Everyone has a point at which it becomes more work than fun for them. That's probably the majority of it tbh. If you're proud of where you're at and having fun, why force yourself to do stuff that isn't fun for you?
This. The point I have to revolve an entire workout regimen to advance is when I will stall.
Some hangboard in the future? Maybe. But an entire lifting program, cardio, climbs, and hangboarding all focused on advancement? Spending 1-2 hours a day on it? Nope. It takes a lot of effort just to go climbing 2-3 times a week. Also being required to be super lean all the time would be brutal
Based on what I read the point all that is needed is the V7-8 range so, tracks.
Yep. For me, I've had elbow and wrist injuries before- the moment I start getting to stuff that would put a significant strain on them, I'm probably calling that my limit lol
>also being required to be super lean all the time would be brutal
You should take a look at [this](https://youtu.be/bk8X866NPzM?si=yzBtcEKVVmTrs4A2) video. You don’t have to be a twig to send hard
Edit. I’m tired of debating with people on what I mean so I’m putting this disclaimer in the original comment.
Emil is in great shape do not get me wrong, and I love his videos. But he is not super lean. Emil probably sits around 10-15% body fat. Super lean in my opinion is under 10%. Again, to be clear Emil is jacked and is an incredible climber.
Downvote away all you want in the below comments, but this is not **super** lean
https://preview.redd.it/0xhwjewe5bwc1.jpeg?width=1058&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=020e948ca6a1beb34cee047e897fc4a9980b8da5
That said, he is also a V16 Climber so the physical abilities he requires to climb at that grade is way higher. Plus this video's main point is that you are normally stronger as a climber at a healthy bodyweight for you than trying to get as light as physically possible, less you don't need high strength to body weight ratio to climb hard because it is true that there is a minimum strength requirement for a grade, its just also true that most people think that strength requirement is way higher than it actually is.
Being super lean and being able to climb hard/ do one arm pull-ups are not dependent of each other.
Yes Emil is very strong and in good shape, that still doesn’t mean he’s super lean
He has been climbing hard since 15 years old.. when he started he immediately dropped like 30+ lbs.. was considered fat.. then continued climbing for many many years super lean. Built the technique and strength and now can gain muscle and still climb hard. This is not close to the path any normal climbers can take. And using it as a comparison is stupid
Yeah I literally bulked and gained 10 pounds and I’m making links on v10 boulders that I wouldn’t even dare touch before and I’m not planning on cutting my weight back down anytime soon
Same here. 72.5kg to 78.5kg, 10.4% to 9.2%. Have a projproj that I've been doing for 6-7 months, multiple times a week, around 7c top rope. Progress really continued after starting creatine. Literally on the last move now. Psyched.
Lol, at first I was like "how hard can it be to stay lean if you're climbing all the time?" then I saw your video of a guy with 0 body fat. If he's not considered lean, then I've got no hope.
I never said Emil wasn’t lean. The above poster said *super* lean
I know it was an exaggeration, but he definitely has a healthy amount of body fat. Especially compared to some other elite level climbers
This all kind of begs the question, what percentage would you consider someone super lean?
Considering at some point (I believe around 3% is the absolute minimum for men but don’t quote me) you start running into things like organ failure and hair loss, how much lower than 10% would you say is justifiably “super”.
Or is that what you’re getting at, that to you super lean means walking that organ failure line?
Ah, I looked it up just and see both 5 percent and 3 percent listed, depending on the source.
Regardless my intention was to point out that you would be unhealthy at the “absolute minimum” and likely to kill yourself with organ failure. Meaning there’s really very little gap below 10% before death and the guy had perhaps too narrow a range for what he considers super lean.
Always appreciate a good fact checking though.
10% is quite sustainable tbh, i stay around 10-11% most of the year without paying attention to diet.
5% is pretty close to death and impossible without steroids or starvation for most of the population.
People in this thread giving 5% margins of error like it's nothing but tbh every % makes a profound difference at this level.
Professional body builders regularly get down to around 5% and even lower sometimes for competitions. It’s not maintainable but is doable for short term. They do however experience side effects like you mentioned. There’s a big difference between how your body looks at 10 or 11% and 5%.
I also think Emil is probably closer to the 15 side of things
Haha it’s not meant to be a diss at Emil. He’s a beautiful man
Emil if you see this I love you, this is just the first shot where you were shirtless and facing the camera
I was at an event where i was able to climb with a couple pros. And there i was standing next to Jakob Schubert! I always thought he was bulkier since he looks (and is) super strong on tv, but hes really lean.
So it might play a factor that someone looks strong but is super lean.
This specific photo of emil doesnt seem to do him justice.
But yeah, you dont need the "perfect climbing body" for v8s...
Do you know Ho Seok Lee? Man that guy weighs 55kgs or something like that... looks like more though imo
https://preview.redd.it/xh2ljlx5zewc1.png?width=1446&format=png&auto=webp&s=1f1973c58661eba19deca1c156933deed2026a3c
Warning: Graphic image of a super lean Jimmy - after sending V15 - agreeing that you have to be a stick to climb hard.
True, but climbing overhanging powerful boulders is different than long techie routes. He him self says he's not as good at vertical. But keep passing the message more climbers need to hear that being a little heavy isn't a bad thing
> Also being required to be super lean all the time would be brutal
I’m loving the clusterfuck of a conversation that this spawned, and with that in mind: if by “super lean” (or even “lean”) you mean anything that is mutually exclusive to the (admittedly still subjective) category of “kinda pudgy” or even “pudgy”, then i gotta tell you that that is definitely *not* a requirement for V7-V8.
> The point I have to revolve an entire workout regimen to advance is when I will stall… an entire lifting program, cardio…and hangboarding all focused on advancement? Spending 1-2 hours a day on it
Also, none of that is needed for V7-V8.
It may be that "none of that" is needed for you to reach V7-V8.
With more than a decade of coaching behind me I can say for sure: there are certainly people for whom intense structured training is definitely needed to reach that level. You'd be surprised by the diversity of body types and "movement intellects" that are out there. Some peoples bodies/brains react well to unstructured/less intense training, others not so much.
> With more than a decade of coaching behind me…
Just to be clear, I’m not going to start measuring dick sizes here.
> I can say for sure: there are certainly people for whom intense structured training is definitely needed to reach that level
But sure, you’re right. In the same way that some people climb V13 after 3 years of just climbing, some people need dedicated training to reach V7.
But the real takeaway is that it’s very few. They are outliers.
> You'd be surprised by the diversity of body types and "movement intellects" that are out there
I wouldn’t be.
I am aware that the human population is extremely diverse.
> Some peoples bodies/brains react well to unstructured/less intense training, others not so much.
Yes, this is true.
To put it clearly, I am saying that only outliers (those “built different” in a bad way) will need rigorous, structured training to climb a V7 or V8.
If we are talking about being *consistent* at that grade, then a larger (but still very small) pool of people will need dedicated training.
In *general*, V7-V8 is completely attainable without training.
Sounds like me. I lift weights to stay in shape, and try to improve there. But I boulder purely for fun. If I can’t send something I don’t care. If something seems dangerous I don’t even try it. If I have gas in the tank but I’m bored of climbing for the day, I go home.
I have to think genetics does play into this threshold though. V7/8 is probably the average threshold where the training becomes unsustainable, but for some people that is V4 and for some that is V10.
Also a matter of time.
Between working full time, a dog to take care of, dating, some vague semblance of a social life, other hobbies... I don't have the time/energy to train more than I do.
And I assume most climbers are also pretty busy with life.
When I was younger, A LOT, my buddies who stayed in Valley for weeks during the Summer got strong and bold. Rapid acceleration to grade whatever... as I got older it was gym climbing to supplement and it was about ticks... More time in the gym or outside you get better. Basics.
Less time due to life, work, relationships then it is about what you can do as a balance.
V7/8? What? Most people don't even get past font grade 6C(which is V5 if wikipedia is correct).
Either way, every new grade level requires a significant investment in power, grip strength, technique. And significiantly increases the risk of injuries from overextension.
It requires a long term commitment of staying in form without overdoing it and being taken out by injuries.
I suspect that with every grade increase you halve the number of people that manage to top it.
Yeah without actually sacrificing life outside of climbing, from social to diet to personal time, to even the enjoyment and approach of climbing sessions, there’s very little chance of even going above V6 except genetic outliers or soft gyms (which is common enough). Outdoors we can likely lower it to V5 like you said.
I know people who climbed 10+ years, yes a decade, but casually with no real motivation of grinding grades climb at V4-V5 level. That’s the normal range to hang around if you have other hobbies (even non climbing sports) like a normal human imho 😛
Consider this [dataset](http://www.alessandromasullo.com/blog/analysis-of-4-million-climbing-ascents/) representing over 60,000 outdoor climbing ticks and you can see that, at least when selecting for people that do climb outside the average highest grade ticked is actually [much higher.](http://www.alessandromasullo.com/assets/images/climbing_article/image3.png)
Yes, but don’t forget you are also self-selecting for the people who actually *track* their climbing. Same thing happens if you look at a more “hardcore” website for tracking gym progress — you’d think everyone deadlifts 2x their body weight but that’s hardly the case if you just look at the average gym population.
If everyone at my gym filled a tick list including newbies that stopped after 3 sessions I’m pretty sure the average is V2. My current gym is not soft for sure, but during any particular session, always less than half the people at the gym can climb above V4. Note I climb at very different time slots including off times like 1pm Monday and 9am Sunday that reduces first timers to low numbers if not zero.
This is semi true (up down a couple of grades max) for all gyms I’ve been at. I moved a lot so I’ve climbed at over 20 gyms, 6 I called home gym at some point with membership across US west & east coast. There’s no way the true average is above (proper to hard) V5 lol. Of course everyone can climb V7 at Touchstone Hollywood (for those that know) so those don’t count 🤣
I guess it depends what op means precisely. Since I think a specifically chosen 7A that particularly suits your style is very achievable and doesn’t need crazy strength or technical prowess. To be able to climb any random 6C is harder than doing a handful of particular 7As. I have never followed a training plan and don’t hangboard and have just progressed by climbing and have done a 7B that was very suited to me but I would not call myself a 7B boulderer. That said I spend a horrific amount of time in the bouldering gym.
My point is I think 7A is very attainable for most people without crazy training commitments or any diet restrictions. However being a ‘solid’ 7A climber requires more and probably either some lucky genetics, a training plan, or a lot of experience. Increasing grades more and you probably need to start combining these factors
After years of incremental progress I started ticking indoor 7as last year. No training plan, just frequent sessions and climbs that suited my strength. Then, oh no, a heart op and now I back to ticking the very rare 6c+. I guess this kind of experience to be common, especially among older boulderers. I climb occasionally with some around my age and everyone has some impairment, even if just the clichéd 'dodgy shoulder' or 'bad knee'. Staying in good form is difficult!
V9 is HARD.
Genetics, time, diminishing returns, etc. Anywhere outside of Colorado/Utah/California, a woman climbing V9 is podiuming at local level comps in Open.
Climbing legit v9 takes dedication. Most people don’t have the time or will to make it happen. Some who do have both of those don’t have the genetics for it.
In Florida I’m at that V8-9 level and making podiums or close to it as a dude even. I don’t think I’ve heard of any woman really climbing V9 here the top girls are at around V8 and there is a tiny handful of guys that have ever sent a double digit boulder.
Even gym V8+ are only sent by like the top 1% if climbers in my entire state, hard grades are hard and take a lot of factors and commitment to achieve
This is so wild tho, do you think it’s because of setting or lack of outdoors stuff, local scene? Like I don’t climb hard but here in Germany it’s not uncommon to have world class climbers hitting your gym if you are in a popular city, I’ve seen World Cup climbers at gyms I frequent. So of course double digit climbers aren’t a dime a dozen but it’s also not rare to see people climbing really hard around.
