Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 86 of total 86 in this topic |
Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 4, 2010 - 09:23am PT
|
I just recently started doing pull-ups. A month and a half ago I could barely do 4 (how embarrassing!).
Yesterday I cranked out 3 sets of 12 at the end of my gym-climbing session (please hold your applause).
It's too early to tell whether these are good for climbing or knott. I've heard that adding some weight helps.
I saw a guy at the gym bust out a bunch of fingertip pull-ups on a hangboard with a 45lb plate dangling
from a waist belt. Badass! So what's the deal?
|
|
Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
|
|
pull ups help.
heavy thoughts though, hinder.
i break. sometimes i break even in my pursuits to better my vertical and horizontal strides.
|
|
bearbnz
Trad climber
East Side, California
|
|
Great for strength, bad for footwork, I got tendonitis in my elbows during the time that I was doing 300 per week. But I could definitely pull down harder.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
I used to do a lot of pullups all winter in Laramie, and when we'd go to the valley for spring break's be really strong, and that boosted my confidence and that made me climb better.Don't know if the strength itself helped.
We used to to do 'chinese' pullups; I do one, you do one, etc and back down the same way, the total number you do is the square of the highest number you get up to. ie if work up to ten, and down you do a hundred. With Scarpelli cracking the whip, we went as high as 15/225.
For about ten years I could do 100 pullups in three sets, the most i ever did was 37. in college I used to do a few with 70lbs of weight, yanked the pullup bar off a universal machine that way once,(loose bolts) i was rescued by U of U football players.
When I was 42 I did two pullups with a 110 woman on my back.
at my peak i could do 5 one arms with my left and three with my right.
i say all this because, ir eally got to be a better climber after i had pretty much abandoned pullups. i like to think experience and technique helped.
Sometimes i have had elbow pains from pullups. Not currently, so i'm starting to get back into it. my gradual plan is to do one more a day, starting 1/1/10 so I need to do 35 today. I take rest days, but start back the next workout day at that day's number. I'll let you know how it goes, and if it does anything.
Hardman, any chance you'll be at PGSF Friday morning? I'm meeting Em and Linda there at 10.
FWIW Todd skinner was a pull up monster
|
|
quartziteflight
climber
Who knows?
|
|
4 pullups? Jebus man, thats weaksauce! Congrats on the improvement!
Weighted pullups/chins seem to really help with power imo.
I can do 1st pad finger tip pullups with 45lbs now..
Jaybro,
Was booze involved?lol I tried a 110lb weighted pullup my shoulders didnt approve. Hopefully I'll be strong enough to break 110 this summer. Winter in laramie is pretty dismal for climbing...
|
|
Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
|
|
Technique of course rules over strength; this explains why women often climb better than men. But without excellent strength it is particularly hard to maintain good technique.... I guess I would add to this thread that no one above is mentioning warming up--- giving your muscle fibers a chance to be recruited. You are your strongest if you have warmed up and if you have not, no only are you measurably weaker in that particularly moment of effort but you are exposing yourself to injury.
|
|
Chip
Trad climber
Sittin' Pretty in Fat City
|
|
I know three people who needed shoulder reconstruction following weighted pull-ups. Don't try to progress too rapidly.
|
|
tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
|
|
I'm hoping they help. I'm doing them this winter becuase I don't have time and money for the gym.
I'm using those rock rings that metolius makes rather than a hangboard. I'm thinking the rotation of the rings will help keep the injuries at bay.
I'll let you know.
Also I'm one of those weak sauce guys. In my prime I could do 13 pull ups, yet somehow could crank .11 crack from time to time and .12 sport.
Technique will get a long way, as will endurance and psyche.
Right now, at the Buttermilk, technique is not the problem. I'm too heavy and too weak. When you are stronger, you have longer to figure out the right technique.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
Pate', when this guidbook came out
Scarry Larry said,
"Hey Anderson, look, you're on a guidebook"
Quartz, No, not booze on that 110lb 'live weight' escapade.
Peter, Pamela does hundreds of pullups a day, and she crushes most mean under the table, and she's only like 5'2"!
They say Diane Hunter, RIP, couldn't do even one pullup. she crushed, too!
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
I don't have a bachar ladder set up here in this particular base camp. Back at the armbar ranch I have two, one wit one inch rungs, one with twoinch. I kind of got away from pullups for a while when I was using them, if I could do a couple laps (no feet)on those, I could pretty much do 30 pullups. Did have some elbow trouble from that, though in fact I can feel it right now!
asfter my run I am so having a banan yogurt smoothie!
|
|
Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
Sprocketville
|
|
do Pushups for real rock,
Pullups are good for the gym.
|
|
c_vultaggio
Trad climber
new york
|
|
I use wide-grip pullups as part of my routine, how much they have helped climbing I am yet to find out. But during climbing season I find I can crank out more per set (25 instead of 20).
Another exercise I use (trainer-approved) is a more plyometric DYNO pullup. Start hanging low and dyno up, release both hands, and catch a different grip (usually I go from wide grip to bicep grip), stall for a few seconds, and lower off. I do these in sets of 10 after a regular set of wide-grip pullups.
|
|
Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
|
|
When I was 42 I did two pullups with a 110 woman on my back.
sounds kinky jaybro, i guess my regimen is more boring doing pushups with a woman...
btw - depending upon the type of climb, if you aint got contact strength it really doesnt matter how many pullups you can do.
|
|
JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
|
|
Both pushups and pullups help. I know when I was climbing my best I once tried to see how many pullups I could do, and stopped at 55, but I think technique (and, as Peter cautions, warming up as we get older) helps more.
During a six-month stint in a Federal "correctional institution" I developed a routine where I did 150-200 pullups and a similar number of dips every other day, and hundreds each of pushups and situps on the days I wasn't doing pullups and dips. When I was released, I was climbing as if I were about 30 years younger. I can't really recommend the "Taft CI" regimen, though, because there are other, um, costs that make it not worthwhile.
