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making campus-training more incremental

Original Post
kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608

I think an important factor in avoiding injury is to progressively increase my difficulty or resistance in small amounts. In my campus-board training, I like to do very short sequences or sometimes just single moves, so it gets a bit tricky to avoid big "jumps" in difficulty.

What are some more ways get increases smaller?

So far I've tried ...

- different ways of using my feet touching or not touching things.

- adding weight

- placing a shim at the back of the top of the wooden rungs, to make harder to grip. I've used wood or thin plastic shims for isometric hanging before. Today was my first time with dynamic campus moves. I tried corrugated-paper box pieces -- seemed to work.

What are some other ways to make short move sequences incremental?

Ken

DanielRich · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Aug 2008 · Points: 5

One thing that I have been wanting to do when I get around to building my own campus board is to see if I can mount the rungs on sliding rails so that I can have an infinitely adjustable set rather having to deal with the large gaps in difficultly. It allows you to stretch for just an extra half inch and see how that works.

kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608

Yes that sounds like great idea for a home campus board. But I don't have one yet.

It occurs to me some other ways to implement that excellent idea of adjustable range are ...

  • put some other holds off to the side of the main ladder of rungs - (nothing wrong with getting some diagonal reaching practice).

? or perhaps even "inter-leave" holds at different distance: Like say a 5-inch-wide hold which is 7 inches above the rung below, to its right a 5-inch-wide hold which is 8 inches above, next to the right a 5-inch-wide hold which is 7 inches above, and finally a 5-inch-wide hold which is again 8 inches above.
. (the public climbing gym at the Salewa equipment co. headquarters has implemented inter-leaving in their campus board, but it's with rungs of different depths, smaller versus bigger, but not different reach ranges).

  • stack a half-inch high wood rung on top of an permanently-mounted full-size rung. Drill vertical holes in the existing full-size rung. Then use bolts or pins to temporarily hold the half-inch rung in place. If placed on the upper hold of a move, it lengthens the range. If on the lower rung it shortens the range.

. (Now if only I could talk my local climbing gym into this second approach)

Ken
Joe M · · MA and NH · Joined Dec 2008 · Points: 11,725

Not sure that adding weight is a good idea... Maybe others can weigh in on that.

Trycycle · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Mar 2014 · Points: 699

I've seen a campus board with rungs on a sliding rail system, it was pretty cool. I enjoy having "half-rungs" so I can work up in smaller increments.

Adam Leedy · · Austin, TX · Joined Sep 2008 · Points: 760

My progression on my home campus board started with the big rungs and looked like this:

The first thing I worked at was laddering with matching rungs. So start matched on 1, right hand to 2, left hand match at 2, right hand to three, right hand match at 3 etc etc. switch leading hand on alternating sets.

When I could do that smoothly I focused on real ladders. Start matched on 1, right hand to 2, left hand to 3, right hand to 4, etc.

Then I started working skipping a single rung. One set consisted of matching on 1, throwing right to 3, dropping off, and repeating on the left side.

Then skipping a rung and matching.

Then skipping a rung, matching, moving again. Alternate on sides.

Then skipping a rung and instead of matching going to the next rung. So, match on 1, right hand to 3, left hand to 4. Drop, repeat leading with other hand.

Then laddering while skipping a rung. So, match on 1, right up to 3, left to 5, etc.

Then the same progression skipping two rungs. So, Match on 1, right to 4, match, drop repeat leading with left. Progressing to 1, 4, 7.

Then I started on skipping three rungs. Same progression. I've gotten to the point that I can do match on 1, right hand to 5, match on 5, drop repeat on left side. But I haven't gotten to 1-5-9.

At about this same time I started doing doubles, so full dyno from 1 to 2 with both hands. And it didn't take more than 2-3 sessions to get to the point of being able to dyno 3 or 4 moves before I missed one and fell.

I don't care to focus on 1-5-9 right now, so I got the medium rungs and started the same progression on the medium rungs. This time it has gone much faster since I built a lot of power on the large ones and could do hand over hand 1-3-5 on the medium ones no problem right off the bat.

I place my medium rungs between the large ones, so now I can use the big rungs as sort of half rungs to practice bigger moves on the mediums as I build up to 1-5 on the mediums.

kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608
Adam Leedy wrote:I place my medium rungs between the large ones, so now I can use the big rungs as sort of half rungs to practice bigger moves on the mediums as I build up to 1-5 on the mediums.
Yes vertical inter-leaving is another good trick for getting more funtionality without more board real estate.

I've seen two gyms who do that. Only problem is that if the holds are too close, the bigger ones get in the way of easily latching the smaller ones -- especially on down-climbing. Requires more precision "targeting" of the arm motion, less focus on training contact strength of fingers.

Sometimes I've tried campusing from a wooden rung below a fingerboard. Really hard for me to target up to latch an inset pocket in the fingerboard. I'm so accustomed to deadpointing to just a little above an outward-lying horizontal edge, then coming down onto it just a little for the latch. So with a pocket I keep hitting the fingerboard surface just above the pocket.

And that incremental progession of extending range-of-motion with clever choices of "half-moves" makes a lot of sense.

