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Crag & Route Beta

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Topic Date User

What are most common grip types at Gramps/Araps? 12-Jul-2017 At 8:47:59 AM Wendy

Message

On 11/07/2017 One Day Hero wrote:
>On 11/07/2017 Wendy wrote:
>>Anyway, he was asking about araps, not hard sport routes
>
>I thought the original question was about holds on sport routes in the
>Gramps? This is getting confusing.

Says Gramps/araps. I will give you that these are somewhat different things. But then again, you can find plenty of different things without leaving either location. No grade was specified, but I am giving my usual opinion based on what the average climber climbs (about 18) and misdirected focus on actually climbing better (climb better not climb stronger. Most climbers who are thinking about training are already plenty strong enough to climb well into the 20s).

>
>>i still have a swag of 25ish ones in relatively recent history,
>>i'm not dropping into the teens!
>
>You do gr 27 and 28 funky trenches. At the Point (fair bit of crimp and
>pull) I didn't see you on anything harder than 22 (and even 22 involved
>substantial whinging).

I whinge on 19s at the point! The top few metres of all the face routes become reachy nonsense. Nothing to do with my finger strength, I'm just a grumbly shortarse.
>
>>my argument is not about people focusing on that one soft tick, it
>>is about actually becoming a better climber.
>
>I don't think people want to be better climbers, they want soft ticks
>on daytrips and short weekends. I reckon (it's probably been thunk a thousand
>times before) that you can sort of remain good as a weekend climber, but
>you can never get good. Getting good needs months at the crag. You can
>get strong though, and unfortunately for the purists, strong trumps good
>on lots of routes.

Well, they're never going to have a chance of getting good if they focus on strength training and a singe route. I have this theory that if you can onsight trad 18 you can climb lots of good stuff but if you can onsight trad 22, you can really climb enough good stuff to keep you entertained for life. From that level, it's also perfectly achievable to redpoint 25. That's not an unrealistic expectation even for those poor unfortunates choosing to live in cities and have full time jobs. But you know that work on your weaknesses theory of training? Greatest gains come from improving the greatest weaknesses? I don't believe strength is most climbers' weakness. It's just the thing everyone thinks to train because it's easy and convenient. When it actually does become your limiting factor (and I can think of a whole 1 climber who probably would benefit from some strength training), then work on strength.

It's also a really easy way to injure yourself. I declined to participate in the fingerboarding and bouldering training regimes of some friends over the autumn. Both of them now have finger injuries. If I'm going to injure myself, i'd rather do it climbing than training.
>
>>Unless i was super tall any skinny, in which case, the vertical
>>face would probably be easier still.
>
>Exactly! You don't really need body tension to climb most vertical face
>things. Just be tall, and be able to pull with fingers and push with toes
>on mingers. How floppy are people if they can't pull down and reach on
>vertical blueys stuff without body-waving off the wall?

Ok, so the training regime should really be diet and the rack? You make vertical face climbing sound even more boring than slabs.