Pull ups vs grade climbed?

jay steinke wrote:

Buck, you need to lose 50 pounds

This sort of comment has no place here. Maybe you were joking. Maybe you're friends with Buck. But it could still be hurtful to a lot of people who would read it.

Yuri Rodea wrote: I do front lever pull ups but climb V4

Training is a waste of time haha

Work on your technique by climbing more

20+, v10

Pnelson wrote:

I also know plenty of climbers projecting >.14- who are nowhere near doing single-pad one-arms.

Obviously... you have to able to do one-arms on any hold before you can do one-arms on a small hold. And we know that one-armers are not a requisite to send .15-, let alone .14-. 

Carl Engelke wrote:

This sort of comment has no place here. Maybe you were joking. Maybe you're friends with Buck. But it could still be hurtful to a lot of people who would read it.

I am sorry Buck

I like the idea.

That being, I do not think the correlation will be that strong, either. It perhaps would be better on steeper routes for sport, or bouldering I expect. I would think it's likely to be bad for trad as well.

Lena chita wrote:

I would agree with that— but, I don’t think it is a measurable attribute for say, a climber who can climb 5.9 VS a climber tho can climb 5.12. The majority of 5.12 climbers can’t do 1-arm pull-ups, no more than 5.9 climbers can. 

^^^ this.

I feel that as climbers, we often forget that there's a difference between elite athletes and us, mere avid climbers.

Perhaps a better way to try to predict correlate grades with some physical test, a checklist of elements of increasing in difficulty. Something yes/no such as can do at least 1 pullup, campus 1-2-3, campus 1-3-5, hang on big crimp X time, etc.

The correlation is due to strength to weight ratio. If you are light you can climb (and do more pullups) at a higher grade if strength is the same. 2 climbers who are the same strength and weight will get similar results. However - if one of them puts a 30 # weight vest on, both the amount of pullups and the grades relative to the person with no weight added changes. Try it yourself.

It's diffuicult to answer the bouldring thing. When I climbed hard, B2 was the hardest bouldering grade. Once B3, then deemed impossible was climbed, it became a B2. 

When I was younger, 35 and 5.13.  I’m guessing maybe 15 now.  Lots of pull-ups, Bachar Ladder and weighted pull-ups may be why I have so much arthritis in my elbows now. 

15 chin-ups, 20 pull-ups, 5.7 sport lead.
I get a lot of elbow tendonitis that holds me back from climbing harder. But I mostly do mountaineering, so I prefer to scramble and do low 5th class when possible. Rappelling is fun. I guess for me it's less about how hard I can climb and more about how gnarly my death might be.

jay steinke wrote:

Buck, you need to lose 50 pounds haha

I am a man, not a boy. 

pkeds wrote:

As a science nerd, I look at a graph like that, and think, the slope of that line is driven by a very small number of data points. Also, don’t know what the blue “error bar” interval is graphing  it can’t be StDev, or CI, it is way too small  

1)it’s max weight pull-ups, not the number of pull-ups. As a number of people in this thread have suggested, max weight pull-ups might be better predictors, instead of just number of body weight pull-ups.

2)  Even so, Look at the bulk of the responders: majority of people responding are climbing between v5 and V10. The number of pull-ups are basically flat, with a large spread, if you look in the V5 to V9 range. You start seeing an increase (but the group also gets smaller) at v10. 

if you compare V4-and-below climbers to V10+ climbers, you would absolutely see a difference in the max weight pull-ups, as well as one-arm pull-ups, fingertip pull-ups, etc. 

But you simply can’t look at this data and come away with the idea that training pull-ups is important for that dude asking how he progresses beyond the V5 plateau.

I thought my 15 pullups kinda sucked, as I could do almost 30 when I was young. Turns out some really strong climbers on here are in the same area. I am humbled at my crappy climbing ability. I figured most double digit boulderers could do 50-75. 

I can do 16 pull-ups and I am a consistent 5.11 climber.

Doug Chism wrote: I thought my 15 pullups kinda sucked, as I could do almost 30 when I was young. Turns out some really strong climbers on here are in the same area. I am humbled at my crappy climbing ability. I figured most double digit boulderers could do 50-75. 

Nah pull ups dont matter too much. Core is key. Gotta toe down.

☔️

Yall realize, if powercompanyclimbing threw out that one weakmo outlier climbing v15 the regression would be stronger. Too much leverage.

When I started climbing, I could do 25+ pull ups with good form, yet it took me a while to finish my first V0 boulder problem.

Doug Chism wrote: I thought my 15 pullups kinda sucked, as I could do almost 30 when I was young. Turns out some really strong climbers on here are in the same area. I am humbled at my crappy climbing ability. I figured most double digit boulderers could do 50-75. 

Doing 50 pull ups is like running a marathon.  You have muscles but they are the wrong type of muscle. If you train to do more than 20 pull ups and don't also train some fast harder pulls, weighted or one arm, you will actually get weaker max strength from the work outs. 

Bouldering hard requires hard pulls more than endurance. Sport climbing varies on what is required based on the type of climbing, but at no point will 75 pull ups be required. 

Leron wrote:

Doing 50 pull ups is like running a marathon.  You have muscles but they are the wrong type of muscle. If you train to do more than 20 pull ups and don't also train some fast harder pulls, weighted or one arm, you will actually get weaker max strength from the work outs. 

Bouldering hard requires hard pulls more than endurance. Sport climbing varies on what is required based on the type of climbing, but at no point will 75 pull ups be required.

Good points! A lot of people think that if 10 pullups is good, then 20 pullups must be better. And that is just not the case.

I actually worked with Kris Hampton/Power Company this winter and did the assessment. I'm one of those dots just below 1.4 on the weighted pullups chart, about 1.38, very close to the mid-range line. Same is true for body-weight pullups, I was just an unremarkable mid-range point.

But one of the things that surprised me, in my personal weakness, was the explosive chest-to-the-bar pullups. Doing just 3 of those was way harder for me than doing 9-10 strict no-kipping bodyweight pullups. In retrospect, makes sense, as I always struggle with power. The other thing that was a surprising weakness was doing one-arm scapular retraction. I thought that, for sure, I could do that. I am not great at campusing, but I can do basic ladders, and touches, etc, so obviously I can initiate the move one-armed, even if I can't do the 1-arm pullup, I should be able to do that initial "shrug" motion. Hahaha! No, I can't do the one-arm shoulder retraction yet. I quickly figured out that it is easy to "cheat" and use momentum on campus board, vs just starting from one-arm dead hang, and pulling the shoulder blade in. It's one of the things I have been working on.