Adam Ondra: "Any climber with mediocre stregnth can climb at least V8 given perfect technique" Thoughts?

reboot wrote: I think most people have a lot they can get better at (besides getting super strong) than they realize...

definitely. there's a lot to it for sure.

reboot wrote: Foot work is mainly placement for support...legs have big muscles for movement...

I would classify someone who doees not know how to "move" with their legs as having poor foot work. The simple act of placing your foot on a hold and not falling is not good "footwork". To separate movement from static is to separate good foot work from bad foot work. Your leg work subcatagory is just muddy water.

At post below (I am above the post number allowed in 24 hours) Um no it's not. Only by introducing some other device could you say that a person merly sticking there feet to holds is good foot work. Flaging/counerbalancing and good use of hips are all examples of foot work. Adding this subcatagory is again just confusing the issue. Basicly you have two ways to move up, your hands and feet. if its not hands then it's foot work.

@reboot. Yes I would call balance "foot work"

ummm, no.... it's a leeeeeetleee teeeeny bit more complicated than that...

gription wrote: I would classify someone who doees not know how to "move" with their legs as having poor foot work. The simple act of placing your foot on a hold and not falling is not good "footwork".

There are moves that are more foot intensive (typically smaller holds, or sometimes very directional holds) and there are moves that are mostly legs (jumping). If you want to conflate everything, that's fine. But then you can't separate any part of the body from another because the whole body has move together.

gription wrote:Flaging/counerbalancing and good use of hips are all examples of foot work.

That's usually called body positioning & *gasp* balance.

gription wrote: Basicly you have two ways to move up, your hands and feet. if its not hands then it's foot work.

Oh yeah, so how is your torso involved? Just dead weight?

reboot wrote: There are moves that are more foot intensive (typically smaller holds, or sometimes very directional holds) and there are moves that are mostly legs (jumping). If you want to conflate everything, that's fine. But then you can't separate any part of the body from another because the whole body has move together. That's usually called body positioning & *gasp* balance. Oh yeah, so how is your torso involved? Just dead weight?

I can think of a couple of times when I had a lateral abdominal muscle cramp up when I was trying to get a foot up high, and my abs getting terribly pumped and tight when I was trying to pull my body over a bulge.

Nivel Egres wrote: Would you say that an average gym climber aiming to send routes outdoors, develops good leg-work but not necessarily good footwork?

that is an excellent question nivel. the short answer is that gym climbing (in general) isn't optimal for developing some foot techniques and is very good for developing other types of footwork. for example, if you are wanting to learn to dagger straight in on small toe pockets, the gym is usually not great for this. however, if you want to learn to back step on sloping holds the gym is usually very good for this. ONE AREA WHERE GYM CLIMBING CAN KILL YOUR FOOTWORK IS NOT WATCHING YOUR FOOT ACTUALLY ENGAGE THE HOLD. this might be the biggest problem - usually the footholds are big enough that you don't really get penalized for this mistake like you would outside.

one of the biggest mistakes i see when somebody says that they have good footwork is that usually it is in only one or a handful of foot techniques. most often it is a person who climbs 5.10 slab and thinks that they have excellent footwork. developing foot techniques for slab climbing is generally one of the easiest of the types of footwork to acquire. your weight is generally right over your feet, most slab climbing is pretty frontal, and the climbing is fairly slow so you have a lot of time to accurately think about and place your feet.

let's look at some other types of footwork though, and ask yourself how comfortable you are with these situations. this can help you evaluate which types you will likely encounter on the routes you want to do, and come up with a way to train them.

slabby terrain with sharp edges
slabby terrain with knobs
slabby terrain with small pockets that require dagger front pointing
slabby terrain, pure friction on grippy rock
slabby terrain, pure friction on polished rock

now think of all of the above situations on vertical rock - they are actually quite different. we will also add:
vertical finger cracks (dagger toes and rand smearing)
vertical flared cracks (footwork that avoids stepping on the rope and gear)
vertical OW cracks - heel toe, heel straight in with torque, etc
vertical toe hooking - out to the side, preventing barn dooring
vertical toe hooking - in an 'undercling' fashion (hateful gutbuster for us tall guys)
vertical 90 degree stemming with edges
vertical obtuse stemming on pure friction (ninja stemming)
vertical heel hooking
vertical - very high outside ledge, laces down (yes that is correct) pulling in, and rotating it into soles down
vertical - good, high edge out to the side, really grabbing it with your toe to prevent barn dooring (this can be a mental challenge as well)
vertical high stepping with heel onto edge instead of toe

when you get to overhanging climbing you have all of these, and then some more. again, these are different than their vertical cases. for example, take front pointing into tiny toe pockets - this is a LOT different on overhanging terrain than it is on vertical terrain. so, we add:

bicycling - this is another one that can be brutal for tall folks
numerous different configurations of heel hooking
reverse heel toe for inversion offwidths
bat hooking - brutal for the muscles in your shins until you get used to it

as you can see, when somebody says they have good footwork there is a good chance they don't understand the entire spectrum. i look through this list and there are some areas where i have very good footwork (edging, overhanging small pockets, flares, OW). there are also areas where my footwork isn't so hot (toe hook underclinging on overhanging terrain, non-positive feet on overhanging terrain, high outside toe grabbing). also SPEED and accuracy of placement varies for different situations.

a person who understands footwork better than i do would probably point out 50 types that i have omitted.

reboot wrote: Oh yeah, so how is your torso involved? Just dead weight?

hey now, that dead weight can help keep your weight over your feet when you are paddling up some slab....

