Route Setting Resources

[avaserfi]

For those with experience setting routes how did you learn? My friend and I spent some time setting on a newly built wall and neither of us were extremely happy with the quality of the problems.


Are there books or websites to learn some basics? I'm sure more experience will help, but we want to broaden our horizons before we get stuck in setting the same type of problem over and over which was already happening without us realizing it.

[Chris W]

I have the same problem and haven't found a good solution yet. I currently try to draw inspiration from the great outdoors. If there was a memorable movement or sequence, something that felt hard or gave me trouble or was just "cool" I try to mimic the movement on my home wall. It never comes out the same, but it seems like a good starting point. Sometimes if a problem is particularly left/right hand dominant, I'll try to set a mirror image problem to work the other size.

I find it takes a long time and a lot of creative energy and brain power to try to set something that works well. I'm interested to hear others thoughts on this.

[Lundy]

I've found I've had much better success by not trying to set when putting the holds up. Rather, I just spray holds all over my wall, then start climbing. I find more interesting movements that way that I wouldn't have come up with starting from a blank slate. The other advantage to setting this way is sometimes you try something that is crap, and it's no big deal, just don't tape it and move on to some other movements. Occasionally I'll try to set something to mirror an outdoor crux, but those problems don't usually end up as good as the ones I set just sitting on the pad staring at the wall with all the holds on it.

[jorgemendoza]

What Lundy said ^^^.

I am going to assume that you have a woody.

Get a bunch of holds and put them on your wall (Check out that magnificent design from Steven Jeffery). You will start creating moves/problems out of them.

Now, I know holds are expensive, and if you can't fill your wall with holds, here are a few tips that I have learned in my 'route-setting' journey, and might help you with efficiency:

- If you don't like your problem, don't be afraid to strip it off your wall. I rather set something new than tweak something that started being ugly

- Avoid setting things that are prone to injury, nor weird/uncomfortable. Those are things that I don't want when training/climbing indoors.

- I get inspiration from outdoors/videos/others problems. Talk to route-setters, and ask them for their opinion, or what they intend when they set a problem. Take into account that "commercial" route setting is different to woody route setting, in my opinion.

- I fixate on reproducing movement. If I can reproduce one or two moves in my woody, I am more than content.

- Set a pocket problem, a crimp problem, a pinch problem close to each other, and make them intercept. Then, you will see that you can use the holds of the different problems to create new problems.

- Usually, the holds will "talk" to you. So, if you have a set of holds, choose the ones you like the most, examined them, and start imagining how would you like to use the holds. You will start piecing them together.

- I always start with hand movements and then add foot holds. With foot holds you can change the grade of the problem and "tweak" it to make it flow better, but in my experience, if you create a nice flow with arm movements, you have 90% of the problem.

Hope this helps. Again, this is just my experience, and I might be wrong.

[joev9]

Jun 11, 2015 9:07:52 GMT -7 jorgemendoza said:

- Usually, the holds will "talk" to you. So, if you have a set of holds, choose the ones you like the most, examined them, and start imagining how would you like to use the holds. You will start piecing them together.

This right here. Most of my problems start with one hold that I know where I want it on my wall, then I set moves into and out of that hold to get the best movement that I can.

[Otis.]

I own my own woody and also set at a commercial gym. I started setting a little over 10 years ago. I met with the head setter at the commercial gym for 10-20 minutes, where he laid down some basic rules. Then I just started setting and trying different movement. Having set for over 10 years, worked with other setters, competed and attended various major competitions, setting is very much like any other creative endeavor. The more you practice, the better you will get at it and some people have a better natural aptitude to understanding body movement and subsequently setting than others. Most people's problems suck for the first couple of weeks to first couple of months. It's just sort of the way it is. So if you want to get good at setting, you will need to practice, climb lots of different set problems to learn what others have done and then draw some inspiration from outside. I would also recommend watching National, World Cup and large climbing competitions on youtube. Some of the more recent stuff has tended to gymnastics/ninja warrior obstacle training setting, but the qualifiers and some of the older comps on youtube can inspire some really good ideas. You can also watch the pros climbing real rock and watch their general body movements more so than the specific holds. Try to recreate those movements. There is a book on routesetting by Louie Anderson if you like to read. He is one of the industry leaders. Last but not least, get good holds. well shaped holds with interest will automatically improve a problem. If you are really good at setting, you can make due with some of the old shapes out there, but the newer urethane holds make climbing more enjoyable and subsequently, setting easier. I hope this helps