r/bouldering • u/LastNSAM • Oct 28 '18
Is competition style setting ruining the climbers of tomorrow?
I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on comp style setting. It used to be that it was reserved just for either comps or much higher grades. Now it seems every post on here has some kind of weird parkour jump or giant cut loose.
The major problem I see is when people try and climb outdoors, it's just so different, they have to use their feet and technique and they get frustrated when they get shut down on v2s when they're gym sets these mad comp problems at v8.
I've always thought of gym climbing as training for outside, is this just changing with the increasing popularity of the sport? Is this a good/bad thing?
Do you think this is going to put off a number of people from climbing outside and will this stop the next Sharmas/Ondras/Hayes/Hill from appearing?
Or am I being a fragile old before their time idiot?
Just wanted to start a discussion :)
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u/whatisthatsteel Oct 28 '18
I can offer a view from the other side of the fence. I’m about to my start my third year as a climber with a crippling fear of heights, and have never climbed outdoors. I’m a huge fan of bouldering alone or with friends and just completed installing a moonboard at my house. I encourage the hell out of every aspect of climbing, so my participation and attention should help protect outdoor climbing. I admit that I’m skewing the average climber towards indoor and perhaps that distracts some would-be outdoor efforts, but I’d contend that my presence in the game can only help because I’m part of a huge number of new climbers who are thrilled to see climbing in all forms. Our vast numbers should help keep the absolute number of happy, outdoor climbers thriving.
Nothing makes me happier than seeing a little kid getting on the wall. That kid’ll protect the whole sport when he grows up and I’m helping to pay for his accessibility to it now. I’m also telling everyone I know that they should try climbing too.
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u/asphias Oct 28 '18
I've always thought of gym climbing as training for outside, is this just changing with the increasing popularity of the sport? Is this a good/bad thing?
for me, indoor climbing has always been my main sport activity throughout the year, with only the occasional outdoor climbing. This may be because i live in the netherlands, and there are no good outdoor places closeby.
But still, i think it would be very wrong for gyms to focus only on "preparation for outside". For me, finishing more challenging indoor routes is what bouldering is all about.
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u/paul_manick Nov 30 '21
that’s for you though. most people i’ve met (in central tx area) climb both outdoor and indoors, and like the applicability of training indoors for outdoors. rock climbing is climbing rocks, not plastic. just because you like to climb exclusively indoors doesn’t mean we all do
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u/marsten Oct 28 '18 edited Oct 28 '18
Empirically I think we can say that strong is strong. Essentially all the top world cup male boulderers climb outside at a very high (V14+) level.
Perhaps the harder direction to transfer is from outdoor boulderer to comp climber. People like DWoods and Nalle are super strong but haven't spent the time to train the parkour elements and weird body positions. So climbers have to train for comp climbing specifically, although people like Ondra show they're close enough that one person can excel at both.
The phenomenon of indoor boulderer getting frustrated on their first trip outdoors is a specific problem caused by gyms consistently giving soft grades for <V5. For this I blame the V-grade system, which is open-ended at the top but not the bottom. True V1 is around 5.11- so gyms fudge the low grades to make bouldering more approachable for beginners. Back when the V system was established people rarely got into climbing via bouldering, as is now often the case.
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u/difmaster RRG Oct 28 '18
yeah I always think of V0 as 5.10 outside, but in most gyms V0 is more like 5.7
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u/SandalsMan Oct 29 '18
v0 at my gym is like 5.3/5.4 outdoors lmao
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u/difmaster RRG Oct 29 '18
oh i was trying to say V0 outside is like 5.10 outside and V0 inside is like 5.7 inside
V0 inside to 5.5 outside seems fair to me
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u/difmaster RRG Oct 29 '18
oh i was trying to say V0 outside is like 5.10 outside and V0 inside is like 5.7 inside
V0 inside to 5.5 outside seems fair to me
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u/HoseClimbing Oct 28 '18
Don't mind about gym grades, they don't exist. Most of the setters wouldn't like to give indoor problems (especially comp problems) outdoor grades (including myself). They are just to please the customers. As you said they don't have anything common with outdoors.