Don't forget your inner Cha.
Have you located your Cha?

slim wrote: that is an excellent question nivel. the short answer is that gym climbing (in general) isn't optimal for developing some foot techniques and is very good for developing other types of footwork.

Can you also list some legworks so we can better visualize them?

Buff Johnson wrote:Don't forget your inner Cha. Have you located your Cha?

I did forget. I put up something over in lost and found but everybody said my Cha is booty now.

1) Nobody has perfect technique, including Ondra, or he'd flash everything
2) The guys I know flashing V8 do not include a single person in 'average shape' but then again, none of them have perfect technique. Nobody does.
3) I think we can see where this is coming down to a rhetorical statement (attributed) from a teen. Oh well.

I'm still having fun on the climbs I do.

aikibujin wrote: Can you also list some legworks so we can better visualize them?

leg works

aikibujin wrote: Can you also list some legworks so we can better visualize them?

sorry i am slow to reply, was out of town for work.

there are a lot of different leg techniques as well, and a climber could be great in one area and deficient in another. some quick examples:

face climbing with a high step; if the hold is pretty much straight in front of me i can usually get the inside of my toe on it and stand up ok. however, if it is out to the side it is tough for me to do so in a fairly static manner. if it is too stretched out and i can't initiate the movement by pushing off with the lower foot, i am going to have trouble with it. also, backstepping on a very high hold - i can do this ok with my left leg, but almost not at all with my right leg (my left is a LOT stronger than my right).

another example, laying back a wide crack. you can have both feet on the main wall. you can chicken leg/knee bar with your knee on the main wall and your heel on the corner wall. you can calf hook the corner wall. and, my favorite, you can have your foot on the main wall inside the crack and 'layback' off your lower leg using your calf on the corner wall.

dropknees; most folks are pretty good doing a dropknee on the higher foot, but it is a lot harder to do it on the lower foot. some folks might have knee issues that prevent them from generating a lot of torque and really getting the full benefit of the dropknee.

OW cracks; a lot of learning how to climb OW cracks is learning to use your arms like legs and your legs like arms. you are often 'pulling' on the upper leg and 'pushing' with the lower leg.

as you can see, there is a broad spectrum of legwork techniques - from face climbing to stemming to chimneying, etc. if you really look at them, they can be pretty independent of footwork.

So here's something I found pretty interesting. Here are the routes Ondra has climbed since he red pointed his first 8a till December 2014. With 548 on-sights (granted in 12 years) of 13b or harder, Id say this guy has damn near perfect technique. I think that's just onsighting for you. You have to figure out the moves before you run out of gas.

Number of ascended routes
Grade Redpoint Flash On-sight Total
9b+ (5.15c) 3 3
9b (5.15b) 9 9
9a+ (5.15a) 20 20
9a (5.14d) 64 1 3 68
8c+ (5.14c) 96 15 111
8c (5.14b) 93 1 36 130
8b+ (5.14a) 66 3 53 122
8b (5.13d) 88 15 112 215
8a+ (5.13c) 60 15 164 239
8a (5.13b) 49 31 165 245
Total. 548 66 548 1162

Difficult to read above so here's a picture.

Ondra route breakdown

slim wrote: ....toe, foot, backstepping, feet, heel, foot, foot, foot, footwork.

This is how I read your post.

Jake Jones wrote:Are you entirely sure he wasn't referring to drinking a V8?

He was definitely referring to drinking a V8. I drink a V8 energy drink before I boulder and it really helps me get off the strugglebus on those V0's.

I would agree with this to an extent. I climb v9/10 and I wouldn't consider myself to be overly strong, especially compared to my friends that climb at the same level (or slightly above). I generally have to find very different ways to do things, especially when the style of climbing does not suit me well- such as really powerful moves. I am most successful on climbs that range from slabby to gently overhanging, particularly crimpy lines, that are more about being able to use good footwork and technique to take weight off your hands. I still have a lot that I can improve technique wise, particularly on steeper climbs, like getting better at toe hooks, bicycles and overall body positioning.

I can sympathize with other people that this isn't necessarily reachable for everyone, but it's probably more possible than people realize.

Adam is definitely one of the most flexible climbers out there, with amazingly good technique. His ability to read body positioning and foot placement so perfectly on onsights and flashes is pretty incredible.

The problem is when you start climbing harder it destroys the view of easier stuff. You can't grade easy stuff anymore. I climb alot with whoever i can and have run into alot of cases where i was like hey this is really easy lets go do this, and the other newer climber was completely unable to do it. If you climb V10 you have no idea what a V5 really is.

Your climbing style also plays alot into it, So you can climb a V10 of x style doesn't mean you can touch a V6 of y style.

gription wrote: This is how I read your post.

i'm not surprised, looking at your tick list... it takes a lot of experience on a lot of types of rock and climbing styles to really understand these things.

Thanks Slim, for the listing. Two questions:

slim wrote: another example, laying back a wide crack. you can have both feet on the main wall. you can chicken leg/knee bar with your knee on the main wall and your heel on the corner wall. you can calf hook the corner wall. and, my favorite, you can have your foot on the main wall inside the crack and 'layback' off your lower leg using your calf on the corner wall.

1) It sounds like these are all for a wide crack in a corner. What do you mean by 'calf hook the corner wall'?

slim wrote: dropknees; most folks are pretty good doing a dropknee on the higher foot, but it is a lot harder to do it on the lower foot. some folks might have knee issues that prevent them from generating a lot of torque and really getting the full benefit of the dropknee.

2) About the lower-foot case: I don't recall ever seeing anyone do this, except maybe in a corner. Do you have a picture of someone doing this move?