John
|
|
hafilax
Trad climber
East Van
|
|
I've been doing crossfit lately and have been wondering about the merits of the kipping pullup versus the strict pullup. In some ways it seems like the kipping pullup would be the better method for campusing since you are initiating the motion with the legs in a more dynamic motion as opposed to the slower isolated motion of the strict pullup. The strict pullup might be better for lockoff strength and the kipping pullup for dynamic moves.
Anyway, I climb at the gym a lot and can do about 12 pullups without ever really training them. I've never felt that being able to do more would help in any way but there are moves that I can do that my friends who can't do any pullups struggle with. Mostly the high lockoff type moves think.
|
|
Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
|
|
No. I could never do many pull ups. Learning to use your feet well is a better way to spend your time
|
|
Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2010 - 02:20pm PT
|
Thanks for all the comments.
Peter Haan wrote:
I guess I would add to this thread that no one above is mentioning warming up--- giving your muscle fibers a chance to be recruited. You are your strongest if you have warmed up and if you have not, no only are you measurably weaker in that particularly moment of effort but you are exposing yourself to injury.
In my OP I mentioned that I did the pull-ups at the end of my gym-climbing session, which translates to a 3 hour warmup. ;-)
I am actually very wary of doing anything that might get me injured, and thus have been proceeding cautiously. I tweeked a forearm
muscle by trying some really wide pushups (too many, too soon), where I had been doing regular shoulder-width pushups.
Several people mentioned shoulder / elbow issues related to pull-ups. I found this article yesterday:
http://rockclimbing.suite101.com/article.cfm/advanced_muscle_training_for_climbing_pullups
(excerpt)
Avoiding Elbow Tendinitis: Recommended Pull-Up Form
Many fitness programs recommend that the person performing pull-ups go all the way down into a straight-armed position in between each rep (a “dead hang”). However, for the purposes of rock climbing training, it is suggested that the climber does not go all the way down into this position. Instead, stop while the arms are still slightly bent and the shoulders are still engaged or tight.
The reason for this suggestion is that rock climbers who are training for climbing by climbing in the indoor climbing gym are already placing huge stress loads on tendons. Many climbing movements involve pulls from a straight-armed position. To help prevent shoulder or elbow tendinitis from repetitive movements (like pull-ups and rock climbing), then, it’s suggested that rock climbers avoid the completely straight-armed position during supplemental pull-up workouts.
Jaybro - you're a beast! So did the pull-ups help your climbing or knott?
How long will you guys be at the gym tomorrow? I might roll through a bit later...
|
|
FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
|
|
How to do Nat's Traverse
In 1976 or so Nat put up a new hard traverse at Indian Rock, well, Mortar Rock actually. I found that I had to actually get significantly stronger to do this darn thing. It was more intense than the other bouldering we were doing at the time, much more gymnastic.
I tried to figure out how to get a bit stronger so I made a deal with myself to do 30 pullups a day, every day for a month. I could do them in any denomination. I could do sets of any number whenever it struck my fancy. But if I missed a day I had to make it up the next day by doing 60, etc. This seemed pretty radical to me at the time. When I see the stuff people write in here, 30 pullups a day seems pretty wimpy.
Somewhere near the end of that month I finally got the route. I immediately stopped the pullups and continued to do this route for the next 5 years without problems. It was the only time I ever "trained" for bouldering/climbing and it worked quickly for me.
Do them but be careful. (If did a pullup today I'm sure both arms would snap off like dry noodles.)
Fred
|
|
d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
|
|
twemendously.
throw in some leg liffs.
core strength baby.
|
|
hafilax
Trad climber
East Van
|
|
I was trying to do feet to bars last night in crossfit. Now those are hard!
|
|
Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2010 - 04:01pm PT
|
Fred - thanks for the Nat's Traverse beta. A few years ago, the best I could do was "one hanging" it,
ie could go from the start to the midpoint undercling nonstop, or from the undercling to the finish,
but was knott able to do the whole thing. Maybe I'll get back on it after a few thousand more pull-ups...
Nat Smale was WAAAAY ahead of his time (V8 or 13.b in 1976).
|
|
Rankin
climber
North Carolina
|
|
Pull-ups have never helped my climbing. Running, yoga and core exercises have made a noticeable difference though. Climbing a lot is the best though for getting strong.
|
|
tarek
climber
berkeley
|
|
When I first got into climbing and then soon after got stuck in a flat part of Ohio w/o a car, I did a lot of pullups. Best way to max number seemed to be sets of 12 with a 3 min. rest. That quickly got me to 30 with one "rest" at the bottom hang position. Did them with weight also, got to 10 with 70 lb added at 165 bw. This got me to a couple of one-arms w/ my right arm. Never tried the left, for some reason.
My rigorous pullup training got me to barely sketch up 10a when I got back on the rock.
The thing you have to understand about Fred Cook is that he already had impeccable technique, therefore it's no surprise that pullups helped him on Nat's.
Also, grip strength (or jamming technique on cracks) is way more important than pullup strength. If you can hold on, your legs will push you to the next hold--on maybe 95% of climbing moves.
If you do pullups at all, I'd vary the speed, but do most of them slowly, 4 sec. up and 4 sec. down. I would knott follow that idiotic advice about not going all the way down to straight elbows. Just don't stetch your shoulder ligaments, meaning let your elbows go straight, but keep your shoulders tight.
|
|
pdx_climber
Sport climber
portland,or
|
|
I don't see myself as one that can do many pullups in a row, warmed up, maybe 15???
But I regularly climb mid-12 sport, b/c I can "dead point with accuracy", and move from hold x to x+1 very quickly (lots of fast twitch I guess?), and lock the fingers shut!
And I have the core strength to suck my body against the rock as I hit the hold, thus putting my weight back over my feet.
So are the deadpoint and core more important? Prob not more, but prob equally important, now that I have the other 2 'under control'.
