Anyone can climb V10/5.14-

Chris Stockingwrote:

Really?! That seems like close to elite one-hand strength, but very pedestrian for two-hands. 

Any ideas why you seem to be so strong with one-handed hangs? I have basically the opposite results: one-handed hangs that are much weaker than you'd expect from my two-handed hangs. Any suggestions for how to improve? 

In early march/late February I stopped going to the gym because of COVID (why people were going to the gym at this point and then decided once the gyms closed then no one should be climbing outside seemed so hypocritical I wanted to throw up) and just went and climbed outside or hang boarded so this is 4 months of training it. Beast fingers published a study that pretty much said if you can hang body weight on 1 arm you should be able to climb v10 so I figured that was a really good target goal because it was so easy to measure. I started by just hanging on the jugs of my hangboard with one arm so I got better shoulder stability. Then I started hanging in the deeper pocket with as much assistance as I could. Once I felt pretty stable I reduced the weight assistance to the point I could hang one arm in a 2 inch deep pocket. Then I added back weight assistance and had a shallower pockets to the point I am at today. I do think since my hangboard is plastic and not wood that is significantly easier. To make my pockets more shallow I stuffed paper in them so that if I grabbed the paper I would slide out.  I guess I probably over trained the one arm but making the two arms harder requires more weights than I currently have.  TLDR just do what you would do with two hands but with one hand.

I do think my technique could improve a lot but the exits are practically designed for tall people, I skip all the cruxs by reaching then standing. Strong hands + length means + strong knee bars I don't have to ever be creative with body movement. I see you have tried under arrest which once I found a knee bar and just decided to skip most the moves at the top it was a lot easier.

I also didn't know I should train the half crimp until recently. My full crimp is actually my strongest grip but I avoid using it so I don't destroy my fingers but everything I measure is from sloth grip (3 finger drag).

NO! You do not need strength to practice & build good technique. Practicing good technique will build strength. Practice is about learning technique & using it.
For those of you who get it.
Johnny Wooden, one of the greatest couches of all time started each season off teaching his players how to put on their socks. If you want to perform at a championship level you start at the bottom and you build success from there. 

Princess Puppy Lovrwrote:

But if I could redpoint 12+ don't you think I could go harder than a moonboard v5? 

If the 12+ climbs you are sending have multiple cruxes with some steady 5.11 in between, then those cruxes are likely easier than moonboard V5.  If your 12+ had a single crux of several moves, then that's, imho, comparable to a moonboard V5 (at least in my neck of the woods).  Most of what I climb has the hardest crux equal to the climbs grade, and seems like V4=512b/c, V5=12+, V6=13- etc.

And regarding technique, seems like good climbers have a better natural ability to understand where their center of gravity is relative to their current and next hand and foot placements.

Mark Frumkinwrote: NO! You do not need strength to practice & build good technique. Practicing good technique will build strength. Practice is about learning technique & using it.
For those of you who get it.
Johnny Wooden, one of the greatest couches of all time started each season off teaching his players how to put on their socks. If you want to perform at a championship level you start at the bottom and you build success from there. 

I don't think this is quite true as a blanket statement. For example, there's no point in trying to learn the intricate technique involved in doing a strict front lever when you don't have the shoulder strength to try it without getting injured (ask me how I know this...). Or in trying to learn the transition from pulling to pushing in a muscle up. I do agree that you can build good technique on something less steep without the requisite strength, but on overhang you just have to be strong enough and have endurance enough to even try to learn the technique of climbing overhang. If it takes someone everything they've got just to stay on the wall, then there's no way they can start to learn the technique invovled with being efficient with their movement

First, you put on the socks, then you work your way up, learning the proper way to use your body for each thing you need to do - to do what you want to do. 

snowdenroadwrote:

..... then those cruxes are likely easier than moonboard V5.  

This thread was slowly, but surely, heading off the road but it just took a real hard turn in to the abyss.

Théo Blass has climbed Souvenirs du pic 5.14b in Saint Guilhem le Desertin, France, and has become the youngest climber to send the grade at only 10 years old. It took him less than 10 sessions this year to get the redpoint.

Yup. We’re pretty much all the same. 

"Anyone can climb V10/5.14-"

just like anyone can be president.

Skimmed this. Surprised no one has mentioned that mediocre normal-ass climbers with normal-ass genetics like me injure the shit out of our tendons and cartilage when we "try harder". 

Chase Morganwrote: Skimmed this. Surprised no one has mentioned that mediocre normal-ass climbers with normal-ass genetics like me injure the shit out of our tendons and cartilage when we "try harder". 

I did!

anyone can troll T99.