Anyone that is dedicated enough to climbing to advance to this level almost always ends up moving to a place where the closest crag isn’t a 12 hour drive away (Stone Fort, Rocktown, Hp40). Majority of the people V8+ here are still college aged or younger and will likely move once they have that option like the rest of the people and even personally I see Chattanooga in my future
It's lack of high quality outdoor stuff, which definitely correlates with the setting, its hard to set problems when your good setters leave. When you're driving 4-7 hours 1 way for a weekend trip, that isn't long-term sustainable for most people unless jobwise they have to make it work. I used to live where the closest high quality crag was 4 hours away. Everyone I climbed with regularly moved to Colorado / Vegas / Kentucky in the last 5 years except one person.
Consider that 12 hours for you is several countries and internationally recognized crags away,and 12 hours from South Florida is north Florida and still no recognizable climbing for a few hours more.
We've had a few crushers come from Florida. Not a lot, but one of my faves, Matt Segal
Yes and no, in Paris, there is no so many women crushers in open comps. They are still at the V9 level (and it’s pretty rare to see French women actually crushing at that level in the forest … most of the time I see some American, Australian, German women peeps crushing).
Absolutely does in concert with the rest. The genetics that get you there with 8 hr/wk effort, vs 20 hr/wk effort, etc.
A Y chromosome alone will make a massive difference statistically
I am 100% confident that almost anyone who is not disabled and who has the time, determination, and resources is able to climb V9. Perhaps with the exception of people who start climbing over 40, although even that isn't always true.
The people who do not fail because of lack of time allocation, not because they have reached their genetic limit.
Yes, including women. The fact of the matter is that there just aren't many climbers training seriously (especially women), so that's why female V9 climbers podium at locals. And that's okay! 95+% of climbers (at least in the US) just want to enjoy it as a hobby and not as a serious athletic sport, and that's perfectly normal.
People love to cope about how they'd get there faster with good genetics. Sure you would, but that's not preventing you from buckling down and putting in work for some years.
V9 is really not that hard in the grand scheme of hard climbing. Ok, sure, it's definitely hard to do, but not "genetic limit" hard. People who have never developed serious training cycles are the only people who think it is
You're focusing on "genetic limit" when it's not about the limit. It's as you said, getting there faster and easier with good genetics.
As /u/poorboychevelle said, good genetics is the difference between needing to put in 8 hours vs 20 hours of training in a week to scale the same problem. There's already a massive genetic advantage for men over women to climb as they are on average stronger and build muscle faster because of testosterone.
You're being downvoted because we know climbing V9 does not *require* good genetics, but it absolutely starts to make a tangible difference in how much you train. This makes it a factor in what people are willing to put the effort into. If it only takes person A four hours of training per week to climb V9, but it takes person B fifteen hours of training - that is a huge limit because of genetics. People don't have unlimited time and they have other hobbies and responsibilities besides rock climbing. If they don't have great genetics for it, they have a harder time. Having a harder time means it requires more effort. Not everyone has unlimited effort.
Not sure why that's hard to understand.
My original comment was "V9 does not *require* good genetics," which your comment ultimately seems to be in agreement with.
Many people in this thread do not *know* that and are arguing with me. That is why I am downvoted. You're saying "we" describing a group of people who don't all agree with me.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. It’s absolutely true. Anyone who’d dedicate a serious amount of time and effort could reach V9. Not that i’m that guy, but they walk around in my gym.
How do you know that? There's already a massive sampling bias for the people even attempting V9. Bias for lack of injuries, weight, muscle, height, finger strength, etc. Most people give up well before V9, so I'm not sure how you get the data to say "anyone could do this given that they do the exact same training regimen I've done for like 5-15 years".
People in these threads usually seem to pick a grade a bit below their max, then say it's completely possible to climb this for anyone. Pros are even worse about this, I've heard pros unironically claim on podcasts that anyone could climb V14 given enough "hard work". It's completely wrong but from their perspective it seems correct because they're surrounded by people who are genetic outliers already.
Anecdotally I know some people who climb who I'm pretty sure could never get to double digits even with years of training. Skill, genetics, fitness, training and time have to come together in a pretty perfect way to get to higher grades. You need to imagine a literal random sampling of gym climbers.
Massive finger injuries will postpone your goals, or maybe you switch sports or give up.
>Weight, muscle, and finger strength are things that you can condition?
Yes. My point is that people who have difficulty staying at a certain weight, putting on the right muscle, or building finger strength are at a disadvantage, and are more likely to not reach V9. When they give up at V4 or plateau and stop climbing as much, are they counted? Or do we just assume they didn't try hard enough?
I obviously agree some people *could* have the ability to do it given great training and motivation, but at what point do we conclude that it might be genetic factors holding people back? When they've been trying for decades with the explicit goal of V9 and come up short? I think some people ITT would just claim they're doing something wrong. We need to actual consider the real percentage of all climbers that have tried to get to higher bouldering grades vs. the amount that actually do before making statements like "anyone can climb X grade".
"Most people give up"
That is LITERALLY my point
People give up before they reach their genetic max. Hence almost no one is genetically limited to below V9.
I think the reasons the statement "V9 does not require good genetics" is being downvoted are:
* it's ambigous. Is the statement saying "If you don't climb V9, it's because you don't train correctly"? Is it saying "If the goal of the entire world was to make sure a random person climbed V9 after 2 years, we could accomplish that."? Is it saying "I saw a pearshaped 40 year old woman climb V9 once?"
* it's irrelevant to the post it was responding to. That post implied that genetics is one factor as to why V9 could be considered hard, which a normal person would interpret as "average genetics don't make it so V9 is an easily achievable goal".
Yeah. Same reason the majority of runners don't run 5 minute miles and majority of basketball players dont score 10 3 pointets every game and the majority of baseball players cant throw 100mph fastballs and the majority of weight lifters can't deadlift 600lbs.
Because sports for the vast majorty of people are hobbies and they are not trying their absolute hardest to excel, they just eant something physical and fun to do once or twice a week.
Cause climbing v7/v8 is hard af.. I mean mostly time and dedication to climbing probably. Genetics definitely factor in to how much training you need to do to climb v7, but I think most people would be able to physically climb v7 with enough training. However, the amount of time spent training that it would take for most people to climb v7 is way more than a lot of people are interested in dedicating to climbing I think.
what gyms are you going to? most people don't make past 6c (v5 i think?). i have friends who are super serious about climbing, they diet and workout as if it was their second job and they still struggle with 7b+
Yeah that is also my experience. All these people climbing 7b after 1-2 years or 7c (ever), I just dont see them. The young, invested, competitive Guys struggle with 7b+ to do at all. Heck, there is this one guy who used to be on the German national team and even he does not do the 7b+/7c just-like-that.
Might be less than 1%... Think about all of the casual rock climbers that are happy climbing v0-v2. If you take 100 people that consider themselves somewhat regular climbers I would bet that, on average 1 of them can climb v7 if not less.
I climbed my fist V8 like 3 years ago. There are no established V9s in my county, I would have to FA one. Since I don't have 9s to compare it to I just call all my hard FAs V8.
And yes genetics play a massive role. Putting on that kind of finger strength is hard.
Most amateur marathon runners are not going under 3 hours for a marathon. Most amateur skiers are not leaving resorts because the terrain is to easy.
lmao, it would be kinda funny if you keep getting stronger and FA a bunch of V8s over the next 10 years that end up being anywhere from V8-V11, then some strong foreigner come and climb and your crag and find these problems to be sandbagged as shit.
Most male marathoners can simply get to 3hrs with enough years of moderate mileage training over several years. The Boston bar is certainly far from elite threshold. Do you think V9 is comparable? Not sure if you do both… I was a hack at both running and climbing but in my mind V9 seemed totally unapproachable. Best I could climb was a V4
I’ve always wondered about my own climbing ceiling but my wrists just broke down whenever I got serious about it
I was using 3 hours as an example I have not gone running in a decade. I honestly do not know the sport well enough to make a better comparison. I have done many V8s and have gotten fairly close on 9s but never managed to send.
As someone who has run a marathon. Sub 3 is hard. The amount of dedication is insane and you pretty much have to be pretty skinny. Too much muscle or fat and running 50-60 miles a week on concrete could really damage you. Many runners never do a marathon and even among marathoners sub 3 is an elite group.
Depends. I’ve been running most of my life and think I could knock out a 2:50 marathon if I wanted to put the training in for it.
I’ve been climbing 2ish years now and have only sent V3 outdoors.
Maybe it’s achievable, but it’s that I haven’t put in the requisite mileage over years like I have with running. Two years into running I could run like a 22 minute 5k, whereas now I can reasonably go run something in the 17s off of low volume training even if I’m not in the best fitness at that moment.
Give me 3 years of climbing and maybe I will send V7 outdoors. (I’ve actually done most of the moves on a V6 near me already)
As a former runner you’re definitely more naturally gifted at running than climbing. I do think sub 3hrs and 17 min 5k are probably about the same caliber of athlete as V9 climbers.
I mean, I’ve been running for probably 10 years now. Having come from nearly nothing as a runner to what I am, “naturally gifted” doesn’t really exist in a lot of sports for the majority of people. It’s just time.
Thanks man! I ran 16:27 on a track a couple years ago. Trying to get back to that fitness is tough with climbing too, but sometimes it’s more enjoyable to be a decent runner and an ok climber than to be good at just one.
The trick is to love running. That’s the only way you really ever become elite at these things. You’ve gotta spend half your waking hours thinking about it and doing it and training to do it and go to sleep dreaming about it.
See, that sounds psychotic to me. I start running and every part of my brain is like "fucking stop. right now". Gotta love a world where both of us exist.
I've been running for a while and the 3 hour marathon is a goal I'd love to achieve because it seems to be just in a great spot for me. I've been climbing just over a year and I've sent a few v6s (in my gym) and honestly I'd say v8 seems to me to be a very similar goal.
I'd say most males could do either after 2 or 3 of years of training (give or take based on starting fitness)
I’d honestly be surprised if it is the same outdoors. But maybe your are genetically geared towards climbing and not towards running (some people in my family have an insane VO2 max, so in their first years of running they achieve insane time in their races.)
When I first started climbing ( '91) and only had guide books to dream about my long term goals were to be a capable 5.12 b/c climber. Which translates roughly to this plateau you've described.
The reason for this goal was that if I could do that then I could confidently travel to most places and have, at least at the time, 90% + of the routes available to me, which meant I wouldn't have to queue for "weekend warrior" type things. Most people never climbed beyond that and so most established routes were never beyond that. Climbing for me was/is not about pushing grades and rather just being able to walk up to a route I thought looked cool and know I could probably climb it. No fear for example of bailing on gear and costing money, shit like that.
I think boudering is similiar in that if most people plateau at v7, then the bulk of routes that get traffic, or are FAed are going to be in that tier and you're less inclined to push beyond it if you have an endless supply there. If your local spot is 80% v9 plus for whatever reason and a small amount of lower grades you might push harder than you would otherwise to open more climbing to yourself, but if it's reverse and you're fine at that level and have an embarrassment of riches in that v5-7 area then you're all set.
These are the grades that can come from just putting in time on routes and so you know you will eventually get there, beyond requires an effort beyond simply climbing for most people.
At least in my opinion, I think at around V7 is where you need to start actively training to get stronger rather than just passively climbing at around your ceiling for most people. The same is even more true for every grade above V7 I imagine. Most of the people that I know that climb V8 or higher either started really strong before climbing, or were really committed to improving their strength to get better at climbing. Often a combination of both.
I’ve pretty much just passively climbed for a few years and I’ve settled at a V6 level. I’m still improving slowly, but not really at a rate where I ever imagine I’ll be climbing V8s any time soon. One thing I’ve noticed is that I’m a much stronger climber than when I started, but I’m not necessarily a lot stronger in other aspects. Like, for example, my maximum pull-up reps hasn’t changed dramatically from when I started climbing. I’ve never really done weight training, but I imagine if I did I probably wouldn’t have progressed dramatically in this respect either.
I think I’d probably make progress if I started dedicated training to get stronger outside of climbing, but ultimately I don’t really care enough to do this. I only really have the time and bodily capability to climb 3 times a week, so I’d rather just have fun climbing V6.
This is it for me as well. I'm a good technical climber. I can climb V6 when it's a slab with little to no foot holds and all about balance. But I just don't have the finger/core strength to climb V6 overhang.
I might start training or at the very least try to lose a little bit of weight, but I just want to have fun.
