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jstan
climber
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Feb 22, 2008 - 08:33pm PT
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I suspect the utility of training techniques is affected both by the terrain that has to be covered and the physiology of the trainee. I used to climb where there were a lot of horizontals and a lot of ceilings. I never ran into a ceiling where I had to do a front lever off a fingertip hold and also could not get a foot on something so as to push me out. There may be cases where fingertip levers are necessary but I, fortunately, never ran into one. Horizontal hold front levers did give me a physiological problem because I have a six inch ape index.(My brother is 4 inches taller than myself and has an eight inch ape index. Never could get him interested.) In a horizontal hold front lever the elbow is loaded across the plane determined by the biceps, which is not a normal loading. With long arms and the associated adverse leverage, that is hell on the elbow. I did do rope climbing during the work day and I thought it was a great help for my arms. But what do I know?
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Feb 22, 2008 - 10:31pm PT
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"Hey rgold: Can you elaborate a bit more? What are the 'so many offsetting advantages over a ladder' ?"
First of all, I exaggerated. But I can think of four offsetting advantages.
1. Convenience: You can hang a rope anywhere you can hang a ladder, but a rope doesn't need to be tensioned down. No "double pulley and jumar system" needed.
2. Reaching span: The rungs on a ladder have, of course, a particular spacing. If you make the spacing equal to your maximum reach, then as soon as you get a little fatigued you won't be able to continue. So you have to make the spacing less than maximum reach. Or make two rungs to maximum reach as in one of John's pictures, but then you have to go from maximum reach down to half maximum reach. Eventually, as you fatigue, the spacing will force an end to the session. The rope, however, has continuous reaching. You can start out with maximum reaches, actually, if you climb dynamically, with reaches beyond your maximum static distance, and continually tamp the reaching distance down as fatigue sets in. I think this makes for a more effective workout.
3. Controlled negatives: Ok, negative work can be dangerous to the elbows if done to excess. But I think it is also the secret to progress, at least it was for me. On the rope, you can climb up two-handed or even two-handed and two-footed and come down one hand at a time while pinching the rope between your feet. You get to lower yourself, under control, continuously, one arm at a time. Various pinching strategies give more or less support. I don't think there is an analogous training method with a ladder.
4. Explosive training. A competitive rope climber can climb a rope faster than many people can pull the same rope lying slack on the ground between their legs. These athletes develop a "stride" in which one hand is at waist level or a bit lower and the other is catching the rope at full extension. In principle you could try the same thing on a ladder, but the rigid mounting, the width of the ladder, and the fixed rung spacing make it very difficult to achieve similar effects.
Disadvantages:
1. John thinks the more natural climbing position of a ladder is important. I don't think so, but of course I could be wrong. I can say that a regimen of rope-climbing enabled me to do, at best (and we are speaking now of a distant past), seven honest strict one-arm pullups on each arm (in other words, with my wrist in the position it wasn't supposedly trained for), so there was a fair amount of carry-over to the "climbing position." But this doesn't prove that I might not have benefitted even more from training on a ladder.
2. Elbow strain (epicondylitis). The rope gripping position contracts the forearm muscle more than the bar gripping position. Anything that might contribute to this overuse injury has to be viewed as a potentially serious disadvantage.
3. Grip requirements. Obviously, the rope requires more than rungs. Whether there is any climbing advantage to building up your grip strength in the rope-climbing position, I don't know. In order to hang on reliably with one hand, I found it necessary to chalk the entire rope every session, which is a pain, but can be turned into the warmup.
"I never ran into a ceiling where I had to do a front lever off a fingertip hold and also could not get a foot on something so as to push me out. There may be cases where fingertip levers are necessary but I, fortunately, never ran into one."
Mmm, front levers, another story. I think they have value for climbing, but, perhaps counter-intuitively, that value has almost nothing to do with ceilings or even particularly overhanging climbing.
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mark miller
Social climber
Reno
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Feb 22, 2008 - 10:48pm PT
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I haven't climbed a Bachar Ladder in 22 years and my elbows are almost healed.
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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Feb 23, 2008 - 07:38am PT
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Bacher wrote: "The wooden version was the best"
This makes me laugh because it makes so much sense. I built this Bacher Ladder in the early 80s to train on in Alabama.
I never got much out of climbing on it. I should have just tried a wooden ladder. Fortunately we had a lot of overhanging sandstone to train on:
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Feb 23, 2008 - 10:45am PT
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Digg how all the cool kids sported Strawberry Mountain Chalk Bags! I have got to call Victor up, he's into fly fishing here in Truckee. One summer (79) I distributed those models around New England, thats how Bobby D' got his.