And probably having an abundance of 1 of the above (pullups, deadpoint, core) would make up for not having the other. And thus I would likely climb harder if I did more pullups...
|
|
Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
|
|
I've found pull-ups to be an extremely effective way to train for doing pull-ups.
|
|
drunkenmaster
Social climber
santa rosa
|
|
hardman ive told you before and i will tell you again do the all holds no eliminate variation of nats thats a grade or two easier to get used to doing the finish with a pump and to get the feel of the long haul. then it wont take long to add on the v4 start. why does no one give credit to the all holds non eliminate "Natural Nats" - silly i say. as far as pull ups they help me a lot but i only do a few sets of about 7-15 once in awhile. sometimes i also do lock offs and 1 and 2 finger lock offs on the deep pockets on a hangboard or webbing to keep my finger tendons strong for pocket pulling. i used to do some pull ups with weights but i also used to have shoulder and elbow tendinitis a lot more than i do now. i also was just starting to do v8/5.12 back then and when i started doing v10/5.13 more recently i mostly just climb or boulder hard a lot and as much as possible outdoors with the emphasis on technique (footwork, sequencing, breathing, relaxing and crushing) more than just strength. still works for me but a few pull ups are good when a good climbing/bouldering workout wasnt enough to do you in for the day. also ive been into campusing v0-v2 steep jug hauls in the gym the last few years and it gives me a very good pull up type workout and at the same time it works my fat gut a little and also keeps my footless dangling monkey techniques up to par. so yes pull ups are good but technique is better, at least for me anyway. lets go climb sometime eh - call me up sucka!!
|
|
'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
|
|
Interesting, Mark - I'd have thought someone on the small side, who has a good power to weight ratio, and who could really free climb hard, could have done more pullups.
I haven't tried lately, but I remain about the same level of fitness as always. I could probably only do about ten right now off a tree branch, where I could squeeze the whole branch, and take turns shaking out one arm at a time, trying to get another one or two more pullups in.
BITD, before climbing gyms and hang boards, I used to do a lot of fingertip pullups. I did them on your basic 1/2-inch doorjamb, just wide enough to get about 2/3 of my fingertip bit on. My best ever was 22 fingertip pullups. I also used to do a lot of wrist curls with a barbell, sets of about 50 til my forearms cramped in pain.
I used to do a lot of traversing across fingery retaining walls. I don't do ANY training AT ALL any more. I go caving to stay fit, and every spring I walk up to the base of El Cap, and climb it.
I'm pretty much retired from free climbing these days. I haven't been to a climbing gym in years, and I am probably the world's worst climber on plastic. I can't seem to perform unless I'm a bit scared.
|
|
Hawkeye
climber
State of Mine
|
|
I can't seem to perform unless I'm a bit scared.
hope that doesnt interfere in the bedroom, otherwise you might try a halloween mask...
|
|
PP
Trad climber
SF,CA
|
|
I hurt my shoulder re-uping my pull up strength and finger tip pull ups will definately f#@k up your fingers.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
the jury is still out. i don't climb as well as at my (previous) peak, but I am 53 inheretently lazy and about 5-10 lbs. heavier. I know that sometimes when something is hard I am jonseing my previous, power, but with gyms now, I'm climbing a lot more and sort of keeping up on it .
|
|
paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
|
|
i noticed a pretty significant improvement after doing pullups and lock-offs at the end of every gym session. pull your chin up and hold for ten, drop so your elbow is a 90 and hold for ten, then drop til you're holding a 45 degree angle off your shoulder to elbow and hang for ten.
i think it was the lock off power that was more than just the pullups - my trad confidence and ability seemed to take a leap at that point. make sure you use big wide holds to develop contact strength, not tiny crimps and blow your sh#t out...
ymmv...
|
|
Captain...or Skully
Social climber
شقوق واس
|
|
I noticed a marked improvement doing what we called "Hubers".....Leg lifts on the rock rings or pullup bar. Let 'em down S L O W.No, SLower, dammit! Pain is weakness leaving the body.
Core.It's where it's at, for me.
|
|
Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
|
|
In my humble opinion, most climbers, and I'm talking 85 to 90%, focus on power strength over full body endurance too much.
Most climbers could benefit more by focusing on endurance and core (trunk) strength and using their feet better than anything else.
Hell, I'm 54 years old and I will bury most of you in a day to day to day climbing comp of long Yosemite routes and I struggle with doing five sets of 6 pullups on rings right now.
|
|
paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
|
|
i'll bring beer - we'll make it a party ;-) just bury me somewhere the tourists won't go to the bathroom on me...
|
|
Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 4, 2010 - 11:19pm PT
|
I was gonna say, I wouldn't mind getting buried in such fashion - sounds like fun. ;-)
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
When I could climb hard,
I could do a lot of pull-ups.
I think it works the other way around.
|
|
bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
|
|
i think that aside from the obvious -- climb as much as you possibly can -- pull-ups, lots of them, with weights and without, on doorjambs and edges and bars, were the most important factor in my improving as a climber. i went from being a 5.10 climber to being a 5.11+/5.12 climber in about 12 months after i got serious about pull-ups. climbing 5 - 6 days a week during that whole time probably didn't hurt much either.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
I guess you could say that pull-ups have held up my climbing. So to speak.
|
|
FredC
Boulder climber
Santa Cruz, CA
|
|
I agree with the idea that lock-off strength is really good. I think it matters more than pulling.
I am 54 too and there is no way I'm gonna compete in any endurance or pull ups business.
I like ice cream though. I think I'm finding my next horizon. Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. I eat directly out of the container. It's like I'm doing the Ice Cream Direct.
Lock off strength feels good though, I remember that stuff.
|
|
Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
|
|
I took my mug and coffee dripper into the 7-11 by my office the other day, worked like a charm!
Yeah, I mean, like, WTF, without good coffee, who gives a fuk!?!?!
|
|
roadman
climber
|
|
no never....but I still do them.
|
|
Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
|
|
Rumble! Hud and Coz are off...
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
Hardman, we'll be ther 10 to, ?
|
|
Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
|
|
You're on Coz! This is going to be cool, I get a way good partner to go climb a bunch of long routes with!
At the very least we'll climb a ton of routes and have a riot doing it!
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
a rivalry of convenience.
|
|
quartziteflight
climber
Who knows?
|
|
Pullups are just part of the puzzle. But if you dont believe pullups make you stronger. Just look at most badass climbers and see how many of them can do 1-armed pullups.
As for clapping pullups I hate those things. They're hard on the joints..