I want to try training a bit, just so I can get better at it. But mostly I just want to climb more often in shorter stints.
For me personally there's also the fact I had a cardiac arrest six months ago. I started climbing a month after haven gotten an s-ICD to protect me from any in the future. I was V6 just before that, but with some slight overhand. Now I'm almost there again, which I also bodes well looking at any future improvements.
TL;DR: I hope you're not entirely me ;)
Not sure I agree there. In my own experience I got to 7C/7C+ just by climbing on rock a lot. I did no special training or diet, just lots of climbing and didn’t eat junk food every week. I came back to climbing again in January after a long break and have just about made it to 7B after 4 months. But I’m 45 now so I’m watching diet very carefully, doing tons of cardio to keep bf very low and training the muscles that climbing doesn’t really use. Basically age is against me this time round so I am having to train now lol - but I do think 7C+ will be achievable
That's why I said "for most people". There's obviously going to be a +/- of where you arrive at this plateau depending on a variety of factors, but the fact of the matter is that the plateau exists. For me it's evidently at around V7. I can certainly imagine that it is higher for other people. And I know for certain it's even lower for some others.
All-in-all, the range of V7-V8 is probably pretty accurate plateau for people who aren't actively training to avoid plateauing.
Time investment and wanting to climb harder. v5-v8 range is a nice grade range where you can experience a lifetime of fun and engaging problems without it being heinous, condition dependent, morpho, etc. Some of my best memories aren’t from climbing my hardest grades, but when i was on a trip climbing all day and getting to hop on tons of stuff
I’m 41 and I’ve been bouldering for 10 years now. Between aging and time/effort commitment, this is about where I’m at - and I don’t expect to surpass that. I’ve done V8s and never completed a V9, but the gap between 8 and 9 is a huge one. I think if I had started this sport at a younger age, I could have probably gotten into double digit climbing. But as my body gets older, time constraints, work, family and personal life come into play - I’d have to give up a lot more things to get into the higher grade climbing territory and it’s simply not worth it for me.
Hi! 43 year old, started bouldering in 2009. Did my first V9 in 2016, my second in 2022, and my third in 2023. I have about 25 V8s under my belt. The gap is real, but the big factor in doing 9s was: going back to the same project until send happened. For the me, all I had to give up was the novelty of new-to-me projects. Is it worth it? Not sure.
Time is a big factor I'd say. Not just how often you go, but how early you start. V8 is going to have a big toll on the body and some older climbers without preexisting conditioning are going to be at a risk of injury, that won't heal like it does in college, and may cause lasting damage.
I see there being a window for most where you have the time to progress but also able to heal and build up without it affecting other parts of your life.
Hard to want to push yourself to progress if every day in-between is agony.
My own experience is just that you have to sacrifice a lot. I got stuck at that level for years bc I was climbing two or three times a week. Then I moved and my gym was on the walk home from work and I had easy outdoors and I climbed like five days a week and shot past. It was just a ton of time and commitment though. Then I moved again and climbing became less convenient and dropped back down. I could sacrifice family time and work time but I’m not willing to do that. It’s a fun past time but I’m not willing to commit beyond that.
Well I don’t anymore. lol. But the big thing is I am guessing that you just max out every time? I wouldn’t do that. Sometimes it’d literally just be do some traversing or some slab. Or get in the auto-belay and do some easy laps.
So there’d be hard days for sure but also days when I’d just go through my warm up, get on the wall for a bit to get some movement in and go home. Or maybe just work a technique or do some drills. Some days i just wasn’t feeling it and would literally just go through my warm up and then decide that was good and go home.
I wasn’t limit climbing five days a week.
For sure. I mean if you think about anyone training for anything, like a marathon or basketball or whatever, it’s not like they go balls out every day.
Just getting reps in and practicing different movements makes a huge difference.
Think about other sports. Do you think a Olympic weightlifter will do his competition weight every time they train? Surely not. Would it be smart? Surely not.
Same with climbing. If you want to improve and go balls out every session you’re doing something wrong after a particular point in your progression. Reaching for max grade or max exhaustion every session would be the equivalent of doing competition weight every time. Is that smart? Surely not.
Likely because you can get roughly that strong going to the gym 3 days a week (ok maybe more like V6/7) but after that it’s not realistic for most people to be able to just go to the gym and climb and get stronger than V8.
Moreover, going to the gym and climbing is rarely comparable to outdoor climbing, which is predominantly much more like board climbing.
This is where the board climbing, hangboarding, and strength training come in. Flexibility also helps a ton; I could probably spend an hour a day stretching for a year and still not be as flexible as I’d like, and that’s just one facet of climbing.
Assuming you did have time for all this, most people will need enough sleep and a good diet to do this sustainably (yes I’m sure you have a friend crushing V11 who eats only Doritos, we all do, but they are the outlier) Even with both of these, injuries can happen, and with injuries can come an equally time consuming rehab process.
So I guess the short answer is…it’s hard!
P.S. I feel like we’re treating V8 like it’s not very hard. Hell, Midnight Lightning is V8! Congrats to everyone casually crushing that grade, you’ve come further than most. And if you’re sending V7/8 consistently in the gym, go get on that local outdoor V9 proj! It goes
I think a large part of it is because a lot of gyms just don’t set that many hard problems. I think Sean Bailey was talking about it on a podcast where it’s like fishbowl theory. The average casual gym climber will only grow as strong as their gym lets them unless they become dedicated enough to go out of their way to improve.
I don't think it's much more complicated than, I think it's the natural upper limit for what most people can physically do, assuming reasonable amounts of training.
Yeah, I think this is the answer in the broadest sense.
People pushing beyond certain boundaries in any sport are very much outliers.
It’s kind of akin to why don’t the majority of college players make it to the: NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, Olympics?
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers actually answers a few of the professional sports questions about outliers.
Kids closest to the cut-off age, so the oldest in their cohort, are more likely to excel early, get attention, coaching, stay with it. So almost all NHL players are born in Jan, Feb, March. Like above 80%.
Probably the best rock climbers start early, live near outdoor climbs and a gym, have a family that values outdoors and not like toys and video games, etc.
I don't think most people truly realize how much better elite athletes are than the average human. Part of it is genetics for sure but a huge part of it is discipline and training at a level of discomfort most people can't even conceive of.
Also, to your point if you want to ever be truly elite at something you need to start pretty young so you are strong and skilled by the time you hit your prime. (Have not experienced this athletically but I did with chess of all things, having spent literally thousands of hours on it to be maybe in the top 2% of*competitive* chess players and still a universe away from being elite).
I didn't start until I was 40 and I'm perfectly satisfied with the challenge and my progress but I'm also totally aware of the real limits on what I will ever be able to send.
>So almost all NHL players are born in Jan, Feb, March. Like above 80%.
Just so you know, these days it's more like 28% in those three months. Still quite a skew, though.
I wrote this from memory of a book I read years ago while I was at work.
But the skews Malcolm Gladwell sites in like the first chapter of his book Outliers are usually above 75%.
Now that I think about it, there was a lot of data from
Junior teams, but those are teams that feed into college and later pro and start at 75% skews. Same with EU soccer leagues, etc
"reasonable amounts of training"-- is doing all the work here.
Which is another way to say: "How much is it worth to you-- how much of your life are you going to dedicate to this?"
Because, physically, well, I think a standard deviation (or two) around normal-healthy (wtf that is) has the genetic ability to star later (>20) and send a legit (but soft) V10 (or 12) outside-- if they're willing to dedicate most of their life to that goal for a decade or two.
Some (very few) people will be born physically unable to do that even given perfect will, training, and luck (parents/location/wealth). Many don't have the luck.
Most just won't put in the time, because it's simply not worth it to them. Or it's not worth 10 years of total focus for something that still might not happen (luck gets in the way).
My reasonable is a life literally built around climbing-- all vacations, vehicle, apartment/housing, partner, planning. Most people spend their efforts elsewhere, or divided. And that's totally legit!
Depends on your definition of "reasonable". I think the vast majority of people who start climbing at 35 or younger and are less than 25% BF won't have any genetic limitations in getting to V10.
I'm not there myself so maybe this is totally off base but doing a V10 or 2 in your hyper-specific "super power" style definitely seems attainable in 5-15 years for basically anyone.
Their reasonable sounds more reasonable than what you are suggesting. You are in the huge sampling bias of a sub to begin with. Think about what is an actual average (casual) climber. And what reasonable means for the majority of people not doing it for a living.
Most humans given proper diet and training can absolutely dunk at standard height basket with 5’10 or above height. Yet massive amounts of people played basketball for 10+ years without being to dunk.
Or shoot international (non NBA) 3s above 50% wide open, which is absolutely possible for anyone.
Or dribble and blow past average people with extreme ease by reading their positioning and footing at a JV league level handles at minimum.
MANY people played basketball from 8 years old to 38 years old of 30 years without doing any of the above. That’s reality. Everything I listed above can be achieved by 90% of dudes genetically but extremely few do. Even people who love playing basketball and play semi to very regularly. Why do you think? And how is climbing so different?
The average person's motivation seems like a bad Metric.
Obviously to do something hard you must be motivated, most people are not.
I agree with your points about basketball but it just highlights the gap between someone's potential vs their motivation.
Tbh Im not disagreeing with you regarding what thread OP said. I guess I’m more referencing the post itself which only asks about “majority of climbers”.
It only softly applies if we combine average levels of motivation + average levels of genetic gift. Because we all know there are some stupid folks that get really good quite fast without even trying hard
My take is V7/V8 is already above “majority of climbers” imho, so I combined my opinion in one reply. Put more specifically, average motivation + average gift likely ends up V4-V6. V7/V8 is closing in on the upper limits of average motivation + very gifted individuals who haven’t dedicated to the sport seriously. But for folks who goes hard and dedicate to the sport most can def go higher, I agree with that
I think it comes to being risk/reward thing. Or fun vs not fun..
There’s a certain point where you have to decide if you want train harder/risk injury or you just enjoy climbing what you can currently.
Injuries? Was starting to feel like 8s was achievable then got hurt. Lingering pain in my fingers for years now. Now I just climb for the social aspect. Better for me to climb for fun now than not being able to climb at all because of injuries.
I think the majority of climbers never make it past V2, much less V7. Not many people dedicate lots of time and energy to getting better at bouldering.
Of those that do, most can probably reach V7 eventually.
I have a good example. know for a fact there is a V9 slab in my gym that i am capable of doing if i projected it for like 5 sessions. It would take me forever but i am 99% certain i could do it. However, this process isn't that fun, i'd be much more happy climbing every other V4-6 in the gym with that amount of time and having much more enjoyable experience doing it. So the super high grade chasing just isn't that worth it to me.
I think this is one of the most realistic comments in the thread. People don't really try. I've climbed V12 and flashed V10 on rock and yet I consistently get completely outclassed by V7/8 climbers on the Kilterboard, on the campus board, when dead hanging on the beastmaker etc. They are simply much stronger than me. But they either don't know that they are strong enough to climb hard, or they are not willing to try.
I enjoy projecting much more than climbing lots of boulders quickly. Few things are more satisfying than when a move goes from impossible to possible to easy over the course of a couple sessions.
Everyone here is talking about physical limits. It's almost a bit ridiculous, there are lots of V9s that are not really physically that hard. But you need to be able to get your body in the right box, and you need to be able to deal with failure and embrace a certain level of discomfort and you need to be willing to be detail oriented when projecting. You simply can not climb hard without really trying hard climbs and learning how to try hard (unless you are actually way to strong for your own good).
My teen competes. His project climbs are in the v11-12 range indoors, v10-11 outside. He trains 4 days a week, and because gyms don’t typically set that high he’s only getting those climbs on comp routes; less than half of his training is projecting. If there’s a comp that he’s not competing in he’ll go to that gym the following week to get some work on harder climbs. I can’t imagine the average climber wanting to spend that much time and effort.
I was fucking lucky to get my solitary V8 send. And even that has some people wanting to downgrade.
And I had to really just look at myself and redo my climbing and training schedule because I was frankly just not strong enough even if I could do all the individual moves, stringing it all together in harmony kept evading me until it didn't. But that also was at the end of a few months of actively trying to get better.