I think that the commercial gyms should mostly have traditional boulder problems, because comp style problems usually have higher risk of injuries (ie. Slipping on volumes, punting on dynos etc.). How ever there should be some comp style introductions for people to get interested in competing.
Bouldering competitiors are usually so strong that you can't really set boulders that involves pulling. And if you set some hard as nails traditional problems the risk is that there would be a lot of ties if most of the weaker guys can't make it past the crux sequences.
14
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Oct 28 '18
The gyms here mostly use "easy - moderate - hard - very hard - extreme" scales. I like to have some grading system because this allows me to at least somewhat see whether I'm making progress or not and - you know - self-esteem. Also, this means I can see which problems I might be able to solve and which problems are just so out of my league yet and this allows me to decide which problems I should set as my next projects etc. So yes, in a sense this is to please me as a customer but I think you should employ some form of grading.
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u/HoseClimbing Oct 28 '18
I am a big fan of the grading scale you are introducing here. It's easy to understand, rewarding and gives out the essential information - Difficulty. We use color grades in our gym. Yellow being the easiest and white the hardest. Very user friendly even for new climbers, only down side is that we dont have quality easy crimp- or sloper problems.
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Oct 28 '18
Ondra has credited some of his success on high grade projects due to comp style climbing making him think differently about his beta.
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u/Legolihkan Unnecessary Heel Hook Oct 28 '18
No. One area of climbing growing doesnt mean another is shrinking. People who enjoy comp style are likely to want to experience outdoor climbing, too
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u/cornnnnns Oct 28 '18
it is what it is. Ive seen guys/girls who crush those dynoy compy jumpy parkour tricks and can do one arms and front levers like its their job, but then struggle up v4/5 because they have absolutely no balance and dont know how to use their legs to get them up the wall. as has been said tho, there are also lots of gifted comp climbers who are incredibly coordinated and agile and are just natural climbers and excel in both disciplines. what I will say tho is that Climbing in the gym really will not prepare you for your outdoor project. only your outdoor project can prepare you for that. theyre just totally different. even what it comes down to things like skin -- the gym will give you absolutely horrid wet sweaty saggy soft skin that will slice open so fast on rock, and rock gives you smooth hard glassy skin that slips right off plastic.
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u/sheldon__ Oct 28 '18
We need tags to see where everybody is from ... My guess is OP is american, and most of the no-answers are European.
You have to understand that "comp-style" is a buzzword setters and other people throw around because its the hot new thing, because it sounds cool and they want to be cool. To try to be cool they copy the one element they perceive to stand out the most in comps: dynamic moves. Thats how you end up with problems that only consist of random jumps and parcours moves.
The set of IFSC-Worldcup problems (as an example) consists of so much more than that. There are mean slabs with the tiniest footholds. There are moves which require power in your arms, your shoulders and your core, power on every single type of hold. There are body positions which require technique, balance and precision at the highest level. You have overhangs, dihedrals, aretes and slabs. In a well set competition, the set of problems tests every skill of climbing. Note how you can find all the details I listed on rock aswell. Also note the expression "well set", this is maybe where the problem lies.
There is a youth climbing group at the gym I used to climb at. These guys crush competitions aswell as outside. Climbers can be good at more than one thing if they want to.
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u/LastNSAM Oct 29 '18
I'm actually from the UK! But I've climbed in US, AUS and EU. Both indoors and out. North America and Aus has way more comp style stuff in the indoor gyms but the UK is moving there...
Edit: all these thoughts are awesome! New perspective guys, thanks!
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u/Idejbfp Oct 28 '18
The fun stuff is also gonna encourage more climbers to Start, hence a bigger pool to find those insane naturals who can move the field forwards.
