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Thoughts on training and Individual Limits
Kevin Stricker wrote: Obviously finger strength is not the only factor, but to discount research is that shows direct correlation makes it sound like you're just here to argue and put people down. Brook Rabitou does have a sibling who is a pot head and admits that he doesn't train at all, that he only climbs outside. Sure he was brought up as a climber with coaches for parents (which definitely plays a factor), but both were also world class climbers in their time. Just a coincidence that both he and his sister are some of the strongest climbers in the world? Has nothing to do with genetics right? What about the Wheeler brothers? Go watch a board lords episode and tell me genetics aren't involved. How can Chris Sharma go wandering around India for over a year and come back like he never left. Must be all that nurturing and training that he was brought up with right? |
saign charlestein wrote: Saige, I agree my last comment was dismissive, I apologize. I am not saying that finger strength does not have an impact on climbing ability. I am saying that I find it very interesting when the top climbers do not in fact have the strongest fingers. Of course, genetics have an impact on your ability as a climber. I just feel it is vastly overstated. It is not Chris's genetics that made him into the climber he became, it was his belief. It was his ability to come back to a project year after year that no one in the world could climb, and still give it his all. I feel when climbers put a big emphasis on genetics they downplay the huge effort that athletes put into their preparation. The years of dedication to mastery are what real champions are made of. |
Kevin Stricker wrote: Not sure where you heard that. This paper disagrees on both points: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19346182.2015.1012082 (hint: Ondra is the "high-elite") |
Daniel Winder wrote: Mr. Stricker already conceded this point. Again, I think everyone is saying basically the same thing, the only disagreement is how much. Side thought: I'm not sure anyone here is old enough to remember the Climbing Magazine article on Jim Karn. I think it was called the Positive Aspects of Negative Thinking. It really resonated with me in my twenties, not so much now. Tldr: we find motivation from different sources/ways of thinking. Whereas I find motivation from setting high goals and not achieving them, for others it can be discouraging. I think John Tuttles' primary point is merely about finding joy in what your doing and tempering expectations (edit: which is a great thing). Then, there are a bunch of us are saying there's much more to not achieving ones physical potential than genetics. Edit: these are not disparate points. |
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Is "mental game" not influenced by genetics though? We know intelligence is highly heritable, so why not other traits like motivation, try-hard ability, focus, etc.? It seems too simplistic to say that they can just be "overcome". Also disagree that Mr Stricker conceded anything close to my point. He continues to say that the top climbers don't have the strongest fingers, which isn't supported by evidence. However; I do agree with the premise of this thread. I can have the same experience on a 5.12 as Ondra had on Silence. |
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I guess my biggest issue is folks speaking in a perceived tone of equivocal truth about correlation science and opinion. I'll stop trying to find common ground...and go back to hang boarding. |
Kevin Stricker wrote: I feel when climbers put a big emphasis on genetics they downplay the huge effort that athletes put into their preparation. The years of dedication to mastery are what real champions are made of. Hi Kevin, I get what you are saying. I even agree with you to some extent, or wish that I could agree with you. But unfortunately I think it's much more complicated. Many people would love to believe that athletes who suceed are the ones who work the hardest and dedicate everything to their goals. We value this kind of effort and commitment, and we like to beleive that hard work is rewarded. However, if we explain the sucess of elite athletes in these terms, we devalue the efforts of the many athletes who work as hard or harder than the elites, and don't suceed because they simply aren't as gifted genetically. We see this in many sports. When I was young I dedicated a large part of my life to bicycle road racing. It's hard to quantify, but I reached a "close to elite level." In that communioty, there were so many examples of riders who trained and trained and trained (including training very inteligently with the methods of the time) and didn't progress very far, as well as stories of riders who only trained a little or almost not at all and could complete with the very best. I was probably somewhere in the middle in terms of training vs. natural talent. I do think the field narrows the higher the level of competition becomes. In a sport like cycling, where the profesionals are now so incredibly well trained, it's hard to imagine an athlete without real dedication and sacrifice having a chance. Nonetheless, I am sure that if you compared the very best cyclist to others who were merely very good, you would find that they all trained a massive amount, for example, 20-25 hours per week, but not that the best trained more or harder than the other. The best cyclists are the best because they are gifted, in addition to training hard. I think you would find the same in climbing, with an even wider spread between people who are more sucessfull because of training and dedication, and people who are more sucessfull because of natural talent. I think the spread would larger in climbing because 1) the talent pool is smaller than a sport like cycling and the athletes are more diverse, 2) the whole sport is just not as mature or profesional, 3) training systems and methods are not as well established, 4) technique plays a huge role, 5) the mental game plays a huge role, and so on. So as much as I would like to beleive that the elite climbers are the best because they work the hardest...I just don't think that's true. Two additional points: 1) I say all this as a 53 yr old lifelong athlete, a climber for 25 years, who is now climbing harder grades than I ever did when I was younger, although my achievements are decidedly mediocre. 2) I think the highest grade attainable for an "average" climber (however we define that) is much lower than some have proposed here...nowhere near to 5.14...probably closer to 5.10. |
