Campus rungs - incut or flat

I'm making my own campus rungs and realized I don't actually know the "proper" intention from Metolius on the real thing - flat or incut side facing up. I've seen boards at commercial gyms that had them one way or the other. Does one side target something that the other doesn't?

Flat rungs are harder and will force you to use a bigger rungs for the same 1-3-5 etc. This will target your shoulders slightly more. Incut rungs let you control your swing with your fingers and will tax them slightly more. 

For the small Metolius rung, either side is not easier or harder in an absolute sense:

the flat side feels like an easier/bigger hold when you are doing smaller moves

the incut side lets you dig in a bit for longer moves (longer than 1-3-5 for me) where your lower hand starts to push down against the rung.

There are words printed on the front of metholius rungs, and I've never seen them mounted upside down.

Pretty sure I've seen a long thread about this topic before, I think it must have been in the rock prodigy forum. 

Technically I have no idea if the rungs I've used in two different commercial gyms were Metolius or not. Just assumed that if they were at a "real gym" they must be Metolius. Thinking back now neither campus board rungs had writing on them. First gym I was training at had the flat side up and I found that considerably easier, albeit on small moves.

The local gym has them oriented so the flat side is up. When they first put them up I remember them having sign that said this was done intentionally because it is safer. Maybe because having incut edge up encourages crimps and is more likely to lead to injury? Not sure though. 

Lena chita wrote:

There are words printed on the front of metholius rungs, and I've never seen them mounted upside down.

cuttin' straight to the heart of the matter, love it!

mark anderson did a write-up on his blog about flat versus incut a few years ago.  worth checking out.  when i was campusing i definitely preferred the incut side.  i felt like it was too easy to just slip off of the flat side.  when i would slip off it was kind of violent on my shoulders/elbows/wrists.

Lena chita wrote:

There are words printed on the front of metholius rungs, and I've never seen them mounted upside down.

Older versions used to have the Metolius words printed in both directions, so that whichever way you mounted them, one of the titles would be right side up.

I have seen then mounted with positive side down. At first I hated them. As do most people. Eventually I got over my hatred, and now like them just fine.

I agree with reboot that for the small-size Metolius rungs, it makes no difference.
. . (for Medium-size, the difference is noticeable but managable with practice. For Large-size the difference is substantial, and I don't like having positive-side down on those),

I've done campusing at indoor gyms in different west European countries. Many times they use non-Metolius holds. I'd say there's a definite preference for holds which are _more_ positive  on top than the positive side of Metolius holds. I'm not surprised that lots of climbers prefer that, but it doesn't mean they wouldn't do better to "make friends" with dynamic moves on less-positive holds.

Ken

Peter T wrote:

The local gym has them oriented so the flat side is up. When they first put them up I remember them having sign that said this was done intentionally because it is safer. Maybe because having incut edge up encourages crimps and is more likely to lead to injury? Not sure though. 

That's the argument I've heard in favor of putting positive side down -- discourages crimping.

But it's not true: I can easily crimp on the flat top of the Small-size or Medium-size Metolius rungs.

And I train campusing on half-crimp grip all the time - because I saw the video of Jan Hojer doing it.
. , , (I think it's helped my climbing).

Anyway strong young climbers don't need a campus board -- they can just campus the boulder problems (which is arguably better training anyway since the moves are more varied). So they can easily choose a boulder problem with positive holds even if their local campus board lacks them.

Ken

MClay wrote:

I'm making my own campus rungs . . .

Keep in mind that commercial campus rungs are _much_ wider than necessary (to easily accommodate the range of typical human shoulder-widths). All you really need are two much smaller hand-width rungs, each 5 inches wide, and mount them say like 5 inches _apart_ horizontally. Or perhaps 4-inch wide are sufficient for you.

So then you have the opportunity to inter-leave with those two hand-width rungs _another_ pair of 5-inch rungs.  This other pair could be the same shape and size, but turned upside down.

. , , (Or you can just purchase commericial rungs and chop them into thirds, or even quarters).

Point is that you can fit both configurations into a similar amount of your campus-board "real estate", if you're clever about it.

Ken

P.S.. Also keep mind that the _angle_ of overhang is important. Metolius designs their rungs for recommended angle range of 12-20 degrees. Lots of public gyms have their boards at 23 or 25 degrees - (I've measured it with a sophistated level). If you go outside the Metolius design range, then glat versus positive makes a bigger difference.

Thanks! Found the Anderson article, it is pretty exhaustive - https://lazyhclimbingclub.wordpress.com/2014/01/01/comparing-campus-board-configurations/

Pic from the article....