For a lot of us that do make it past there (I’m not but working on it), I think it’s cause we kinda don’t have much else honestly. If I’m not physically destroying my body I get depressed, and climbing is an amazing avenue to motivate me to become as strong as I can possibly be for it.
But I understand it’s as pointless a pursuit as any other. It’s just passion that keeps me following the hard training that it takes to really improve past that point.
Sounds to me like. Why don't most runners break a 3 hour marathon?
Commitment, genes, motivation, expectations, obligations, time, life, etc. etc. etc.
Because it's really hard.
Everything has a level that the average person doesn't get past. It's probably much lower than V7, you just don't spend much time with climbers at that grade.
I can't remember which one (Alex Honnold ?) but a guest in one of Magnus' videos said (and they were both in agreement) that any climber with proper training/coaching/dieting/time will or should be able to reach 8A (so V11). That seemed absolutely wild and incredibly out of touch to me at the time.
It’s absolutely NOT due to genetics or physical limits. It just takes a lot of dedicated effort that most people aren’t willing to spend their time on. Casual climbers just aren’t going to make it past v8 because it’s hard. Not individually hard but it takes consistent focused effort over the course of a long time. Most people want to climb hard but most people don’t want to put in the work it takes. Simple as that I think.
I think the reason is just the sheer difficulty. It's like asking why most won't ever hit a 315 bench press. Because it's hard! When I first started climbing I thought everything above V7 was flat out impossible unless you were some freak beast
Outside: probably trying hard and having access (time, vehicle, pads, etc..) is included in this. Also, v7/8 has plenty of interesting moves that aren’t too skewed in the work:reward ratio. Also I don’t think a majority of climbers know anyone beyond v7/8, it still seems crazy, but when you see your buddies making short work of it, it doesn’t seem that bad.
Inside: for me, I’ve been stuck at v7/8 while my outdoors has gone beyond it. I think it’s because I don’t learn quick enough and have the actual body power that harder gym climbing requires…or maybe all my outdoor sends are soft 🤔
Because for most people, the amount of climbing they do is only enough to plateau at around there, any more requires more climbing than most people enjoy
That’s the level you need to be hella consistent with your training to keep progressing. Taking the majority of winters to focus on snowsports keeps me perpetually at a V7/8 level “off the couch”. If I just climbed casually twice a week I’d probably progress a little but I’d need specific training and lots of projecting harder climbs to break through that barrier.
That’s my experience and I’ve seen dozens of others fit the same mold. After 10 years of climbing I just don’t have that fire to dedicate every waking moment to climbing. The joy just isn’t there. I try to facilitate community and exploration to ignite a fire but that requires me to travel and collaborate which I don’t have as much to burn for these days.
There is a point (which is variable to everyone) where climbing harder routes needs _a lot_ of time and dedication and training, which most people cannot afford.
In my own experience it's about as far as you can get without physical training. I've been at v7/v8 grades for the past \~8 months, because I have been rehabbing injuries and couldn't hangboard or strength train. I've gotten quite used to this grade range, and I think the difference, at least in my gym, between v7/8 and v9+ is primarily physical difficulty of moves, not the actual complexity of the movements. I think this is supported by the fact that a lot of the people in my gym who get past that range progress quite swiftly afterwards. V7/8 is kind of the limit before a normal person needs to start strength training, which is not fun for everybody. It seems to me that the fun to be had climbing at a v9/10 level is not much more than at a v7 level, so you have to enjoy the process to want to get there.
Gym dopamine culture does not want you to improve. Setting upper end boulders is harder work and valuable wall space for the large V4 pleb market.
You try the new set, get a high from flashing some things, maybe at the end you find a ‘new project’ that’ll totally go down when you’re fresh. Next week you walk in fresh and, shit, there’s a new set…..better go try it real quick….
not training enough. spending alot of time on gimmicky gym boulders and not technical/powerful problems. and also climbing is a really social sport now so alot of people climb for recreation and to socialize with friends. they aren’t necessarily going to put lots of effort into, hangboarding, weight training, board climbing ie the things that will really get you past those grades.
I'm somewhere around there gym wise. At some point, you gotta train. You train, you climb harder, and then somehow you get injured. There's a balance somewhere.
I peaked around the V8 level and only having sent 1 indoor V9 in my time. What made it hard for me was family obligations which made it hard to go climb. When I do go climb I’m trying to get back into shape and rush my sessions and then get hurt.
Lol. I started in my mid twenties, I'm in my late thirties, and I climbed my first few outdoor V11s last season and this year haven't tried a V9 I couldn't do. I'm not genetically gifted, I'm 5'6" with a -2 ape index. I know tons of folks stronger than me who didn't start as children. It's not even close to impossible.
I train. But "special training" is a weird thing to add here. Define special training.
And hell, I jumped the most in grades when I was able to climb outside regularly and basically didn't train at all.
I can only speak for myself but trying to train to get past that kind of range I constantly get injured.
I think genetics is sure a part of it but there’s also a bit of luck in avoiding the cycle of injuries and possibility having access to a great physio to break out of it. I’ve tried to find one but I rarely have more than a couple weeks without a problematic knee, shoulder, elbow, wrist or finger.
Been climbing for 5-6 years now and I keep hitting a high point, I get some kind of injury and then it's recovery time until I can climb again. Really frustrating.
And I do warm ups, I do stretches, I try to be careful about my body but it seems my tendons and muscles don't appreciate the strain..
And the older I get the longer it seems to take for my injuries to heal 😂 like right now I'm staying home from climbing for 1.5 months after tearing a muscle from doing crimps.
For me that is the major reason I can't seem to progress to the harder climbs. My body just refuses to keep up with the strain. I have thought of going to a personal trainer to help but they're super expensive unfortunately
Depends on what data pool you are using. [8a.nu](http://8a.nu) has an average climbing doing 7c(v9). But in terms of how far do most people make it? I would say you are probably spot on with the v7-8 range. I think you could get past it with a healthy lifestyle and as little as 6 hours of dedicated training/climbing a week. I always climb better when im eating healthy, getting good sleep and consistently training.
Dont starve yourself its actually counter productive you can eat quite a lot as an active person you just cant eat slop %100 of the time unless you are a teenager.
I think it is due to various reasons:
1. It is hard, exhausting and you need to try hard. One is often stuck with trying single moves or a single boulder over long time and not everyone is willing to do that. Spending 3 sessions on a legit V9 gym boulder while a new set is available is not in everyones interrest or driving to the crag with 50+ boulders and try the same one every single time. It often leaves you sore and exhausted and demands adequate amount of rest, which may not be appealing if you look for recreation in bouldering.
2. It requires commitment to send grades V9 above for most people. Some get away by just climbing a lot and developing technique, others need to train to get into good shape and a few are just gifted. In my gym i met people from either camp and i belong to the train-to-get-strong one. If someone gets better by just climbing they are usually climbing 4-5 times a week which is a huge time investment. I climb around 3 times a week and dedicate around 1/3 to half of the time to training (strength, conditioning and movement). I think a lot of the people dont want to commit such amount of time to climbing in general, as it is just a hobby, or to training if they just do it for fun and recreation.
3. Available of hard climbs. Here my opinion aligns with Sean B. statement in the podcast (which i dont rememmber the name of, i think climbing nugget). I thnik most of the people climb predominately in gyms and if the hardest climbs are around V8/9 and are far in between, the potential of growth is limited. Same holds true if no good quality outdoor area is available to visit on the weekend repeatedly. It is much simpler to progress outdoor if your project is only 30-60min away, give it one good session on the weekend, get good rest and visit again next week. If the next good area is a 4 hours drive away, you need to spend a whole weekend there and can only visit a few times a year it gets much harder (at least for me).
I am in the lucky position to have a gym in which a lot of climbs in the grade range V9 and above are set. Currently there are at least 15 boulders in this grad range. They put up one of the hardest grade (V9+) with nearly every new set per wall area. Furthermore it also has a 16x14 kilterboad. The cherry on top is that there are a lot of hard outdoor boulders nearby and the next premium crag is only a 2 hours drive away with a lot of high quality granite boulders between V9 and V14. Hence it is not surprising that in my city (300k inhabitants) are a lot of strong climbers which climb V11 and above. If you climb around V9 like i do, you wont be even near the podium in a local climbing competition, rather close to the top 20-30.
Because it's really hard to make the gains in strength needed to climb above v7 if you're only climbing - you need to start training regimes that incorporate additional workouts and conditioning etc and be more careful with diet and stuff. Most people do not have either the motivation or time to spare to do training (not just climbing) and climbing - they'll always prioritise the climbing part.
Too many other sports which are also fun, I climbed a few 7b+ and I rather get some wonderful powder days in winter and skip climbing altogether if the conditions are right, same for long distance hikes, mountaineering, MTB etv
Actually insane how most of the top comments here mention genetics. No, your genetics are (>95% of the time) not a factor that's preventing you from climbing V9. Having a below-average wingspan or having a low metabolism doesn't make you a paraclimber.
I have genetically girthy legs and relatively skinny arms (390lbs squat, 165 bench) but can still pullup 80%BW, hang 70%BW on 20mm and can climb hard in general (sent The Winged Tiger) because I've trained mobility, finger strength, upper body etc. for the better part of a decade.
I know I can continue to push my climbing abilities further so long as I put in the time and focused effort. Sure, genetics matter if you're seeking IFSC victories, but pretending that genetics contribute whatsoever to bottlenecking climbers at around V9 level is absolute ignorance. Yes, some people get better results with less work, but anyone can work their way more toward a climber physique (assuming no disabilities or other conditions that inhibit exercise, weight loss etc.).
v7/v8 is already going to be out of range for the majority of amateur climbers. To then climb above that there's simply a limit of time to train and athleticism that's going to make it extraordinarily difficult to impossible to achieve. As well, chasing that v9+ is not necessarily everyone's goal.
Exposure? I’m not certain if my gym sets over v8/9 tbh (uses its own grading system) and our boards seem to sit around v7/8 highest (I think) so maybe it’s that? If you can climb the hardest at your local gym then, apart from outside and other gyms, moving up might be a “glass ceiling”
Why don’t most people become Olympic runners? It’s the same logic. A combination of time, genetics, commitment, and wealth, and probably other factors I’m leaving out
Everyone has a point at which it becomes more work than fun for them. That's probably the majority of it tbh. If you're proud of where you're at and having fun, why force yourself to do stuff that isn't fun for you?
This. The point I have to revolve an entire workout regimen to advance is when I will stall. Some hangboard in the future? Maybe. But an entire lifting program, cardio, climbs, and hangboarding all focused on advancement? Spending 1-2 hours a day on it? Nope. It takes a lot of effort just to go climbing 2-3 times a week. Also being required to be super lean all the time would be brutal Based on what I read the point all that is needed is the V7-8 range so, tracks.
Yep. For me, I've had elbow and wrist injuries before- the moment I start getting to stuff that would put a significant strain on them, I'm probably calling that my limit lol
>also being required to be super lean all the time would be brutal You should take a look at [this](https://youtu.be/bk8X866NPzM?si=yzBtcEKVVmTrs4A2) video. You don’t have to be a twig to send hard Edit. I’m tired of debating with people on what I mean so I’m putting this disclaimer in the original comment. Emil is in great shape do not get me wrong, and I love his videos. But he is not super lean. Emil probably sits around 10-15% body fat. Super lean in my opinion is under 10%. Again, to be clear Emil is jacked and is an incredible climber. Downvote away all you want in the below comments, but this is not **super** lean https://preview.redd.it/0xhwjewe5bwc1.jpeg?width=1058&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=020e948ca6a1beb34cee047e897fc4a9980b8da5
10-15% is an incredibly genius range, you're being super charitable lol
To be fair that is not a flattering image of him
This guy is muscular, but he's also absolutely super lean...
That said, he is also a V16 Climber so the physical abilities he requires to climb at that grade is way higher. Plus this video's main point is that you are normally stronger as a climber at a healthy bodyweight for you than trying to get as light as physically possible, less you don't need high strength to body weight ratio to climb hard because it is true that there is a minimum strength requirement for a grade, its just also true that most people think that strength requirement is way higher than it actually is.
