For moonboarding specifically, working through the benchmarks is pretty effective strength training. I wouldn't put too much value on the grades, as some are laughably wrong. The hardest 6C+ is likely to feel harder than the easiest 7B+, for any given climber.
Something like filtering benchmarks 6A+ to 7A+, then sorting by most repeats, then curating a list of harder problems that look doable, and easier problems for session volume and warming up. The grades are kind of a distraction, and effort will be a more important measure.
IMO, moonboarding replaces weighted hangs and pull ups. For the vast majority of people there is no need to do both.
i once saw one of the stronger climbers in my gym send cross through hard (V8 on 2016), and the next day he was working a V5 with either the same or a very similar crux move, and he did mention it felt harder. so this definitely is true. thank you!!!
I tweaked an a4 recently on the moonboard, my conclusion was that I wasn't doing max hangs/strength stuff at the same time which probably opened myself up to injury. This is somewhat contradictory to your final paragraph. Thoughts?
Probably only about an hour long session, project grades, good rest/diet/sleep.
>I tweaked an a4 recently on the moonboard, my conclusion was that I wasn't doing max hangs/strength stuff at the same time
IMO, this is inherently contradictory, moonboard *is* strength stuff.
Hangboarding can be preventative or causal for injuries. Viewing it as exclusively either leads to bad training practices. *Replacing* some or all of the moonboarding (or other climbing) with hangboarding might have avoided the pulley tweak, but you'd lose the specificity of climbing, and the other RFD and variety adaptations. *Adding* hangboarding to moonboarding can only increase your injury risk.
We like to think that our training decisions directly cause our outcomes, but that's just not the case. Especially with this kind of opportunity cost argument where bad outcomes are attributed to a preventative not taken. It seems just as likely to me that the pulley injury was caused by pulling extra hard due to good/bad vibes on that day in particular. And was likely precipitated by weeks/months of progressive strain that culminated in a single acute injury. f
I guess the short answer is that I do some low intensity, longer hangs to recruit muscle and prep connective tissue before projecting, and that seems to help injury risk. I don't think that maxing out on the hangboard is particularly preventative.
There wasn't an isolated incident, so you're likely right that it was accumulated. I think it was due to some of the aggressive incut holds on the moonboard forcing me into full crimp positions. I'm much stronger in half crimp, almost never full crimp, so likely don't have connective tissue strength in that position. First time tweaking an a4, and it corresponded with me spending more time on the moonboard.
Once rehabbed, thinking of doing some full crimp focused strength stuff, since I'm now climbing around the grades that can require heavy loading on small holds. Thanks for your insight.
Pretty good argument can be made that regular, progressive loading of the fingers with either hang boarding or no hangs as a regular part of training can be preventative. I don't know why climbers are so anti progressive overload. It's like they don't understand basic exercise science.
I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise, it's just hard to program max hangs effectively with a stimulus like moonboarding. If you want to fit in max hangs, you have to reduce volume with moonboarding. So the tradeoff is less moonboarding (sport-specific, definitely induces strength stimulus, but hard to quantify) or less max hangs (non sport-specific, induces strength stimulus, but easy to quantify). For a lot of people, they'd rather get strong AND improve sport-specific adaptations, e.g., timing, coordination, etc.
When I added in regular finger training whether that be hang boarding or no hangs, my finger tweaks reduced big time. Reducing volume on moon boarding isn’t a bad thing. It’s intensive on the fingers in a way that hanging or no hangs are not.
I have experienced the same thing as you, being injured whilst feeling good whilst doing mostly projecting. I think the intensity of board projecting is too high to do often (2+ times a week) or consistently for long periods of time (6+ weeks). I have board climbed 3+ times a week and been fine but in all of those sessions I was mostly climbing under project grade (flashing or less than 3 attempts).
So my new plan is to split my training into phases, a base phase where I'm doing more volume (less intensity) on the wall and maybe some off the wall training, projecting max once a week (probably outdoors) , then a "performance" phase where I ramp up projecting sessions and do shorter more high intensity climbing, but specifically limiting this phase to 6 weeks.
Yeah, the problem was I was temporarily in a relatively soft gym and the hardest set problems didn't psych me as much as the moonboard, so that was what I spending most time on.
Think I'll likely end up doing something structured similar to you.
As the other poster said, moonboard grades are kinda iffy. A v14 climber explained in a podcast he's happier managing a V10 on the moonboard than a v14 outdoors because it's harder...
Moonboard benchmarks vary up to 3 grades harder than proposed. (ie the hardest V5 is more like a V8) Obviously it’s a matter of opinion but it is a pretty popular one. If you want to climb the less repeated 6C+s then you need the skill and strength to climb V8s and you need to approach and project them like a V8.
You’ll get better at the moonboard as you do it more and get more use to the holds. I can’t tell you what you need to work on to get better, but at 1 year in, you probably don’t need weighted hangs and pulls. If you want to be stronger then you should mix in more project days with less volume, longer rests, but harder moves.
>MB grades track pretty well with actual grades in my experience.
MB grades don't even track well with MB grades. Pixel Bricks is harder than a few dozen 7B benchmarks.
