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asur posted:Climbers should have stronger back I assume this is not true if, hypothetically, one primarily only climbed slab walls? My lower back has been very sore lately, but it wasn't until reading this did I make the connection of, "Oh I've been climbing a lot of really overhung stuff the past 2 weeks, that's probably why"
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Jul 10, 2019 13:26
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How then to not have lovely posture? Just concentrate on keeping your shoulders back? Don't be lazy about posture? Or are there exercises you can do to help?
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Jul 10, 2019 16:11
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Jester Mcgee posted:How then to not have lovely posture? Just concentrate on keeping your shoulders back? Don't be lazy about posture? Or are there exercises you can do to help? I’m nursing a minor SLAP tear so I’ve been all about shoulder stuff recently. https://theclimbingdoctor.com/slapd-with-a-shoulder-injury/ Lots of info on those fragile fragile shoulders
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Jul 10, 2019 16:18
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I'm not an expert but I hosed my shoulder up last year so I learned a load about it from my physiotherapist to avoid it happening again. My probably-flawed amateur understanding is: the lats are the primary muscle involved in pulling us upward, i.e. the upper arm down, and they aren't an external rotator of the shoulder. There's no real external rotation happening during climbing. Everyone has bad posture anyway due to sitting at a desk all day which results in tightness in the internal rotators/pecs etc, weak external rotators, and a bunch of other factors I can't enumerate (lack of t-spine extension, blah blah blah) I've had incredibly good results doing face pulls, particularly with a raise at the top for lower traps. Just make sure you have good form. Jeff Cavaliere will tell you all about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIq5CB9JfKE It's a complicated joint so there's a lot going on and your mileage my vary (poor core connection to the ribcage can contribute to shoulder instability which is what led to my injury). I also warm up my rotator cuff as part of my shoulder warmup. My shoulders feel awesome.
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Jul 10, 2019 16:32
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I'm looking to climb in Yosemite for a week in September, probably mostly in Tuolumne Meadows, but I've never been there before. Can anyone give me a brain dump of camping options and permit requirements maybe?
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Jul 10, 2019 16:36
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My brother was visiting this past week, and he's a hardcore working-out type person but had never climbed before. He wanted to hit up the gym and I wanted to share my newly-found love of climbing with him, so we hit the bouldering walls. You already know where this is going. He was about to finish a somewhat slabby v3 (that wasn't a very hard v3), but unable to get his foot up on a high placement to finish off the problem, and decided to eventually bail by sort of jumping off the wall. He lands decently, but I think pretty close to the base of the wall. He says "I think I just broke my ankle." So we carry him out of there and sure enough, he snapped it. Might even need surgery if his tendon is hosed. I feel super guilty about it, like I shouldn't have pushed him to try something like that, but with his athleticism I thought he could handle it and see some success. It's not like I really ever learned to fall correctly or feel like I learned something special in my bouldering... but I probably should have explained climbing down more vs. jumping somewhat far. I'm sharing this story as a reminder to everyone that bouldering is inherently dangerous and to properly orient people as best you can.
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Jul 10, 2019 16:36
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Yup... Bouldering is the worst
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Jul 10, 2019 16:49
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spwrozek posted:Yup... Bouldering is the worst Reductive, at best. The gym clearly did not having proper controls in place to educate new climbers.
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Jul 10, 2019 18:03
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Ubiquitus posted:Reductive, at best. The gym clearly did not having proper controls in place to educate new climbers. Our gym forces everyone to go through an orientation where they tell you to down climb if you can and go over how to fall. Not sure I'd boulder at all anymore if I didn't feel comfortable falling from the top of the wall though. I down climb whenever I can just to save wear and tear on my knees, but definitely learn to fall and practice a lot if you're going to boulder.
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Jul 10, 2019 18:09
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M. Night Skymall posted:Our gym forces everyone to go through an orientation where they tell you to down climb if you can and go over how to fall. Not sure I'd boulder at all anymore if I didn't feel comfortable falling from the top of the wall though. I down climb whenever I can just to save wear and tear on my knees, but definitely learn to fall and practice a lot if you're going to boulder. The gym he fell at does the same. It is like 15 min long.