Crossfit is way too culty for my likes.
|
|
J. Werlin
Social climber
Cedaredge, CO
|
|
Hey Mark, what's your beta for core strength?
|
|
jh1000
climber
slc
|
|
Not sure, but climbing has definitely helped my pull-ups :)
|
|
snowey
Trad climber
San Diego
|
|
Pull ups DEFINITELY help though not in the way you expect. We all know that climbing is largely a mental challenge well...pullups help you mentally:
1) Doing lots of pullups makes you look huge.
2) Members of the preferred sex are attracted to your hugeness.
3) You enter into a relationship with said member of the preferred sex.
4) Since you are an idiot climber you find a way to screw up the relationship.
5) Now you can set aside your fear on the rock. Hello Break-up courage!
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
I started climbing in 1958. Climbing gyms didn't happen until well after the peak of my "career," and so we all went to regular gyms and did various types of ordinary strength training. One result in my case is that I became pretty expert in the subject of pullup-type strength training, with seven totally honest one-arm pullups on each arm to show for it.
Here's what I learned, for whatever it is worth.
1. High-repetition pullups have no relevance to climbing. I think once you can do ten or so, there is little to no climbing benefit in doing any more, and absolutely no point at all in pushing the number over 20.
2. High pullup strength (as opposed to endurance), particularly lock-off strength, has some use for climbers. But it is all to easy to mistake gaps in technique for failures of strength, and so through training to become a much stronger weak climber. The other side of the coin is that, for any given level of technique, extra strength can, in some situations, be of some use.
3. Pullup strength is more relevant to trad climbing, or what I now think may need to be called traditional trad climbing (trad² climbing?), which would be ground-up ascents of territory that hasn't been previewed, worked, or pre-protected. In the trad² context, the advantages of dynamic approaches over static ones is substantially diminished. Dynoing for a hold of unknown quality over protection that may not be near and/or may be suspect is rarely more than the last desperate resort of a climber who has run out of good options. And placing high protection can't be done dynamically; the climber has to be able to lock off for certain types of high placement opportunities to be realized. The situations that are likely to impose such requirements on climbers are steep face climbing such as one finds in the Gunks and Eldorado Canyon.
4. This means that, after building a good strength base, a climber who wants to develop high pullup/lockoff strength needs to shift from ordinary pullups to higher-intensity exercises. As for what constitutes a good strength base, I personally have found that five sets of ten pullups, resting three minutes between sets, is about right.
5. Once a base is established, their are several paths to higher intensity:
(a) Weighted two-arm pullups and lockoffs,
(b) Uneven grip height two-arm pullups and lockoffs,
(c) Assisted one-arm pullups and lockoffs,
(d) One-arm pullups and lockoffs.
Options (a), (b), and (c) have been listed in order of what I've found to be the safest progression, but it is also possible to alternate exercises from those categories from the start.
5(a). Weighted pullups. Hang the weights from your waist, not in a backpack or something that alters normal body mechanics. Ideally, the weight should hang fairly close to your feet, so that standing in a slight crouch unweights your waist. Obviously, your bar cannot be so high that you have to jump for it.
I've found the best system involves sequences of five sets of ten, five sets of five, and five sets of three. Initially, the five sets of ten phase would be your base phase. Then you go to five sets of five with higher weights, roughly in the range of 20%-25% body weight. Warm up with a few building sets that start with nothing and end up near your target weight. When progress at this level stalls, move on to five sets of three with even higher weights, which can start around 30%-40% of body weight and go higher than body weight (Bachar). Personally, I rarely exceeded 50% of body weight; at that point I think other methods are more productive. Once progress stalls at the five sets of three level, you go back to five sets of ten, but now with a small amount of added weight, say five or ten pounds initially, and then run through the whole program again. Rather than rigidly periodizing any of the stages, I just moved on when I felt like I wasn't getting any better at any one stage.
5(b) Uneven grip pullups. These are pullups done with the hands at different heights, imposing a higher load on the upper hand. The books say drape a towel on your pullup bar and hold on to that with the lower hand. This is a primitive beginning exercise but does not provide adequate opportunities to progress.
You want to start with the low hand at about the level of the high-hand arm's elbow, maybe higher if this seems too difficult, and the towel does allow for that. But as strength increases, the lower hand has to move down, eventually beginning from a position at armpit of the high hand. In this position, the lower hand actually presses rather than pulls, and the best system for this is a set of rings, which allows the lower hand to take a "false grip" and so get on with the business of pressing.
For uneven grip exercises I only used the five sets of five and five sets of three routines.
5(c) Assisted one-arm pullups. I know of two good ways to get assistance. I don't think some of the fancy gym machines like the gravitron are effective.
Method 1: Pulley counterweight. Mount a pulley on or above your chinning bar, wear a harness, and use a weight on a rope through the pulley to your harness to effectively reduce bodyweight. As described, this is pretty awkward; you'll be continually bumping into the weight. There are two solutions to this problem. One is to use a second pulley mounted somewhere away from the chinning bar, so that the weight isn't in the same plane as your body. The other is to mount two pulleys at the outer extremities of the chinning bar, divide your counterweight in half, and run lines from each half through the pulleys to your harness. In this set-up the weights are in the plane of the chinner but run up and down alongside the chinner, rather than fighting for the same space. Here's a picture of this set-up. The red slings at the bottom are used to attache weights.
Method 2: Latex surgical tubing. This has a more natural feel for me then the counterweight method, although the counterweights can be more finely tuned. Get an 8--10 foot length of latex surgical tubing. Diving supply stores carry this, as well as certain chemical supply houses. Make sure it is latex, and get something with the largest outer diameter and smallest inner diameter you can find. Tie it up to the bar with clove hitches, and use a foot loop of 1" or wider webbing. (Don't just stand on the tubing; sooner or later it will snap off your feet when stretched and hit you with enough force to raise very nasty welts.) The amount of assistance you get from the tubing is adjusted by how low it hangs when you tie it.
I think the 5 X 5 and 5 X 3 routines work well for assisted one-arms as well.
