Campus/training wall (What would you want?)

As you may have seen in other threads, we are building a new gym in Colorado Springs. Once the walls and bouldering are done, we'd like to add a campus/training wall. I would love to hear from people who train on campus walls to know what they like and would love to see in a campus/training wall.

A system wall (ya know, overhanging with holds marked R1, L1, etc) with a long route, like 50+ moves. Maybe a peg board? I had an idea for free hanging PVC holds with a vertical orientation (so you'd have to grip them like a hand over hand rope) to campus up. Maybe a little extreme, but it would be cheep and cool.

This is a challenging conundrum.

The vast majority of climbers (let's say 90% for the sake of argument) are not at all interested in training. Of those that are interested, the vast majority (let's say 90% for the sake of argument) know very little about it, or what they know is likely incorrect. So perhaps 1% of climbers actually care about training & know what they're doing.

So if you are a commercial enterprise, ostensibly with the goal of making money, should you build training equipment that will actually be beneficial in its stated roll as "Training Equipment", knowing that only ~1% of your customers will realize its utility. Or, should you build something that looks cool/fun/etc and thus probably more appealing to the the other ~99%? (i.e., should you use the space for a slackline?)

I think Mono is correct, but I also noticed that you guys are more interested in training than the average gym.

If you build a campus board, look at the Metolius recommendations. Fifteen degrees overhanging is a good angle. You need manufactured rungs (not home-made like the ghetto thing at the SCC). I think it helps to have rungs spaced every four inches or so, most boards have the holds spaced out too far which seriously limits progression (imagine if you had to increase your bench press by 50 pound increments). You also need different sized rungs. Metolius has three sizes, but the rungs can be flipped over to give a different grip. My board has four sets of rungs: Nicros plastic rungs, Metolius medium rungs, Metolius small rungs right side up and Metolius small rungs upside down.

This is my board that used to be located off Rockrimmon near Ute Valley Park...we moved last summer though:

Hey Mike are you the rock prodigy guy? If so, thanks. It should be mandatory for anyone serious about training.

Mike...Awesome wall! That's pretty much the direction I wanted to head in. Did you take the wall with you when you moved? We have quite a few ABS & SCS competitors at the gym that will make good use of a training wall.

Thanks for the feedback all!

Alex, Yes I have my wall with me in Ohio. I had to cut about 6" off the top because my garage isn't as tall, but otherwise it's the same.

Mike Anderson wrote:Alex, Yes I have my wall with me in Ohio. I had to cut about 6" off the top because my garage isn't as tall, but otherwise it's the same.

Yeah, the timing is a bummer. I would have been psyched to help you and patronize your gym. Good luck!

Treadwalls are nice for building endurance when you don't have a patient belayer but they are EXPENSIVE.

I think a campus board would be a great addition to the gym that won't have a huge investment; unlike a system wall.

Some hangboards might be a good idea too.

The straight forward campus boards kill my wrists, I always thought it would be nice to have your hands angled away from each other to be more ergonomic.