Thoughts on training and Individual Limits

nowhere wrote:

I believe power company (who also has a fairly large data set) found that the strongest correlation with grade achieved was not finger strength but time spent climbing outside.

Finger strength is definitely important, but the idea that it’s the be all end all is in some ways a byproduct of the fact that it is much easier to measure than something like movement skills or flexibility which are also important.

For equal time spent outside then finger strength carries the day by far, imo, but technique is incredibly important. However, climbing technique is not going to undergo some radical transformation ever again.

What your anecdote demonstrates is that rock is complicated to climb.

Peter Beal wrote:

Thanks John!

for folks that maybe don’t have the history in hand, John pointed climbing away from the 50s paradigm of big routes, emphasizing summits, aid climbing, and following features. He explored extreme steep face climbing when it was basically not a thing at all. Only the absurd anti-bolting attitude and so-called ethic of “adventure” climbing held back climbers of the 60s from 5.13. Drilled holes and chipping were fine for aid climbing, but not actual climbing, i.e. free climbing.

Not only did John change the terrain for climbing he also changed how climbers prepared for climbing. He was the first to seriously prepare for difficult climbing through physical training based on his gymnastics background. By contrast, I can recall training for climbing being called cheating and bad style. Again, simply ridiculous self-limiting attitudes and at times, actually nasty gatekeeping.

Finally, he pointed out an obvious gap in climbing technology and filled it by using chalk. It’s hard to overemphasize how important this was in transforming the way in which we approached difficulty in climbing. Now climbing could be hand and arm focused, not on slabs and dime edging.

As I have written elsewhere in this thread, based on decades of climbing and coaching experience, we are nowhere near “genetic potential” in climbing, with limits still to some degree defined by attitudes and expectations along with counter-productive practices.

The basic, simple, and in retrospect, obvious innovations of John Gill point to the potential for similar changes in the sport still out there. We need to keep asking what is a rock climb, how should we prepare for climbing, and what technology makes sense in climbing, and never listen to folks complaining about “cheating” or “gym kids”or whatever else naysayers come up with next.

Ser Gill was a profound pioneer of the sport...60 years ago when no one trained for climbing other than by climbing. Pat Ament's book Master of Stone had a profound impact on many, including myself as to what real strength could produce, let alone the other innovations that Ser Gill brought to the sport. A true legend.

But there simply is no evidence to support magical thinking today that something will transform the power in people's forearms or technique much beyond current athletes or that people are climbing "better and better" though this may be true on an individual basis or from the benefits of tech. There are more climbers that have self-selected to be climbers so that the number if crushers is certainly higher and we do have gyms to elevate the abilities of the average but the gains at the world class level are incredibly tiny. There is no evidence whatsoever that a mature sport like climbing will benefit from some miraculous training insight that has not already been applied to other power-endurance sports. Olympic federations of many countries have been focused on climbing for more than a decade. Very sharp minds have been working on this problem for a long time.

In every single other human athletic endeavor, the gains over the last 50 years are incredibly small other than perhaps ultra-endurance.

People are continually touting the "breaking of records" by more and more people but the gains are literally 1% over previous records. In cycling the combo of better tech and better diet have led to tiny gains in...wait for it...ultra endurance. ie when people try to break Eddy Meckx's 1972 record of distance in one hour with the same bike and all the latest training regimens virtually no one can do it...except like one guy by 1%. And remember, the average person remains terrible at long distance cycling or time trials.

Watch the TED video. I think it is very informative.

John (Tuttle), I have to generally agree with your overall supposition on human potential and gains in sport, but agree with Peter above that we just don't know.  For instance, top marathon runners run at over 90% of their all out max and are still aerobic- due to genes, training, what have you...  As climbers, the equivalent is critical force, what max force you can maintain forever.  Stefano Ghisolfi has tested over 60% (the only star I know this stat for- imagine Ondra and others are up there too).  What if there are aerobic training improvements that allow a climber to approach say 80% critical force or higher?  I don't know what becomes possible under those circumstances.... 120 foot routes with multiple v15 cruxes, continuous v12 climbing, 300 foot routes with the same..... who knows.  Just a thought experiment.  Feel like I had another thought but ... I'm old and at work.

sleepy C wrote:

John (Tuttle), I have to generally agree with your overall supposition on human potential and gains in sport, but agree with Peter above that we just don't know.  For instance, top marathon runners run at over 90% of their all out max and are still aerobic- due to genes, training, what have you...  As climbers, the equivalent is critical force, what max force you can maintain forever.  Stefano Ghisolfi has tested over 60% (the only star I know this stat for- imagine Ondra and others are up there too).  What if there are aerobic training improvements that allow a climber to approach say 80% critical force or higher?  I don't know what becomes possible under those circumstances.... 120 foot routes with multiple v15 cruxes, continuous v12 climbing, 300 foot routes with the same..... who knows.  Just a thought experiment.  Feel like I had another thought but ... I'm old and at work.

