Hello
I started bouldering a month ago and I like it but I have a few things I want to work on that youtube just won't cut it for, I think. I want to take a class on it but generally I can do V0s/V1s no problem, I struggle with V2s and then there are a few V4s I can almost finish.
I am also scared of falling and of heights which holds me back a lot.
I do try to train outside of bouldering with yoga and pushups/pullups but I don't know if that is helping.
Idk I just feel like I'm throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks
Does anyone else like this sport? Do you find it worth spending time and money on?
>how to get better at bouldering
just become a bigger homosexual, you will get better at bouldering instinctively
I'm a girl if that makes me less of a homosexual
I am so scared to talk to others lo
Ok yea thank you
Why
>i would avoid using the word "yoga"
Why?
Just keep doing it, ask other people there if they can do x climb and try to learn something. I can only do v4's at the moment, I doubt I will be able to go beyond that.
just do it more, a month isn't really very long. Strength and flexibility training will help, but takes time to develop technique. your body positioning gets more important as you go up grades. subtle changes to your position can suddenly make seemingly impossible problems very doable. learn how to flag, how to smear, how to hook. when you need to hang from your arms while doing foot stuff, realise that you can fully extend and let you weight go through your tendons rather than tensing and tiring them.
as for the falling and height fear you can also learn to get over these just by climbing more, and practicing controlled falls.
>there are a few V4s I can almost finish.
ignore the v scale. gyms are really bad at grading their own routes. my first gym was great at it, and v5s were a true accomplishment for a climber of a year or so. i just went to a small gym near me that had the easiest v3/v4's i've ever climbed. felt like v2s (and i haven't climbed anything in over 9 years, so there is no reason why i should have been able to top them).
>how to get better
you're "plateauing" at v4/v5 because that's when route setters begin adding footwork and finger strength to the beta. you need to train on the campus board regularly, then campus on v0 overhangs with jugs and really focus on smooth, slow, fluid motion up the wall, move your feet like there are holds in the air. think about your skeleton and how you're hanging. also consider the shoes you're wearing because entry-level shoes are pretty much for v0-v3 unless your sharma. also seriously consider lead climbing if your gym has it because that's going to help your bouldering a lot.
>Does anyone else like this sport? Do you find it worth spending time and money on?
climbing was my first sport as a kid. as an adult, it's painful to be around hippie homosexuals but i just ignore them. my wife and i drive 1.5 hours to TRC in Richmond once a week for a day of climbing, and i just work from the gym in between routes. getting back into it has really improved my mental health and gets me out of the house. just snagged a pair of pic related as i intend on really breaking my personal records from my teen years.
Yea I think my gym grades weird. I can almsot finish some V5s but then can barely get to the next hold on a V2
Or maybe I'm just moronic
There's different styles of climbing based on what grips you're mainly using. You might suck ass at crimps and aren't able to do more than v2 on those but you're good at slopers or vice versa idk.
adult male climbers are all nintendo soys trying to do something athletic for once in their gay lives
bouldering is for nerds
What's the recovery strategy for finger injuries? It's been 3 weeks. It's the part where my palm ends and finger starts. I feel some pressure when I push on the spot with my finger or hang from a bar because it pushes into it but hanging on my doorframe from my fingers doesn't really feel much.
push ups, you'll flatten your hands on the floor. yoga poses (i would avoid using the word "yoga" but there's no better way to put it). light hangs for short amounts of time to stretch the tendon. finally, just don't get injured. don't over do it climbing because you'll be out for literally months if you really hurt yourself.
thanks anons I'll keep hanging and stretching this week and start light climbing again next week.
Why do you keep making bouldering threads?
Try doing some light climbs, V0s. Active recovery is essential. Don't focus on the presence of pain, focus on whether or not the pain is getting worse. If the pain is the same, or is lessoning between sessions, you're heading in the right direction.
Keep hanging lightly on foordrame once a day for a short 10 min hang sesh (10 seconds on, 50 seconds off). Should help a frick ton.
This guy unironically has the best advice on this entire thread.
>Why do you keep making bouldering threads?
I only made this thread wdym
This anon is right:
>Keep hanging lightly on foordrame once a day for a short 10 min hang sesh (10 seconds on, 50 seconds off). Should help a frick ton.
Good advice for injuries. Too many people think that they need to rest through soft tissue injuries but what they really need is light, progressively harder stress. Soft tissues are molded on the molecular level by stress and by just resting you are letting the tissue grow back in a structurally deficient manner. Always rehab soft tissue injuries with stress after a short period of rest to let inflammation subside.
You have to get a fingerboard and train your tendons for hanging on to small holes
Do boulders that aren't in your style, work on your weaknesses constantly. Suck at overhang? Go climb the 45 degree wall.
Reflect on your movement. Don't just do a boulder (or fail) and call it good, really examine what went right and what felt hard/awkward/out of place. Then take that and try to make it easier by trying it a different way. One of the best ways to get better technically is to repeat boulders you have already done. You will be surprised by how much you can improve a boulder that you thought you had done well the first time.
Don't get stuck only climbing at a level where you can finish boulders. While getting lots of volume is important for you as a newbie, it's also important to ingrain early the idea that you should be getting on boulders that are beyond your ability to complete. These boulders will force you to expand the limits of your technique and will make you stronger in ways that boulders at your comfortable level simply will not. This is called limit bouldering and for a newbie I recommend 2 days of volume climbing to 1 day of limit bouldering, gradually doing more and more limit bouldering as you build up your technical base.
Finally, it really does help to be strong, both for actually topping boulders and also for your technical ability. Examine yourself and figure out what your physical weaknesses are, whether that's finger strength, pulling strength etc etc and work on those as an accessory to climbing. You can do this on the wall by focusing on boulders that target your weaknesses. For example, focus on crimpy routes if your fingers are weak, or work on boulders with really big dynamic moves if you need power. If you want to train say your fingers off the wall, just know that the Reddit advice to not hangboard as a newbie is complete bullshit and if you want to hangboard you should. Just don't replace too much climbing with hangboarding, I recommend finishing your bouldering sessions with some light hangboarding.
Thank you
Yea like I know I have the strength and coordination for some moves and sometimes I have the guts to do them and sometimes not. I need to work on that
Can I do deadhangs on a pull up bar or is it better to use a door frame
You can use pretty much whatever but I recommend something you can crimp like a door frame or literally any surface with an edge. You don't even need to take your feet off the ground, just pull hard enough to feel the slightest onset of pain, back off a bit from there and use that as your baseline. As you recover, pull harder, using the same assessment to keep the intensity right.
Wrong board
I climb v6/v7 and I've been climbing for over a year, the best tip I would give is just climb alot and just full send every climb and fully commit to every move, so overcoming your fear of falling will help alot, probably just try and fall of a bunch of climbs onto the mats so you can see how not bad it is.