5(d) Actual one arm pullups. Go through the progression described above and you'll get there. But consider whether it matters, because with any exercise at this level of intensity, you are raising your injury risk. I think there is no point in progressing beyond one-arm lock-offs, which are considerably easier to achieve than one-arm pullups.
Pullup styles: I've used two. Either fairly strict pullups at moderate speed (A full second, maybe a touch more, for up and for down), and "frenchie" style. My frenchies are a bit different from the usual description, in that I do them going up rather than going down. So you pull up to a 120 degree elbow angle, hold (I've used everything from three seconds to ten seconds), pull out of this to 90 degree elbow angle and hold, and pull out of that to full pullup position (top of chest to the bar, not the chin) and hold. Then all the way down and repeat. They're a bit more intense this way.
Injury considerations. The two places at greatest risk are elbows and shoulders.
For me, elbows were the weak point, but I did some things not described here that certainly didn't help. If you are at all prone to elbow problems (lateral or medial epicondylitis), then I'd say something like Bachar ladders are most definitely out (Bachar himself destroyed his elbows this way.) If you insist, climb down the ladder, don't lower yourself, because the lowering stage seems to contribute disproportionally to elbow injury.
The same goes for uneven grip chins and assisted one-arm pullups. Find a way to go down without strain, even if it means stepping off onto a bench or stool. As for weighted pullups, I've found my elbow problems are alleviated by using wrist straps so that the hands don't have to grip hard. You will presumably be training hand strength anyway in some other way, so give 'em as much of a break as possible during pullups.
Frenchies are not a good thing if your elbows are bothering you.
I have less to offer about shoulders, because they haven't been that much of a problem for me. It should be obvious that any kind of ballistic bouncing at the bottom of a pullup is going to be very bad. In fact, I think you lose little or nothing in terms of effectiveness if your pullup bar is set so that you end up standing at the bottom of each pullup. Don't rest there, do the next pullup immediately, but don't force your shoulders to endure the maximal loads required to reverse your direction of motion.
Conventional wisdom dictates exercises for strengthening opposing muscles to prevent injuries due to "imbalances." I have no idea whether this really makes sense, but I've always done it anyway because it surely can't hurt. I have never tried any kind of high-intensity work for the opposing muscle exercises. I'll usually do three sets of 8--12 barbell presses on an incline bench set to a fairly high angle, one that approximates the torso position when doing pullups. I try to have the third set feel a bit hard, but nothing like any kind of maximal effort.
|
|
Mark Hudon
Trad climber
Hood River, OR
|
|
I don't really have any beta but just be well rounded in your exercises. Do sit ups, leg lifts, back ups, lift up weight and push down weight. Get a set of rings since everything you do on them will start with your core. This is a great set. http://ringtraining.com/
|
|
nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
|
|
The relevance of pull-ups matters depending on what grade and type of climbing you are targeting.
These days I'm a ~ 5.11 gym climber, 5.9 adventure climber in Yosemite and I've done a handful of 5.10 yosemite routes. Almost without exception when I fail in the gym it is through lack of contact strength on the hold. Sometimes it is from a moment of lost focus and foot slipping. When I fail outside, it is usually from total body exhaustion and overall fatigue, just not having the juice for another grovel past a chockstone. Or on slabs it's because I don't know how to use my feet or manage my weight/balance better.
One thing I watch carefully on all-day climbs is how I belay... pulling up a rope pitch after pitch can burn your fore-arms and that lock-off muscle in the elbow, so I try to redirect the belay through the anchor and use my body weight to pull up the slack, rocking my hips back and forth. That helps A LOT.
In the gym, for me to get from 5.11 to 5.12, it's mostly about stronger hands and fingers, some improvement in footwork and body positioning, and I can probably stay steady with 10-15 max pullup capacity. When fresh I can max at 15, but at end of gym session when I was burnt on climbing from a few hours, I finished off with 10 pullups. I usually just do one set of pull-ups to failure to wring out the last bit of energy at the end of the gym session when I'm out of time.
Also for improving gym climbing, a Yosemite survival instinct helped me a lot. When I reach a point of uncertainty, I just gun for it because the clock is ticking on my endurance. Hang out and wait to fall big on lead, or go for it and hopefully come out OK.
|
|
tarek
climber
berkeley
|
|
Wow, rgold, thanks for the treatise. Very complete, to say the least, and nicely puts pull-ups in a climbing context.
I think, though, that a dynamic style can apply to a trad or sport onsight for the many moves where the holds are clear enough from below that you can save energy by dynoing precisely. Then some moves will be obligatorily static, as you say.
Your point about form is important, even critical to this narrow topic. When I did one-arm pullups, as with most people here, I'd guess, they involved a violent yank and kip at the bottom to begin the arm bend. This has rare application in climbing beyond overhanging campusing.
Likewise, most people do dips with loose form, letting their body sag under their shoulders (murder on ligaments and rotator cuff), going too fast, taking a more horizonal position, etc. Strict dips with tight shoulders are very difficult--ten is very proud--and help a lot in mantling and in balancing pulling strength.
Any thoughts on these?
|
|
426
climber
Buzzard Point, TN
|
|
"1. High-repetition pullups have no relevance to climbing. I think once you can do ten or so, there is little to no climbing benefit in doing any more, and absolutely no point at all in pushing the number over 20."
Yea, star that...good stuff gold...
Hypertrophy is fairly useless if you are a poor recruiter. I'm climbing better than when I could do 2 one arms with my strongs, one with my weaks...(can't do OAP currently) add 15 years of age, too. but also 15 years of technique...
I also agree that trad requires more lockoff/static (strength) whereas boulder/hard moves/sport require power....two different matters to address.
But, like anything related to training...to each their own. For core, check out the old school "legendary abs"...direct correlation to roof climbing. it burns!
|
|
J. Werlin
Social climber
Cedaredge, CO
|
|
Thanks Mark. Those rings look quality.
|
|
Srbphoto
Trad climber
Kennewick wa
|
|
"traditional trad" or trad² climbing
classic!
|
|
okie
Trad climber
San Leandro, Ca
|
|
It's all in the feet...or something like that...except when it's not.
