Recently, I’ve had a lot of people asking me questions about my climbing. I’ve responded to the questions “why do you like zone format better” and “what does your 75 minute warmup consist of”. I thought I’d add a page to my website so people could ask me more questions.
You can ask any sort of question and I’ll try to find the time to either answer in the comments if it’s quick, or most likely write a post about it. The better the questions, the longer my answer will probably be. This page is new, but I’ve had it in my mind for a while. Start asking!
Note: I’ve limited the number of comments per page to avoid having to scroll very far down the page. The newest question that was answered will be at the bottom. You can always find older questions by clicking “older comments”
Hey Sean,
I was wondering if you used off the shelf gear. For instance, are your La Sportiva Solutions just the regular solutions anyone could buy or are they tailored to your specific needs?
A bunch of other questions:
How long do your shoes last?
What are your favorite shoes and why?
Do you use specific shoes for certain problems?
Whats your reg shoe size vs. climbing shoe size?
Do you ever use socks inside your shoes?
What do you do with your old shoes?
Do you think shoe brand and model make that big of a difference?
Do your shoes smell funky and how to do you combat it?
Thanks
I use 100% off the shelf gear. I find it also wouldn’t make too much sense if they made “exclusive” gear for their sponsored athletes. The main point of sponsorship is to promote the brand!
Now for your other questions:
a) I have a ton of different shoes for different purposes. If I wore only one pair of shoes, they’d probably last around 3 months.
b) I love the solution because of the variety of climbs I can do in them. I find I’m actually a better climber when I’m wearing them so I train in different shoes.
c) I rarely use specific shoes for problems. I generally just wear solutions, pythons or muira VS if it’s outdoor on tufas or something like that.
d) I wear size 41 in Street shoe and only downsize to 37.5 across the board. Downsizing 4 sizes I find is an old school method.
e) The only time I’ll wear socks inside my shoes is if it’s colder than -12, or if I forget my shoes and have to use rentals ^^.
f) If my old shoes are still usable, I’ll give them to whoever needs / wants them. If not, I get rid of them.
g) Shoe brand and model definitely make a difference. The rubber is the biggest factor, and smaller factors are how well the shoe stays on your foot. During a competition, you don’t want your heel popping out of a crucial heel hook or something of that matter. For some climbers who don’t need to use their feet, I would think that this matters less?
h) I find my shoes don’t smell bad, I suggest keeping them in a clean non-humid place to store them. I also have a shower every day which keeps my feet clean!
Hope you like my answers
Hey Sean,
I can’t crimp! I open hand everything and its a huge disadvantage. I’ve always openhanded. I climb around V7-8ish, but I have to pick and choose my sends since I am so weak on crimps. I was wondering if you could suggest some exercises to strengthen my crimping ability. I’ve been told that deadhang workouts are supposed to be good, but I don’t really know how to structure such a workout.
Thanks and good luck at the ABS,
Jesse
All I did was use open hand until a handful of years ago. It uses less energy, the downside is that you can’t pull as far. If you want to get better at close position crimping, deadhand workouts are the way to go. When you do your deadhang workouts, make sure that you stay in closed crimp position. You’ll find that the first few days, you’ll fall out of close crimp position fairly fast. When it happens, jump down, rest, and go again. There’s no point in hanging there longer if you’ve lost the “posture” of the close crimp. That’s what I did to get better at crimping, and it somewhat worked, I feel more in control crimping now, although I still prefer open hand.
For the workout, I’d say you’re aiming to hang there for 10-20 seconds. If you can do it longer than 20, then the hold is too good. Less than 10 is not so bad, but less than 5-7 is too hard. I’d recommend 1-2 minutes rest in between each set. Another one is crimp ups. You start in a crimp position, and fall down into open hand. Then you use a bit of momentum and crimp back up into the close hand position. This is very dangerous though, and I’d recommend you start this drill using footholds before you try to do it straight hanging. When you start to lose to posture in your hands to get back up into a full crimp, jump down, rest, and start again.
Thanks for the fast reply. I’m gonna give this a try during my next session!
Really interesting exercise Sean. I had a same problem as Jesse. Last year I start with crimp deadhangs and it helps a lot (crimp without thumb). I know crimp ups too but I never try to make them. What kind of activity is good to connect with it? (I mean for example do it with fingerboarding, bouldering, campus boarding…)
thank you
I would say that campus board workouts are the best as it can work on dynamic movement. I’ve never done any hard finger board workouts with the exception of deadhangs.
Hi Sean, I hope your fine. I am really happy to recieve your help. thanks for all answers.
I have two question.
1. when you said “I’ve never done any hard finger board workouts with the exception of deadhangs.” how is your deadhangs? how long? how hard? how much time?
2. when you practice deadhangs, do you climb too?
thanls again.
Hans
I try to go on the smallest holds I can hold for at least 5 seconds. Ideally, I’d like to hang between 5-15 seconds. If I can do more than 15 seconds, I can add some weight. I do it maybe 5 times with a good 2 minute rest in between.
Whenever I do deadhangs, I usually do a very good warm up, then straight into this. After the deadhangs, then I can go and do some circuits or hard bouldering after. I find it’s important to do the deadhangs at the beginning of the workout so you’re fresh!
Can you recommend any good exercises to improve lock-off strength? I’m particularly interested in one-arm lock-offs. The exercises i vary between are pull-ups, weighted pull-ups and frenchies (sometimes also ‘typewriter’) but I only do either of these once a week because I boulder quite a lot.
Thx
Improving lock off strength is just training I find. You start with average size holds and lock off for 10-15 seconds. Then make the holds smaller and smaller, the same thing with the feet. While you’re locking off, don’t just try to stay in one position, always almost try to move higher and higher with the lock offs. I’m afraid I don’t know anything super specific for lock offs besides repetition
Thanks, I figure repetition might be the best way. Good luck in ABS! I’ll be cheering for you for sure!