I started bouldering at 50. I've now been climbing for 8 years and am yet to send a V5. I've climbed grade 23 sports and 15 trad (5.11d and 5.8). I climb 3 or four days a week, 2 or 3 days bouldering 2 or 3 days top roping or sports. I've been able to do 21 laps of a grade 21 on TR, so I feel my endurance is very good. However, I know it sounds negative but there's no way I could do a V10. I MIGHT be able to manage a V5 or V6 before I die if the style suits me but I think the idea that anyone can do a V10 is a bit silly.
​Just my opinion. 

Lets dissect the comment  "... athletic disposition and adequate training, time, diet and rest, any average climber can attain v10/5.14-"  First, what is meant by athletic disposition?  Does being a good runner qualify you to be a good climber?  Perhaps being good at gymnastics may well qualify you as a candidate.  Second, in order to adequately train and rest means not having a real job, especially a physical one that takes its toll in energy and time.  Third, Diet?  Well lots of people don't have a perfect diet and this is compounded with age.  It basically means staying thin and avoiding beer, ice cream, hamburgers and chips to name a few.  Lots of great climbers break the rules on diet at a young age and get anyway with it.  Excerise burns calories.  Get older and your metabolism slows down and you have to be more disciplined.

Not mentioned is that Motivation is what makes someone push their limits to climb hard.  Climbing hard requires the right lifestyle and commitment to climb and train fanatically to achieve 5.14-.  The comment is basically a sales pitch to convince someone to get a gym membership and a coach.  I've known many climbers who have climbed for decades and don't consistently redpoint 5.11d/12a.  This is especially true for people who have other interests and play other sports.  Most average climbers don't have the motivation.  In fact, I know some naturally gifted weekend warriors who don't have the motivation or can't devote enough time to the sport to attain the 5.14- grade.
 
Certainly the older you get, the harder it is to stay light and fit. Eventually hard climbing breaks your body down and leads to tendon, muscle and joint injuries.

Carl Schneiderwrote: I started bouldering at 50. I've now been climbing for 8 years and am yet to send a V5. I've climbed grade 23 sports and 15 trad (5.11d and 5.8). I climb 3 or four days a week, 2 or 3 days bouldering 2 or 3 days top roping or sports. I've been able to do 21 laps of a grade 21 on TR, so I feel my endurance is very good. However, I know it sounds negative but there's no way I could do a V10. I MIGHT be able to manage a V5 or V6 before I die if the style suits me but I think the idea that anyone can do a V10 is a bit silly.
Just my opinion. 

Anyone can do it if they give up everything fun in life and focus hard enough. You might not have any friends or a job or anything to help you get old outside of a homeless shelter but God Damn you were strong!

JohnWesely Weselywrote:

Tactics: The biggest tactical mistakes I see are people climbing tired because they don't rest enough, and wasting effort trying to send routes/boulders that they haven't refined the movement of yet. What happens when you give 100% effort to a route/boulder? You get tired real fast. Most people I see at the crag/boulders, will try figure out something that sort of works/might work and then start sieging the climb from the bottom. Better climbers will figure out the absolute best way to do every part of the climb before they start giving real physical effort. The better climber has a little more success and learns a little bit more from each climb than the average climber. When you extend this process over years, the average climber improves a little or maybe not at all, and the better climber improves quite a bit. A small benefit over time adds up. 

Technique: Learning technique is all about being open minded. You try something and it doesn't work. Do you try it again? maybe. Do you try it 10 times hoping to just get lucky? Not really a winning strategy. Try a move, if you are way off, try something very different. If your close, try something a little different. You have to be conscious of what your body is doing in space for this to work though, which means you have to be mindful and paying very close attention to the cues from your body. Oftentimes turning your foot, knee, or hip a few degrees is the difference between a move feeling easy or impossible.

The one thing I have found to be true is that better climbers are almost always operating on a higher level of technique and tactics than worse climbers. A lot of it has to be learned experencially, but there is also a ton to be learned by paying close attention to how better climbers approach climbing. There is no magic bullet, just the additive effect of mundane effort over time.

I think this is very insightful. And plan to try to implement some of this advice. 

At the same time, I feel confident that while everyone can improve their body awareness and movement analysis, some people start out at a higher level and some are innately able to improve more quickly and more capably. 

Karl Walterswrote:

I have only climbed as high as V9/12+. I don't really climb sport and my hardest sport send was a second burn because I went off route on the first. Anyways, I have terrible coordination, always sucked at sports, parents are even worse. When I was a junior in HS I was 135lb at 6 foot 3. I started weightlifting and by age 23 was around 230-240lbs and competed in powerlifting hitting a 702 squat, 425 bench, 605 deadlift. Got bored of that, lost most of the weight and raced bikes. At one point in time my 60min peak power was 5w/kg. As a climber I managed V4 my first time outside, V6 in 6 months, V7 in 7 months, V8 in 2 years, v9 in 2.5 years with injuries.

