The Big Bad Bouldering Thread

[Sméagol]

Who's into bouldering?

Was going to post about it in the exercise thread, but in the spirit of not putting everything in Megathreads ( @jayseven ) I thought I'd create a new thread.

For those who don't know what bouldering is, it's a climbing sport, in the indoor variant you climb routes on walls with colourful holds. You don't use ropes or anything, the walls are at most roughly 4,5 meters in height. Walls are surrounded by mats to break any fall you may make. If you go bouldering outdoor, you climb a literal boulder. Unlike other climbing sports, there's a low barrier to get into the sport, as you don't need a lot of gear to start with, and don't need a buddy. I'll focus on indoor bouldering by the way, as that's what I do (not a lot of (natural) boulders over here), and outdoor bouldering is a bit different. For indoor bouldering, all you need in the beginning, apart from entry to the bouldering gym and some exercise clothes, are climbing shoes, which you can rent the first couple of times.

Then for the actual (indoor) bouldering, this may be different from gym to gym and country to country, but over here the general way to go about things is this:

You have a wall with a lot of colourful holds. Generally, you have specific routes on the wall, all being of one colour, and you have a (marked) starting and finishing position. You put your hands on the starting holds, get yourself into a stable position, then start climbing towards the finish. Using the wall itself is fair game, just don't use any holds not part of the route. If you can touch the finishing hold with both hands while being in a stable position, you've done it. And you go try another one, or rest a bit. Routes (the official term is a "problem" I think, though I've never heard it over here) can have different difficulties, denoted by the colours. The  grading system  generally used in Europe starts at 3, and ends.. I'm not sure if it ends, but the highest in my particular gym is 8, though there's definitely a grade 9.

There are 4 aspects to this sport, and it's the combination of all these things that make this fun for me.

Strength
Probably the main thing you think you'd need if you've never bouldered before. It's definitely not the only aspect, and it's not something that should prevent you from trying out the sport. I myself am lacking arm strength, as I've never really used them before. My legs are ok since I cycle a lot, but my arms simply haven't gotten a real workout for many years. All the beginner's routes were fine, most don't require a lot of strength. The fun thing is you pretty much use all your muscles. There's an emphasis on your underarms, since those (together with your fingers) determine how well you grip things, but in the end you're also going to need your legs, upper arms, shoulders and core. There's also endurance, even if you do a route that's relatively easy, if you're doing a lot of them in a session, it's still going to be a workout.

Technique
If you read up on bouldering, then one of the tips you frequently see is that you should focus on technique as a beginner. For example, you should remember to use your legs, as as a beginner, your focus will probably be your arms. You'll often be able to "bruteforce" beginner's routes this way, but to get better you need to learn how to move from A to B as efficiently as possible, so instead of pulling with your arms you should push with your legs, as those are stronger. You'll need to learn to use all of your body, you need to figure out which limbs to use and how to use them, how to get a grip on certain holds etc. Then you need to learn how to balance yourself. Bouldering is a lot like yoga in that regard.

Mental / Confidence.
There's no denying it, bouldering can be scary, even if you're not dangling on a cliff 30 meters up. Even a potential uncontrolled fall from 2 meters high can be scary. It's funny, but a lot of routes I'm currently trying to do, have some kind of mental block. Sometimes I make it almost to the end, only to hesitate too much before the final steps, not feeling confident enough I can make it without falling. Experience and simply getting stronger will build confidence, so I keep trying and eventually I'll get it.

Mental / puzzle solving
Another really fun aspect. Simply figuring out what the fuck you're supposed to do in the first place, is half the fun. As a beginner, this will come from not having a lot of knowledge about techniques. Those you can learn (perhaps with a course given by your gym). I'd love to do beginner's course at some point, but for now I'm having fun figuring things out on my own, it's more satisfying at the moment. But I can imagine even when you do know the techniques, you still need to figure out what to apply where and how.

There's also a bit of a social aspect. I love how it's optional, being a slight introvert. It's not a competitive sport, so people are there to have a good time, I love the vibe in the gym. Sometimes it's fun to get tips, or give them. If a natural conversation happens, that's great, if not, it's a solo sport and you can simply do your own thing.

Anyway, these 4 aspects make it fun for me. there's a wide variety of routes, that put the emphasis on another aspect, or sometimes multiple. If a route is not really your style, there will be other ones which are. That said, to make progress you'll need to train everything, and therefore do a variety of routes. For example, overhanging routes require a lot of strength, which I don't really have yet, but I still find them fun to do. Even trying a route is training.

I've been doing this for a few months now, but can see me doing this for a long time. I hope I'll make some people enthousiastic about trying out the sport?

Edited June 17, 2022 by Sméagol

[Ashley]

I did it once years ago on a date and enjoyed it (the bouldering, the date was mediocre) and keep meaning to go again but never have. 

[bob]

Oh, I thought this was a Beetleborgs remake announcement thread.

[Sméagol]

On 19/06/2022 at 2:38 PM, bob said:

Oh, I thought this was a Beetleborgs remake announcement thread.

Feel free to create one yourself, as I'm not going to do it.

[Shorty]

Hey yeah, I'm a big fan of bouldering actually! Lucky to live in Sheffield, home of the world's oldest bouldering-only gym The Climbing Works (and for a long time, Europe's largest) started by Percy Bishton who set some of the olympic routes last year. If you watch Bouldering Bobat on YouTube, they were there for the CWIF a couple of months ago setting fun problems and they bumped into a pro Alex Megos while they were there.

We also have about 4 other awesome climbing gyms - a couple of them being absolutely enormous. Not to mention we are right next to the Peak District national park which has loads of bouldering and lead climbing locations, so it's really popular here. It's not too unusual to bump shoulders with Team GB climbers and other pros.

Not sure if the above pic will work but it's me on a pretty steep overhang a couple of years ago. I first got into it about 2018-2019 I think, and was going quite regularly. I was just about getting to the point of climbing font 5-5+/V1-V2 pretty comfortably when covid hit which reaaaally set me back as all the gyms were closed for over a year and I stopped all strength training and put on weight! I'm only just about getting back to that point now.

It is such a great way to make exercise interesting. I can go for hours and get exhausted but never feel bored or fed-up like I do with almost all other exercise, because there's so much room for consistent growth and improvement, so much problem solving to be done.

It's also one of those things I kick myself constantly for not trying earlier. People suggested it to me over ten years ago, and I think about where I would've been if I started then and how much better I would've been at that age and regret not trying it sooner!

[Sméagol]

Looks good @Shorty! Those hand holds you're gripping look pretty small. I'm definitely not on that level yet.

I do love training on overhangs. There's one I love to do early in the session that's almost horizontal, but it has very easy holds. I do it early, because I won't have the strength for it later. 

Funnily enough Covid is the reason I started to look into bouldering. I needed an alternative/backup for swimming, and my city has a public outdoor bouldering wall. But I got the advice to wait until after the then current lockdown and go to a dedicated gym.

I'll see if I can make some pictures at some point. Rotterdam has 3 bouldering gyms, I chose mine because unlike the other two, it's located in the city centre, and being on the 6 to 9th floor it has an amazing view of the city in all directions. It also happens to be brand new, it opened in February this year.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Sméagol