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Jul 10, 2019 18:53
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spwrozek posted:The gym he fell at does the same. It is like 15 min long. We just walked in, he filled out a waiver, and we were on walls. I also don't remember having to do that when I joined.
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Jul 10, 2019 19:11
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M. Night Skymall posted:Our gym forces everyone to go through an orientation where they tell you to down climb if you can and go over how to fall. Not sure I'd boulder at all anymore if I didn't feel comfortable falling from the top of the wall though. I down climb whenever I can just to save wear and tear on my knees, but definitely learn to fall and practice a lot if you're going to boulder. You at Momentum? I constantly push my athletic non-climbing friends on V3s but definitely start spraying them down if it looks like they might hurt themselves. Strong bros especially get a little embarassed when little kids and women are climbing 5+ grade levels higher than them and will often try extremely hard out of pure ego. Of course, trying hard when you know nothing is a potential recipe for injury. I think you shouldn't feel guilty - dude just got unlucky.
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Jul 10, 2019 19:59
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ShaneB posted:We just walked in, he filled out a waiver, and we were on walls. I also don't remember having to do that when I joined. Yeah, they have a required video before bouldering. At least at the golden one, so shine l assume the same at Englewood.
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Jul 10, 2019 20:01
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spwrozek posted:Yeah, they have a required video before bouldering. At least at the golden one, so shine l assume the same at Englewood. Apparently hard to enforce. I didn't even know it was a thing. Anyway, yeah, I feel a lot of the blame, if there is any, falls on me for thinking it didn't require good orientation. I'll never take anyone bouldering again, honestly.
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Jul 10, 2019 20:29
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I feel like my Momentum bouldering gym has started to have a quick sort of “learn to Boulder” class on top of the video that was mandatory watching.
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Jul 10, 2019 20:36
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All else aside, I took their (edit: this is ET) free intro to bouldering class which was mostly spent on learning how to fall, but I also don’t remember a video or anything required for bouldering outside of the liability waiver
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Jul 10, 2019 20:39
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rest his guts posted:You at Momentum? I climb at the various Summit gyms in Dallas, but I bet they take a lot of policies from each other since they're somewhat close but not actually competitive with each other. Since we're on the topic of giant commercial gym policies, does everyone's gym bolt every 4 feet? Summit just opened their first "mega gym" with 55 foot walls and there are 13 clips + the chains I think. It feels completely ridiculous since you're constantly clipping, and it's not like they can set a good place to clip from because then basically every hold would have to be a good place to clip from, so it really messes with the route difficulty. You either have to be way too strong for it or decide for your red point go which clips you want to skip.
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Jul 10, 2019 20:50
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George H.W. oval office posted:I feel like my Momentum bouldering gym has started to have a quick sort of “learn to Boulder” class on top of the video that was mandatory watching. As someone who used to teach those classes, they're insanely bad. Most of the class is theoretically spent emphasizing awareness, fall safety, and straight arms, but we generally end up just giving people beta on v2s and teaching the learn to boulder v3 content, which is the real injury prevention content since it goes over basic technique. It's actually hosed that they charge people for the V3 class. Momentum, as well as most commercial gyms, deliberately set V0-V2 to be easy enough that virtually anyone can do them. Kenny and Amin (think they're the Huston setters now?) are cool setters, though. The entire strength of Momentum is in the setting - they only hire people with national/international comp setting experience. rest his guts fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jul 10, 2019 |
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Jul 10, 2019 20:56
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asur posted:I'm confused here. Climbers should have stronger back and lats than normal which would help pull their shoulders back. Pushups would counter this climber imbalance, but seems like they'd exacerbate forward rotated shoulders. I think it's cause a lot of climbing arm moves are a pull in towards your core, either sideways or overhead, which tends to overdevelop muscles in the boob area. The obvious solution is to learn to press through moves more.
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Jul 10, 2019 21:11
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M. Night Skymall posted:I climb at the various Summit gyms in Dallas, but I bet they take a lot of policies from each other since they're somewhat close but not actually competitive with each other. I believe ET is in the 4-5' range. Lots of clips, I skip clips a lot, or I low clip slightly below my waist (annoying but better for outside leading). It is all based on insurance, just is what it is.
