How many years does it really take to climb an 8a?

Your kidding.   8a. =  5.13 (easy)

There’s no way  !!!

David Bwrote:

I don't have problem with folks sharing their anecdotal experiences, but I do have problem with folks preaching how everyone else can do the same based on their own anecdotal experiences. 

In other words - you want to invalidate other people's opinions based on their personal experiences by calling it "preaching" because it doesn't align with what you believe to be true?  This sort of one-way street arrangement doesn't exactly create stimulating conversation or debate, and presupposes that your viewpoint is correct.  If you disagree, your point could be made more effectively by providing contrary evidence from your own personal experiences.

If a coach sees more potential in an athlete than they see in themselves, who is correct in this situation?  Both can be right in their own minds.

Also, I'd like to argue that saying "climbers have more potential in them than they realize" is a positive thing to say about the sport.  Instead of discounting it as "preachy" or condescending, why not take it as encouragement?  I'd certainly rather have someone tell me I have more potential than I realize than the opposite.  

I notice most peeps who actually climb 8a leave MP for 8a.nu anyway, so who are we to speculate...

Reese Stanleywrote:

In other words - you want to invalidate other people's opinions based on their personal experiences by calling it "preaching" because it doesn't align with what you believe to be true?  This sort of one-way street arrangement doesn't exactly create stimulating conversation or debate, and presupposes that your viewpoint is correct.  If you disagree, your point could be made more effectively by providing contrary evidence from your own personal experiences.

If a coach sees more potential in an athlete than they see in themselves, who is correct in this situation?  Both can be right in their own minds.

Also, I'd like to argue that saying "climbers have more potential in them than they realize" is a positive thing to say about the sport.  Instead of discounting it as "preachy" or condescending, why not take it as encouragement?  I'd certainly rather have someone tell me I have more potential than I realize than the opposite.  

Sure, I can provide contrary evidence from my own personal experience that I don't climb 8a despite climbing and training for x years (and I'm sure many other can say the same thing too), but the folks here who think "anyone regardless of genetics can climb 8a if they work hard enough" are just going to reply and say that I don't work hard enough.

Using your own words, this sort of one-way street arrangement doesn't exactly create stimulating conversation or debate, and presupposes that their viewpoint is correct.

And to be clear, I have no problem with your post saying "climbers have more potential in them than they realize". I have problems with people claiming "anyone regardless of genetics can climb 8a if they work hard enough" which implies that the climber is the sole entity to blame if they fail to achieve 8a. 

ryan climbs sometimes wrote:

In Indian creek it is easy 

Tru! 

How many years to climb Belly Full of Bad Berries ???

Question for  all you advocates of “you just have to train hard, it worked for me” could you detail exactly what your training consisted of, how many hours a week, what else did/do you have going on in your life - jobs, relationships/family.  Have you ever had a serious injury?  It does sound a bit like you are still in the honeymoon phase

OP can probably lock the thread now. We have reached petty posting

Here is another example of how personal perspective factors in more than one would think. When I was a new climber, 5.13 was considered actually hard. So I, a gym class reject of dubious athletic ability, decided that I would be happy climbing 5.12+.  In five years of climbing, with access to rather archaic gyms and rather primitive understanding of training, I managed to scratch my way up a few 5.12c’s and one “d.”  There I remain stuck for about two decades.  Because, 5.13 was hard!

I took a break for bike racing, and when I came back to climbing I was well into my late 40s. By then 5.13 was rather pedestrian, and I decided that if I was going to climb the grade, the time was now. Now, in my 50s, weaker and fatter,I have climbed several.12d’s and am very close on at least two .13a/b’s. Likewise, in the past, I never would have considered warming up on a 5.12. Now it is pretty standard. I’m not any more talented or gifted, I’d say less so, but I’m climbing harder grades because I think I can.

Reese Stanleywrote:

In other words - you want to invalidate other people's opinions based on their personal experiences by calling it "preaching" because it doesn't align with what you believe to be true? 

Reese Stanley, you have mastered a fine art of shifting the goal posts. ;) 

David Bwrote:

Sure, I can provide contrary evidence from my own personal experience that I don't climb 8a despite climbing and training for x years (and I'm sure many other can say the same thing too), but the folks here who think "anyone regardless of genetics can climb 8a if they work hard enough" are just going to reply and say that I don't work hard enough.

