Why is gym climbing so difficult?

Leslie McG wrote:I always tell people that I'm just not a good climber in the gym as compared to outside. I'm not sure why except that I learned to climb outside and prefer it. I also feel that inside there's too many options or the climbs are sequential, whereas outside, especially climbing trad, I have more options. I'm glad you posted this...I feel less like a freak now!!!

I'm the same way. Although I typically get better indoors at the expense of outdoors. Why?

Here's my take. I don't climb all that hard to begin with. But as I progress in the gym, I get stronger and more focused on my finger strength and less and less focused on my footwork. Eventually I can climb fairly hard in the gym 5.10-11ish...but I end up literally struggling at 5.6 leading outdoors. In fact, after one 18 month stretch in the gym I ended up barely following 5.6.

I think outdoors is a completely different animal, and some people can separate the two. I'm not good enough to transition back and forth. I know others have similar issues. So I gave up the gym and had a good season last year.

If my lead head was better, I suppose physical strength might be what holds me back.

Anyway, I feel like I'm better off saving the $100 a month on gym fees and using a hangboard to get my fingers stronger. Then my hands will be strong and my footwork won't suffer.

(edit to add: the OP I qouted means outdoors there are typically more ways to complete a climb even if the actual holds are fewer. Smearing and intermediate holds are more in play than the gym. Or at least they work better outdoors. Indoors is often about a specific sequence or merely "powering" your way on jugs.)

I used to build walls back east. I hated getting a "membership" to the club..I couldn't do shit.

serious..i was onsitighting 12A outdoors and no way on 11's inside.

My 2cents, it's all about the pump factor...I think gyms are ok at mocking sport routes and sometimes even the occasional trad route, but if falling, gear placements, etc dont get in your head (like they do mine), your local gym is simply harder because a 50 ft 11b is 50 ft of 11b holds one after the other.

Outside you have rests, a good jug, a ledge...and if not, routes sometimes get a bump if it consistently features 11b, 12a...whatever holds the whole way up with no rests.

There needs to be a group of people that travel around and climb every problem and set a standard for that grade. Until then everyone will continue to argue about what areas have sandbagged grades. Oh yea and grading an
Indoor problem is a joke.

I think the sustained nature of gym sport routes is one of my deficiencies. If a climb has difficult cruxes separated by easier sections or rests I can usually fight through.

I think I fundamentally approach gym problems in a different manner than outdoors also. I expect them to be easier than advertised and therefore don't have the same focus.

Also, I understand the topic is subjective and irrelevant. At the same time I have noticed some consistency in my difficulties and was thinking there may be some unreported consensus in the population.

Lee Harris wrote:I think the sustained nature of gym sport routes is one of my deficiencies. If a climb has difficult cruxes separated by easier sections or rests I can usually fight through. I think I fundamentally approach gym problems in a different manner than outdoors also. I expect them to be easier than advertised and therefore don't have the same focus. Also, I understand the topic is subjective and irrelevant. At the same time I have noticed some consistency in my difficulties and was thinking there may be some unreported consensus in the population.

The shorter the gym, the harder the routes. And visa versa.
I don't boulder so I don't know how it translates into bouldering. Gym is for training for climbing outdoors so the grades indoors are irrelevant and only boost or crush your ego. What is your goal? To transition into sport or trad? To get into bouldering comps? To be able to high ball outside? Treat the gym as your training grounds and don't pay much attention to what they grade the problems.

Climbing in the gym is hard because it sucks.

I mean you got babies crawling around underneath you and the worst music blasting while you’re pretending to climb inside a giant dust filled box that you paid too much to be in. You’re surrounded by yak-dicks with puffies and haulbags and college kids flailing as top ropers get dropped to floor by a grigri and a 10 year old warms up on your proj. You go to leave and someone grabbed your new approach shoes and left some dingy shits in their place.

How you gonna get your flow on with all that shit going on unless you’re mentally ill?

Sometimes when reaching or dynoing I smack my hand or elbow on holds from other routes. Also, I hyperextended my knee when I fell and caught my foot on a different route's hold. Oh yeah I'm colorblind so I can't differentiate half the routes. Is that enough whining for today?

Shit I forgot about elbowing holds, it's so fucking lame. It's like there's no limit to how bad the gyms can suck.

There is a couple of possibilities. The grades could just be sandbagged. I have seen "5.6s" in the gym that went up the steepest part of the wall, overhanging like 40 degrees.

The other possibility is you are not used to gym climbing. I used to climb 5.12 technical face outside, but in the gym I would get shut down trying to onsight .11a. That is because climbing in the gym tends to be quite pumpy as the routes are designed to build strength and endurance. However, the .12s I were climbing were more technical and balance, but not so pumpy, so I just dident have the strength.

Now that I train in the gym often I find I can sometimes climb about one letter grade harder in the gym than outside, and at worse my gym grade has matched my outdoor grade.

I have also seen it go the other way—guys that crank .12s in the gym and get shut down hard on .10+ technical climbs outside. That's not that uncommon actually.

Last, another possibility is the setting just blows. I have seen so many routes that are set so poorly that they are only the rated grade for the dude that set the thing because no one else can figure out how he meant for the route to go down. Some routes are also extremely height dependent (again, poor setting) and someone short could tack on multiple full grades compared to someone tall.

I've been doing the climbing gym thing this winter to get in "climbing shape." I'm struggling with it though. The gym closest to me is momentum. Very cool gym, but really geared towards recreation and getting kids into the sport. I enjoy taking my kids over every once in a while, but it just isn't working out for me as a solution for climbing fitness. Are there gyms out there strictly geared towards climber fitness instead of family recreation? Think I'll end up building a wall in the backyard and forget the gym membership.

As others have said, it's all what you're used to.

To me, Golf Wall in Durango was a lot like overhung gym climbing. Same with many routes in Owens River Gorge.

My gym has a lot of stemmy routes that feel pretty close to dihedrals outside. Plenty of no-hands rests on those.

I milk rests all the time in the gym, but they're "relative" rests -- relative to the rest of the route.