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I think Lattice tested Ondra some time ago and he could only pull 109% of bodyweight on standard 20mm edge. That is quite weak compared to lot of boulderers, record setters in this test, and Sir Megos who are routinely 135+% bodyweight. Finger strength is important and tied to grades, etc. but it is a curve/distribution. Todd, I too get off on setting high goals and not achieving them! i got those genes in spades. |
Daniel Winder wrote: “Influenced” is not the same as “determined by”. Modern research indicates heritable mental traits. But we all know our mental condition is also heavily affected by outside forces (media, diet, relationships, physical condition, sleep etc.). Genetics may be a through line of our lived experience but there are a lot of other factors. You may in fact have a similar level of engagement with your 5.12 project as Ondra had with Silence. But I’m pretty sure I haven’t. I’m not traveling 16 hours for my project, living off of hourly weather reports, scheduling 6 hrs of training 5 days per week or intentionally elongating my knee ligaments to apply force in unorthodox positions, just as examples. I am not my own Ondra. It’s great to accept your own limitations but it’s also great to accept your own level of effort (or commitment, engagement, resources use, resolve, whatever you want to call it). I don’t see a need to tell myself I am in some way the same as the ultra elites of climbing. I think it’s healthier to acknowledge I am making different choices, rather than to put all the explanation on the differences of circumstance (I’m including genetics as a circumstance here). And that I’m happy with different outcomes. I’ll probably never even go to Flatanger, much less send a route there. But I do have outcomes in mind that I have yet to achieve. I am ambitious to climb harder. I’m not giving up on that because arthritis and diabetes are rampant in my genealogy. And I’m not going to blame my ability on those limitations. There are a lot of ways to improve. I’m nowhere near my potential on so many fronts. For me it’s more important to look at the places I can improve, rather than being convinced of where I can’t. This is of course coming from a grade chaser. Climbing is not all about improvement. There is also the great joy of the experience beyond the grade. I agree with Mr. Beal that harder grades can be more fun. But I also see people go so hard for improvement that they are unhappy. Those people should back off and that can be surprisingly hard to do. If acknowledging your own genetic limits helps you enjoy the sport, great! If those same limits defeat you and make you unhappy, they’re best questioned or ignored. |
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So many great questions and responses. For those of you who feel it is your genetics that are your biggest limitation in climbing, please consider the following. Have you have trained for climbing for 100 hours in a month in the last year? Have you trained 40 hours of climbing in a week in the last year? Have you stayed up past midnight/ got up before 3 attempting to accomplish a climbing goal in the last year? Finally have you lost over 5 lbs to achieve a climbing goal in the last year? Professional climbers do all of these things, all the time. I’m certain I can climb at least a number grade harder than I do if I had this type of dedication. I could blame my ADHD from keeping me from this goal, or accept the truth…that I am too lazy. By pointing to my genetic defect I give myself an excuse to under perform. By accepting my weakness I have something I can work to improve. Bruno, consider how many of your cycling bro’s have continued to improve at cycling for 25 years? Don’t you think it’s interesting that somehow you continue to progress even though your body is well past it’s prime? Daniel, it’s the lattice tests on Ondra that I am basing my observations. His finger strength is well below the top numbers. He doesn’t have the strongest fingers and yet he still climbs circles around most of his contemporaries. Do you really believe they think he just has good genes? Who else even attempts hard onsights? |
sleepy C wrote: Leaving aside that Ondra has ways of compensating for that "weakness", I also just don't accept that Lattice's flat edge test (especially of that era) captures what we think of as "finger strength". Ondra has a very distinctive crimping style that involves basically all the fingers getting curled and wrapped, typically with some supination of the wrist and a lot of thumb involvement. Their test captures only some of the Y-axis force he brings to bear and none of the Z-axis or differentiation between fingers. Coupled with his flexibility that means he almost always has options for further offloading his fingers while still getting the directions of pull he needs. IMO his much more obvious weakness is in his shoulders. You basically can't imagine him pulling moves the way Yannick or Megos does on a steep wall, for instance. Ondra will always have that little bit of a hitch in the movement because his shoulders are not as strong as theirs. And he even discusses this especially in the context of quitting competition* bouldering. This gets at another reason not to just "blame genetics", even though they obviously have a significant effect. It tends to blind you to the ways you could workaround your specific weakness and shift towards your strengths. If your fingers are "weak", for instance, you can compensate with hip turnout, general edging / smearing / hooking / footwork ability, jumping / pulling power, etc. I also know plenty of people with the opposite problem: their fingers are obscenely strong, but their hips, legs, and shoulders are so tight that their movement is always jerky and inefficient in a way the fingers alone can't compensate.