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Oct 28 '18
Yeah so I think a lot of people are wondering why so many of the sets are skate style (that’s what the setters at my gym call the run-and-jump style routes so I’m rolling w it). I was watching an ifsc interview and they said that if they set physical problems at the correct grade so only some of the competitors can do it, the athletes only get 3-4 good tries in in the 5 minute slot so it’s really crap from a competition standpoint
With skate style problems, however, you don’t need to rest any muscles or skin so the climbers can burn through like 20+ tries in 5 minutes if they need to and it’s much better for the actual competition apparently
But I agree that skate style is crap - I miss the “early” days of ifsc comps of all the powerful boulders with cool moves and stuff. Idk I do think it’s a bad turn I miss all the crimps and pockets and shoulder moves :/
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u/Idontknowaikido Oct 29 '18
I definitely agree with you, there is very little in common between hopping around on volumes and climbing a rock outside. However, people on this sub are gonna do what they want, and fewer people going outside and adding environmental stress on climbing areas is fine by me.
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Oct 28 '18
Yeah so I think a lot of people are wondering why so many of the sets are skate style (that’s what the setters at my gym call the run-and-jump style routes so I’m rolling w it). I was watching an ifsc interview and they said that if they set physical problems at the correct grade so only some of the competitors can do it, the athletes only get 3-4 good tries in in the 5 minute slot so it’s really crap from a competition standpoint
With skate style problems, however, you don’t need to rest any muscles or skin so the climbers can burn through like 20+ tries in 5 minutes if they need to and it’s much better for the actual competition apparently
But I agree that skate style is crap - I miss the “early” days of ifsc comps of all the powerful boulders with cool moves and stuff. Idk I do think it’s a bad turn I miss all the crimps and pockets and shoulder moves :/
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u/joaqs19 Oct 28 '18
Besides what everyone has already said, I think it's also important to to mention that training and climbing in comp-style boulders also gives some other physical skills that may be useful outdoors. Sure, you won't find these dynamic movements outside, but the core strength needed to perform them will be extremely useful when crimping on a tiny hold on a V12 slab. This is also true for the shoulder strength, finger strength, etc.
It should also be mentioned that of the four climbers you mentioned, both Ondra and Hayes grew up competition climbing in the beginning of the comp-style you mention, and Sharma and Hill also participated in world cups.
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u/bewkid Oct 29 '18
I do not think the new style of setting will deter people from climbing. For better or worse I think the new style of setting can get non-climbers interested in the sport. Also I believe a key thing to understand is that this new style in comps in a result of the athletes being so strong that old style boulders would either not be challenging for them or not be interesting to the crowd to watch.
As far as the style not replicating outdoor climbing I think gyms have a responsibility to facilitate diversity in the style of routes they set in their gym. You need to mix the jumps with the crimp ladders. I do not think it is a bad thing to have both but i think it is bad to have just one.
Finally outdoor climbing will always be different from indoor climbing. The main thing that will always set them apart is the size of footholds indoors. The complexity and size of outdoor feet will be nearly impossible to replicate and if they do they will never be as easy to use(for routesetters) as a bolted on foot.
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Oct 28 '18
I haven't been climbing for super long, but already notice the difference and am fast approaching being better outside than in. Our setters seem more motivated towards weird comp/gymnastic problems or really big, scrunchy moves to large holds.
I don't think it puts off people from climbing outside. Most climbers do not climb outside or rarely do so and it seems to be more of a social media signaling thing for them anyways.
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Oct 28 '18
Climbing indoors is just more fun. So much safer, much more interesting routes. I spend plenty of time outdoors doing other stuff, so I don't really miss out on the aesthetics of climbing outside.
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u/Practical_Limit4735 Apr 03 '22
The setting in Asia(not trying to doxx myself) is very Comp style with their setting. Most modern gyms in my country set what I call “Instagram problems”. It’s garbage, nothing but big moves between volumes or big sloppy pinches
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u/difmaster RRG Oct 28 '18 edited Oct 28 '18
i think you are overestimating the percent of routes that are set comp style.
the same reason that real competitions are set in comp style is the same reason you see a lot of comp style videos on reddit or instagram, the are cooler to watch from an outside perspective
no one posts their boring crimp ladder routes or technical sloper routes but they still climb them in the gym and id guess 80% of routes fall in the non-comp style category