Bachar Ladders, I spent a little time on those things, but I always sucked at training, no attention span. I just climbed my way into shape, starting in March working my way through the crack circuit, fit by June.
In 1989 the wooden ladder Tarbuster and I built in Berkeley was classic, side yard of my moms house in S, Berkeley. sorry no photo, 24 feet tall, got a lot of attention from the predominantly african-american neighbors, and passerbys. Joists of 2X8 on edge, with redwood 1/2 inch finger boards with drilled sanded pockets. Probably about 18 degrees steep. Got the plans from Chappy and Kauk. We toproped it when we were going for no feet power, and the roped helped minimize negatives. I actually used the thing diligently the summer I competed in the Snowbird World Cup.
Peter
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Feb 23, 2008 - 12:13pm PT
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Yes, the wooden ladders had more real application to climbing. With the rope ladder you can twist the ladder to make reaches but on the wooden ladder you have to "twist" your body to make reaches. For that reason the wooden ladder seems a lot harder and mimicks climbing movement better.
To prevent excessive negatives I liked to downclimb the ladder using my feet - like rgold does with the rope climb.
The slat board ladder with edges and pockets that Maysho talks about is pretty much the same thing as a modern day "campus board".... plastic holds weren't "invented" yet so we made wooden "holds".
Rick Cashner doing a finger traverse on wooden holds...
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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Feb 23, 2008 - 12:40pm PT
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Good morning John! Hows the riding? I'm in Marin County this morning, looks like more pow on the way.
Peter
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Feb 23, 2008 - 12:58pm PT
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Hey Peter! Yup, tons o' snow and more to come....
No riding for me - I pulled a groin muscle last month and it's still on the mend.
One more fo' y'all....the ever so useful fingertip front lever by Don Welsh (where's he at these days?)...
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quartziteflight
climber
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Feb 23, 2008 - 01:17pm PT
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Good stuff!
Is the rope you all are talking about hanging straight down or at a 45 degree angle?? I'm guessing straight down?
Geno,
Is that roof crack champange jam?
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Ihateplastic
Trad climber
Lake Oswego, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 27, 2008 - 12:25am PT
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Here's a few more from C4.
First Blanchard on the horizontal:
And now this guy (who is this? I can't remember his name...) on the sloped hand crack.
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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lad dab...Looks like Champagne above...Geno?
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bachar
Gym climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Drool, drool....
Man I wish I had one o' dem official Bachar Ladders!
Wonder where I can git me a kit?????
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martygarrison
Trad climber
atlanta
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Hey Munge do you have a pic of the dual crack machine I gave you guys when I moved to London? It was a dual pure two inch on one side with a pure inch and a quarter on the other. It was pretty cool, stu polack and I built it, 18 foot as I remember. Mounted it with a steep overhang in my back garden attached to my garage, with a tramp at the bottom so if you had to bail it was so much fun to land......I think crack machines were very useful. I always hurt my shoulders and elbows on the bachar ladders.....
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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I'm a whoreder, what can I say JB. It's going up after I retool with my Bosch sander ;) I already tripped out the Home Depot guys---missing hardware for a rung....
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Geno
Trad climber
Reston, VA
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426: You got one of the originals in the box. Wow that's cool.
Yeah the climb is Champagne Jam in Summer 84.
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GDavis
Trad climber
SoCal
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John, are you talking about Don Welsh, the guy who put like up a billion routes at RR? Was in that movie "white spider"? I see him at my gym every once in a while, he climbs with a few friends of mine... I could probably get ahold of him. He was the first "real" climber I ever met (being gym-bred). Man, he's gotta be one of the smoothest climbers I've seen.
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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my local gym has one of these now
so what do you do? just campus the rungs without feet?
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Great thread...no John Gill yet? He always advocated rope climbing and was a master at it.
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Truthdweller
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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1984...30' up into my eucalyptus tree in Clairemont, San Diego,CA and anchored to my miniature apricot in my backyard. I had 14 inches of 3/4" pvc for rungs with 3/8" holes drilled near each end, then strung onto the rope, held on by knots below each hole. The rungs were spaced equally apart at 16" with three 21" oblique cruxes, each oblique opposite the last. All the rungs were wrapped with athletic tape. I would sit-start the bottom (an unforseen phenomenon ahead of its time) and could, over a period of time, complete the entire ladder and do controlled, one arm lowers to the ground. I, as well, would kip my feet up to assist when I would burn out, whether on ascending or descending. I would also lead the ladder using quick draws and "run it out" near the top to take the fall at the finish. Good times!
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