Using your own words, this sort of one-way street arrangement doesn't exactly create stimulating conversation or debate, and presupposes that their viewpoint is correct.

And to be clear, I have no problem with your post saying "climbers have more potential in them than they realize". I have problems with people claiming "anyone regardless of genetics can climb 8a if they work hard enough" which implies that the climber is the sole entity to blame if they fail to achieve 8a. 

I hardly think this is a one-way street arrangement anymore - your response offered insight and value to the conversation.  I asked you for specific feedback and you responded honestly and thoughtfully.

Why isn't it a valid criticism to say that people aren't working hard enough?  It's rude to say but, it isn't entirely wrong.  You could certainly say that I'm not working hard enough or achieving my true potential.  I climb 2-3 days a week, and I don't train otherwise.  It is 100% fact that I could be doing more to progress.  But, I have limited time.  I have a relationship, a job, family, friends, and other hobbies which I value greatly.  I'm guessing that 95% of all climbers are in much the same boat.  Which is kind of the whole point of what I'm getting at - saying that people "aren't working hard enough" is more or less a fact.  More people could be achieving 8a without a doubt, and yes, it is the climber who is to blame most of the time. That doesn't mean that they are somehow lesser for not climbing 8a, or reaching their full potential.  Life isn't just about climbing, and it's ridiculous to tell someone to climb more over the internet.

For the sake of this debate, it only makes sense to consider someone's full potential if they dedicated themselves to the sport.  If this debate were rooted in reality, it would be pointless to have.  In reality - we already have our answer to this debate:  8a is incredibly difficult to achieve and not many people will achieve it in their lifetime.  So, if you're going to make the claim that "anyone can send 8a" it has to be in a theoretical world, not one based in reality.  In other words - if you took a large random sample of people in their physical prime and gave them unlimited resources and time, could they end 8a?  I'd guess that around 65-75% could do it.

Yurywrote:

Reese Stanley, you have mastered a fine art of shifting the goal posts. ;) 

I'VE MASTERED THE ART OF THE SHIFT KEY TOO

David Bwrote:

Sure, I can provide contrary evidence from my own personal experience that I don't climb 8a despite climbing and training for x years (and I'm sure many other can say the same thing too), but the folks here who think "anyone regardless of genetics can climb 8a if they work hard enough" are just going to reply and say that I don't work hard enough.

There are surely training companies (such as Power climbing and lattice) that have collected hundreds of data points on the matter…and I’m going to go out on a limb and say the anyone-regardless-of-genetics crowd is going to win this argument. Outliers such as physical disabilities aside, obviously. I’m sure if you did some digging you could find the numbers.  

In any regard, 5.13b is a fairly routine grade for people whose main discipline is climbing. In other words they don’t climb below their limit when they come into the gym or have other activities such as Mtn biking, trail running, pickleball, etc to take away time from climbing. 

Not Not MP Adminwrote:

There are surely training companies (such as Power climbing and lattice) that have collected hundreds of data points on the matter…and I’m going to go out on a limb and say the anyone-regardless-of-genetics crowd is going to win this argument. Outliers such as physical disabilities aside, obviously. I’m sure if you did some digging you could find the numbers.  

I'm glad you brought up data - I'm familiar with the data from Lattice and the Power Company. I have not seen any data to suggest that "anyone can climb 8a regardless of genetics barring physical disabilities". I'd love to be proven wrong if you could dig up the numbers that support your claim and share it with everyone here. 

Please keep in mind that P(years took to climb 8a) != P( years took to climb 8a  |  had climbed 8a ). A lot of the analysis I have seen show some variation of the latter (including OP's analysis at 1:46 in their video) while the question we have here ("anyone can climb 8a regardless of genetics barring physical disabilities") demands some variation of the former.

David Bwrote:

I'm glad you brought up data - I'm familiar with the data from Lattice and the Power Company. I have not seen any data to suggest that "anyone can climb 8a regardless of genetics barring physical disabilities". I'd love to be proven wrong if you could dig up the numbers that support your claim and share it with everyone here. 

Are you though? What does their data say? How many of their climbers were able to, or already climbed 8a (or V8 boulder)? Hundreds? Thousands?