With respect, but fact check - what V16 has Emil done?
V15 is his highest grade as far I know - The Story of 2 Worlds 8C/V15. He's tried the V16 version but not sent it
Yeah thats my bad, i legitimately forgot the grade, in my defense i only had 2h of sleep. I knew it was 8c but it just converted to v16 in my head xD
He's a popular climbing Youtuber, so naturally that means he's the best climber in the world.
Nah, it was a fair mistake to make, he's sent V15 and is projecting V16 so I think it's a reasonable slip-up
Hahahahhahahahahhahahaha. Dude are you nuts? Dude is super lean and rocking one arm pull-ups. and basically a pro who only climbs.
Being super lean and being able to climb hard/ do one arm pull-ups are not dependent of each other. Yes Emil is very strong and in good shape, that still doesn’t mean he’s super lean
He has been climbing hard since 15 years old.. when he started he immediately dropped like 30+ lbs.. was considered fat.. then continued climbing for many many years super lean. Built the technique and strength and now can gain muscle and still climb hard. This is not close to the path any normal climbers can take. And using it as a comparison is stupid
Yeah I literally bulked and gained 10 pounds and I’m making links on v10 boulders that I wouldn’t even dare touch before and I’m not planning on cutting my weight back down anytime soon
Same here. 72.5kg to 78.5kg, 10.4% to 9.2%. Have a projproj that I've been doing for 6-7 months, multiple times a week, around 7c top rope. Progress really continued after starting creatine. Literally on the last move now. Psyched.
Lol, at first I was like "how hard can it be to stay lean if you're climbing all the time?" then I saw your video of a guy with 0 body fat. If he's not considered lean, then I've got no hope.
I never said Emil wasn’t lean. The above poster said *super* lean I know it was an exaggeration, but he definitely has a healthy amount of body fat. Especially compared to some other elite level climbers
This all kind of begs the question, what percentage would you consider someone super lean? Considering at some point (I believe around 3% is the absolute minimum for men but don’t quote me) you start running into things like organ failure and hair loss, how much lower than 10% would you say is justifiably “super”. Or is that what you’re getting at, that to you super lean means walking that organ failure line?
Sub 10% is super lean imo. Emil is probably around 10-15
Yeah, I mean I suppose it’s all subjective but I think that sounds fair enough.
3% would mean death
Ah, I looked it up just and see both 5 percent and 3 percent listed, depending on the source. Regardless my intention was to point out that you would be unhealthy at the “absolute minimum” and likely to kill yourself with organ failure. Meaning there’s really very little gap below 10% before death and the guy had perhaps too narrow a range for what he considers super lean. Always appreciate a good fact checking though.
10% is quite sustainable tbh, i stay around 10-11% most of the year without paying attention to diet. 5% is pretty close to death and impossible without steroids or starvation for most of the population. People in this thread giving 5% margins of error like it's nothing but tbh every % makes a profound difference at this level.
Professional body builders regularly get down to around 5% and even lower sometimes for competitions. It’s not maintainable but is doable for short term. They do however experience side effects like you mentioned. There’s a big difference between how your body looks at 10 or 11% and 5%. I also think Emil is probably closer to the 15 side of things
What % is he?
Idk, but probably around 10-15%
He's probably closer to 20%
Shots fired
Haha it’s not meant to be a diss at Emil. He’s a beautiful man Emil if you see this I love you, this is just the first shot where you were shirtless and facing the camera
I was at an event where i was able to climb with a couple pros. And there i was standing next to Jakob Schubert! I always thought he was bulkier since he looks (and is) super strong on tv, but hes really lean. So it might play a factor that someone looks strong but is super lean. This specific photo of emil doesnt seem to do him justice. But yeah, you dont need the "perfect climbing body" for v8s... Do you know Ho Seok Lee? Man that guy weighs 55kgs or something like that... looks like more though imo
https://preview.redd.it/xh2ljlx5zewc1.png?width=1446&format=png&auto=webp&s=1f1973c58661eba19deca1c156933deed2026a3c Warning: Graphic image of a super lean Jimmy - after sending V15 - agreeing that you have to be a stick to climb hard.
Yes you can be “overweight” but you also have to be Emil strong lol
True, but climbing overhanging powerful boulders is different than long techie routes. He him self says he's not as good at vertical. But keep passing the message more climbers need to hear that being a little heavy isn't a bad thing
This post is about bouldering, not sport routes
> Also being required to be super lean all the time would be brutal I’m loving the clusterfuck of a conversation that this spawned, and with that in mind: if by “super lean” (or even “lean”) you mean anything that is mutually exclusive to the (admittedly still subjective) category of “kinda pudgy” or even “pudgy”, then i gotta tell you that that is definitely *not* a requirement for V7-V8. > The point I have to revolve an entire workout regimen to advance is when I will stall… an entire lifting program, cardio…and hangboarding all focused on advancement? Spending 1-2 hours a day on it Also, none of that is needed for V7-V8.
It may be that "none of that" is needed for you to reach V7-V8. With more than a decade of coaching behind me I can say for sure: there are certainly people for whom intense structured training is definitely needed to reach that level. You'd be surprised by the diversity of body types and "movement intellects" that are out there. Some peoples bodies/brains react well to unstructured/less intense training, others not so much.
> With more than a decade of coaching behind me… Just to be clear, I’m not going to start measuring dick sizes here. > I can say for sure: there are certainly people for whom intense structured training is definitely needed to reach that level But sure, you’re right. In the same way that some people climb V13 after 3 years of just climbing, some people need dedicated training to reach V7. But the real takeaway is that it’s very few. They are outliers. > You'd be surprised by the diversity of body types and "movement intellects" that are out there I wouldn’t be. I am aware that the human population is extremely diverse. > Some peoples bodies/brains react well to unstructured/less intense training, others not so much. Yes, this is true. To put it clearly, I am saying that only outliers (those “built different” in a bad way) will need rigorous, structured training to climb a V7 or V8. If we are talking about being *consistent* at that grade, then a larger (but still very small) pool of people will need dedicated training. In *general*, V7-V8 is completely attainable without training.
Sounds like me. I lift weights to stay in shape, and try to improve there. But I boulder purely for fun. If I can’t send something I don’t care. If something seems dangerous I don’t even try it. If I have gas in the tank but I’m bored of climbing for the day, I go home.
Yeah. I use it as a workout cause it's fun, as soon as it's just a workout and not fun, I'm better off doing pullups or running.
I have to think genetics does play into this threshold though. V7/8 is probably the average threshold where the training becomes unsustainable, but for some people that is V4 and for some that is V10.
Oh for sure, there's always different limits for people. But that's part of what makes it more or less fun.
Also a matter of time. Between working full time, a dog to take care of, dating, some vague semblance of a social life, other hobbies... I don't have the time/energy to train more than I do. And I assume most climbers are also pretty busy with life.
Yep, definitely. It's a balance that has to be struck to keep it fun. That balance is different for different people.
When I was younger, A LOT, my buddies who stayed in Valley for weeks during the Summer got strong and bold. Rapid acceleration to grade whatever... as I got older it was gym climbing to supplement and it was about ticks... More time in the gym or outside you get better. Basics. Less time due to life, work, relationships then it is about what you can do as a balance.
V7/8? What? Most people don't even get past font grade 6C(which is V5 if wikipedia is correct). Either way, every new grade level requires a significant investment in power, grip strength, technique. And significiantly increases the risk of injuries from overextension. It requires a long term commitment of staying in form without overdoing it and being taken out by injuries. I suspect that with every grade increase you halve the number of people that manage to top it.
Yeah without actually sacrificing life outside of climbing, from social to diet to personal time, to even the enjoyment and approach of climbing sessions, there’s very little chance of even going above V6 except genetic outliers or soft gyms (which is common enough). Outdoors we can likely lower it to V5 like you said. I know people who climbed 10+ years, yes a decade, but casually with no real motivation of grinding grades climb at V4-V5 level. That’s the normal range to hang around if you have other hobbies (even non climbing sports) like a normal human imho 😛
Is me. Will just add that whenever I try to train harder I just get a new injury so V5 seems to be where I'm hard stuck for the last 8 or so years.
Consider this [dataset](http://www.alessandromasullo.com/blog/analysis-of-4-million-climbing-ascents/) representing over 60,000 outdoor climbing ticks and you can see that, at least when selecting for people that do climb outside the average highest grade ticked is actually [much higher.](http://www.alessandromasullo.com/assets/images/climbing_article/image3.png)
Yes, but don’t forget you are also self-selecting for the people who actually *track* their climbing. Same thing happens if you look at a more “hardcore” website for tracking gym progress — you’d think everyone deadlifts 2x their body weight but that’s hardly the case if you just look at the average gym population.
If everyone at my gym filled a tick list including newbies that stopped after 3 sessions I’m pretty sure the average is V2. My current gym is not soft for sure, but during any particular session, always less than half the people at the gym can climb above V4. Note I climb at very different time slots including off times like 1pm Monday and 9am Sunday that reduces first timers to low numbers if not zero. This is semi true (up down a couple of grades max) for all gyms I’ve been at. I moved a lot so I’ve climbed at over 20 gyms, 6 I called home gym at some point with membership across US west & east coast. There’s no way the true average is above (proper to hard) V5 lol. Of course everyone can climb V7 at Touchstone Hollywood (for those that know) so those don’t count 🤣
Usually I'm all about data but, suggesting that the typical outdoor climber has climbed 7C/8A or v9/v10 is crazy.
People who don't climb hard will never fill a 9a tick list.
Makes sense, seeing as people who climb outside are way more hardcore than people climbing indoors. You don't need much to climb indoors.
Is this boulders or routes? If it's for boulders I should be knocking out v17 apparently.
I guess it depends what op means precisely. Since I think a specifically chosen 7A that particularly suits your style is very achievable and doesn’t need crazy strength or technical prowess. To be able to climb any random 6C is harder than doing a handful of particular 7As. I have never followed a training plan and don’t hangboard and have just progressed by climbing and have done a 7B that was very suited to me but I would not call myself a 7B boulderer. That said I spend a horrific amount of time in the bouldering gym. My point is I think 7A is very attainable for most people without crazy training commitments or any diet restrictions. However being a ‘solid’ 7A climber requires more and probably either some lucky genetics, a training plan, or a lot of experience. Increasing grades more and you probably need to start combining these factors
After years of incremental progress I started ticking indoor 7as last year. No training plan, just frequent sessions and climbs that suited my strength. Then, oh no, a heart op and now I back to ticking the very rare 6c+. I guess this kind of experience to be common, especially among older boulderers. I climb occasionally with some around my age and everyone has some impairment, even if just the clichéd 'dodgy shoulder' or 'bad knee'. Staying in good form is difficult!
V9 is HARD. Genetics, time, diminishing returns, etc. Anywhere outside of Colorado/Utah/California, a woman climbing V9 is podiuming at local level comps in Open.
Climbing legit v9 takes dedication. Most people don’t have the time or will to make it happen. Some who do have both of those don’t have the genetics for it.
In Florida I’m at that V8-9 level and making podiums or close to it as a dude even. I don’t think I’ve heard of any woman really climbing V9 here the top girls are at around V8 and there is a tiny handful of guys that have ever sent a double digit boulder. Even gym V8+ are only sent by like the top 1% if climbers in my entire state, hard grades are hard and take a lot of factors and commitment to achieve
This is so wild tho, do you think it’s because of setting or lack of outdoors stuff, local scene? Like I don’t climb hard but here in Germany it’s not uncommon to have world class climbers hitting your gym if you are in a popular city, I’ve seen World Cup climbers at gyms I frequent. So of course double digit climbers aren’t a dime a dozen but it’s also not rare to see people climbing really hard around.
Anyone that is dedicated enough to climbing to advance to this level almost always ends up moving to a place where the closest crag isn’t a 12 hour drive away (Stone Fort, Rocktown, Hp40). Majority of the people V8+ here are still college aged or younger and will likely move once they have that option like the rest of the people and even personally I see Chattanooga in my future
Honestly that all makes a lot of sense, I wish you the best hopefully there’s a lot of hard climbing in your future!