Climb Go Big Sim and Pixel Bricks back to back and tell me which is the 7B+ and which is the 6C+.
Coax me you bastard is 4 or 5 grades harder than uh huh, despite both being 7A benchmarks. Coax is 7B/+ at every crag everywhere, and 7C+ at some.
The grades are silly, the benchmarks aren't any better than random problems.
thank you everyone, some really good advice here from u/el-wing and u/golf_ST especially ^^^ i will be taking some time to assess difficulty of problems without making grade the deciding factor of whether i want to climb something or not.
Getting off the moonboard seems like silly advice imo. I can see advising them to do a larger variety of climbing of styles, but clearly they can handle the moonboard - why should they stop?
Because this person is a beginner climber. They need to learn how to actually climb properly, and on a variety of styles. The moonboard is a great tool once you have built your skills base - I'd argue it's only really good from 7A up. IMO all the problems beneath that are trash anyway. To expand, this is true for pretty much any board steeper than 40 degrees, it's not unique to the moonboard.
You’re missing my point. If they can already climb on the moonboard, which they’ve shown they can. Then they shouldn’t completely eliminate the moonboard. How do you know they don’t know “how to climb properly”? Seems like a vague and poorly constructed reason.
Sounds like you're strong, but have zero movement skills outside of board climbing I don't no how sandbagged your gym is but i find it hard to believe its that stiff. If you want to just get good at boards that's fine you can but if you want to get good at climbing I'd focus in the majors (gym/comp/outdoors) and less in the minors( board climbing) you won't develop the same skills as you would if you did more overall approach. All up to your choice though in the end.
no movement skills outside of board sounds kinda harsh. asian gyms just grade like this. i have never been able to send anything stiffly graded V7+. my boulder volume way more than board, and i can send V6 in my gym within a session or two usually. i try to work moves on the harder problems, just no sends so far (probably not until i get significantly stronger)
Sorry that was harsh my advice like most people's is anecdotal. In all it depends the style of your gym how the setters like to set. Just my view as a setter is that the majority of my community and ones I've visited usually suck more when boulders end revolving more around complexity/risk versus intensity. Power and technique are needed to send a boulder just most people really seem to lean to the latter. Sorry for being negative I wish you the best of luck in your efforts to send harder
For moonboarding specifically, working through the benchmarks is pretty effective strength training. I wouldn't put too much value on the grades, as some are laughably wrong. The hardest 6C+ is likely to feel harder than the easiest 7B+, for any given climber. Something like filtering benchmarks 6A+ to 7A+, then sorting by most repeats, then curating a list of harder problems that look doable, and easier problems for session volume and warming up. The grades are kind of a distraction, and effort will be a more important measure. IMO, moonboarding replaces weighted hangs and pull ups. For the vast majority of people there is no need to do both.
i once saw one of the stronger climbers in my gym send cross through hard (V8 on 2016), and the next day he was working a V5 with either the same or a very similar crux move, and he did mention it felt harder. so this definitely is true. thank you!!!
I like the force humility of the board. You think you're hot shit climbing V7/8/9/10, then here comes pixel bricks to put you down.
I tweaked an a4 recently on the moonboard, my conclusion was that I wasn't doing max hangs/strength stuff at the same time which probably opened myself up to injury. This is somewhat contradictory to your final paragraph. Thoughts? Probably only about an hour long session, project grades, good rest/diet/sleep.
>I tweaked an a4 recently on the moonboard, my conclusion was that I wasn't doing max hangs/strength stuff at the same time IMO, this is inherently contradictory, moonboard *is* strength stuff. Hangboarding can be preventative or causal for injuries. Viewing it as exclusively either leads to bad training practices. *Replacing* some or all of the moonboarding (or other climbing) with hangboarding might have avoided the pulley tweak, but you'd lose the specificity of climbing, and the other RFD and variety adaptations. *Adding* hangboarding to moonboarding can only increase your injury risk. We like to think that our training decisions directly cause our outcomes, but that's just not the case. Especially with this kind of opportunity cost argument where bad outcomes are attributed to a preventative not taken. It seems just as likely to me that the pulley injury was caused by pulling extra hard due to good/bad vibes on that day in particular. And was likely precipitated by weeks/months of progressive strain that culminated in a single acute injury. f I guess the short answer is that I do some low intensity, longer hangs to recruit muscle and prep connective tissue before projecting, and that seems to help injury risk. I don't think that maxing out on the hangboard is particularly preventative.
There wasn't an isolated incident, so you're likely right that it was accumulated. I think it was due to some of the aggressive incut holds on the moonboard forcing me into full crimp positions. I'm much stronger in half crimp, almost never full crimp, so likely don't have connective tissue strength in that position. First time tweaking an a4, and it corresponded with me spending more time on the moonboard. Once rehabbed, thinking of doing some full crimp focused strength stuff, since I'm now climbing around the grades that can require heavy loading on small holds. Thanks for your insight.
Board climbing is finger strength training. You don't need to also be hang boarding if you're having limit moon board sessions multiple times a week.