This is really the evidence I want to take issue with: their tests, especially the down-pulling-edge test, do not capture what we experience in the sport as "finger strength". Aidan Roberts has inarguably some of the best crimping ability in the history of the sport and he doesn't perform well on that test! It has some differentiating ability broadly speaking across the grade scale but it's not right to say Aidan's fingers are weaker than, say, Bosi's solely on the basis of the Lattice test. |
Dan Schmidt wrote: Sounds like you haven’t been keeping up on the news. |
Brendan N wrote: Should be a “competition*” qualifier in there. |
Kevin Stricker wrote: Part of good genetics is being able to handle the load that the pros endure without getting injured and being able to recover enough to perform. The average person can't handle 100 hours of dedicated training in a month without getting injured. Strong fingers are a huge factor, but far from the only piece of the puzzle that matters. Climbing is just too complex of a sport to only base performance on finger strength. Ondra doesn't have the strongest finger strength, but he's well within the standard deviation of his grade range. He had the whole package. Strong fingers, power to weight ratio, flexibility, positive ape index, drive, obsession, analytical thinking, patience etc. Studies have been done and the highest correlation between high grades climbed outside, is time spent climbing outside. This is the best argument against genetics. I don't think anybody should hide behind a genetic curtain and use it for an excuse. But we've all seen that guy or girl who shows up the first time and just crushes, runs through the grades and it just seems effortless the way they climb, progress and never get injured. Most of the high level pros climb 5-7 day a week! Anyone without above average genetic will just pound themselves into the ground and won't be able to progress because they are constantly having to stop or rehab injuries. |
saign charlestein wrote: I have seen so many climbers come and go to the sport. Some struggled with the sport, then went on to excel at others. Some showed incredible talent, but just were not that into it. Maybe I just haven't met enough phenom's to know. One thing I do know is when I see a climber staring down their crux sequence with fierce determination, that is someone with potential. The climbers psyched to wake up pre dawn to get in more pitches, those are the climbers I know will go far. So many climbers I meet are in some rut of 4-6 pitches, maybe some grunts, then call it a day. I see maybe 1 in 10 climbers really trying hard, though many more make the sounds of it. Fierce determination may be a genetic factor, but I will say that if you have that one trait it will get you farther than most. Even old gumbies like myself can put in 100+ hour training months if you consider climbing to be training. Even occasional 40 hour climbing weeks are possible without sustaining injury. I would think most climbers could spend the extra time even if it was just ARC or aerobic level climbing to get there. Capilarity is the secret weapon of the un-elite IMO. |
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Hi Kevin, Again, I agree with much of what you write, with some important caveats. Language/perspective: I think we should move away from saying things like, "It's not my ADHD that prevents me from focusing...it's just because I'm lazy." What is laziness? What is lack of the ability for sustained focus? How is it different from personality traits that have a large genetic component? I have strong ADHD and OCD and I have had these conditons for most of my life (therapy and medicaation for 30 yrs etc). The stories that I could share would probably shock many people. If anybody is curious just send me a PM. These are absolutely physiologic/neurologic conditions that I have little control over. But they are also part of who I am. They give me incredible sustained focus on some things, and they make other tasks that "normal" people do without effort basically impossible for me. Would it be fair to myself to say that my inability to accomplish things that other people find easy is because I am 'lazy" or "undisciplined"? No, it would not. I have to accept who I am, the positives and negatives, the