Does pyramiding on indoors boulder make sense like other progression ideas?

I've now done 6 V7s indoors (at G1 Climbing and Fitness, for you Boulder people), and I'm close to a 7th.  But the V8's seem light years harder every time I try one.  I feel like at my age (61 yrs) I may be topped out on the progression, but the 13 yr old boy in me thinks I should still try and progress.  My friend said something along the lines of "I'm not sure the progression pyramid works in bouldering like it does on routes" which got me wondering maybe I can't assume that 100s of V4s, 80 V5s, 18 V6s and 6 V7s means it's time for a V8?

Another friend, who has climbed V14 outside, says to just keep fishing for that "right" V8 that will fit my style.  The problem with indoors, of course, is that you get a very limited time to tick something before it disappears.  But it would be a pretty nice lifetime achievement to hit that milestone.

Also, maybe I should train instead of just climbing 3x a week.  :)

The boulder pyramid probably doesn't work like the route pyramid but the same principles apply to both. By that I mean, your route and boulder pyramid will probably have different shapes to be effective. 

I think you hit the nail on the head with "The problem with indoors, of course, is that you get a very limited time to tick something before it disappears"; the boulders on each level of the pyramid take much longer than the previous level and the actual tip of the pyramid is a project that is at least a season long, probably completed at the peak of a training cycle. Indoor boulders don't stick around that long and it is very easy to get distracted by all the other stuff in the gym. Not to mention the fact that the grease factor on some boulders only gets worse with time.

It seems like your (non-mutually-exclusive) options for indoors are:

1. Pick a board project so you can siege it for as long as you need
2. Keep building volume on those v7s, once they start going down quicker, the v8s will seem more reasonable and the theoretical peak of your pyramid will be more like v9/10.
3. Actually train, and hope one of the recently set boulders suits your style during your peak
4. Bide your time until the setters put up something soft and label it v8

I haven't climbed at G1 for a while but I remember that (like many gyms) their V0-6 was pretty soft, and then their grades "caught up" and stiffened a lot from V7 onwards. I also remember that at V7 and up, their setting got very "comp stye", lots of dynos, coordination moves, etc. They seemed to be really into developing their youth teams for comp climbing so I imagine the setting mostly reflects that. Also, G1 has a really fast setting turnover, something like 4 weeks. Not a ton of time to project.

I agree with Israel you should board climb so you can have projects you keep coming back to, and also if your primary goal is getting better at outdoors climbing, the style is more transferable IMO. They have adjustable Tension Board 1 and Kilter board at G1. I exclusively board climb indoors now and I don't miss the gym sets one bit; I love being able to go back to the same problem weeks or months later and make progress.

If you prefer gym sets, Movement Golden and DBC tend to have less comp-style setting (unless they've recently hosted a comp).

Thanks fo both of you for the suggestions.  

Prav: I feel like G1 sets pretty reasonable problems for outdoor relevance, but yeah there are definitely always a few parkour-y comp-style problems up, which I generally avoid.  And slopers and pinches are massively overrepresented compared to Colorado Front Range climbing as well (which is mostly death crimping in my experience).  But overall I've gotten better on things that have helped me outside, like heel hooking, compression-y moves, and crimp strength.

The problem with board climbing at G1 is that it's pretty much always taken and it's hard to work in with people who invariably want a different problem and a different angle than whatever you're working on.  Maybe I need to work on my social skills here.  The real solution would be to just build a home board.  I can't believe we just bought this giant house on the golf course a year ago and it has no land around it so I can't even build a barn with a home wall.  Big mistake and I don't want to move again.  Jealous of people like Kevin Capps and Mark Anderson who have very nice home climbing gyms.

Israel: Really excellent and well-thought-out advice.  I agree with all you said. I'm probably gonna do a mix of your suggestions: keep working gym V7s until I maybe get a V8, mix in some board problems, hope for a soft V8.  I want to train, and I've read a metric ton of books on the topic, but still have no idea what to do. My best friend is nominally my "coach" but he's more of a movement coach rather than someone who writes training plans (he's climbed 14a and himself does not train).

My ultimate lifetime goal is 13a outside.  I'm hoping this indoor bouldering stuff will get me there, but maybe board climbing would be better as Prav suggested.

If your ultimate goal is 13a outside and you are climbing v7 in the gym, you are probably strong enough depending on your goal route. It doesn't hurt to be over strong but if you are viewing the indoor bouldering as a means to an end, it's probably worth picking an outdoor route and using the indoor boulders as an actual training tool. 

As far as training goes you don't have to over complicate it. Gym bouldering with some structure is training. Check out the crimpd app, they have easy to digest instructions for training exercises on indoor boulders. Bonus points if the style of the boulders somewhat match your outdoor route project. 

John RBwrote:

The problem with board climbing at G1 is that it's pretty much always taken and it's hard to work in with people who invariably want a different problem and a different angle than whatever you're working on.  Maybe I need to work on my social skills here. 

As someone who was previously very self conscious about this (concerned about my own ability vs. others, assumed I was going to annoy other folks on the board, etc.), I understand the concern. However, in my experience people are always more than happy and willing to have others to work in with them on boards, even if you're working on completely different problems (I climb a lot harder on boards than I used to a couple of years ago, which admittedly has helped with the social anxiety here, but I'm never annoyed or bothered when someone joins in, even if you're working on different problems it's nice to have the company). It's very easy to switch back and forth between problems, even if everyone is using their own phone. Changing the angle is a slightly different story, since that's a bit more of a pain, but there should be plenty of options at the grades you're projecting at the usual board angles (30-45 degrees)

Israel Rwrote:

The boulder pyramid probably doesn't work like the route pyramid but the same principles apply to both. By that I mean, your route and boulder pyramid will probably have different shapes to be effective. 

I think you hit the nail on the head with "The problem with indoors, of course, is that you get a very limited time to tick something before it disappears"; the boulders on each level of the pyramid take much longer than the previous level and the actual tip of the pyramid is a project that is at least a season long, probably completed at the peak of a training cycle. Indoor boulders don't stick around that long and it is very easy to get distracted by all the other stuff in the gym. Not to mention the fact that the grease factor on some boulders only gets worse with time.

It seems like your (non-mutually-exclusive) options for indoors are:

1. Pick a board project so you can siege it for as long as you need
2. Keep building volume on those v7s, once they start going down quicker, the v8s will seem more reasonable and the theoretical peak of your pyramid will be more like v9/10.
3. Actually train, and hope one of the recently set boulders suits your style during your peak
4. Bide your time until the setters put up something soft and label it v8

Well, a month ago when I started this thread I had done 6 V7s.  Shortly after that I did two more, so 8 in total, which sort of follows Israel #2.  Then 2 weeks ago I noticed there was a V8 with a hard sequence, but the rest was maybe V6 and I sent that today, so Israel #4.  Other people who climb hard outdoors (5.14 ish ticks) said they thought my V8 was solid for the grade, so either I have nice friends, or I am actually getting better still at age 61.  Feels good either way.

Thanks to all who replied in this thread!  Israel, Prav, and Chris!

Wow that was fast! Me thinks you are stronger than you thought. Congrats John!