My point is mostly that I managed to do things faster than most because I was able to identify why people ended up not improving and I just avoided those mistakes. Many climbers never fully develop technique or power, don't accumulate enough sends and mileage when they start climbing outside, have piss poor body tension, are way too concerned about grades, get caught up in too many training programs they don't need, don't climb on steep walls enough, and don't ever work towards a goal (i.e. let's go social trad climbing even tho I wanna send some hard boulders). I'm sure I could find a soft V10 that suits me and tick it off just to say it's possible, but this is a total noob fallacy that would prevent progression.

This brings me to my final point, which is getting lost- anyone can probably get really good at figuring out what they are good at and search long and hard for just the right climb to tick a V10/14-,  but that is not the same as "climbing V10/14-" to me. The former is an exercise in luck while the latter is a more complete climber. The two are very, very different. I think the Anderson Brothers are a great example of how anyone can accomplish the first and have definitely become the second.

Tough post to read. Is it about numbers or not? Hard to tell.

Luke Bertelsenwrote: This thread was slowly, but surely, heading off the road but it just took a real hard turn in to the abyss.

Can ANYONE climb moonboard v10 if they just work hard enough?

Spencer Cwrote:

Can ANYONE climb moonboard v10 if they just work hard enough?

Sorry, you lost me there.  I was simply making an attempt to point out that the convo had derailed a bit.  

Don’t get me wrong the story about the power lifter turned turned climber really piqued my interest, but I’m still waiting for someone to give a better take on the original question. As I said initially I think it’s totally false - you’re average fit climber will not eventually be able to climb V10/5.14a.

Rest is as big a part of training as anything else, but pros turn it on when they have to.
Walter Payton's 275 yard game sick with the flu. On the training table covered with towels shivering with fever minutes before the game. Then 275 yards.
First, you learn to put the socks on properly so that you never have a problem with our feet. Then you slowly and purposely learn everything you need to know as you practice harder than you thought possible & then you go out sick as shit & totally physically & mentally destroy 12 men much larger than you.
Walter Payton was not just talented he worked hard than anyone! And every step he took in life he took with pride.
Built from the bottom up.

genetic limits are unfortunately likely. to define 'genetic limit' i'll say that it's the propensity to get injured before you get strong. no offense, but my opinion is that podcasts are rarely with cellular and molecular biologists and instead have a proclivity to elite athletes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5571768/pdf/10.1177_2325967117724416.pdf
this article follows tendinopathy cases with respect to gene tracking.
south africans and australians seem to have a mutation in 3 genes for tenascin-C, a critical component of tendon repair. specifically, nucleotide sequences that are over and under expressed resulting in a mutated protein. this could significantly impact the protein's final conformation and unfortunately, the p value supports this.
"... (P< .001) within the TNC gene among South African recreational athletes suffering ..."

another gene of interest called COL5A1 is a blueprint for type V collagen. COL5A1 is also linked with increased tendinopathies, this time bicep instead of achilles. this is really damning, i feel, because it eliminates any localization effects or skewing of activities. for example, if football were prevalent, you may expect high correlations with countries or regions that include football as a common event. or if you're a doubter, you may wonder if researchers specifically chose regions which yield convincing p values for publishing.
"overrepresentation of the AGGG/AGGG variant of rs71746744 (P=.008), the –/– ATCT var-iant of rs16399 (P=.015), and the TT variant of rs1134170(P=.014) "
biology refresher: basically, tendons are built from DNA sequences with the 4 letters A G C T. sequences using the rwong leettrs can make sentences incomprehensible when translating them into proteins.

with p values that low, the significance is substantial. this means that the likelihood of corrections due to better data is decently low.  

most of the studies show no association to tendon injury and the COL class of genes including COL11A1, COL12A1 and COL14A1 which code for tendons. which is promising because it means that everyone bought the same parts kit for 'Strong Climber'. it's just that some people have incorrect instructions shipped  (looking at tenascin-C and COL5). may be an interesting area of research for gene therapy. imagine a vector that fixes the nucleotide residues to correctly express COL5, it means you could train 5 days a week and twice on sunday. most of the other genes turned up negative for contributing - growth factors, interleukins, apoptosis signaling, all seem to have no effect. however, some of the P values are unconvincing. which means that potentially these factors might be a problem; with it an entire chain of protein interactions. so more studies would be helpful in eliminating what is or isn't affecting the tendinopathy.

climb on. . . or maybe not, apparently.