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Jul 10, 2019 21:19
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Baby steps: https://twitter.com/ffrancepack/status/1148634226432122880?s=21 M. Night Skymall posted:Since we're on the topic of giant commercial gym policies, does everyone's gym bolt every 4 feet? Summit just opened their first "mega gym" with 55 foot walls and there are 13 clips + the chains I think. It feels completely ridiculous since you're constantly clipping, and it's not like they can set a good place to clip from because then basically every hold would have to be a good place to clip from, so it really messes with the route difficulty. You either have to be way too strong for it or decide for your red point go which clips you want to skip. That actually reminds me of Holcomb a few weeks ago. Didn't lead but I noticed how generous it was with bolts, looked pretty similar to gym spacing and my (more experienced) friends remarked about it too. Maybe not as close, but close enough and consistent that I didn't notice any long runouts (is that the term?) between bolts. Course that didn't help the mental game when some of the cruxes seemed to be before the first bolt, might as well be bouldering 
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Jul 11, 2019 01:24
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Anyone have suggestions for wrist stretches / exercises? My left wrist is having a pinching pain when I rotate it palm up and twist my left hand towards my body.
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Jul 11, 2019 01:32
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Spikes32 posted:Anyone have suggestions for wrist stretches / exercises? My left wrist is having a pinching pain when I rotate it palm up and twist my left hand towards my body. I’m a big fan of the Theraband Flexbar - cured me of severe forearm and minor wrist pain in a matter of weeks. Here are some good exercises (might have to scan for relevant exercises since these videos are pretty comprehensive): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOxEERsmB5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH0g4UWTJYo As far as which bar to select, virtually everyone I know uses/endorses the green, regardless of strength. rest his guts fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Jul 11, 2019 |
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Jul 11, 2019 01:37
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rest his guts posted:I’m a big fan of the Theraband Flexbar - cured me of severe forearm and minor wrist pain in a matter of weeks. Awesome thank you! Ordering it tonight
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Jul 11, 2019 04:11
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No problem dude. Keep me posted if it works out for you.
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Jul 12, 2019 08:27
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I dont know what it is with crack climbing but I enjoy it despite the anguish of learning and getting better. Yesterday I top roped a crack that had a long horizontal section on a face with no good footing! Also the crack was often too wide or too small for hand jamming so I had to aid it with cams (hand jamming skills = good, not so much other crack climbing techniques) aiding is my new policy for tough top rope routes. If all else fails without aid it is best to still move forward rather than stop
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Jul 14, 2019 20:03
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You are on TR so you should be at least trying the moves 3-4 times before aiding through.
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Jul 14, 2019 20:33
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Flashed a pair of V5s today hell yeah
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Jul 15, 2019 01:41
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finally got my first proper v4 in the gym friday night, then went out and got my rear end kicked at radiohead for a while yesterday - but I did get in my first multipitch, my first trad follow and my first rappel though, we did a dual rope system to the top then rapped ~200' off both ropes. We tried to lead some harder single pitch sport stuff, took a couple good falls, got in plenty of bruises and a pretty good rope burn and I'm sore af today
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Jul 15, 2019 03:32
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Mokelumne Trekka posted:I dont know what it is with crack climbing but I enjoy it despite the anguish of learning and getting better. Crack climbing is the worship of a sulky god. The crack devours all who lack humility. "Easy" cries a layback artist. He falls to the ground, drained of life. Favour must be earned. Subtle arts mastered. Hard lessons bought with skin and dignity. Hot blood and seep-water. Weeping sores. Scars in braille. The crack accepts. The jam is perfect. The devotee ascends.
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Jul 15, 2019 19:34
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asur posted:I'm confused here. Climbers should have stronger back and lats than normal which would help pull their shoulders back. Pushups would counter this climber imbalance, but seems like they'd exacerbate forward rotated shoulders. This is half correct in that pushups do cause forward rotated shoulders (or internal rotation in fancy-speak), but the ironic thing is that the way lats insert on the humerus actually causes them to internally rotate as well when they're big and strong. So having a big strong back actually causes the same shoulder imbalance as someone who can bench press a fuckload. This is why strengthening up rear deltoids and various muscles in the rotator cuff is the hot thing in shoulder recovery / injury prevention, because strengthening these helps externally rotate the humerus and fix the imbalance.