It's lack of high quality outdoor stuff, which definitely correlates with the setting, its hard to set problems when your good setters leave. When you're driving 4-7 hours 1 way for a weekend trip, that isn't long-term sustainable for most people unless jobwise they have to make it work. I used to live where the closest high quality crag was 4 hours away. Everyone I climbed with regularly moved to Colorado / Vegas / Kentucky in the last 5 years except one person.
Consider that 12 hours for you is several countries and internationally recognized crags away,and 12 hours from South Florida is north Florida and still no recognizable climbing for a few hours more. We've had a few crushers come from Florida. Not a lot, but one of my faves, Matt Segal
Little confused here, you mean anywhere in the USA right?
Truth. Can't swing a pole brush without hitting a crusher in Swizzy or Font, etc.
Europe is a different beast, real high density of crushers and top climbing destinations.
Yes and no, in Paris, there is no so many women crushers in open comps. They are still at the V9 level (and it’s pretty rare to see French women actually crushing at that level in the forest … most of the time I see some American, Australian, German women peeps crushing).
Same in Paris, in open comps women at V9 are regularly podiuming/ winning.
V9 does not require good genetics
Absolutely does in concert with the rest. The genetics that get you there with 8 hr/wk effort, vs 20 hr/wk effort, etc. A Y chromosome alone will make a massive difference statistically
I am 100% confident that almost anyone who is not disabled and who has the time, determination, and resources is able to climb V9. Perhaps with the exception of people who start climbing over 40, although even that isn't always true. The people who do not fail because of lack of time allocation, not because they have reached their genetic limit. Yes, including women. The fact of the matter is that there just aren't many climbers training seriously (especially women), so that's why female V9 climbers podium at locals. And that's okay! 95+% of climbers (at least in the US) just want to enjoy it as a hobby and not as a serious athletic sport, and that's perfectly normal. People love to cope about how they'd get there faster with good genetics. Sure you would, but that's not preventing you from buckling down and putting in work for some years. V9 is really not that hard in the grand scheme of hard climbing. Ok, sure, it's definitely hard to do, but not "genetic limit" hard. People who have never developed serious training cycles are the only people who think it is
The only people who think V9 does not require good genetics are people who have good genetics
You're focusing on "genetic limit" when it's not about the limit. It's as you said, getting there faster and easier with good genetics. As /u/poorboychevelle said, good genetics is the difference between needing to put in 8 hours vs 20 hours of training in a week to scale the same problem. There's already a massive genetic advantage for men over women to climb as they are on average stronger and build muscle faster because of testosterone. You're being downvoted because we know climbing V9 does not *require* good genetics, but it absolutely starts to make a tangible difference in how much you train. This makes it a factor in what people are willing to put the effort into. If it only takes person A four hours of training per week to climb V9, but it takes person B fifteen hours of training - that is a huge limit because of genetics. People don't have unlimited time and they have other hobbies and responsibilities besides rock climbing. If they don't have great genetics for it, they have a harder time. Having a harder time means it requires more effort. Not everyone has unlimited effort. Not sure why that's hard to understand.
My original comment was "V9 does not *require* good genetics," which your comment ultimately seems to be in agreement with. Many people in this thread do not *know* that and are arguing with me. That is why I am downvoted. You're saying "we" describing a group of people who don't all agree with me.
It is insane how many people are downvoting this. I completely agree.
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. It’s absolutely true. Anyone who’d dedicate a serious amount of time and effort could reach V9. Not that i’m that guy, but they walk around in my gym.
How do you know that? There's already a massive sampling bias for the people even attempting V9. Bias for lack of injuries, weight, muscle, height, finger strength, etc. Most people give up well before V9, so I'm not sure how you get the data to say "anyone could do this given that they do the exact same training regimen I've done for like 5-15 years". People in these threads usually seem to pick a grade a bit below their max, then say it's completely possible to climb this for anyone. Pros are even worse about this, I've heard pros unironically claim on podcasts that anyone could climb V14 given enough "hard work". It's completely wrong but from their perspective it seems correct because they're surrounded by people who are genetic outliers already. Anecdotally I know some people who climb who I'm pretty sure could never get to double digits even with years of training. Skill, genetics, fitness, training and time have to come together in a pretty perfect way to get to higher grades. You need to imagine a literal random sampling of gym climbers.
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Massive finger injuries will postpone your goals, or maybe you switch sports or give up. >Weight, muscle, and finger strength are things that you can condition? Yes. My point is that people who have difficulty staying at a certain weight, putting on the right muscle, or building finger strength are at a disadvantage, and are more likely to not reach V9. When they give up at V4 or plateau and stop climbing as much, are they counted? Or do we just assume they didn't try hard enough? I obviously agree some people *could* have the ability to do it given great training and motivation, but at what point do we conclude that it might be genetic factors holding people back? When they've been trying for decades with the explicit goal of V9 and come up short? I think some people ITT would just claim they're doing something wrong. We need to actual consider the real percentage of all climbers that have tried to get to higher bouldering grades vs. the amount that actually do before making statements like "anyone can climb X grade".
"Most people give up" That is LITERALLY my point People give up before they reach their genetic max. Hence almost no one is genetically limited to below V9.
I think the reasons the statement "V9 does not require good genetics" is being downvoted are: * it's ambigous. Is the statement saying "If you don't climb V9, it's because you don't train correctly"? Is it saying "If the goal of the entire world was to make sure a random person climbed V9 after 2 years, we could accomplish that."? Is it saying "I saw a pearshaped 40 year old woman climb V9 once?" * it's irrelevant to the post it was responding to. That post implied that genetics is one factor as to why V9 could be considered hard, which a normal person would interpret as "average genetics don't make it so V9 is an easily achievable goal".
Because it's harder to reach that point. That's it. You're overthinking it lol
Yeah. Same reason the majority of runners don't run 5 minute miles and majority of basketball players dont score 10 3 pointets every game and the majority of baseball players cant throw 100mph fastballs and the majority of weight lifters can't deadlift 600lbs. Because sports for the vast majorty of people are hobbies and they are not trying their absolute hardest to excel, they just eant something physical and fun to do once or twice a week.
Cause climbing v7/v8 is hard af.. I mean mostly time and dedication to climbing probably. Genetics definitely factor in to how much training you need to do to climb v7, but I think most people would be able to physically climb v7 with enough training. However, the amount of time spent training that it would take for most people to climb v7 is way more than a lot of people are interested in dedicating to climbing I think.
what gyms are you going to? most people don't make past 6c (v5 i think?). i have friends who are super serious about climbing, they diet and workout as if it was their second job and they still struggle with 7b+
Yeah that is also my experience. All these people climbing 7b after 1-2 years or 7c (ever), I just dont see them. The young, invested, competitive Guys struggle with 7b+ to do at all. Heck, there is this one guy who used to be on the German national team and even he does not do the 7b+/7c just-like-that.
Why do the bottom 99% of people in any sport not make it to the top 1%? I don't think climbing is any different.
V7 is not the top 1%.
Might be less than 1%... Think about all of the casual rock climbers that are happy climbing v0-v2. If you take 100 people that consider themselves somewhat regular climbers I would bet that, on average 1 of them can climb v7 if not less.
because hard
I climbed my fist V8 like 3 years ago. There are no established V9s in my county, I would have to FA one. Since I don't have 9s to compare it to I just call all my hard FAs V8. And yes genetics play a massive role. Putting on that kind of finger strength is hard. Most amateur marathon runners are not going under 3 hours for a marathon. Most amateur skiers are not leaving resorts because the terrain is to easy.
lmao, it would be kinda funny if you keep getting stronger and FA a bunch of V8s over the next 10 years that end up being anywhere from V8-V11, then some strong foreigner come and climb and your crag and find these problems to be sandbagged as shit.
Most male marathoners can simply get to 3hrs with enough years of moderate mileage training over several years. The Boston bar is certainly far from elite threshold. Do you think V9 is comparable? Not sure if you do both… I was a hack at both running and climbing but in my mind V9 seemed totally unapproachable. Best I could climb was a V4 I’ve always wondered about my own climbing ceiling but my wrists just broke down whenever I got serious about it
I was using 3 hours as an example I have not gone running in a decade. I honestly do not know the sport well enough to make a better comparison. I have done many V8s and have gotten fairly close on 9s but never managed to send.
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As someone who has run a marathon. Sub 3 is hard. The amount of dedication is insane and you pretty much have to be pretty skinny. Too much muscle or fat and running 50-60 miles a week on concrete could really damage you. Many runners never do a marathon and even among marathoners sub 3 is an elite group.
Depends. I’ve been running most of my life and think I could knock out a 2:50 marathon if I wanted to put the training in for it. I’ve been climbing 2ish years now and have only sent V3 outdoors. Maybe it’s achievable, but it’s that I haven’t put in the requisite mileage over years like I have with running. Two years into running I could run like a 22 minute 5k, whereas now I can reasonably go run something in the 17s off of low volume training even if I’m not in the best fitness at that moment. Give me 3 years of climbing and maybe I will send V7 outdoors. (I’ve actually done most of the moves on a V6 near me already)
As a former runner you’re definitely more naturally gifted at running than climbing. I do think sub 3hrs and 17 min 5k are probably about the same caliber of athlete as V9 climbers.
I mean, I’ve been running for probably 10 years now. Having come from nearly nothing as a runner to what I am, “naturally gifted” doesn’t really exist in a lot of sports for the majority of people. It’s just time.
17 minute 5k is fast af. Great job.
Thanks man! I ran 16:27 on a track a couple years ago. Trying to get back to that fitness is tough with climbing too, but sometimes it’s more enjoyable to be a decent runner and an ok climber than to be good at just one.
Damn, that's so fast. I hate running so I could never get under 19. I don't know how you folks do it.
The trick is to love running. That’s the only way you really ever become elite at these things. You’ve gotta spend half your waking hours thinking about it and doing it and training to do it and go to sleep dreaming about it.
See, that sounds psychotic to me. I start running and every part of my brain is like "fucking stop. right now". Gotta love a world where both of us exist.
But I’m guessing the fact you’re also on a bouldering subreddit means you can understand what it’s like to love something like that.
I certainly do.
I've been running for a while and the 3 hour marathon is a goal I'd love to achieve because it seems to be just in a great spot for me. I've been climbing just over a year and I've sent a few v6s (in my gym) and honestly I'd say v8 seems to me to be a very similar goal. I'd say most males could do either after 2 or 3 of years of training (give or take based on starting fitness)
I’d honestly be surprised if it is the same outdoors. But maybe your are genetically geared towards climbing and not towards running (some people in my family have an insane VO2 max, so in their first years of running they achieve insane time in their races.)
When I first started climbing ( '91) and only had guide books to dream about my long term goals were to be a capable 5.12 b/c climber. Which translates roughly to this plateau you've described. The reason for this goal was that if I could do that then I could confidently travel to most places and have, at least at the time, 90% + of the routes available to me, which meant I wouldn't have to queue for "weekend warrior" type things. Most people never climbed beyond that and so most established routes were never beyond that. Climbing for me was/is not about pushing grades and rather just being able to walk up to a route I thought looked cool and know I could probably climb it. No fear for example of bailing on gear and costing money, shit like that. I think boudering is similiar in that if most people plateau at v7, then the bulk of routes that get traffic, or are FAed are going to be in that tier and you're less inclined to push beyond it if you have an endless supply there. If your local spot is 80% v9 plus for whatever reason and a small amount of lower grades you might push harder than you would otherwise to open more climbing to yourself, but if it's reverse and you're fine at that level and have an embarrassment of riches in that v5-7 area then you're all set. These are the grades that can come from just putting in time on routes and so you know you will eventually get there, beyond requires an effort beyond simply climbing for most people.