Not a problem at all and I agree that this sort of ultra-endurance training is the next level in climbing and does remain mostly untapped. 

But the standard 20-35M sport pitch or bouldering will see very small gains, in all likelihood. We just aren't likely to figure out some magic recipe that lets us crush much harder, imo.

"the standard 20-35M sport pitch or bouldering will see very small gains, in all likelihood. We just aren't likely to figure out some magic recipe that lets us crush much harder, imo."

Gonna disagree here. There's plenty of room for expansion in the grades possible there. Folks are flashing V15 now and V18 is a thing, most likely. Linking a V18 into a V15 with a medium rest is, according to Darth Grader, 10a. Probably will happen in 3-5 years.

The missing factor in your analysis is the technical improvements in mastering climbs, improvements that are much more than sustaining percentage of maximum. Climbing is nowhere near being a mature sport.

I think grade progression and more people climbing at a higher level has a few driving factors.

More people participating is a big one, but not the only reason.

Friction reduction is the term for when perception of a task changes from difficult to easy and progress is made. Basically people see grades being done more frequently, and the perceived difficulty drops and is all the sudden more attainable. This is part of the reason why repeats often go down way faster than first ascents. Beta videos etc are also a driving factor.

Training age is another. There have been studies showing that the earlier you start, the more your body adapts to being able to handle more load, and creates thicker tendons and injury resiliency. Learning ability is greatly increased at a young age as well. The more time you have on the wall, the more skills you will develop and master offsetting the need for strength.

Mix that with all the great training tools and facilities, coaches etc and you will see more people  reaching their genetic potential.

I also think grade creep is a factor. Almost anyone can agree that (for the most part) old school routes tend to be stiffer than modern routes.

All that being said. It’s still the genetic freaks who are pushing the sport, and the rest of us just pushing our own ceilings.

John Tuttle wrote:

For equal time spent outside then finger strength carries the day by far, imo, but technique is incredibly important. However, climbing technique is not going to undergo some radical transformation ever again.

What your anecdote demonstrates is that rock is complicated to climb.

I don’t think referring to a dataset classifies as an anecdote.

Can you explain why you think days spent climbing outside would correlate with higher grades?

I’m sure many savvy high jumpers expressed similar thoughts about high jump technique before Fosbury came along and flopped. Not saying climbing technique is going to be revolutionized similarly but you just can’t be certain you know the limits of technique.

On a micro scale Tomoa and speed climbing is a perfect example-all the top climbers used the same beta, they felt it had been solved, couldn’t be improved. Tomoa started training it because of the stupid ass combined Olympic structure, and despite being a complete noob found an improvement to the beta which everyone now uses. If one short route hundreds of climbers have been banging their heads against for years is not a solved problem I promise you climbing as a whole which is light years more complex than that one route is not a solved problem. 

nowhere wrote:

I don’t think referring to a dataset classifies as an anecdote.

Can you explain why you think days spent climbing outside would correlate with higher grades?

I’m sure many savvy high jumpers expressed similar thoughts about high jump technique before Fosbury came along and flopped. Not saying climbing technique is going to be revolutionized similarly but you just can’t be certain you know the limits of technique.

On a micro scale Tomoa and speed climbing is a perfect example-all the top climbers used the same beta, they felt it had been solved, couldn’t be improved. Tomoa started training it because of the stupid ass combined Olympic structure, and despite being a complete noob found an improvement to the beta which everyone now uses. If one short route hundreds of climbers have been banging their heads against for years is not a solved problem I promise you climbing as a whole which is light years more complex than that one route is not a solved problem. 

The Flop was invented 60  years ago.

New beta in speed climbing has produced minimal gains. Also speed climbing was basically just invented and has nearly nothing to do with technical rock climbing.

13yo just climbed Euro 9a.

I'm sure it's hard work and dedication.   

Articles online from various sources.

John Tuttle wrote:

13yo just climbed Euro 9a.

I'm sure it's hard work and dedication.   

Articles online from various sources.

Well he has been climbing 6 to 7 days a week since he was 7. How many climbers struggling on 5.10 do you know that work that hard and are that dedicated?

Or better said, two can play this silly game! 🤣

Todd Berlier wrote:

Well he has been climbing 6 to 7 days a week since he was 7. How many climbers struggling on 5.10 do you know that work that hard and are that dedicated?

Or better said, two can play this silly game! 🤣

Not really dude. TONS of dirtbags climbed that hard for decades and never got past 5.11...let alone 5.15a...

But ok, dude, you win. Any 13yo can climb 5.15a and athletes don't self-select when they have natural talent (all those chunky kids at the gym everywhere, right?).

It's not pessimism. It's actually intending to be liberating and get people to appreciate their own climbing talents and limitations as being as worthy as anyone else's.