When it comes to power to weight ratio I can only bring weaksauce to the table. Luckily they let you use your feet out there.
My buddy Jon could crank sets of 7-8 one arms when he was 19 years old. Yep, I think that sauce is genetic...All the OSU football players would put down their humongous weights and watch this freak man-child perform feats of strength, like running up and down the peg board...without the pegs...
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
LG, I think rings are excellent for some things, but there are certainly exercises I'd stay away from if shoulder problems are a concern. Two that come to mind are the hanging position in skin the cat and the back lever (see http://www.drillsandskills.com/article/17 for descriptions and photos). Dips and muscle-ups might also be problematic, because there is a tendency to lean way forward, and if you are too low when you do this, your shoulders will take a beating.
If dips and muscleups are on the agenda, then set your rings at first so that you press from a standing position on the ground, and very gradually raise the rings as you get stronger.
The surgical tubing I mentioned in the pullup manifesto was originally employed by gymnasts on the rings to learn iron crosses. It is just as effective for muscleups and front levers. You don't tie it to anything, you just drape it through the rings and then grasp on top of the tubing. But this makes it somewhat difficult to get your foot or feet in the foot loop (latex tubing has astonishing stretch; you use very short loops for training). Really the only solution before muscleups are comfortable is to stand on a stool so that you can step into support position. From there, get your foot or feet in the foot loop and then lower down to a full hang to do your exercise.
|
|
divad
Trad climber
wmass
|
|
Pull-ups have helped me do more pull-ups.
I haven't read the whole thread, so someone might have said this already.
I would think that out of 80 posts, someone would have.
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
It's hard to improve on the excellent treatise by rgold. All I can add is that I never did more than 25 consecutive pull-ups, and stopped doing that many 56 years ago. For a number of years I would warm up with only 5. I don't think anyone benefits by doing big numbers. At 73 I warm up with a comfortable 10, then do a few additional bodyweight things. But I do these only because I like doing them, rather than keeping in some sort of climbing shape. In general, pull-ups will help some climbers and will be of no help to others. Depends on genetics, anatomy, etc. Be wary of still ring exercises - they are great fun, but you wouldn't want my arthritic shoulders as you age! The strength exercises I did 50 years ago were appropriate for that time, but there are many more climbing-specific feats available for today's high levels of difficulty.
|
|
Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 9, 2010 - 03:25pm PT
|
If I can get up off the couch at 73 - let alone do 10 pull-ups - I'll be really stoked.
Badass!!!!!!!!!!1111
|
|
Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 18, 2010 - 02:42pm PT
|
So having worked up to 5 sets of 12 (at the end of a 3 hour climbing session), I figured I might try a bit of weight.
I put a 25 lb plate on a waist belt and was able to do a maximum of 6. I followed with 4 more sets of 6; on the last
two sets I wasn't quite able to make it to six - in other words, close but knott quite. I just re-read RGold's most
excellent post, and I will try some of that stuff out. I also liked Coz' post about doing the finger hangs 30 sec on, 30
sec off for as long as you can. It's still too early to tell if this is helping my climbing, but if nothing else I'm definitely
looking way more "cut" from all the pull-ups - this alone makes it worthwhile. ;-)
|
|
quartziteflight
climber
Who knows?
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2010 - 09:04am PT
|
Good work man.
As to looking like the guy in the video. It depends on what you look like now and how old you are. I'd say a couple years of lifting and a good diet. And that dude isnt that big, I highly doubt he's taking steroids.
|
|
emankcin
Trad climber
KCMO
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2010 - 10:28am PT
|
Maybe I invented these, but unless I missed it, no one has discussed what I call "diagonals", or "half-Eldos". Instead of having your arms at a 30-degree angle (or less -- not sure of actual angle) and pulling up to each hand in alternation, you have one arm straight up and the other at an angle and pull up to each hand in alternation. Then you switch the straight and angled arms and repeat. I started doing these because I figured they would provide more varied work -- a wider range of muscles. Has anyone else done these? Found them helpful, or just a gimmick?
|
|
tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2010 - 10:48am PT
|
My technique is good. It's the only thing that has kept me in the game all these years.
Looking around at what I want to climb in the buttermilks made me realize I am too fat and too weak. 5'10 and 185 pounds. I don't fail cuz I don't know where to put my feet, I fail because I don't have time to figure out where to put my feet because I'm too fat and weak.
I started doing pull ups this year because I have a baby at home and no time.
I'm running circles doing sets of 10 sit ups 10 push ups and 5 pull ups until I reach 100 and 50 pull ups. I can see that soon I will reach what rgold is talking about where my numbers are just a matter of time and I won't be making gains.
The beauty of being fat and weak, however, is that you can make gains pretty easy.
Thanks to rgold, I'm going to change my pull ups to five sets of ten, with twenty sit ups and push ups between.
If I can get there and be comfortable. I'll add weight.
The thing is, once the days get longer, I won't be training indoors much. Then things get weird because the training ends up on stuff I have so wired that I'm not sure I get a workout.
|
|
Gilwad
climber
Frozen In Somewhere
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2010 - 10:54am PT
|
Yes, but pull-ups haven't helped as much as going climbing. If you were to spend 1/2 of your training time doing pullups and other non-climbing stuff then you would not progress as fast as someone who spent all of their training time climbing. But you might progress faster than someone who never did pullups and never climbed.
We all want to get stronger because it's easy to measure strength in pullups, bench press, whatever. It's harder to measure progress in climbing. But after 25 years of using various training tactics for climbing I've decided that for pure rock climbing the best training is climbing, either in the climbing gym, on the rock, whatever, but climbing. If you're specific about your climbing, for example, desert cracks, then climb a crack machine. Specific Adaption to Imposed Demand works wonders. The hardest I've ever climbed came when doing nothing but climbing 4 days a week, all day, for months. I didn't really advance in climbing until I gave up on weighted pullups and other wastes of time and actually went climbing a whole lot.
Look at the best rock climbers in the world today and you'll find that they spend the vast majority of their training time doing some version of climbing.
