better now than when I trained super low.

aikibujin wrote:

But we have to ask, at what grade were you physically able to climb at the beginning of your road trip? If 5.8s were your max, and after a few weeks of climbing only 5.8s you all the sudden can climb 5.11s, I would be super impressed. But I think more likely that you were already physically capable of climbing 5.11s when you started your road trip, a bunch of mileage on real rock just helped you get more efficient with your climbing.

Also, if that person had been climbing/training hard before the trip, a few weeks of deloading by climbing really easy would be very effective at allowing recovering and peak performance. So it isn't surprising that backing off for s few weeks allowed him to climb better.

Unfortunately, rest and tapering only works if preceded by hard training. So climbing easy all the time won't help you get much better.

Jon Frisby wrote:

 there's an important distinction between low level, focused climbing and "huge volumes of shitty climbing." 

Indeed. Exactly what I was talking about a bit above.

Just to be a little bit more specific.

Consider a climber (to be referred as she below) failing to climb 5.11b.

Should she climb at 5.10d/5.11a grades? Sure. This is her (sub)maximal grade, thus it provides a huge opportunity to improve her climbing style and technique as well as climbing at (or slightly below) the limit skills. One possible schedule is to first send it at any cost (learn here how to send - learn the route top to bottom, search for rests/shake-outs, raise self-control, and self-awareness, and relaxation, and breathing when in rest position, learn how pre-climb rituals could help, etc, etc, etc), then to climb it with "sending is nothing, getting better is everything" attitude - try to perform any and every move like perfect. Stay in control. Feel in balance. When anything goes wrong jump off, take a rest, and try to decipher the move. This is a focused technical skills training. A hard cognitive activity. Thus it should never be taken in huge volumes.

Should she climb at 5.10a/5.10b grades? Sure. A lot. This is a random technical skills training. She'd better do it a lot (I mean a LOT). Although she should take care about her climbing style. If a move feels not right, jump off (c'mon, she can send 5.11a, who cares about those training routes?) and focuse on it, great news - this is an extremely good route to work the next week or two.

The last but not the least. There is no single chance she can climb 5.11a focused and in like perfect style. Thus huge 5.11a volumes is bad in the context of progression in her climbing.

Pavel Burov wrote:

Just to be a little bit more specific.

Consider a climber (to be referred as she below) failing to climb 5.11b.

Should she climb at 5.10d/5.11a grades? Sure. This is her (sub)maximal grade, thus it provides a huge opportunity to improve her climbing style and technique as well as climbing at (or slightly below) the limit skills. One possible schedule is to first send it at any cost, then to climb it with "sending is nothing, getting better is everything" attitude - try to perform any and every move like perfect. Stay in control. Feel in balance. When anything goes wrong jump off, take a rest, and try to decipher the move. This is a focused technical skills training. A hard cognitive activity. Thus it should never be taken in huge volumes.

Should she climb at 5.10a/5.10b grades? Sure. A lot. This is a random technical skills training. She'd better do it a lot (I mean a LOT). Although she should take care about her climbing style. If a move feels not right, jump off (c'mon, she can send 5.11a, who cares about those training routes?) and focuse on it, great news - this is an extremely good route to work the next week or two.

The last but not the least. There is no single chance she can climb 5.11a focused and in like perfect style. Thus huge 5.11a volumes is bad in the context of progression in her climbing.

man you skipped the two grades I mentioned ;)

Ok, so by “shitty climbing” you mean poorly executed, not necessarily lower grade?

Ted Pinson wrote:

Ok, so by “shitty climbing” you mean poorly executed, not necessarily lower grade?

Sure.

Grades has not that much in common with quality of climbing.

Pavel Burov wrote:

The only thing one could achieve via climbing a top of laps on an 11a being unable to top out 11b/c is to polish theirs shitty technique to brilliantly shitty level.

Any time we do something we learn to do it better. When climbing with a shitty technique one learns how to make theirs technique more shitty. High volume training is not necessary beneficial.

Consider the route Butterballs in Yosemite (11c fingers).  https://www.mountainproject.com/v/105936538

This route doesn't have a single move harder than 10c (but probably not many below 10c) and it's straight up vertical.  Don't you think doing a lot of laps on an 11a finger crack would help?

John RB wrote:

Don't you think doing a lot of laps on an 11a finger crack would help?

Depends on your goals and your current skills set.

John, there are definitely times when laps on a moderate route will provide a similar training effect to a harder route in the manner you are describing (assuming appropriate work rest cycles and dialing up of intensity), but Pavel is speaking to the OP, who wants to pull some mid-11 crimps. Lapping easier routes won't help there. Totally different scenario from your finger crack