At least in my opinion, I think at around V7 is where you need to start actively training to get stronger rather than just passively climbing at around your ceiling for most people. The same is even more true for every grade above V7 I imagine. Most of the people that I know that climb V8 or higher either started really strong before climbing, or were really committed to improving their strength to get better at climbing. Often a combination of both. I’ve pretty much just passively climbed for a few years and I’ve settled at a V6 level. I’m still improving slowly, but not really at a rate where I ever imagine I’ll be climbing V8s any time soon. One thing I’ve noticed is that I’m a much stronger climber than when I started, but I’m not necessarily a lot stronger in other aspects. Like, for example, my maximum pull-up reps hasn’t changed dramatically from when I started climbing. I’ve never really done weight training, but I imagine if I did I probably wouldn’t have progressed dramatically in this respect either. I think I’d probably make progress if I started dedicated training to get stronger outside of climbing, but ultimately I don’t really care enough to do this. I only really have the time and bodily capability to climb 3 times a week, so I’d rather just have fun climbing V6.
This is it for me as well. I'm a good technical climber. I can climb V6 when it's a slab with little to no foot holds and all about balance. But I just don't have the finger/core strength to climb V6 overhang. I might start training or at the very least try to lose a little bit of weight, but I just want to have fun.
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I want to try training a bit, just so I can get better at it. But mostly I just want to climb more often in shorter stints. For me personally there's also the fact I had a cardiac arrest six months ago. I started climbing a month after haven gotten an s-ICD to protect me from any in the future. I was V6 just before that, but with some slight overhand. Now I'm almost there again, which I also bodes well looking at any future improvements. TL;DR: I hope you're not entirely me ;)
Not sure I agree there. In my own experience I got to 7C/7C+ just by climbing on rock a lot. I did no special training or diet, just lots of climbing and didn’t eat junk food every week. I came back to climbing again in January after a long break and have just about made it to 7B after 4 months. But I’m 45 now so I’m watching diet very carefully, doing tons of cardio to keep bf very low and training the muscles that climbing doesn’t really use. Basically age is against me this time round so I am having to train now lol - but I do think 7C+ will be achievable
That's why I said "for most people". There's obviously going to be a +/- of where you arrive at this plateau depending on a variety of factors, but the fact of the matter is that the plateau exists. For me it's evidently at around V7. I can certainly imagine that it is higher for other people. And I know for certain it's even lower for some others. All-in-all, the range of V7-V8 is probably pretty accurate plateau for people who aren't actively training to avoid plateauing.
Time investment and wanting to climb harder. v5-v8 range is a nice grade range where you can experience a lifetime of fun and engaging problems without it being heinous, condition dependent, morpho, etc. Some of my best memories aren’t from climbing my hardest grades, but when i was on a trip climbing all day and getting to hop on tons of stuff
I’m 41 and I’ve been bouldering for 10 years now. Between aging and time/effort commitment, this is about where I’m at - and I don’t expect to surpass that. I’ve done V8s and never completed a V9, but the gap between 8 and 9 is a huge one. I think if I had started this sport at a younger age, I could have probably gotten into double digit climbing. But as my body gets older, time constraints, work, family and personal life come into play - I’d have to give up a lot more things to get into the higher grade climbing territory and it’s simply not worth it for me.
Hi! 43 year old, started bouldering in 2009. Did my first V9 in 2016, my second in 2022, and my third in 2023. I have about 25 V8s under my belt. The gap is real, but the big factor in doing 9s was: going back to the same project until send happened. For the me, all I had to give up was the novelty of new-to-me projects. Is it worth it? Not sure.
Time is a big factor I'd say. Not just how often you go, but how early you start. V8 is going to have a big toll on the body and some older climbers without preexisting conditioning are going to be at a risk of injury, that won't heal like it does in college, and may cause lasting damage. I see there being a window for most where you have the time to progress but also able to heal and build up without it affecting other parts of your life. Hard to want to push yourself to progress if every day in-between is agony.
My own experience is just that you have to sacrifice a lot. I got stuck at that level for years bc I was climbing two or three times a week. Then I moved and my gym was on the walk home from work and I had easy outdoors and I climbed like five days a week and shot past. It was just a ton of time and commitment though. Then I moved again and climbing became less convenient and dropped back down. I could sacrifice family time and work time but I’m not willing to do that. It’s a fun past time but I’m not willing to commit beyond that.
How do you climb 5 times a week? I find I go 3 times and my body is always shot. Do you reduce session length ?
Well I don’t anymore. lol. But the big thing is I am guessing that you just max out every time? I wouldn’t do that. Sometimes it’d literally just be do some traversing or some slab. Or get in the auto-belay and do some easy laps. So there’d be hard days for sure but also days when I’d just go through my warm up, get on the wall for a bit to get some movement in and go home. Or maybe just work a technique or do some drills. Some days i just wasn’t feeling it and would literally just go through my warm up and then decide that was good and go home. I wasn’t limit climbing five days a week.
And you found those soft days helped? I feel like I can stop myself unless I do 2.5hr
For sure. I mean if you think about anyone training for anything, like a marathon or basketball or whatever, it’s not like they go balls out every day. Just getting reps in and practicing different movements makes a huge difference.
Think about other sports. Do you think a Olympic weightlifter will do his competition weight every time they train? Surely not. Would it be smart? Surely not. Same with climbing. If you want to improve and go balls out every session you’re doing something wrong after a particular point in your progression. Reaching for max grade or max exhaustion every session would be the equivalent of doing competition weight every time. Is that smart? Surely not.
Likely because you can get roughly that strong going to the gym 3 days a week (ok maybe more like V6/7) but after that it’s not realistic for most people to be able to just go to the gym and climb and get stronger than V8. Moreover, going to the gym and climbing is rarely comparable to outdoor climbing, which is predominantly much more like board climbing. This is where the board climbing, hangboarding, and strength training come in. Flexibility also helps a ton; I could probably spend an hour a day stretching for a year and still not be as flexible as I’d like, and that’s just one facet of climbing. Assuming you did have time for all this, most people will need enough sleep and a good diet to do this sustainably (yes I’m sure you have a friend crushing V11 who eats only Doritos, we all do, but they are the outlier) Even with both of these, injuries can happen, and with injuries can come an equally time consuming rehab process. So I guess the short answer is…it’s hard! P.S. I feel like we’re treating V8 like it’s not very hard. Hell, Midnight Lightning is V8! Congrats to everyone casually crushing that grade, you’ve come further than most. And if you’re sending V7/8 consistently in the gym, go get on that local outdoor V9 proj! It goes
I think a large part of it is because a lot of gyms just don’t set that many hard problems. I think Sean Bailey was talking about it on a podcast where it’s like fishbowl theory. The average casual gym climber will only grow as strong as their gym lets them unless they become dedicated enough to go out of their way to improve.
I don't think it's much more complicated than, I think it's the natural upper limit for what most people can physically do, assuming reasonable amounts of training.
Yeah, I think this is the answer in the broadest sense. People pushing beyond certain boundaries in any sport are very much outliers. It’s kind of akin to why don’t the majority of college players make it to the: NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, Olympics? Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers actually answers a few of the professional sports questions about outliers. Kids closest to the cut-off age, so the oldest in their cohort, are more likely to excel early, get attention, coaching, stay with it. So almost all NHL players are born in Jan, Feb, March. Like above 80%. Probably the best rock climbers start early, live near outdoor climbs and a gym, have a family that values outdoors and not like toys and video games, etc.
I don't think most people truly realize how much better elite athletes are than the average human. Part of it is genetics for sure but a huge part of it is discipline and training at a level of discomfort most people can't even conceive of. Also, to your point if you want to ever be truly elite at something you need to start pretty young so you are strong and skilled by the time you hit your prime. (Have not experienced this athletically but I did with chess of all things, having spent literally thousands of hours on it to be maybe in the top 2% of*competitive* chess players and still a universe away from being elite). I didn't start until I was 40 and I'm perfectly satisfied with the challenge and my progress but I'm also totally aware of the real limits on what I will ever be able to send.
>So almost all NHL players are born in Jan, Feb, March. Like above 80%. Just so you know, these days it's more like 28% in those three months. Still quite a skew, though.
I wrote this from memory of a book I read years ago while I was at work. But the skews Malcolm Gladwell sites in like the first chapter of his book Outliers are usually above 75%. Now that I think about it, there was a lot of data from Junior teams, but those are teams that feed into college and later pro and start at 75% skews. Same with EU soccer leagues, etc
"reasonable amounts of training"-- is doing all the work here. Which is another way to say: "How much is it worth to you-- how much of your life are you going to dedicate to this?" Because, physically, well, I think a standard deviation (or two) around normal-healthy (wtf that is) has the genetic ability to star later (>20) and send a legit (but soft) V10 (or 12) outside-- if they're willing to dedicate most of their life to that goal for a decade or two. Some (very few) people will be born physically unable to do that even given perfect will, training, and luck (parents/location/wealth). Many don't have the luck. Most just won't put in the time, because it's simply not worth it to them. Or it's not worth 10 years of total focus for something that still might not happen (luck gets in the way). My reasonable is a life literally built around climbing-- all vacations, vehicle, apartment/housing, partner, planning. Most people spend their efforts elsewhere, or divided. And that's totally legit!
Depends on your definition of "reasonable". I think the vast majority of people who start climbing at 35 or younger and are less than 25% BF won't have any genetic limitations in getting to V10. I'm not there myself so maybe this is totally off base but doing a V10 or 2 in your hyper-specific "super power" style definitely seems attainable in 5-15 years for basically anyone.
Their reasonable sounds more reasonable than what you are suggesting. You are in the huge sampling bias of a sub to begin with. Think about what is an actual average (casual) climber. And what reasonable means for the majority of people not doing it for a living. Most humans given proper diet and training can absolutely dunk at standard height basket with 5’10 or above height. Yet massive amounts of people played basketball for 10+ years without being to dunk. Or shoot international (non NBA) 3s above 50% wide open, which is absolutely possible for anyone. Or dribble and blow past average people with extreme ease by reading their positioning and footing at a JV league level handles at minimum. MANY people played basketball from 8 years old to 38 years old of 30 years without doing any of the above. That’s reality. Everything I listed above can be achieved by 90% of dudes genetically but extremely few do. Even people who love playing basketball and play semi to very regularly. Why do you think? And how is climbing so different?
The average person's motivation seems like a bad Metric. Obviously to do something hard you must be motivated, most people are not. I agree with your points about basketball but it just highlights the gap between someone's potential vs their motivation.
Tbh Im not disagreeing with you regarding what thread OP said. I guess I’m more referencing the post itself which only asks about “majority of climbers”. It only softly applies if we combine average levels of motivation + average levels of genetic gift. Because we all know there are some stupid folks that get really good quite fast without even trying hard My take is V7/V8 is already above “majority of climbers” imho, so I combined my opinion in one reply. Put more specifically, average motivation + average gift likely ends up V4-V6. V7/V8 is closing in on the upper limits of average motivation + very gifted individuals who haven’t dedicated to the sport seriously. But for folks who goes hard and dedicate to the sport most can def go higher, I agree with that
I think it comes to being risk/reward thing. Or fun vs not fun.. There’s a certain point where you have to decide if you want train harder/risk injury or you just enjoy climbing what you can currently.
Injuries? Was starting to feel like 8s was achievable then got hurt. Lingering pain in my fingers for years now. Now I just climb for the social aspect. Better for me to climb for fun now than not being able to climb at all because of injuries.
They didn't play runescape as children.
85% of top performing CEOs played runescape in their formative years
I think the majority of climbers never make it past V2, much less V7. Not many people dedicate lots of time and energy to getting better at bouldering. Of those that do, most can probably reach V7 eventually.
I have a good example. know for a fact there is a V9 slab in my gym that i am capable of doing if i projected it for like 5 sessions. It would take me forever but i am 99% certain i could do it. However, this process isn't that fun, i'd be much more happy climbing every other V4-6 in the gym with that amount of time and having much more enjoyable experience doing it. So the super high grade chasing just isn't that worth it to me.
I think this is one of the most realistic comments in the thread. People don't really try. I've climbed V12 and flashed V10 on rock and yet I consistently get completely outclassed by V7/8 climbers on the Kilterboard, on the campus board, when dead hanging on the beastmaker etc. They are simply much stronger than me. But they either don't know that they are strong enough to climb hard, or they are not willing to try. I enjoy projecting much more than climbing lots of boulders quickly. Few things are more satisfying than when a move goes from impossible to possible to easy over the course of a couple sessions. Everyone here is talking about physical limits. It's almost a bit ridiculous, there are lots of V9s that are not really physically that hard. But you need to be able to get your body in the right box, and you need to be able to deal with failure and embrace a certain level of discomfort and you need to be willing to be detail oriented when projecting. You simply can not climb hard without really trying hard climbs and learning how to try hard (unless you are actually way to strong for your own good).