superpowers and the limitations. I try not to use my conditions as excuses, but at the same time I try not to blame myself for the obvious difficulties I manage and my many actual or perceived failures. Training: The list of things that Ondra did to achieve Silence is amazing, and the lives of professional athletes are absolutely astonishing. But we have to be realistic. No athletes "train" for 40 hours per week. Of course, this depends on how you define "traning." If you are talking about the time spent moving your body or pushing mass around or whatever, the athletes with the highest weekly volumes are cross country skiers and swimmers, and then road cyclists, all sports with low load on the body which allows high training volume. These volumes peak at perhaps 25-30 hours per week, and only for certain periods. Now sure, if you include recovery, massage, foam rolling, stretching, and so on, yes, you could talk about 40 or 50 hour training weeks, but those hours are not usually counted as training volume (as important as they are to success). And climbing is different yet again, and somewhat like strength training, in that a large portion of the time is resting, belaying, etc. Four hours of climbing is not the same as four hours of road cycling, and we can't count it as such. Anyway, your larger point about the time elite athletes dedicate to sport compared to amateur athletes is absoluetly true. Improving at rock climbing: Just to use myself as an example, how have I started to improve my grades after 25 years and at the age of 53? Well, I actually started out mountaineering, ice climbing, alpine and mixed climbing, and so on, and only slowly made my way to sport climbing. So it's really only the last two years that I said to myself, "OK, I'd like to get better at pure rock climbing." The changes I made to my regular training were very simple. First, I commited to climbing 3 times a week, outside as much as possible, inside when necessary. Second, I committed to working routes over and over until the sequences fell into place. Just to be clear, before last year, I had basically never climbed the same rock route twice. Now, I might climb a route ten times before I can send it. Ironically, that came from dry tooling. That is what I needed to do to turn dry tooling routes which at first seemed impossible into climbs that I could lead smoothly. I repeated them over and over, and then I transfered that practice over to sport climbing. Last, very gradually, so that I did not get injured, I started working with a hangboard. So, with climbing 3 times per week outside for a number of months, red pointing a great deal, and focusing on finger strength, I went from leading a 6a once or twice in my life, to being able to lead about one-third of the 6a routes on my first send, and most of the rest after working them over many sessions. I know that 6a is an incredibly mediocre grade, but for me, at 53, it was graifying and rewarding to see the process work. And I should say that I am not naturally built for climbing. I am 6' 4" and weigh 215 pounds. Nobody would describe me as fat--I train a great deal and always have--but as I get older I do carry a small amount of extra weight, which I manage by not drinking alcohol, not eating any sweets, eating vegetarian, and so on. So in this sense, much of what you write is true--if you decide you want to climb harder and you train appropriately, you can improve. But I have no illusions about my ceiling. I think if I doubled or tripled my efforts I could probably suceed at 6b or 6c, but ultimately I would limited by my increasing age, my weight, my lack of finger strength and upper body power, and my succeptibility to injury, to say nothing of the demands of work and parenting. This was essentially confirmed by an extremely experienced climbing coach I know, who said that he thought I could get to about 6b/c. The "problem" is that I also love ice climbing, dry tooling, downhill skiing, ski touring, mountain biking, windsurfing and so on. So for now, every fall (before the ice tools come out) and every spring (when the skis get put away) I gradually push my sport climbing grades. My general goal is to gradually get more comfortable at 6a and see where it goes from there. And that's fine for me! Thanks for the interesting conversation.