There are literally thousands of climbers who have climbed 8a (and even more who have climbed V8, the crux equivalent) that can be represented as data points for "anyone" climbing 8a. I honestly have no idea why you don't think that anyone without a physical disability (and even those who do exhibit physical disabilities) is capable of climbing 8a. Nearly any limiting factor can be overcome by specific training and therefore supports everyone stating that anyone can climb 8a. Like what is a factor that would prohibit someone from being able to physically climb 8a? The only reason someone would not be able climb 8a (if that is their sole goal) is due to not trying/training hard, or smart, enough.

Not Not MP Adminwrote:

Are you though? What does their data say? How many of their climbers were able to, or already climbed 8a (or V8 boulder)? Hundreds? Thousands?

For the Power Company's data, someone got a hold of their data and did some visualization on Kaggle. It looks like they have a sample size of 612 self-reported individuals in their dataset as of September 2022, with about less than half of them with a max boulder grade of V8 and above.

For Lattice, I have seen a lot of their graphs of various strength measures vs max grades, but unfortunately they never released their data publicly so I have no idea what they sample size is. From their earlier blog post, it looks like less than 40% of their clients are redpointing 8a and above. 

Note that both Power Company and Lattice rely on self-reported data from individuals who are training and performance oriented, so their distributions of max grades are likely very different from that of the general population. 

There are literally thousands of climbers who have climbed 8a (and even more who have climbed V8, the crux equivalent) that can be represented as data points for "anyone" climbing 8a. 

Are you serious? Please read up on the fallacy of composition. Just because thousands of climbers have climbed 8a doesn't logically imply that everyone can climb 8a. 

I honestly have no idea why you don't think that anyone without a physical disability (and even those who do exhibit physical disabilities) is capable of climbing 8a. Nearly any limiting factor can be overcome by specific training and therefore supports everyone stating that anyone can climb 8a. Like what is a factor that would prohibit someone from being able to physically climb 8a? The only reason someone would not be able climb 8a (if that is their sole goal) is due to not trying/training hard, or smart, enough.

Just a reminder that it was you who claimed there exists data to support your hypothesis that everyone can climb 8a, so I believe it was on you to provide the burden of proof. 

Not Not MP Adminwrote: Like what is a factor that would prohibit someone from being able to physically climb 8a?

Hmm, firstly, I know a woman with really wide hips. Not fat, her bones are that wide. Twists/drop knees literally don't work well for her, if she goes side on to the wall, she may as well have just sagged her centre of gravity away by like a foot.

Secondly, most of the "factors" are not visible, and are related to how much the body responds to training stimulus. There's an infamous study about weight training, where under the same diet and training program (and all the sessions were supervised, it was not self reported) half the study group had 40% gains and the other half gained nothing, and one poor subject even lost 2% strength. researchgate.net/publicatio…

David Bwrote:

Are you serious? Please read up on the fallacy of composition. Just because thousands of climbers have climbed 8a doesn't logically imply that everyone can climb 8a. 

So thousands of people have climbed 8a supports your hypothesis that not everyone can climb 8a? Now that doesn’t make much sense. There’s far more data out there suggesting that, provided the correct training protocols, anyone can climb 8a. You implying that a grade that gets climbed literally everyday by average, ordinary people is impossible for some is boggling to me. We aren’t talking about making an NBA roster lol 

Just a reminder that it was you who claimed there exists data to support your hypothesis that everyone can climb 8a, so I believe it was on you to provide the burden of proof.

Where’s my burden of proof? Where’s the data and/or evidence to show that not anyone can climb 8a? I’ll also ask again; what is a limiting factor that would prohibit a normal person from being able to climb 8a if that was their sole goal?

Sam M wrote:

Hmm, firstly, I know a woman with really wide hips. Not fat, her bones are that wide. Twists/drop knees literally don't work well for her, if she goes side on to the wall, she may as well have just sagged her centre of gravity away by like a foot.

That’s unfortunate. It’s also a poor excuse to say you aren’t able to climb 8a. Your “friend” could do a variety of strength and/or mobility workouts to overcome this. Additionally, there are thousands of 8a’s your “friend” has to choose from that would surely eliminate the need to do such a specific and unique move. 

