How long did it take you to transition from Gym to Outdoors?

adrianna melody wrote:If i had a group of friends that climbed outside regularly i would have no problem tagging along and learning from the bunch. But unfortunately i dont.. i literally know nobody in my area who climbes. So with my little to no experience i think starting in a gym for me where im surrounded by people with more knowledge then me is a smart thing rather then going in clueless..no?

So I moved to Texas solo, didn't know anyone. I joined a climbing group (even though they're mostly based in Austin and I'm in SA) and have started going with them, asking a bunch of questions, making sure I belay more than my share due to the advice they're sharing, etc. Try searching on facebook, meetup, etc to see if there's any in your area in addition to meeting people at the gym.

Whoa! Just did a few climbs with an instructor at njrockgym..I think I might be hooked! I'm actually really,really looking forward to coming back

Nice. Gyms are a great way to start, but not the only way. If outdoor activity is your thing, you can always reach out to the various schools and guides in the climbing areas locally and find out what they're offering this summer as far as women's clinics are concerned. Not being a woman, I wouldn't be able to offer much in the way of direct experience with them, but the women in my life swear by them as the best way to learn as a woman. You'll be surrounded by like minded and supportive individuals and taught (if it is a good clinic) with a curriculum based around what is best for most women.

I don't know what your personal situation is as well, but you can also look into things like Outing Clubs or Climbing Clubs at Universities, Colleges, High Schools, etc. This is a quick way to very quickly land a group of like minded individuals to recreate with.

I generally avoid the rock gym. I think I climbed indoors maybe three times last year.

Re: meetup groups: you might want to check out

meetup.com/jerseyrockclimbers/

(Oops---already mentioned by Steven Groetken)

rgold wrote:Re: meetup groups: you might want to check out meetup.com/jerseyrockclimbers/

Thanks, Definitely joined this

This might be the most helpful and least combative MP thread in the history of MP. I wonder why?

C. Archibald wrote:This might be the most helpful and least combative MP thread in the history of MP. I wonder why?

Just takes one to f*** it up. We're all capable of making decisions in each moment. I just wanted to answer the question of the original poster. I coulda started something, but didn't! Set the example!

Everyone has been beyond helpful and welcoming..all this info is a ton to take in but I'm reading and taking every piece if it.
Maybe it's the best thread because everyone's giving a piece of their experience and knowledge and it's all in one spot! plain awesoMe

adrianna melody wrote: I just would have no idea where to start if I went to the gunks!

Try looking up local climbing clubs. There's gotta be one somewhere around there. Sometimes they offer classes.

As a newbie climber who just dislocated his shoulder yesterday pushing too hard, take it easy starting out. Not everything will be as strong as you may want it to be. Now I'm looking at a month+ of PT best case scenario, surgery at the worst :(

mc813 wrote:As a newbie climber who just dislocated his shoulder yesterday pushing too hard, take it easy starting out. Not everything will be as strong as you may want it to be. Now I'm looking at a month+ of PT best case scenario, surgery at the worst :(

How did you you that!? hopin for quick healing!

Be careful, as a women some of the advice here will get you hurt if you are not in very strong shape.
Hand and foot strength needs time to develop.

many good points have been made but I think that you should lift and train for climbing before starting climbing .

The groups of muscles that one uses to climb dead vertical in-door lines is not the way to train .

To build foot work and body coordination the practice of paladies(sp) and dance bring to focus the strengths and weaknesses out so that you can target what you need to strengthen
Do not neglect to strengthen your neck,target small of the back and core strength but also aim to gat good a using your hips for balance and find the golden mean for your body type as to what to climb to warm up on.

For a long career climbing, plan to build up to upper body intensive style climbs .

Injury and permanent weakness often starts from an early over use injury that is not rested .

Now let the dogs here attack me,
but after more years at it then most, who have posted, well I see that rgold has chimed in so, as One who has been climbing at least half as long as him;+D,and having focused on teaching girls and women for many years, I am sure of what I say.

I waited until some one else said to get together with other women that is a very good way to go.
In the Gunks there are some very good female guides.
The Rock in New Hampshire is also very inspiring for starting out .

Michael Schneider wrote:Do not neglect to strengthen your neck

Just curious - do you find you use your neck muscles a lot climbing? If so, what movements?

my neck used to bother me a lot from looking up to belay but since I bought belay glasses, that hasn't been an issue. What are you doing that specifically requires a strong neck?

