How narrow an edge should a strong climber be able to hold on to?

Craig Childre wrote:ROFLMAO!!! I must admire the positive attitude that James put forth... Had he gotten all booty hurt and angry, it just wouldn't been such a good read. You've been a great sport, thanks for the great thread!

Hah, I was just genuinely trying to get a real answer and hoping someone was going to be like, no, 1/256 of an inch is a joke,but a beginner climber should be able to hold onto 3/4" and a top climber 1/8", but noooooooo...hahah

that first response sounded so damn official but it was pretty obvious that made absolutely no sense, thought we were talking about two completely different things

Optimistic wrote: What is a Tranny board? (eager to hear the wrong answers, as well as the right one!)

yes, the tranny board is the thing they had at the gym that made me realize how weak and pathetic my contact strength is.

i'm assuming the numbers on the tranny board is mm?

Realtalk: I'm rounding out my first year of climbing, and I know how tempting it is to say "Oh, I can't hold the holds on this problem/route, I can't climb it until my fingers get stronger." And while getting better does mean improving finger strength, you'd be surprised how much of using those holds is in the footwork and technique. In climbing you're almost never just deadhanging from some shitty hold like you're using a hangboard, and learning how to apply yourself to the hold properly and take the most stress off the fingers is, if not easier than building finger strength, certainly faster.

And in any case there's a lot more to measure on a hold than depth- angle of incut, texture, and orientation all play a big part.

Focus on learning to keep your body weight on your feet first and foremost. One effective way to gain grip/contact strength is to train using H.I.T. Strips in the off season. Campus boards help likewise but are also a higher risk for finger injuries. The most important aspect of all of this is to listen to your body and realize that soft tissue such as cartilage, ligaments and tendons have very limited blood circulation and take an average of seven times longer than muscles to recover and regenerate. It is important have fun and not get injured the and don't get caught up in the numbers game.

jamesldavis1 wrote: Humans are certainly capable of some amazing feats, but supporting 160 or so lbs of weight from 8 fingers on 1/256", which is the exact thickness of a piece of printer paper, seems about as incredible as any human feat I have ever heard of. It's guna take me a while to wrap my head around how impressive that is.

You have to learn how to use your thumbs, too.

Michael Colby wrote:This is without a doubt my favorite thread on MP ever.

Haha me too!!

Honestly, I'm super curious about this now. What is the smallest edge a person could static-hang off of for, say, 10 seconds? I imagine it would be somewhere in the fingernail range, and some crazy person out there has probably filed their fingernails just so to get a good edge. Obviously it has almost nothing to do with climbing performance.