Climbing at the Festival

[Oti]

So, for the 4th of July, me, my girlfriend and my bestest best friend went to a nearby city park to goof off all day and watch the fireworks show that night.

At one end of the park was a line of food and drink stands, blah blah, the usual carnival-type stuff. There was also a rock climbing wall and a rope next to it. Both were about 20 feet tall, I think.

There was a challenge to climb the rope in 11 seconds with no feet. Doing so got you 20 bucks. No one was able to do it, so I stepped on up for my try. I did it in 10.20 seconds. Not bad considering I felt awful and didn't warm up. Later, I tried again and got under 10 seconds (9.something). I only got paid once, though. That sucked.

Then it was off to the rock climbing wall. Now, having only rock climbed once in my life, I'm definitely a novice. So, obviously, I went to the expert path. I'm good like that. ;D

Completing this path (there was no time limit) scored you 50 bucks. They told me ahead of time they wouldn't be able to pay me. I guess they were broke or... something.

Anyway, I started. As I got up around the five feet mark, I began running out of holds. There was practically nothing to hang onto/step on. The few holds that WERE there were spaced very far apart.

On top of that, they were all super small. A 3 cm ledge would have been PERFECT at that point. Cliff Hanger's got nothing on this stuff. To make matters worse, they were all tapered so unless you squeezed with your fingers and thumb the entire time, you were falling.

I made it to the top my first try. Then I tried again (with jumping and whatnot) and I fell before the half-way point.

So, in conclusion, I had fun and don't think you need rock climbing for grip and stuff. Don't worry if you don't have a facility near you. You can conquer an expert course with practically no experience as long as your grip is trained.

[japantv1210]

Well, how specifically do you train your grip? I'm not trying to sound mean or anything. I'm just curious, because maybe I could take some of the exercises you do and use them to improve my grip strength too ;D. Also, it sounds like an awesome festival to go to. With the rock climbing wall and the rope, I'd probably just stay there for the rest of the night haha.

[Badalight]

My carnival here doesn't have a rock wall....



I love walls were you go upside down and points where the holds are too far away so it requires you to jump, those are the best.

[Oti]

Oh, no offense taken. Sounded like a simple question to me.

Well, for the Cliff Hanger-type grip you need, I've climbed on ledges. I started out climbing on ledges I could fit my entire fingers on. Even that killed my forearms and hands at that point. I continued to practice that and it got easier and easier until, eventually, I got to the point where I can zoom across it and not even feel it.

Once you can climb across a ledge easily, you need to find a smaller one. Then the cycle repeats. It's hell on your arms and hands at first and it slowly gets easier. I went from the massive ledge to a 3.5 cm ledge, but if you have a better selection and you can make the transition easier, I recommend it. If anything, it helps your attitude. Constantly being faced with a ledge you can't hold onto for five seconds is very discouraging.

So... yeah. It's just practice. If you can't hang onto the ledge for long, keep trying. Eventually, like I said above, it gets easier.

[japantv1210]

For some reason, my question sounded sarcastic to me, so I added in the "I'm not trying to sound mean or anything" to clarify it was a legitimite question haha. I already climb on small ledges like that a good bit, so that's good to know that I'm at least training my grip strength for the course right. Would you have any recommendations for increasing pinching grip strength? By that, I mean squeezing with your thumbs and fingers around something. I'm trying to work my way up to eventually doing rafter pullups, but at this point in time, it is very difficult since my thumb is not strong at all haha.

[RiderLeangle]

Lucky you to have rock and rope climbing at your 4th of july celebration. The only rock climbing I did was an actual wall of rocks down by the "lake" where I was to watch the fireworks. And I didn't get paid for that, in fact I didn't climb that high, I thought "Every cop in the city is here at the lake... Do I REALLY want to climb up here?"

And the only carnival like things there was stalls with overpriced food and drinks

[Oti]

For pinch grip, if you have barbell weights, you can pinch a few and hold them for a minute or so.

I need to get rafter pull-ups too, but I never remember to work on them.

[davidcampbell]

Jul 5, 2009 11:57:16 GMT -5 Oti said:

So, in conclusion, I had fun and don't think you need rock climbing for grip and stuff. Don't worry if you don't have a facility near you. You can conquer an expert course with practically no experience as long as your grip is trained.

That is simply not true. The run you completed may have been labled "expert" but it was not an expert rout. If you can find a real climbing facility, try climbing a rout rated at 5.12, this would be about the easiest rout that could truely be considered expert.

I can guarantee you'll get about 5' up, fall off and then look at the wall confuesd at how a human could possibly climb that!

If you're wondering. No I can't climb them either, I can get into some of the higher 5.11's but have yet to come close to completing a full rout on a 5.12 (talking about wall climbing, not bouldering).

About the rafter pull ups: maybe start out with the boards not quite verticle (slanted a bit) and then gradually move them more towards verticle. Or maybe do them verticle, but put your foot on the back of a chair to make it easier?