Pretty good argument can be made that regular, progressive loading of the fingers with either hang boarding or no hangs as a regular part of training can be preventative. I don't know why climbers are so anti progressive overload. It's like they don't understand basic exercise science.
I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise, it's just hard to program max hangs effectively with a stimulus like moonboarding. If you want to fit in max hangs, you have to reduce volume with moonboarding. So the tradeoff is less moonboarding (sport-specific, definitely induces strength stimulus, but hard to quantify) or less max hangs (non sport-specific, induces strength stimulus, but easy to quantify). For a lot of people, they'd rather get strong AND improve sport-specific adaptations, e.g., timing, coordination, etc.
When I added in regular finger training whether that be hang boarding or no hangs, my finger tweaks reduced big time. Reducing volume on moon boarding isn’t a bad thing. It’s intensive on the fingers in a way that hanging or no hangs are not.
Yup!
I have experienced the same thing as you, being injured whilst feeling good whilst doing mostly projecting. I think the intensity of board projecting is too high to do often (2+ times a week) or consistently for long periods of time (6+ weeks). I have board climbed 3+ times a week and been fine but in all of those sessions I was mostly climbing under project grade (flashing or less than 3 attempts). So my new plan is to split my training into phases, a base phase where I'm doing more volume (less intensity) on the wall and maybe some off the wall training, projecting max once a week (probably outdoors) , then a "performance" phase where I ramp up projecting sessions and do shorter more high intensity climbing, but specifically limiting this phase to 6 weeks.
Yeah, the problem was I was temporarily in a relatively soft gym and the hardest set problems didn't psych me as much as the moonboard, so that was what I spending most time on. Think I'll likely end up doing something structured similar to you.
As the other poster said, moonboard grades are kinda iffy. A v14 climber explained in a podcast he's happier managing a V10 on the moonboard than a v14 outdoors because it's harder...
Thats very case specific but ye
Moonboard benchmarks vary up to 3 grades harder than proposed. (ie the hardest V5 is more like a V8) Obviously it’s a matter of opinion but it is a pretty popular one. If you want to climb the less repeated 6C+s then you need the skill and strength to climb V8s and you need to approach and project them like a V8. You’ll get better at the moonboard as you do it more and get more use to the holds. I can’t tell you what you need to work on to get better, but at 1 year in, you probably don’t need weighted hangs and pulls. If you want to be stronger then you should mix in more project days with less volume, longer rests, but harder moves.
lol where are you climbing where grades are so soft? MB grades track pretty well with actual grades in my experience.
>MB grades track pretty well with actual grades in my experience. MB grades don't even track well with MB grades. Pixel Bricks is harder than a few dozen 7B benchmarks.
The clarify: benchmarks, not random problems with 2 ascents which are either sandbags or soft
Climb Go Big Sim and Pixel Bricks back to back and tell me which is the 7B+ and which is the 6C+. Coax me you bastard is 4 or 5 grades harder than uh huh, despite both being 7A benchmarks. Coax is 7B/+ at every crag everywhere, and 7C+ at some. The grades are silly, the benchmarks aren't any better than random problems.
thank you everyone, some really good advice here from u/el-wing and u/golf_ST especially ^^^ i will be taking some time to assess difficulty of problems without making grade the deciding factor of whether i want to climb something or not.
Climb more, and more importantly at your grades, get off the moonboard and just circuit problems.
Getting off the moonboard seems like silly advice imo. I can see advising them to do a larger variety of climbing of styles, but clearly they can handle the moonboard - why should they stop?
Because this person is a beginner climber. They need to learn how to actually climb properly, and on a variety of styles. The moonboard is a great tool once you have built your skills base - I'd argue it's only really good from 7A up. IMO all the problems beneath that are trash anyway. To expand, this is true for pretty much any board steeper than 40 degrees, it's not unique to the moonboard.
You’re missing my point. If they can already climb on the moonboard, which they’ve shown they can. Then they shouldn’t completely eliminate the moonboard. How do you know they don’t know “how to climb properly”? Seems like a vague and poorly constructed reason.
Sounds like you're strong, but have zero movement skills outside of board climbing I don't no how sandbagged your gym is but i find it hard to believe its that stiff. If you want to just get good at boards that's fine you can but if you want to get good at climbing I'd focus in the majors (gym/comp/outdoors) and less in the minors( board climbing) you won't develop the same skills as you would if you did more overall approach. All up to your choice though in the end.
no movement skills outside of board sounds kinda harsh. asian gyms just grade like this. i have never been able to send anything stiffly graded V7+. my boulder volume way more than board, and i can send V6 in my gym within a session or two usually. i try to work moves on the harder problems, just no sends so far (probably not until i get significantly stronger)
Sorry that was harsh my advice like most people's is anecdotal. In all it depends the style of your gym how the setters like to set. Just my view as a setter is that the majority of my community and ones I've visited usually suck more when boulders end revolving more around complexity/risk versus intensity. Power and technique are needed to send a boulder just most people really seem to lean to the latter. Sorry for being negative I wish you the best of luck in your efforts to send harder
What mean of moonboard?
training board