thor
New Member
Posts: 13 
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Post by thor on Mar 8, 2017 12:37:43 GMT -7
What do you guys think about repeating a problem for like 100 times? In gymnastics they do a move 1000 times in training before they do it in a competition...
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Post by MarkAnderson on Mar 8, 2017 15:18:25 GMT -7
Sounds boring  If you repeat a sequence many times, it definitely gets easier. That can be really helpful for that particular sequence, but I'm not so sure it makes you a better climber. One thing that makes climbing different from some other sports is that the apparatus is completely unique from day to day, and so we are constantly encountering new moves. During the time you climbed 1 problem 100 times, you could have done 100 different problems 1 time, or 50 problems twice, etc. Assuming its a zero-sum game, which is better? Most of the time, I think your time would be better spent attempting the widest variety of moves, until you encounter a particular move that is a glaring weakness. Then, spend a bit more time practicing that move repetitively. |
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Post by jetjackson on Mar 8, 2017 15:20:02 GMT -7
When I was ARC'ing in the gym at the start of this cycle, I repeated some routes at least 100 times.
Immediate thoughts are - if it's a problem that involves a pretty limiting move, or is close to your limit, be careful of injury that repetitively doign that move could bring.
Other than that, I found it was great for teaching myself to be more efficient with my movement. There were originally 5.11- auto-belay routes that I would get on, and I'd think, geeze this is stiff. I'd have trouble doing it maybe 3 times in a 20 minute ARC rep. Then after doing it maybe 50 times or so, it would feel soft. I'd have it down so well, that I'd be doing it maybe 8-10 times in a 30 minute ARC rep. It taught me at least that when I get on project routes, that the moves might feel hard initially, but once I have them dialed after a bunch of repetitions, they will start to get easier.
Does that mean it will be a staple of my training? Not purposely. That one insight is enough to know. The only reason I'll do it in future is lack of choice on ARC territory.
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Post by aikibujin on Mar 8, 2017 17:14:38 GMT -7
What do you guys think about repeating a problem for like 100 times? In gymnastics they do a move 1000 times in training before they do it in a competition... Movement in gymnastics (especially in a competition) is much more precise and difficult, while being much less varied than in climbing. I mean, how many different ways can you do a triple backflip and land on a flat mat (or something like that… I don’t know gymnastics)? So I think it makes sense to repeat movement many many times in gymnastics to achieve the level of perfection they need. In rock climbing though, there are so many combination of handhold, foothold, hold size, orientation, wall angle, etc. It creates an infinite number of moves and sequences. And there is a much higher tolerance for imperfect technique. Maybe you didn’t maintain enough body tension and your feet popped off the wall, well if you pull hard enough, maybe that will compensate for the mistake and you still end up sending. No one is going to hold up a score card after! I think there is value in repeating a problem more than once, each time focused on improving efficiency, maybe finding different sequences, and getting the moves dialed. But if you repeat a problem 100 times, you’re definitely way in the territory of diminishing return. So somewhere between 1 and 100 (maybe a lot closer to 1 than 100) is the optimal number of repeats. |
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mclay
Junior Member
Posts: 96
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Post by mclay on Mar 9, 2017 1:25:45 GMT -7
I've been wondering about the same thing, although maybe not to the extreme of repeating problems up to 100 times. I heard recently that a high-level climber (can't remember who) likes to repeat problems/routes as part of their warm-up for harder projects. Their reasoning was the repetition built confidence through familiarity of the moves. This was for outdoor climbing only, as I recall. I've experimented with this idea for the past few months with positive results. However, I'm a low-level climber and I have found with my inexperience, one of my big weaknesses is not seeing/remembering sequences. So repetition of past sends targets this weakness. Related to this weakness is not being able to find a good climbing flow, even on easy terrain. I realized that I often climb more slowly and awkwardly on easy stuff that I have sent before. I also repeat warm-up routes with the goal of trying to find alternate beta, smoother sequences, or even incorporating skill-development ideas from RCTM in order to improve technique.
So attuned and focused repetition of routes/problems can help in these areas for beginners maybe, but climbing a gym problem 100 times, especially with the mind switched off, seems a bit excessive.
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Post by MarkAnderson on Mar 9, 2017 16:23:26 GMT -7
... I heard recently that a high-level climber (can't remember who) likes to repeat problems/routes as part of their warm-up for harder projects. Their reasoning was the repetition built confidence through familiarity of the moves. This was for outdoor climbing only, as I recall. .... With a few rare exceptions, I use the same 6 boulder problems (~V2, V3, V4, V5, V7, V8) for the first part of my WBL. I've been using these for about the last 4 years, for every indoor bouldering session, and for any outdoor sessions in which it makes sense to warm up at home (so, almost every time I climb in Clear Creek, which is often). I estimated in this post that I had climbed these problems ~300 times. That was over a year ago, so now lets say I'm closer to ~350. So a lot.
Anyway, surely at the beginning the problems got easier, but now I'm waaaay past the point of diminishing returns. At this point I can't remember them feeling any harder. I'm not improving on the problems at all as far as I can tell. Sometimes they feel easier, sometimes they feel harder, mostly based on how my session is going. I don't think I get anything positive out of climbing these, other than that it spares me from making 6 decisions during my warmup. Perhaps the familiarity is beneficial in gauging how my warmup is going, but if the problems feel harder than average on that day (which by definition happens 50% of the time) it can be discouraging. I still use these problems because 1) I'm too lazy to set/select other problems, 2) of the many problems I've set, these are my favorites at each grade, and 3) I really like to make comparisons from day-to-day/season-to-season and year-to-year. But I can't imagine its making me better in any way. I really think I'm missing an opportunity to practice other moves (in fact, writing this is inspiring me to set some new problems).
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