I think Michael has a point. I know a young woman Adrianna's age who has dislocated her shoulder twice and had to have serious surgery because of the strains of indoor climbing. I don't know whether she'll ever be able to climb as hard as she was before the injuries, but I do know that after insurance, she's spent a lot of money on surgeons and PT. And I also know from the experience of my superannuated buddies that she's likely to develop shoulder arthritis as she gets older.

Some of the girls who show up in the gym come from a gymnastic background and have a lot of upper body training experience before they start climbing. But other people, men and women, come to the sport without such training, and the experience provided by the gym, unsupervised by any kind of knowledgeable coach and fueled by the go-for-it attitude of the crowd, pushes them to do things they aren't ready for physically.

These problems are exacerbated in quite a few cases by gym route-setting, which can incorporate long lateral reaches and substantial dynamic moves on climbs with relatively moderate grades, and the joint extensions required are worse for women who may be quite a bit shorter than the route setter, who of course does not want to degrade the route with offensive extra footholds.

A properly-supervised program of physical training (and pilates?) may be a very good idea, but it just ain't gonna happen for most people. So what to do?

I think there is a two-part solution.

Part 1 involves common sense, but is very hard to put into practice, because giving up isn't what climbing is about, and people who are drawn to climbing are not people who give up easily. But giving up is exactly what is called for when you have to reach way out to the side and then pull down hard, or when you are supposed to lunge upward lustily and catch with one hand, or when the route demands you insert a single finger into a shallow hole and pull hard. Ignore all the idiots shouting raucous encouragement (they won't be paying for your surgery) and just say no. I'm here to testify that climbing is a lifetime activity; you don't have to rocket up the difficulty scale in your first year. Build a base of physical conditioning from climbing that doesn't involve seriously taxing your joints, and you can still be at it half a century later. They'll be plenty of time for those extended moves when you've acquired some of the specialized fitness.

Part 2 is (here we go again) outdoor climbing. First of all, outdoors there is a fairly continuous scale of increasing difficulty that starts at a very easy level. There's nothing like it in gyms. The easy and moderate climbs are bucket hauls that teach you nothing, and you can't develop the appropriate physical strengths while progressing through a carefully calibrated set of challenges. You're often forced to start physically stressful activities too soon.

Secondly, lots of outdoor climbing occurs on less than vertical walls and requires the development of increasingly sophisticated footwork and an eye for spotting what will and will not work. Again, there is little or nothing comparable in the gym, with the hand and footholds marked and usually only one or two options for how to make the moves. Working in less than vertical terrain means the upper body can develop at a far more sensible rate, because you don't have to pull as hard as the gym typically requires.

I think the primary experience of new climber in a gym is hand fatigue. They fall off because they can't hold on any more. The primary experience of a new climber outdoors is a sense of insecurity. There doesn't seem to be enough to keep you on the wall, even though the wall leans back. Ultimately you need to be able to tolerate and perform in the face of insecurity, and you need great hand strength and endurance as well to do modern hard climbing. Most people will be better off both physically and technically if they can get outside as much as possible along with gym climbing, rather than staying in the gym and then "transitioning" at some later point.

An now for just a touch of exercising that will help stave off shoulder injuries and is easy to do at home with almost no equipment. See ukclimbing.com/articles/pag… .

very well said.

Rgold, well said and thanks for the link.

The entire body from the tip of the nose to the hairs one your . . . .
All of the systems of the body are used when climbing .

A weak neck is one of the particular factors in conditioning

I point to some of the Gunks climbers . . .
Stalk the great ones and look at the 'fan structure of their necks.

Stagg, I see that you were asking for specifics, the way I have of resting by 'bridging off my head, aside, I often spend a lot of time looking up and after fifteen years I noticed I did not suffer from what was then a regular complaint of a head ache and sore neck.
When I asked and observed who were most struck, it eventually became clear that while all of the structures, neck shoulders, back were similar the neck was the least attended to in training and use.

The best of the old school climbers came from other disciplines - Gymnastics, was once home to a strange sub set of practices, rope climbing and vertical pole work!

Greco/Roman high school style Wrestling also was a root of great success and neck strength was a dominant trait in that sport.

