I’m new to bouldering, I started 3.5 months ago and love it. I was wondering what kind of training routines you all recommend for advancing? When do you decide to move on to more difficult problems? Any personal words of wisdom?
Mostly posting for content.
I feel like the biggest thing for me is trying climbs higher than what I can actually complete. The goal for me isn’t always sending a problem but sometimes just doing a hard/cool move and learning from it.
Along with this going at the wall with intention is useful. Start every climb with reading beta, and not just where your hands go but feet and body positioning as well. When falling off a wall don’t just go back on right away, figure out why you fell off and come up with a plan for your next attempt.
You probably don’t need to do any lifting, fingerboarding or anything of that nature this soon in; climbing is probably the route to quickest improvement.
Don’t feel like you need to incorporate all the advice you get at once, just pick through and focus at one point at a time until it’s habit.
I’m an absolute beginner and was very surprised today by how little my strength training background translated to even the easiest routes. I could do all the “green” ones, which translate to… I don’t know, the easiest grades, there’s way too many standards to remember. But not one of the “yellow” routes. And frankly some of the green ones were extremely difficult!
It feels like I have no idea what to do with my body, which is understandable given it was the first time I’ve tried. But where do I learn that?
It’s wild, I’ve been doing weighted pull-ups for months and it didn’t seem to count for shit on the walls. Humbling, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. But I’m genuinely one of the strongest people at my normal gym!
Sounds boring but just doing it more. I find it hard to learn by copying someone as I can’t easily identify the tiny body changes. But trying a problem over and over and trying new things you can learn what works and what doesn’t.
Also asking friends or strangers how they did something can very helpful. I find climbers are very happy to share advice when asked (but usually won’t offer as that can be considered rude).
As for strength, I guess it’s very different muscles. It will help when your fingers, forearms and technique are better I’m sure :)
Thanks for the advice. My forearms are totally ruined at the moment, between climbing and manual labour. But I guess that’s how they’ll get stronger!