Home wall design and a blog post request

[RichF]

A discussion in another thread about the challenge of finding good boulder problems for training in commercial gyms got me thinking (again) about designing a home wall.  Many years ago my roomates and I built a fun cave in the garage of our house.  It was a blast, but wasn't that effective at training for outdoor climbing.  I live in the mountains above Boulder, so I have access to plenty of outdoor rock, and several quality gyms.  But Boulder is 30 min away, and the gyms are extremely crowded in the typical after-work hours when I can go.  I have room to build a shed in the yard and put a wall in it that would be useful for the activities I want to do during the various training phases which are hard to do in a crowded gym or outdoors.

What I'm interested in figuring out is what an effective wall design would be.  I'm pretty jealous of the "Lazy H" when I see pictures of it in Mark's blog posts and the RPTC video.  It seems like an amazing home gym!  Mark - any chance you'd consider a blog post discussing your home wall?  I'm curious what you like and don't like about it.  I've heard you mention bits and pieces, but would be interested in a thorough discussion. 

For instance, a lot of your wall is vertical to slightly overhanging.  Most people's home cave is just 30 and 45 deg walls.  I think I would benefit from spending more time on these more vertical walls.  I'm also leaning towards a large panel that is maybe 20-25 deg over hanging - steep enough that your arms are working hard, but not so steep that a lot of weight isn't on your feet.  What is the angle of your main steep panel?  I like how wide it is.  I find that the narrow panels of many home walls make it hard to do anything other than straight up moves. 

I also like that you have a steep section that kicks back to a less overhanging headwall.  Getting my body up and over the lip of a roof is often the crux of roof climbing for me and would be a good feature to train on at home.

I like the idea of a wall that covers the inside of a shed because ARC'ing would work well if you can go all the way around the structure instead of just going back and forth across a single panel.  It would need to be big enough that you aren't always 2 moves from a stem rest in the corner, but maybe that just requires the discipline to keep moving through the corners.

I think my main goals for a home wall would be: a place I could ARC, as it is nearly impossible at the local gyms during the times of day I can go; a wall that I can get a good warm-up for hangboard sessions; good bouldering terrain for the power phase and 4x4s and linked bouldering circuits.

Beyond the Lazy H, I'm also interested in feedback from others that have built home walls and done the rock prodigy phases on it. I know one of the Andersons did the whole cycle on a hangboard in the middle east, but I don't have that kind of tolerance for boredom.  Tell me about your home wall and what you like and don't like.

[rob]

Hi Rich,

This is something I am also considering, and it seems like we have many of the same ideas about what would be best for RCTM style training.

Unfortunately I have little input as I don't have a home wall (yet), but hopefully someone will comment who does.

I have just built a free standing campus board, which is a great addition. Its about 22 degrees overhanging which feels super steep for campusing (especially on the smaller rungs), but I think would be the ideal "middle ground" for multiple training phases on (I.e. BF, LB, & PE).

Anyway, good luck with the project and be sure to post pictures and tell us how it goes

[tedwelser]

Hey Rich and Rob-

I have a pretty extensive home wall, built in the attic of my garage. I posted some details about it, and some pics on my blog, but here is the updated info and assessment for RCTM training.

Quoting from one of the blog posts: "The Dojo takes up about 2/3 of a 20 by 26 foot rectangular room. The climbing surfaces in the Dojo total to about 580 square feet. There are about 1302 (1400 now) holds on the walls, with 34 built in holds including 2 hand cracks."

The setup is really good for ARC training with lots of small, technical feet, and larger feet as well. There are several marked room traverse routes of about 50 hand moves without encountering the same holds twice. The main drawback of the space is that all the longer routes are going to either traverse, or spend significant times in very steep terrain (though there are a number of more restful, lower angle sections).

I have the RPTC and pulleys, I have a campus board with medium and small rungs, atomik bombs, rings, and maxipull boards.

The low height of the wall is the major drawback-- (only about 7 feet at the tallest in the upstairs). The exception is the campus board which for the small rungs is full height, allowing a theoretical 1-5-9 should any crushers stop by.

ARC-- better than most gyms because the hold density and loop/roof setup allows you to climb in almost any direction. It is easy to put in 20-30 min on the wall.
strength--- great, RPTC + pulleys, plus rings, parralette bars, etc for body weight exercises.
power-- good to just ok. campus board is good, and I can set short upward problems, but I really miss having something with the height and angle of a moon board to do more powerful upward moves while bouldering. in the dojo the powerful moves are either brief, short, or outward on a perhaps too steep wall.
power endurance--- good options, though with unavoidable sections of traversing. However, the super high hold density makes it easy to maintain optimum intensity without failing by adjusting the footholds or hand holds in the moment.

whoops-- batter running out at airport

boulderingathenscounty.blogspot.com/2015/01/dojo-progress-2008-to-2015.html
boulderingathenscounty.blogspot.com/p/bouldering.html

[rob]

May 26, 2015 4:13:14 GMT -7 tedwelser said:

I have a pretty extensive home wall

You weren't lying! Very impressive home set-up, must be perfect for training. Thanks for all the advice Ted. I read some of your blog posts on making holds, seems like a good cheap way to beef up your collection - I was looking for holds online and it looks like it would cost a fortune to buy that many new holds. I'm thinking about using left over bits of 2x4 as pinches, hopefully they'll work.
 