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Bruno Schull wrote: Great content Bruno, thank you for sharing. I agree with most of what you said. I will tell you that how different athletes deal with their limitations tells a lot about their character. I’m sorry if the self talk I use triggers you. I know not being able to remember a 4 move sequence until I have done a climb 15 or 20 times is a limitation, but like you said the benefits are likely outweighing the limitation, maybe. Point is that ADHD/Spectrum issues are things I have had to deal with my whole life. When we talk about mental character being genetic I think it muddies the waters on the discussion a bit. Here is the thing Bruno, I have personally done all of those things on the last year of training. I have put in 40 hours of climbing weeks and did get to 100 hours of climbingin, and guess what? My elbows did not explode! I had some light nerve pain in my left arm at the end and took an entire week off. Yes climbers do in fact train 40-50 hours a week climbing!!! Lots and lots of them do!! Yes you are right, no one is timing and spending 40 hours on the wall, but it is easy to rack up a 10 hour day of cragging. Last month I had two days of 22-24 pitches, two days of 26-30 pitches and climbed 54 pitches in a single day! Those 6 days alone were over 60 hours of climbing. Normally I would never have the time for such nonsense, but the opening arose and I struck! Finally achieving a goal I set for myself 4 years ago. Here is a funny story about genetics. I had a good friend who got out of climbing to persue cycling in his 40’s. Pat was always a huge guy, solid upper body, built like a tank. He got into competitive cycling and lost maybe 30-40 lbs(I never asked exact amnt) and looked like a completely different person after 5 years. While he was always a solid climber, but he is a complete beast as a cyclist. Here is the funny part, if he was to come back to climbing with his new body, and with his old knowledge, I am sure he would climb MUCH harder than he ever could before. In your case Bruno you have already highlighted 3 different factors you could change to improve your rock climbing(if you so choose). You could loose weight, you could spend more of the season rock climbing, you could focus more on limit climbing. I’m not saying you are going to climb 8a weighing 220 lbs, but I am very confident I could get you climbing 7a or 7b with a few years focused training. Like you have said yourself, it is your love of other sports that truly limits your rock climbing. There is nothing wrong with that! Yes your genetics are going to make pure rock climbing more challenging than it is for some, but I am quite confident that the mental discipline you have developed as an alpinist would take you farther than you think, if that became a priority for you. |
Caleb wrote: No, in fact I am a huge believer in Agency and untapped potential excellence. That however is far different from the standard pablum that "you can do anything with hard work" that really is just an elitist meme to justify their "superiority" being greater/harder workers than others (but has a genetic basis that they have no responsibility for having). This ignores genetics, support systems and being born into the right class etc. People change behaviors all the time, BUT there are limits to what can be accomplished both physically and mentally no matter the rigor of the training. While I am a firm believer that nearly anyone I meet has untapped genius in some area that "clicks" for their brain, be it music, the arts or just a fantastic mind for rock and roll trivia (my sister despite no other real talent is a savant for that stuff), I know for a fact that hard work alone will not make you Issac Newton, Mozart or Janja Gambert. And very importantly, we do not choose our Genius, it chooses us. Just because you would love to be a genius at Math and work incredibly hard at it you very, very likely cannot reach world class ability. That is a gift from birth. The idea is to end the "didn't send" shaming and embrace each individual's accomplishments in climbing. I really think we all deserve the ultimate participation trophies just being out there pushing personal limits (in some way or form) nearly every day we go climbing. We literally risk our lives pushing ourselves regardless of the rating of the route. |
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I guess at the end of the day I don't really see comparing yourself to others to be a problem- its just how you do it that can be a problem. If your ego is tied up in your performance then comparison to someone better than you can hurt just as comparison to someone worse than you can feel "good". The solution to hurtful comparison isn't to stop comparing, the solution is to get your ego out of the equation. Every body is different, grades are inherently subjective, the challenge any particular route presents varies not just according to the different individuals climbing it but the external conditions (Humidity, temp, sun etc), as well as the internal conditions of any individual climber, ie a given route will be much easier if you are well rested, hydrated and fed versus coming off a three day bender. On any given day whether I feel good about my own performance is largely based on the effort I gave rather than the outcome-Did I show up prepared? did I try hard? did I use good tactics? Did I fall going for it or did I get tired of being uncomfortable and try to rush to the end or just give up and fall with a halfhearted attempt at a move? None of these things have anything to do with other people. But over a longer term I feel good or bad about my climbing based on wether I am learning and growing, and a lot of that growth comes from watching other climbers and learning from them. If I decide "Oh that persons just better than me because of genetics." I am robbing myself of the opportunity to learn from them, and every single very good climber is doing a lot of things better than me besides having strong fingers and a light body. I'm interested in progressing towards my own personal potential both because I enjoy the process and because being a stronger climber opens up more cool terrain to play on. Seeing somebody climb something above my grade gets me stoked and motivated to get better. Giving myself a preloaded genetics excuse just feels like an easy excuse to save my ego at the cost of hampering or capping my progression. If watching This video makes you feel bad about yourself rather than psyched you need to work on your mental game. |
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i think there should be a two question survey for folks who have climbed 14a or harder: 1) Do you think you are of average ability? 2) Do you think your children (or your pets!) are gifted and talented? i think the results would be interesting. |