Any way today's intensive styles of climbing need to be supported by training. And slow long sessions to promote the right type of . . . . ?Engrams?

Now I am reaching out of my depth. . . .

The old ways still work but the incidence of injury to three Year out climbers is very high and the five year washout rate due to repeat injury is also sadly very common place I think.

Edit :
After talking to a few women, and trying to understand the early draw of the body dismorphic
ness or the anti - culture norm:
not following the popular view of what is a less famine body version
But instead, embracing the nature of ones potential and going for it in the formation of muscle mass and strength . . .
What was common to the girls was the desire to grow spiritually strong by feeling strong. The result of increased physical strength opened their minds to all sorts of endeavors from climbing to mother-hood.
Women's Empowerment was the mother of climbing for the five or six women I spoke to . Only two of the six climbed regularly after motherhood but all six had been solid lead climbers at one time.
The two who still climbed after ten years did not ever climb indoors.

After asking my wife how it was that she had such a strong neck, she told me two things really helped
Strict parents,who made her stand up straight and tall.
In a Germanic stand at attention, bust out, shoulders back, they were four blond sisters, if they were in the father land they would have been ready to do the goose step or the hiel salute.

So good posture and working on the LATS., rowing and free weights.the pull down machines, there was a wind master or some thing that was a resistance machine made on Horesenden road in New Paltz NY years ago?

Then she said she did a lot of farm work bales of hay off trucks and such. But as a rule she was very genetically predisposed to getting thick, and That was a hard thing to balance.

Her plan to get a 'Flare' or 'Fan' from her shoulders to her neck to offset what she did not like about what she saw as an out of balance with the rest of her growing curves,led to some extreme lifting and hormonal changes from the extreme routines; running and what back then was 'cross' 'fit'.

This was when she was in her teens and early twenties but by thirty the strict routine of excessive
exercise Had made her very strong and she was able to tapper back to basic, light work-outs and regular climbing. So the foundation - the athletic background that you bring to bear is very important, it would seem antidotally at least.

Dancers and gymnast and lifting athletes of all stripes, with stretching and light running being an important nexus, have turned into some of the strongest climbers ever, no matter the gender.

The strength to weight ratio, that is the basis along with center of gravity,for success or failure in many cruxes, mantles, and 'pulling over the lip' moves Etc. is the one trait that makes women superior climbers, compared to the bulkier male physique.

rgold wrote: Part 1 involves common sense, but is very hard to put into practice, because giving up isn't what climbing is about, and people who are drawn to climbing are not people who give up easily. But giving up is exactly what is called for when you have to reach way out to the side and then pull down hard, or when you are supposed to lunge upward lustily and catch with one hand, or when the route demands you insert a single finger into a shallow hole and pull hard. Ignore all the idiots shouting raucous encouragement (they won't be paying for your surgery) and just say no. I'm here to testify that climbing is a lifetime activity; you don't have to rocket up the difficulty scale in your first year. Build a base of physical conditioning from climbing that doesn't involve seriously taxing your joints, and you can still be at it half a century later. They'll be plenty of time for those extended moves when you've acquired some of the specialized fitness.

This is exactly how it happened. Picture a clock showing 9 o'clock, and that's how my arms were. Feet started slipping (not anything crazy)and it loaded up my arms and pop went my shoulder.

I also was climbing with people much more experienced and advanced, and while they did not pressure me to climb harder, I pressured myself internally because well 1) I'm male and we can do stupid things due to bravado and 2) I am competitive and wanted to "rocket up the difficulty scale" as rgold said. I'm hoping this is a minor (not major) setback, but either way I'm going to ease back into it. No fun if I keep going full throttle only to get injured and restart a few months down the road.

Matt

i know im not an experienced climber at this moment. Once you get back up and climbing, start working out muscles you normally wouldn't. Theres a group of muscles surrounding your shoulder (infront of your armpit/behind your pit,on top of your shoulder) that many "non climbing" people dont usually "work out" one of the best things to do for that group of muscles is to do a "dumbbell pushup" where the lift of the dumbbells allow you to reach a deeper muscle group that surrounds the shoulder and hopefully preventing you from dislocating in the future!
Again Speedy recovery, shoulder injuries are a pain in the ass.

Right now i currently run and crosstrain 2-4x a week.

Any specific workouts someone could recommend to building strength for climbing?