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Jul 16, 2019 05:12
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For me, TRX Ts and Ys (3x15, 3x10) were basically all that was needed to fix my imbalance. Rear delt flys should also do the trick. General antagonist training: I like to make sure I do at least one chest press (usually bench, although weighted dips might be more beneficial for climbing specifically), two rear delt lifts (above), and one chest squeeze (fridge lift - 3 sets to exhaustion) twice per week. It's definitely helped strengthen my shoulder girdle and the chest work has helped a lot with compressing and learning to activate the chest when I am pulling down hard.
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Jul 16, 2019 19:00
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speaking of shoulders, after doing a particularly hard problem on the shoulders i woke up the next day with weird shoulder instability. its not really sore like a torn rotator cuff would be, but occasionally it just feels like it slips the joint and that stings for a short time. its weird, ive never had this before
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Jul 17, 2019 03:37
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it might be bicep tendonitis. i've had my left shoulder operated on twice to repair a torn labrum, and during my second bout of physical therapy i experienced exactly what you described - sharp pain followed by what felt like my joint slipping. it wasn't a constant soreness but i remember the two things that triggered it were either heavy shoulder exercises or, for some reason, playing guitar. the only thing that made it go away was to rest it for a week or two. that said, you should probably get it checked by a medical professional
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Jul 17, 2019 05:40
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American Alpine Club released their first Inaugural State of Climbing Report (PDF). It's pretty slick, with lots of good info. Some highlights: quote:
Good time to open a climbing gym, loving christ...
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Jul 18, 2019 17:35
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According to the Climbing Wall Association, in 2017, on average, facilities have 100 new members/month.
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It's a good time to open a climbing gym if you: -have around two million dollars of capital -frontload the amenities (fitness classes, yoga, acro-yoga, 'movement') -provide a sauna (mandatory depending on where you live. you wouldn't believe how much this single factors determines who climbs where) -provide a communal space (bar/restaurant) -know how to market yourself as the cool gym -are not afraid of chain-gyms (Touchstone, Momentum, the various Bouldering Projects) aggressively vying to be the top-dog and attempting to overtake your business Most of this stuff pertains to big cities with vibrant climbing cultures. If I were a betting man, I'd probably look to the suburbs/large towns that think they're cities instead.
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Jul 18, 2019 21:58
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enraged_camel posted:According to the Climbing Wall Association, in 2017, on average, facilities have 100 new members/month I wonder how many members they're netting each month.
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Jul 18, 2019 22:01
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$2M sounds low to me, but I have absolutely no clue what it costs. I'm sure it varies greatly depending on the size of the facility, but yea between setters/staff, equipment, insurance etc... It's got to be a lot. Here in Buffalo there's this place Niagra Climbing Center which is pretty budget, I went once 5 years ago and never went back after my initial experience went like so: Me: "Hi, I'd like to rent a pair of shoes" Employee: "Really? You can just use your sneakers" They're only $15 cheaper than the Central Rock that just opened a branch here too. Way smaller, just all around less "professional" feeling, for lack of a better term. I'd be really curious to see how their numbers have been effected since the CRG opened. Good timing for their opening too, a popular local brewery literally just opened up a second location adjacent to the gym last week.
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Jul 18, 2019 22:27
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Are saunas in the Bouldering gym a thing? I go to four or five gyms in my city in the UK, have been to one in another UK city, and one each in Ireland and Stockholm, and none had saunas. Sounds nice though.
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Jul 18, 2019 22:43
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rest his guts posted:It's a good time to open a climbing gym if you: I think the biggest issue with the random towns thing is finding setters. You can get Walltopia to come in and do your walls, you can staff your mega gym with people who don't climb and it won't matter, but if your town is not near climbing/big enough for people to want to live there anyway, you can't afford to pay setters enough to get them to move there. I remember some of the setters laughing about some gym in a mid-sized town in Texas that's huge and has beautiful walls and absolutely horrific setting because they just can't find anyone and the gym's terrible to climb at as a result. Maybe it doesn't matter for profit though if people are showing up for the sauna.
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Jul 18, 2019 22:50
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