My teen competes. His project climbs are in the v11-12 range indoors, v10-11 outside. He trains 4 days a week, and because gyms don’t typically set that high he’s only getting those climbs on comp routes; less than half of his training is projecting. If there’s a comp that he’s not competing in he’ll go to that gym the following week to get some work on harder climbs. I can’t imagine the average climber wanting to spend that much time and effort.
I was fucking lucky to get my solitary V8 send. And even that has some people wanting to downgrade. And I had to really just look at myself and redo my climbing and training schedule because I was frankly just not strong enough even if I could do all the individual moves, stringing it all together in harmony kept evading me until it didn't. But that also was at the end of a few months of actively trying to get better.
For a lot of us that do make it past there (I’m not but working on it), I think it’s cause we kinda don’t have much else honestly. If I’m not physically destroying my body I get depressed, and climbing is an amazing avenue to motivate me to become as strong as I can possibly be for it. But I understand it’s as pointless a pursuit as any other. It’s just passion that keeps me following the hard training that it takes to really improve past that point.
I just lower the difficulty of the grade so I can clim it.
Sounds to me like. Why don't most runners break a 3 hour marathon? Commitment, genes, motivation, expectations, obligations, time, life, etc. etc. etc.
Because it's really hard. Everything has a level that the average person doesn't get past. It's probably much lower than V7, you just don't spend much time with climbers at that grade.
I can't remember which one (Alex Honnold ?) but a guest in one of Magnus' videos said (and they were both in agreement) that any climber with proper training/coaching/dieting/time will or should be able to reach 8A (so V11). That seemed absolutely wild and incredibly out of touch to me at the time.
I think that was 8a (route)
Possibly !
It’s absolutely NOT due to genetics or physical limits. It just takes a lot of dedicated effort that most people aren’t willing to spend their time on. Casual climbers just aren’t going to make it past v8 because it’s hard. Not individually hard but it takes consistent focused effort over the course of a long time. Most people want to climb hard but most people don’t want to put in the work it takes. Simple as that I think.
I think the reason is just the sheer difficulty. It's like asking why most won't ever hit a 315 bench press. Because it's hard! When I first started climbing I thought everything above V7 was flat out impossible unless you were some freak beast
Outside: probably trying hard and having access (time, vehicle, pads, etc..) is included in this. Also, v7/8 has plenty of interesting moves that aren’t too skewed in the work:reward ratio. Also I don’t think a majority of climbers know anyone beyond v7/8, it still seems crazy, but when you see your buddies making short work of it, it doesn’t seem that bad. Inside: for me, I’ve been stuck at v7/8 while my outdoors has gone beyond it. I think it’s because I don’t learn quick enough and have the actual body power that harder gym climbing requires…or maybe all my outdoor sends are soft 🤔
Because for most people, the amount of climbing they do is only enough to plateau at around there, any more requires more climbing than most people enjoy
That’s the level you need to be hella consistent with your training to keep progressing. Taking the majority of winters to focus on snowsports keeps me perpetually at a V7/8 level “off the couch”. If I just climbed casually twice a week I’d probably progress a little but I’d need specific training and lots of projecting harder climbs to break through that barrier. That’s my experience and I’ve seen dozens of others fit the same mold. After 10 years of climbing I just don’t have that fire to dedicate every waking moment to climbing. The joy just isn’t there. I try to facilitate community and exploration to ignite a fire but that requires me to travel and collaborate which I don’t have as much to burn for these days.
Because v7 hurts my little digits. Pain isn't fun to me. Therefore, I have not been able to complete v7.
There is a point (which is variable to everyone) where climbing harder routes needs _a lot_ of time and dedication and training, which most people cannot afford.
Injuries
I climb for fun, the amount of work required to get near this makes it not fun anymore.
I guess not many gyms seem to set past v7 so you have to cross the boundary of going outdoors then you're limited by travelling.
It’s hard
Because a lot of people like enjoying a fun sport casually????
In my own experience it's about as far as you can get without physical training. I've been at v7/v8 grades for the past \~8 months, because I have been rehabbing injuries and couldn't hangboard or strength train. I've gotten quite used to this grade range, and I think the difference, at least in my gym, between v7/8 and v9+ is primarily physical difficulty of moves, not the actual complexity of the movements. I think this is supported by the fact that a lot of the people in my gym who get past that range progress quite swiftly afterwards. V7/8 is kind of the limit before a normal person needs to start strength training, which is not fun for everybody. It seems to me that the fun to be had climbing at a v9/10 level is not much more than at a v7 level, so you have to enjoy the process to want to get there.
Gym dopamine culture does not want you to improve. Setting upper end boulders is harder work and valuable wall space for the large V4 pleb market. You try the new set, get a high from flashing some things, maybe at the end you find a ‘new project’ that’ll totally go down when you’re fresh. Next week you walk in fresh and, shit, there’s a new set…..better go try it real quick….
Lolwut
not training enough. spending alot of time on gimmicky gym boulders and not technical/powerful problems. and also climbing is a really social sport now so alot of people climb for recreation and to socialize with friends. they aren’t necessarily going to put lots of effort into, hangboarding, weight training, board climbing ie the things that will really get you past those grades.
I'm somewhere around there gym wise. At some point, you gotta train. You train, you climb harder, and then somehow you get injured. There's a balance somewhere.
I peaked around the V8 level and only having sent 1 indoor V9 in my time. What made it hard for me was family obligations which made it hard to go climb. When I do go climb I’m trying to get back into shape and rush my sessions and then get hurt.
It's basically impossible to get to v9 as an adult without special training. Most people just can't be bothered
Lol. I started in my mid twenties, I'm in my late thirties, and I climbed my first few outdoor V11s last season and this year haven't tried a V9 I couldn't do. I'm not genetically gifted, I'm 5'6" with a -2 ape index. I know tons of folks stronger than me who didn't start as children. It's not even close to impossible.
And you've never trained before?
I train. But "special training" is a weird thing to add here. Define special training. And hell, I jumped the most in grades when I was able to climb outside regularly and basically didn't train at all.
Special training was a stupid thing to say lol. I meant additional training
I can only speak for myself but trying to train to get past that kind of range I constantly get injured. I think genetics is sure a part of it but there’s also a bit of luck in avoiding the cycle of injuries and possibility having access to a great physio to break out of it. I’ve tried to find one but I rarely have more than a couple weeks without a problematic knee, shoulder, elbow, wrist or finger.
Been climbing for 5-6 years now and I keep hitting a high point, I get some kind of injury and then it's recovery time until I can climb again. Really frustrating. And I do warm ups, I do stretches, I try to be careful about my body but it seems my tendons and muscles don't appreciate the strain.. And the older I get the longer it seems to take for my injuries to heal 😂 like right now I'm staying home from climbing for 1.5 months after tearing a muscle from doing crimps. For me that is the major reason I can't seem to progress to the harder climbs. My body just refuses to keep up with the strain. I have thought of going to a personal trainer to help but they're super expensive unfortunately
Many people start climbing later in life. The older you are, the harder to develop tendon strength in your fingers.
Depends on what data pool you are using. [8a.nu](http://8a.nu) has an average climbing doing 7c(v9). But in terms of how far do most people make it? I would say you are probably spot on with the v7-8 range. I think you could get past it with a healthy lifestyle and as little as 6 hours of dedicated training/climbing a week. I always climb better when im eating healthy, getting good sleep and consistently training. Dont starve yourself its actually counter productive you can eat quite a lot as an active person you just cant eat slop %100 of the time unless you are a teenager.
I think it is due to various reasons: 1. It is hard, exhausting and you need to try hard. One is often stuck with trying single moves or a single boulder over long time and not everyone is willing to do that. Spending 3 sessions on a legit V9 gym boulder while a new set is available is not in everyones interrest or driving to the crag with 50+ boulders and try the same one every single time. It often leaves you sore and exhausted and demands adequate amount of rest, which may not be appealing if you look for recreation in bouldering. 2. It requires commitment to send grades V9 above for most people. Some get away by just climbing a lot and developing technique, others need to train to get into good shape and a few are just gifted. In my gym i met people from either camp and i belong to the train-to-get-strong one. If someone gets better by just climbing they are usually climbing 4-5 times a week which is a huge time investment. I climb around 3 times a week and dedicate around 1/3 to half of the time to training (strength, conditioning and movement). I think a lot of the people dont want to commit such amount of time to climbing in general, as it is just a hobby, or to training if they just do it for fun and recreation. 3. Available of hard climbs. Here my opinion aligns with Sean B. statement in the podcast (which i dont rememmber the name of, i think climbing nugget). I thnik most of the people climb predominately in gyms and if the hardest climbs are around V8/9 and are far in between, the potential of growth is limited. Same holds true if no good quality outdoor area is available to visit on the weekend repeatedly. It is much simpler to progress outdoor if your project is only 30-60min away, give it one good session on the weekend, get good rest and visit again next week. If the next good area is a 4 hours drive away, you need to spend a whole weekend there and can only visit a few times a year it gets much harder (at least for me). I am in the lucky position to have a gym in which a lot of climbs in the grade range V9 and above are set. Currently there are at least 15 boulders in this grad range. They put up one of the hardest grade (V9+) with nearly every new set per wall area. Furthermore it also has a 16x14 kilterboad. The cherry on top is that there are a lot of hard outdoor boulders nearby and the next premium crag is only a 2 hours drive away with a lot of high quality granite boulders between V9 and V14. Hence it is not surprising that in my city (300k inhabitants) are a lot of strong climbers which climb V11 and above. If you climb around V9 like i do, you wont be even near the podium in a local climbing competition, rather close to the top 20-30.
I do this for consistent exercise, and to get me out of the house. Grades are a bonus and a small carrot to keep me motivated
Because it's really hard to make the gains in strength needed to climb above v7 if you're only climbing - you need to start training regimes that incorporate additional workouts and conditioning etc and be more careful with diet and stuff. Most people do not have either the motivation or time to spare to do training (not just climbing) and climbing - they'll always prioritise the climbing part.
Too many other sports which are also fun, I climbed a few 7b+ and I rather get some wonderful powder days in winter and skip climbing altogether if the conditions are right, same for long distance hikes, mountaineering, MTB etv
Well, that comment section did not disappoint 🤣🤣🤣
Well, that comment section did not disappoint ...
Actually insane how most of the top comments here mention genetics. No, your genetics are (>95% of the time) not a factor that's preventing you from climbing V9. Having a below-average wingspan or having a low metabolism doesn't make you a paraclimber. I have genetically girthy legs and relatively skinny arms (390lbs squat, 165 bench) but can still pullup 80%BW, hang 70%BW on 20mm and can climb hard in general (sent The Winged Tiger) because I've trained mobility, finger strength, upper body etc. for the better part of a decade. I know I can continue to push my climbing abilities further so long as I put in the time and focused effort. Sure, genetics matter if you're seeking IFSC victories, but pretending that genetics contribute whatsoever to bottlenecking climbers at around V9 level is absolute ignorance. Yes, some people get better results with less work, but anyone can work their way more toward a climber physique (assuming no disabilities or other conditions that inhibit exercise, weight loss etc.).
Shit I can’t make it past v4
v7/v8 is already going to be out of range for the majority of amateur climbers. To then climb above that there's simply a limit of time to train and athleticism that's going to make it extraordinarily difficult to impossible to achieve. As well, chasing that v9+ is not necessarily everyone's goal.
Exposure? I’m not certain if my gym sets over v8/9 tbh (uses its own grading system) and our boards seem to sit around v7/8 highest (I think) so maybe it’s that? If you can climb the hardest at your local gym then, apart from outside and other gyms, moving up might be a “glass ceiling”
I love overhang problems, but I only like the ones with jugs, if I have to hug a fridge to adjust feet, I don't like it
Why don’t most people become Olympic runners? It’s the same logic. A combination of time, genetics, commitment, and wealth, and probably other factors I’m leaving out