Secondly, most of the "factors" are not visible, and are related to how much the body responds to training stimulus. There's an infamous study about weight training, where under the same diet and training program (and all the sessions were supervised, it was not self reported) half the study group had 40% gains and the other half gained nothing, and one poor subject even lost 2% strength. researchgate.net/publicatio…

Lol first off weight training and climbing have many similarities, but it’s not an equal comparison as technique, strategy, and planning are all equally important in route climbing. Secondly, how much data is out there by people like Eva Lopez and lattice showing how effective their training methods are. Training methods specific to climbing 8a, and the instance we are discussing. The study you linked has little relevance to climbing 8a. 

There seem to be two factors affecting the ability of ‘anyone’ to climb 8a, that don’t seem to have been really discussed, beyond passing mention, so far in this thread.

One factor is injury—-either repetitive/‘overuse’ or sudden/traumatic. The amount and nature of the training required for the ‘average Jill or Joe’ who is working towards climbing at that level, even using a well-structured program, makes repetitive stress injuries a very real possibility—-one that impacts/ would impact a significant percentage of them at some point in their progression.

Similarly, as one tries harder and harder moves, the possibility of ‘traumatic’ injury also increases significantly. By ‘traumatic’, in this context, I don’t mean life-threatening, but, instead, a ‘sudden’ injury—-a ‘popped’ tendon, ACL tear, dislocated shoulder, etc., as well as the occasional broken ankle or wrist from a fall.

Sure, the advocates of the ‘anyone can do it’ school will say, “no problem—rest, recover, and carry on”. But, realistically, this isn’t possible for every such injury or every person.

The latter, segues into the second factor, that I feel is being ‘glossed over’ in this discussion. I think folks are too easily separating physical and psychological factors when, in actuality, they are very much intertwined in all of us. The ‘will’, ‘drive’, ability to ‘commit’ is as much a part of who we are as individuals as are our physical traits. Whether this is a result of ‘nature’ or ‘nurture’ doesn’t matter here. So as easy as it is to say that ‘anyone can do it if they really want to and are willing to put in the effort’, is to ignore the fact that, for many reasons, a lot of us are fundamentally unable to do so, even if, at some level, it is something we want to do. There has been a great deal of discussion of the ability of ‘willpower’ to overcome obstacles, but, despite many examples of individuals and groups doing so in various circumstances, there has been no evidence that this is universal ( that it will work for all people—or even most—in all (or most) circumstances). Not trying to be pejorative here, but Hitler was a big proponent of the power of ‘will’ to to succeed —look where it got him!!!!

I believe that only a limited number of ‘anyones’ even if a substantial one, have the ability AND the ‘will’, are able to successfully navigate other ‘life factors, and avoid ‘stopper’ injuries to be able to achieve the goal of climbing 8a. Either way, life goes on.

Not Not MP Adminwrote:

So thousands of people have climbed 8a supports your hypothesis that not everyone can climb 8a? There’s far more data out there suggesting that, provided the correct training protocols, anyone can climb 8a. 

That's not how this works. They're not saying that it supports their argument, they're saying it doesn't support yours. 

I can show you 100s of blue birds, but that doesn't mean every bird is blue or capable of becoming blue. It's neither sufficient evidence for nor against the claim that every bird is blue.

Annec-data success stories from climbing coaches is not sufficient evidence. It ignores program dropouts and the sampling bias of enrollment. People who are predisposed to be capable of 8a are more likely to want to enroll and be physically able to begin and complete a training plan toward 8a. Does 'everyone' include those with disabilities? What about joint problems? What about poor tendon health/work capacity? Poor motor control? Or is 'everyone' short for 'everyone in their early 20s of sound physical condition'?

God, training acolytes are insufferable. Go listen to a podcast about hangboard protocols or something.

Signed,

Someone who has climbed 8a and is therefore apparently worthy of weighing in.

It pisses me off, I think, because sometimes the argument about the effectiveness of training, sounds the same as the argument about the effectiveness of prayer.

When I was a good Christian boy, I was told if you prayed diligently and tried to live without sin, your prayers would be answered and God would speak to you and give you success and meaning in life.

If the result was "none of my prayers come true and it feels like I'm just speaking to myself" the reply is "well, YOU must doing it wrong..."

God has a plan for me, Lattice has a plan for me, maybe the universe is random and trying hard doesn't guarantee anything? 

Not to say that you can't change anything - I agree with the guy who said "The harder I try, the luckier I get".