Skill vs. Strength/Power

[Matthew]

I'm new to the board and after reading through several of the topics, I have seen some threads that have touched on this, but not sure any answered my specific question, which is: for advanced climbers (Arbitrarily, lets say climbing 5.13 on up) what's the potential difference between training strength/power vs. technique practice?  Unless one is freakishly mutant strong, you have to have a certain level of technique to climb 5.13.  Also, unless you are blessed with the best flexibility and balance possible, you need to have a certain level of finger strength/power to climb 5.13.  So if we take out those two extremes, what's the key to climbing 5.14 for most 5.13 climbers?  

Mark, Mike and any other upper 13 or above climber on this forum, did you find significant technique gains that helped to push you to your current levels or was it really all about increasing strength and/or power?  

Thanks.  

[joshvillen]

Knowing when and how to try hard, knowing when and how to relax (during a long shake out). Setting up clipping stances that suit me instead of whomever bolted the route, Aka turning it the correct way that allows me to snap clip every bolt, and shortening or lengthening the draws. Finding the right mindset that allows me to lose expectations for a given burn, focused breathing.

Getting better at drop knees, heel hooks, and overall body tension dependent moves. Also, learning to find my own way regardless of what previous beta's have been used.

[MarkAnderson]

I think most people who climb 5.13 possess the basic technical skills to climb 5.14. That said, you can always learn to be more efficient, climb more fluidly, more quickly, or suss sequences better. Technique is all about minimizing wasted effort, and it's something few will ever master. (For climbers at their limit...) some 5.14s demand maximum efficiency, like long/pumpy enduro routes. Others demand brute strength and power. So it depends somewhat on the particular route.

My opinion is that you're much more likely to learn to be efficient on a given route, over the course of several days of work, than you are to suddenly become much stronger in that timeframe.  So I'd rather show up with an excess of strength/power and have to make up some efficiency than vice versa.  If I valued onsighting more, I might feel differently.

[Matthew]

Mark that makes sense. When working a particular route or boulder problem I will learn little cues like moving my knee a bit this way or that or sinking my hips or similar route beta, but I don't think that just practicing drop knees, heel hooks, flagging or whatever skill for hours would have as much of an impact on my climbing ability as getting stronger would. However, not having the actual experience of climbing harder routes successfully, led to my question. I know in other activities in life I have sometimes had the ah ha moment that changed the way I did something, but with climbing, I think I need to focus on getting stronger overall and then work on specific route techniques if required.

Thanks! Any other feedback is definitely welcome.

[daustin]

I think there might be a weird, counter-intuitive dynamic with skill development for the 5.13 climber. I think Matthew's conclusion is spot on -- after a certain point, probably around or even before 5.12, your "quiver" of technique isn't going to be getting much bigger and arbitrarily practicing techniques that you've already developed (which might be akin to technique junk mileage) probably won't help you much in terms of applying them to specific cruxes/routes.

The only way to continue to develop your technique, for example in the ways described by Josh, is to practice on harder and harder climbs where you'll fail unless you have the technique mastered. But since you don't have the technique mastered to start, the only way you can really get on such a route to practice is if your strength/power is at least sufficient to hang your way through. In a sense, you have to keep getting stronger so you can try harder routes and allow your technique to 'catch up'.

Obviously this isn't perfectly applicable in every situation, but I do think it captures a somewhat subtle dynamic that is often overlooked by those who say that training strength/power is a waste of time because most climbers have so much room to improve in technique.

[rob]

Very nicely put daustin. Agreed!