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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

Author
% improvement required to reach next grade
Marty moose
2-Nov-2016
7:17:39 AM
I know this might seem like highly subjective pointless fluff, and a grade is a grade is not a grade, and yada yada yada....But just wondering peoples thoughts on what percentage improvement (technique, strength, endurance etc), is required to reach the next grade? Would it be something like 25%? More? Less? While this may appear linear, it would actually be exponential, explaining why it is (relatively) easy for the human body to move through the teens, and early twenties, becoming increasingly difficult in the higher twenties, and beyond. Thoughts, abuse, and scientific studies will all be appreciated.

ajfclark
2-Nov-2016
9:22:54 AM
How do you measure % improvement in technique? That sounds even more subjective than grading itself.

shortman
2-Nov-2016
9:57:14 AM
Yep, 25% is the exact percentage.

rodw
2-Nov-2016
10:03:48 AM
I reckon everybody has a natural level that they can do then after that becomes a matter of other influences, fitness, body type, natural ability, reach, desire/care factor, style etc...so once you reach your natural ability/grade etc it becomes exponential as your having to adjust a lot more parameters to achieve higher grades...which really is just a time thing assuming your motivated enough.

But 25% sounds about right though I lean more towards 26% after rounding up :)
Jayford4321
2-Nov-2016
12:26:05 PM
>% improvement required to reach next grade

Don't U hav2 pass the last grade 1st?
Would Dpend on the teacher i suppose, tho i hav heard simes' coaching leaves a bit to be desired.
ldshield
2-Nov-2016
5:13:43 PM
I agree with rodw that you start with a 'natural' grade and that from there it's an exponential increase in effort required to reach the next grade. Personally, I really enjoy 8-11s (indoors); I can do 12-13s; and for me a 14 or 15 is a serious long-term project.

Where rodw and I diverge, however, is that higher grades are achievable with enough time and motivation. Given I'm currently 42yo and climbing 13 on a good day, soon I must regretfully accept the possibility that I will never climb a 20. Obviously, the steepness of the exponential increase isn't the same for everybody. My wife is a better climber than I am, but she's 155cm and there's some climbs she won't ever be able to do either because she just hasn't got the reach.

The upshot of this editorial is that it seems to be highly individual and personalised.
Rawpowa!
2-Nov-2016
11:24:33 PM
I disagree Idshield. Yes there are limitations and obviously being skinny with with fingers of steel is an advantage, I think sometimes the hardest thing for me is convincing myself that I'm good enough to do a hard (for me) climb. I don't think you need a massive improvement to climb another grade, maybe only 5-10%. But like Rod says there are a lot of areas that need improvement and it takes a lot of effort to improve that much. I'm sure if you trained 3-4 times a week and climbed once or twice a week you would see a big increase in your grades over a year or two.
Martym
3-Nov-2016
12:36:29 AM
Well in terms of "what's in a grade" - i think the best example would be the wideboyz. That's the perfect example of training for one specific type of climbing (and boy did they train.)
I read that Nyrie Dodd assembled a similar type of regime to send Passport to Insanity.

If you were to ask them (and they probably would respond) I reckon they'd have some kind of formula. Or email Dave McLeod and ask him?

Maybe one day Christopher McDougall will write Born to Climb? There's gotta be more science in human's natural ability to climb, than our natural ability to run surely?

Andrew_M
3-Nov-2016
1:22:21 PM
There was a Rock article or something from the guys at thecrag.com some years ago where they looked at a whole lot of the stats they could harvest out of users' data. One thing they tried to quantify what the actual difference in difficulty between grades.

Basically, from memory, they worked out how many people could climb each grade and made the assumption that if a certain number of people could climb grade x then the grade where there were half as many people could climb must be about twice as hard. I think it worked out pretty well that every 2 grades meant a halving in the number of folks who could climb it. That would mean that each grade is about 40% harder than the one before.

Maybe someone else can remember better than me...

Rocksinmyhead
3-Nov-2016
4:22:14 PM
Grades are definitive, and so the maths is straight forward. A grade 11 is 10% harder than a grade 10, but a grade 21 is only 5% harder than a grade 20.

So it's mathematically easier to progress as climbs get harder. A grade 34 is only 3% harder than a grade 33, so I don't get what's holding up progress.

If you, like the rest of the climbing populace (including myself) find progressing to the next grade increasingly difficult, you are clearly deluded.

Obviously, we all just need to htfu.
Sandym
5-Nov-2016
2:25:13 PM
Prolly similar to most sports where once you've leveraged the best training, diet, rest, technique, finger strength, mental toughness etc, you start to bump up against the end of your own potential and small increments in performance require progressively more and more and more effort - which all sounds suspiciously like something I heard Joe Kinder say on the Enormocast recently.

As you get into the higher grades training likely has to be very targeted to see improvement and most of us are probably not that good at writing specific training plans that actually address weaknesses. Too many pies and beer could also be a factor.

Superstu
7-Nov-2016
9:44:51 PM
The real question is what percentage of ethics and good style need to be compromised for each grade increase

ChuckNorris
7-Nov-2016
10:22:49 PM
The OP said the word "fluff". He is clearly a trump supporter and should be banned.
gfdonc
8-Nov-2016
11:50:31 AM
.. or at least forced to use their own email server. nyuk nyuk.

IdratherbeclimbingM9
11-Nov-2016
3:46:02 PM
On 7/11/2016 Superstu wrote:
>The real question is what percentage of ethics and good style need to be compromised for each grade increase
>
+1

There are 15 messages in this topic.

 

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