[RichF]

Ted - thanks for the detailed reply!  I was checking out your blog the other day, having linked over from the discussion about homemade holds.  That's quite a set-up!  I like your suggestions about homemade holds, and would definitely follow your lead if I end up building a wall.  Wood holds didn't really catch on in climbing gyms.  I think the holds in commercial gyms just get too much traffic for wood to stand up to the abuse.  But they would work great on a home wall, and are so cheap and easy to make!

Given your location, I'm guessing you climb at the Red a fair amount, making all of that steep terrain useful.  I don't spend much time on really steep terrain, except for the occasional small roof.  If I build a wall in a shed (like the Lazy H), I should have room for less steep walls with a bit of vertical gain.  This would apply better to my local routes.

That's the hard part about working in height-limited spaces - you end up with really steep walls.  The garage cave I built a number of years ago (I'll have to dig up the pictures) was only about 8' high.  The best terrain was the 45 deg wall, because you could actually move up.  The more vertical walls were only good for traversing.  This gets to your point about the wall being limited in usefulness for Power training.  I'd love to be able to do at least a few upward moves.  I felt like I saw real benefits from the bouldering I did in the power phase, and not just in finger strength.  I felt an improvement in the core strength and shoulder/arm muscles it takes to do powerful moves.  

[MarkAnderson]

May 16, 2015 15:44:38 GMT -7 RichF said:

Mark - any chance you'd consider a blog post discussing your home wall?  I'm curious what you like and don't like about it.  I've heard you mention bits and pieces, but would be interested in a thorough discussion. 

Rich,  think that's a good idea.  I have an outline put together, hopefully I will get around to writing it up with pics, etc within a few weeks.

[MarkAnderson]

May 26, 2015 4:13:14 GMT -7 tedwelser said:

about 1302

That's some hyper-precise estimating you're doing

[RichF]

May 26, 2015 12:52:41 GMT -7 MarkAnderson said:

Rich,  think that's a good idea.  I have an outline put together, hopefully I will get around to writing it up with pics, etc within a few weeks.

Great, thanks!  

[RichF]

Looks like Mark posted part 1 of this discussion!  Thanks Mark!  

Looking forward to part 2 and the lessons learned from the Lazy H!

[MarkAnderson]

Glad you saw it. I was going to bump this thread, but then I forgot. Old age strikes again!

[Tony Monbetsu]

Good stuff. I totally agree with the advice of going for large, uniform planes over smaller multi-angle stuff. My woodie is tiny, and for the main angled part I opted for a 30 degree and a 40 degree portion, thinking I'd be able to train both angles and get a small arête as a bonus. The arête is fun but the wall sections are just too narrow, and I really wish I had gone with just one angle.

[RichF]

Mark posted part 2!  Thanks so much Mark!  I really appreciate all of the detail.

I am extremely jealous of that set-up!  

You comment that'd if you had it to do again, you'd create less ARC terrain and just go to a gym for that.  But that's just the problem - if you work normal hours, you can't ARC in the gym.  It's just too crowded.  I can imagine that you spend most of your time on the 35 and 8 deg walls, but the ability to just runs laps all over that barn is something that is hard to match in a commercial gym.  

For me, I think that 8' roof section would be useful.  I seem to climb a lot of routes that are vertical to slightly overhanging, but constantly run into less than body length roofs.  It'd be nice to practice the skills of turning the lip, which is a big weakness of mine.

I hear what you are saying about the dead spot at the west end of the 35 deg wall.  If I were building it from scratch, I'd probably create a door into the storage area behind the wall from the outside.  That way you could extend the 35 deg wall further west.  I was thinking it'd be cool to have a transition panel that was 35 deg on the east end but tilted more towards vertical at the west end so you didn't lose all the terrain on the vertical wall.  You could probably pretty easily cut a storage access door into that north wall of the barn if you wanted to do this.

I was out walking around my property the other day trying to picture where I could fit a barn, and what size it might be!  Do you think it would be more comfortable for 2 in there if you had an extra 4' of depth (16'x24' instead of 12'x24')?

What are you using for pads?  One of them looks like an actual crash pad.  What are the others?  How thick are they, and do you find that to be enough when you fall off near the top of the wall?

[MarkAnderson]

I think 4' feet of extra depth would be a huge improvement. You still wouldn't want to have two people limit bouldering back-to-back, but one could be limit bouldering while the other were traversing. Plus if you were alternating attempts that would provide plenty of room to move around the active climber without interfering.

There are a variety of pads, mostly store bought, including three metolius pads, a misty pad, and a BD pad. These are nothing special, ~4" thick total. There are two large home made pads (the yellow and blue pads). These are about 4' x 7', consisting of 4" of open cell and 1" of closed cell foam. They're fairly easy to make if you have decent sewing skills, but the crux is getting the foam, which is really expensive. I can recommend the Foam Factory if you're in the market for foam. They have a lot of variety and free shipping on orders over $75.