[Oti]

Or, you know, maybe it really was an expert course and my grip is that good. How do you know?

My opinion remains unchanged - rock climbing gives no special benefits. It's not a perfect way to train. It's not the best way to train. We can have just as much grip and upper body strength/endurance as rock climbers without ever touching a rock wall.

[davidcampbell]

There are many ways to train your upper body and grip of course, but you cannot "climb an expert course with practically no experience as long as your grip is trained" as you claim. To say that is very ignorant, you obviously don't know what an expert rout is and have never attempted one. You may as well say you can win UFC as long as you're in good shape, or win the Tour de France as long as your legs are trained. There's technique that takes years to learn. Saying that is insulting to those who have worked hard for years to be at the expert level. Hell I've been climbing for the last 15 years (with a few breaks) and I don't even consider myself to be at the expert level.

You're the one who always demands video proof whenever someone claims they can do something. So let's see it, tape yourself climbing a 5.12 and I'll eat my words.

[Oti]

The rock wall is gone. I can't prove it now. And there are no facilities around me.

You can win your very first UFC fight if you're trained very well in fighting. You can win your very first Tour de France if you're trained very well in endurance. You can bench press double your own weight if you're trained very well in strength, but you've never touched weights. You can climb an expert rock wall if you're train very well in grip.

It's like saying you can't do well on Sasuke without years of experience. You don't need that experience. You need to be trained. To be PREPARED. Tons of people have flown through Sasuke on their first tries. Do you think that's an insult to Nagano and the others who have worked hard for years to get where they are? Do you think he thinks they're "ignorant"?

As much as I like you, I don't care what you think about this and you absolutely can't change my opinion. I recommend we drop this.

[arsenette]

David you are battlling a lost cause. Trust me on this.

[Badalight]

Oti: I don't think you an David are talking about the same kind of rock climbing.

I'm pretty sure David is talking about scaling actual mountains.

Or I'm just mis-interpreting, but I got curious and search 5.12 rock wall on google images and found some pretty insane stuff.

[Oti]

Arsenette, I don't just argue. I argue when I think I'm right. If he proved me wrong somehow, I would give in.

Badalight, I'm starting to think that too. I did the same thing you did earlier today and I also saw the mountain climbing.

[madmanike]

I think that in all things you will find an individual who has the natural talent to do something they've never done before and just wow people. But that is a rare individual to find and your average person will have to train for years just to even think about tackling an obstacle that difficult. So while most things are possible, they aren't realistically probable.

[Oti]

That's not necessarily the same as this, though.

If someone is untrained and they have no experience, then sure, chances are they can't do BLANK. If they're trained, however, experience doesn't necessarily matter.

[davidcampbell]

Oti: I have no illusions about changing your mind once you have decided you know something right or wrong. My purpose is to dispell mis-information being that this is a puplic forum. So you can go on believing that you can climb expert routs already and would not benefit from rock climbing and it won't bother me. I'm just trying my make sure other people don't get the same idea and rather find out for themselves.

In regards to the definition of a 5.12 route: As I said before that is about the lowest rating that could be considered expert in my opinion, and I think most climbers would agree with that. The scale goes from about 5.8 to 5.14 or 15 generally with 5.12 and 13's being the hardest most gyms would bother having.

I was talking about indoor climbing with plastic holds, but an outdoor route should be about the same. It's hard to tell from pictures and video if a route is hard or not, but I found a video on youtube that illustrates what would probably be considered an expert route?
The video is of a climber "bouldering" which is basically climbing short routes that don't need safety ropes. So watch this video, then imagine the route being about 50 feet tall. Then judge for yourself if you think a person could climb that simply by doing grip exercises or if someone would need technique as well, in addition to likely years on experience?

[davidcampbell]

The range of "expert" routs of course gets even much harder than that( I almost think I might be able to pull the one in the video off, though it would be hard as fhuc and I'd have to work up to it...hard to tell from a video though).

In regards you what you said about doing well at Sasuke without experience.
You have built several Sasuke obstacles to train on in your back yard. Training not only strength but technique as well. You said yourself that the Cliffhanger was easy once you got the technique down. That IS experience. If experience doesn't matter and it just about grip or strength why build all those obstacles? Rock climbing is the same, you have to know how to move your body and your feet and little tricks that help you hang on to irregular shaped objects. And there's TON of balance involved.

[davidcampbell]

Also I'm not saying that if you don't rock climb or don't have a gym near you that you're screwed and aren't going to be able to compete on Sasuke at the same level as people that do climb. There are of course endless other ways to train for grip and balance.

[Oti]

That looks about like what I climbed aside from the overhanging parts. The wall I climbed wasn't nice and flat, but it didn't have overhanging parts.

Also, that one sort of looked easier because the grips were big enough for him to hook his fingers onto and hang from. The ones I was gripping onto were not.

So. Yep.

And about Sasuke: Levi. He found out about the course two months before he attempted it. He didn't train on replicas like we do.