Ken
Adam Leedy · · Austin, TX · Joined Sep 2008 · Points: 760
kenr wrote: Yes vertical inter-leaving is another good trick for getting more funtionality without more board real estate. I've seen two gyms who do that. Only problem is that if the holds are too close, the bigger ones get in the way of easily latching the smaller ones -- especially on down-climbing. Requires more precision "targeting" of the arm motion, less focus on training contact strength of fingers. Sometimes I've tried campusing from a wooden rung below a fingerboard. Really hard for me to target up to latch an inset pocket in the fingerboard. I'm so accustomed to deadpointing to just a little above an outward-lying horizontal edge, then coming down onto it just a little for the latch. So with a pocket I keep hitting the fingerboard surface just above the pocket. And that incremental progession of extending range-of-motion with clever choices of "half-moves" makes a lot of sense. Ken
With the rungs at the standard 22cm apart and the smaller ones directly in the middle I've never noticed any interference at all. I wouldn't try to squeeze in all three sixes, that would probable be an issue.

Campusing to a pocket on a fingerboard sounds like begging for injury. I don't think I'll ever try that.
kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608
Adam Leedy wrote: With the rungs at the standard 22cm apart and the smaller ones directly in the middle I've never noticed any interference at all.
Well there's several "standards" . . . my experience visiting many gyms with campus boards around USA and west Europe. (Different campus boards vary in every possible way.)

The one at the gym closest to me just now has 20cm spacing -- just measured it yesterda - (except for the Super-big wood rungs which have 40cm spacing : obvious candidates for some vertical inter-weaving).

My favorite gym for incremental-friendly campusing in USA has around 18cm. At home I don't have a full board, but I tried packing them in closer. One gym I know uses different spacing for different size rungs - (so the small Metolius rungs get the tightest spacing).

Even at 18cm it's only a slight drawback to inter-leave a big Metolius into the midst of a ladder of medium-width Metolius rungs -- mainly on down-climbing.

At home it was more of an issue, since I was squeezing them in under a doorway - (why I don't have a home board).
Just a warning for those who might want to take vertical inter-weaving farther.

. (I do think horizontal inter-leaving is worth considering, for allowing fine-tuning of reach-range options.)

Ken
Josh Villeneuve · · Granby, CT · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 1,814

I like adding weight sometimes, other times I like to one arm campus on "sloper jugs" helps with 1-5-9+++++

kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608

I'm nowhere near 1-5-9 or any sort of "one arm" campus moves. But just yesterday I found I benefited from playing with big moves on super-big holds -- so it was all about arms and confidence, freed from the constraints of my finger strength.

After that I found that I could transfer some of that confidence to new moves on the merely Big rungs. Other times I've been surprised how quickly I could transfer moves to the Medium rungs after working them out on the big rungs. For launching big moves, there's now for me only little difference in vertical range between starting off the Medium versus the Big. The key difference between the sizes is in latching the first move and transitioning to the second move in sequence.

I am a big fan of "sloper" style for super-big rungs -- like half PVC pipe covered with sandpaper. But especially Euro gyms like having super-big super-positive wooden rungs for the "bigger than the big Metolius" size. But I saw one gym went for campusing on
half-spheres instead of half-cylinders. And set them for diagonal campus moves with no feet. Ande then there's the peg-board.

Ken

Josh Villeneuve · · Granby, CT · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 1,814

That's what we have (pvc with sandpaper) and they're great for working really big moves like 1-5-8. If I don't feel like I can 1 arm campus "up" the board, I 1 arm campus down the board, as I would for negatives.

It's one of the great things about campusing, so many different possibilities, so many workouts to choose from.

PlanchePRO De Guzman · · Houston, Texas · Joined Sep 2014 · Points: 50
Trycycle wrote:I've seen a campus board with rungs on a sliding rail system, it was pretty cool. I enjoy having "half-rungs" so I can work up in smaller increments.
How would this "sliding rail system" look like? I have a hard time imagining how that would look like. I'm building a freestanding campus board at home.
Trycycle · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Mar 2014 · Points: 699

Basically there are 2 vertically oriented channels on which the rungs are able to slide up and down. The rungs are attached to the channels via a mechanism similar to quick release on a bike wheel. this way the rungs can be affixed at any point along the rail system.

PlanchePRO De Guzman · · Houston, Texas · Joined Sep 2014 · Points: 50
Trycycle wrote:Basically there are 2 vertically oriented channels on which the rungs are able to slide up and down. The rungs are attached to the channels via a mechanism similar to quick release on a bike wheel. this way the rungs can be affixed at any point along the rail system.
So basically no screws required then? Any schematics/picture for that?
kenr · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Oct 2010 · Points: 16,608
Trycycle wrote:Basically there are 2 vertically oriented channels on which the rungs are able to slide up and down. The rungs are attached to the channels via a mechanism similar to quick release on a bike wheel. this way the rungs can be affixed at any point along the rail system.
A somewhat off-the-shelf way to implement that might be to purchase big pipe clamps.

A variation on it would be to use vertical rods with notches in them -- like adjustable-height headrests in cars. You'd have to live with fixed increments of range adjustment, but if the increments are small enough.

There's also variable-height metal shelving, often done with 1-inch increments.

Ken
Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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