All of that said, I do train with non-climbing workouts for sure, but I'm not just a climber. I need to be able to deadlift, squat, run, etc. etc. for life, and climbing does not make one incredibly fit for a lot of life stuff.
|
|
JoeSimo
Trad climber
New York
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2010 - 11:13am PT
|
Hmmm I thought my point was well illustrated. The guy that can do pull ups for hours a day 5 days a week can't climb well at all. The girl that can't do a single pull up can out climb the guy any day of the week. Having spent years working on his pull up technique his skill as a climber was well below that of someone that cannot even do a pull up and spends little to no time practicing them. To this day she continues to improve as a climber while he continues to flail up 5.8's and 59's like a dead fish.
|
|
cliffhanger
Trad climber
California
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2010 - 11:50am PT
|
Working on my finger strength most improved my climbing. If you can't crimp onto the rock those big biceps are just dead weight. Whether working out on a finger board or bouldering, go until you burn your forearms out. Coz's workout looks good.
The only climbs that really required all of my pullup power are some off width cracks.
|
|
tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2010 - 12:57pm PT
|
But you're forgetting about people like me who know how to climb, but are out of shape. I can make gains doing pull-ups.
I too have seen plenty of strong people fail on climbs, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't get stronger.
Technique will only get you so far. At some point, even with perfect technique you will run into endurance problems and power problems.
Rgold has it about right I think, once you are at a base level, you need to start upping the power with weights.
If you are strong and you suck, technique should be your focus, for the rest of us who have good technique, strength and endurance should be our focus.
Pull ups can help. CLimbing more always helps, but that takes more time than most people have. Which means gyms.
|
|
klk
Trad climber
cali
|
|
|
Feb 19, 2010 - 01:05pm PT
|
no.
they didn't even help me learn a one-arm.
i finally learned one-arms after i started climbing a lot more rope and doing a lot fewer pull-ups.
|
|
rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2010 - 09:36am PT
|
KLK brings up rope climbing. It is, in my opinion, the absolute king of pulling exercises. And I agree with him that you'll never achieve one-arm pullups by doing multiple unweighted two-arm pullups, no matter how many of those you manage. Even the weighted two-arm pullups will probably not get you all the way to a one-arm pullup (if you care about such party tricks), because the body mechanics are different. At some point, you have to shift to uneven grip pullups, and rope-climbing provides the best environment for training those.
I left rope climbing out of my "treatise" because I also think it provides a very high potential for elbow injury, as bad and perhaps worse than Bachar ladders. Personally, I have a lifetime problem with my elbows from climbing the rope, but this may be partially because I worked up to doing it very slowly, one arm at a time, each one-arm pull from a fully hanging position. It made everyone in the gym stop what they were doing and watch, so had great show-off value, but was of very questionable use for climbing and was ultimately, considering the essentially permanent injuries, a bad bargain for me.
Of course, not everyone's physiology is the same, so if you want to try, here's what I learned about progression in rope climbing.
1. Of course, the first problem is finding a rope to climb. They used to be available in lots of gyms, but have become rare. Body-building gyms rarely have the ceiling height to even consider a climbing rope. You might need to go to one of those cult gyms (Crossfit, Gym Jones, etc.) or buy your own gym rope and hang it from a tree (but a standard manila rope won't weather well at all). They aren't all that cheap---$120 to $160 depending on length (15 feet is minimum, and get the standard 1.5" diameter, not a 2" rope).
2. If you are going to do it, I would strongly recommend beginning with a course of weighted pullups, which allows you to fine-tune the training resistances much better. But I have to admit that I started right in, and only came upon weighted pullups much later as part of rehabbing injuries.
3. The very first thing to learn is how to climb the rope with assistance from your feet. This is essential for safety, so that you can get off your arms if you run out of steam. But you also need it for another reason, and that is that, in my opinion, the rope should be fully chalked. A manila rope climbed repeatedly without chalk will get downright slippery, and especially if you have gotten to the point where you are only using one arm at a time, you do not want to fall off from 15 to 24 feet up. So your warmup is to climb the rope, using your feet, with a block of chalk and chalk it up. Rub the chalk block on the rope and then rub that up and down with your hand a few times to distribute the chalk.
The basic foot lock for foot-assisted climbing goes like this: With the rope running between your legs, spin your right leg around in front of the rope, then bring it back and catch the rope on the instep of your right foot. Stand on the rope with your left foot where the rope crosses your right instep. If you are doing this right, you can hook an elbow around the rope and let go with both hands. Especially new, manila ropes can be splintery and you might want to wear long pants. Of course, "right" and "left" can be interchanged here.
You can climb the rope this way using mostly foot power. Hanging from both hands, you do the leg motions with bent legs so as to get a high foot lock, and then stand up with leg power, walking your hands up. Repeat.
4. Now for the climbing part. Start any way you can, just try to get to the top and then back down again. At this point, you have to decide whether you'll go for a dynamic style, using alternating leg kicks synchronized with your reaches, or a more static style with slower reaches and little to no leg action. As far as I can tell, either way leads to comparable strength gains, at least until you get too good at the dynamic style, at which point perhaps the strength component of the exercise decreases.
6. Progression comes in three forms.
(a) On the way up. Work on lengthening your "stride," by which I mean the distance between consecutive hand placements. The ultimate slow static stride goal has the low hand at armpit level and the high hand at full extension above that. At this point you are doing maximal uneven-grip pullups, with the low hand actually pressing and only the upper hand pulling. The ultimate dynamic stride goal powers the low hand to waist level or even lower and the the high hand at full extension above. One of several things that makes the rope better than a Bachar ladder is that the stride length is continuously variable and isn't predetermined by the spacing between rungs.
(b) On the way down. Work on one-arm lowering. This is done first by pinching the rope between the feet and lowering with one hand at a time. The foot-pinch gives a lot of help for this. You lower until hanging at full extension, then the other hand grabs the rope at the level of the armpit of the extended hand, locks off, and lowers. There is some ability to control how much help you get from pinching the rope between both feet. If foot-aided one-arm lowering is too hard at first, do foot-aided maximum stride lowering. The ultimate lowering goal is to get to controlled one-arm lowers without any help from the feet.
(c) Counterweight training. If you can rig it, this is and extremely effective way to make progress safely. You'll need two pulleys, one at the top of the rope and one at the same level but a few feet away. You wear a harness and the rope runs up from you, through the pulleys, to an appropriate weight. You begin by hauling the weight up to the ceiling and then clipping the rope to your harness so that as you climb, the weight descends. The second pulley is essential to keep the descending weight away from your ascent path. There is an obvious extreme danger factor for other folks in the vicinity if you haul the weight up to the ceiling and then accidentally drop it---'nuff said, I hope. I found that the best place to attach the weight to the harness is at the back of the harness, otherwise the weight rope is continually in your way.
Once you can climb the rope statically with maximum stride and lower slowly one arm at a time with no foot assistance, you'll be pretty close to being able to climb up one arm at a time.
5. Pay attention to elbow pain! Lateral and medial epicondylitis injuries are cumulative, not sudden. If you have the discipline, you can back off before you do long-term damage.
|
|
426
climber
Buzzard Point, TN
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2010 - 10:21am PT
|
"Well 10c is V0+, maybe v1, so what's your point?"
Bouldering and route climbing cannot be correlated in all circumstances...take the East Butt of Middle for example, hehe. Ya it's only 10c but one of my proudest onsights all-time, even though I've os'ed many things 6 grades harder. V1 slab(?) nyuck, nyuck, but as Gill sez, on man's 6 is another man's 2 which is my point.
I think his point was that technique rules~which I agree with...climbing is movement based, not necessarily a pulling based, the boulders in the southeast bear this point out savagely.
|
|
jogill
climber
Colorado
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2010 - 05:55pm PT
|
Re: rgold and rope climbing
Competitive Rope Climbing
It's a one-time Olympic sport that is making a comeback. Believe me, it's as much a challenge as a lot of rock climbs! And I wouldn't denigrate bodyweight enthusiasts because they can't climb 5.12 . . . what they do is as meaningful to them as climbing is to climbers.
|
|
Brock
Trad climber
RENO, NV
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2010 - 07:37pm PT
|
Pull ups help to some degree...I figure the more you can do, the better your endurance muscles. I often lock off pretending I am placing gear or looking for the next hold. I sometimes use a rope or towel to offset one arm lower than the other.
Honestly, the best thing that I think improved my climbing (other than climbing) was rowing with weights. I think cardio-endurance is a huge help too.
I have often tried to think up ways to put holds on the lat pull down bar.
|
|
Jason Lantz
Trad climber
Moab, UT
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2010 - 08:01pm PT
|
about ten years ago i learned how to do the one finger pullup trick by practicing negatives. start with a pair of rock rings. pull one arm into the body and push one arm out. now slowly lower yourself trying to controll the entire motion... don't go all the way down or you will trash your elbows. once you can fully controll the downward aspect the upward aspect will fall into line. then just start dropping fingers. took about one month of negatives before i could start the upward motion. Hope this helps.
|
|
thebravecowboy
Social climber
Colorado Plateau
|
|
yes. might just be a confidence thing, but yes.
and ditto the first coupla jaybro comments - elbow trouble fer sure.
I am intrigued by the Scarpelli torture method of (max reps)^2 = total reps.
|
|
climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
|
|
I once got to the point that I could do two one arm pullups on my right and 1 on my left., was doing a hundred or several every day. This was nice for endurance on low end juggy stuff. It allowed me to do my only 5.12 which was a solid hold very overhanging thing.
But it didn't do a damn bit of good for my big weakness. finger and grip strength.
|
|
i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
|
|
what are you calling pullups here? palms facing forward, or towards you? i can do twice as many with palms facing towards me, but that is less like real climbing. i've almost abandoned pullups at the gym in favor of different types of pulls, and generally with just my fingers if possible. no real standard yet but i do something and try to see if it mimics a pumpy burn and if it does i stick with it. i do tend to find my triceps get at least as much of a workout as biceps when climbing outside. keep in mind, my technique sucks.
|
|
thebravecowboy
Social climber
Colorado Plateau
|
|
wait, you mean to tell me that I have been doing chin-ups this whole time?
|
|
Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
|
|
When I was 19 years old I was doing 1,000 pull-ups a day.
10 sets of 10, ten times a day - with a back-pack full of school books.
If nothing else it helps your forearm and grip strength.
Palms facing you is the girly way of doing pullups.
|
|
Blakey
Trad climber
Sierra Vista
|
|
What this thread shows is that it's horses for courses.....
R Gold's stuff is really interesting. I'll need to read it carefully.
I've always done pull ups and I feel they definitley help me. I'm 'climbing active' three times a week; Tuesday evening I do a minimum of 10 sets of 10 on Rock rings, using the top, four and three finger slots (I avoid/can't use the smallest two finger slots!)I do some Hubers and the odd lever that I can hold momentarily! I mix these in with sets of push ups. Thursday I'm at a bouldering wall (where I mix in some endurance work)and Saturdays I'm out bouldering, or if the weather is bad hit another indoor venue.
I'm a month from 58, just over 6' and 69kg (having lost 3.5kg during the summer trip to the Valley - which hasn't come back on :-). This has made a big difference)
For me the basic strength and endurance, and particularly lock of strength benifits are clear, and I'm at home, it's cheaper and my wife sees me. I think she pleased by that - but you never know! A big limiting factor for me is that my knees are shot, and the technical contortion option often required for some bouldering is too painful or impossible.
What results does my 'regime'(such as it is)see? We don't have sport climbing where I am in the UK, so the results are very bouldering oriented, (or scary trad), but I reckon there may be a Font 7c locally that I may succeed on, if giving it the required time trying doesn't bore me too much. More usually I'm around the Font 7a/7a+ mark. If I wasn't doing the pull ups I doubt if I'd come close to that.
On my trips abroad, getting onto sport stuff I aspire to onsight/flash most 7a, some 7a+ and the occasional 7b.
The weight loss has made a noticable difference though, there's a trip coming up that should be an interesting test!
Steve
|
|
| Messages 1 - 86 of total 86 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!