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napoleon_in_rags
Dec 13, 2004, 11:33 PM
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I know a lot of Trad climbers and a lot of boulderers and the boulderers are always skinnier. Why is this?
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caughtinside
Dec 13, 2004, 11:35 PM
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The trad climbers have decided to forego conditioning, so that they can focus on the mental toughness necessary for that 5.8 runout. You wouldn't understand. :P
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johnhemlock
Dec 13, 2004, 11:38 PM
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Twinkies and beef jerky and hoagie sandwiches don't fit in a chalk bag.
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lazyjammin
Dec 13, 2004, 11:39 PM
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yeah Ive noticed that too. maybe skinny people like bouldering better, since it takes less power to pull around less weight which makes the hard moves on a boulder problem easier for little people.
Do boulderers really condition?
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chugach001
Dec 13, 2004, 11:42 PM
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Personal experience; beer and age.
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wanderinfree
Dec 13, 2004, 11:44 PM
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Because skinny people tend to bonk faster on long trad routes. Plus, if you add 15 lbs of trad gear to your waist while climbing, you tend to build more muscle. I prefer to refer to my fat as insulation for alpine. :D
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maldaly
Dec 13, 2004, 11:44 PM
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If you have money for trad gear then you have money for food.
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reno
Dec 13, 2004, 11:46 PM
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In reply to: I prefer to refer to my fat as insulation for alpine. :D
I agree totally. (Not that I'm saying Kim is fat... )
Insulation for those occasional forced bivies on a small ledge on the 9th pitch.
Ain't never heard of a boulderer having to bivy.
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bouldertom
Dec 13, 2004, 11:55 PM
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In the situation that you run out of HoHos and beer by pitch nine, you can cannibalize your partner. I imagine a partner with the stature of "most" boulderers wouldn't give me enough protein to solo the rest of the route.
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g
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Dec 13, 2004, 11:57 PM
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Funny, I never thought of myself as being fat.
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napoleon_in_rags
Dec 14, 2004, 12:04 AM
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In reply to: Because skinny people tend to bonk faster on long trad routes. Plus, if you add 15 lbs of trad gear to your waist while climbing, you tend to build more muscle. :D
I am not talkin muscle, I am talking FAT!!! LOL
I know tradsters that will spend an extra 40 bucks on a parka beacause it weighs 2 ounces less look at you like an alien if suggest running a wee bit more or cutting back on the beer to lose a few pounds.
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davidji
Dec 14, 2004, 12:18 AM
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*** deleted ***
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forkliftdaddy
Dec 14, 2004, 12:50 AM
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i think this has to do with the following:
- trad takes time. time to learn, time to do, time to progress, time to build endurance. there's little instant gratification.
- trad is expensive. there's a $1000 entry fee to your local trad crag.
- bouldering is hard. a higher level of fitness is required to crank V4 than 5.4. trad climbing has more room for the beginning or unfit climber.
- boulderers tend to be younger for various reasons (more hype, less commitment, less expense) and, sadly, every day we are alive seems to be a another opportunity to sit on our butts, gain weight, lose fitness. as the bouldering community ages, it will grow less fit.
but what about this word fitness? "fitness" as used by the original poster seems to refer to visible qualities, muscles and fat, and possibly power. this is an incomplete measure of fitness. it does not include endurance (or mental fitness). climbing a 10 pitch 5.9 at 11,000 ft. is very different from climbing 25 problems in a day. toting a trad rack to the cliff and back is much more work than toting a pad, shoes and chalk pot.
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healyje
Dec 14, 2004, 1:58 AM
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I'd be way more impressed with all this [troll] posing if even one out of thirty of the [young] boulderers that haunt your average gym could pull a V1 when run out 25-30 feet from their last placement on the eleventh pitch of a trad route above 4000 feet elevation...
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fracture
Dec 14, 2004, 2:14 AM
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In reply to: I'd be way more impressed with all this [troll] posing if even one out of thirty of the [young] boulderers that haunt your average gym could pull a V1 when run out 25-30 feet from their last placement on the eleventh pitch of a trad route above 4000 feet elevation...
Yeah....that'd be cool. Similarly it'd also be pretty cool if even one out of thirty of your (old, fat) trad climbers could pull a V1 anywhere. Too bad they mostly peak at difficulty levels too easy for said bouldering kids to warmup on.
:lol:
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healyje
Dec 14, 2004, 8:04 AM
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Fracture...! Careful you're getting easy to troll... 8^)
And true back at you, and, hell besides, we want all these kids to stay ground pounders, the sky is crowded enough as is...
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subtle
Dec 14, 2004, 1:48 PM
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Ah, I love the Stock Trad Rebuttal...
"Yeeerp, you beanie wearin' freaks wouldn't have a chance up there on pitch 729 of 5.6 Tower of Terror...Brother, those jugs thin out so bad you can barely get half your hand on 'em, and I once had to use just the toe of my shoe...the toe! Can you feature it?!?"
Fact of the matter is, there are people (Trotter, Caldwell, etc.) climbing trad and big wall almost as hard as the stoutest sport leads. Granted, nobody is coming close to pure bouldering in terms of crux move difficulty, simply because if you stuck a V15/16 crux on any sort of real endurance route, it'd be 5.18c or something preposterous. If you're going to defend trad, you might want to look there for support, not that played out "my sack is bigger than yours" chestnut.
But, Trad climbers of the world, please know that a 5.7 move is still a 5.7 move 5 feet off the deck or 5000. This is even truer if, as so many of you claim, a properly placed nut/cam/pinecone with a shoelace is just as strong as a bolt. If that's the case, then you're running out a sport route...like everybody else does. Congratulations.
Why are some Trad climbers fatter? Because they can be, I suppose. Go look at a V7 crimp...it's not that big...Given X surface area and Y skin adhesion, past a certain amount of weight, you just won't stick to it. I know a solid V10 climber who recently crimped his way through an overhanging dry tooling problem...sick...after a solid dinner of an egg white with some ketchup. He's about 130, and trying to diet back down to the healthy, healthy weight of 115 at about 5'9" tall.
Then you have to get a special spectra light-weight Prana beanie, I'm told.
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napoleon_in_rags
Dec 14, 2004, 4:57 PM
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In reply to: but what about this word fitness? "fitness" as used by the original poster seems to refer to visible qualities, muscles and fat, and possibly power. this is an incomplete measure of fitness.
I ain't talkin about fitness, I'm talking about fatness!!!!. Love Handles!!! Tubs of Jelly!!!! Pork Bellies!!!! Junk in the Trunk!!!! Beer Gut!!! Winter Fat!!!! Blubber!!!!!
Listening to some of you talk, you'd think fat leads to Endurance. Hell, call all the Olympic marathon runners and tell them to start eating the twinkies!!! If they want better endurance, they had better gain a few pounds.
About the only sport I can think of where fat helps is long distance swimming because that layer of blubber is more insulation. In Climbing (and I mean all types) being 10 lbs overweight means you have to haul an additional 10 lbs up the crag. If you want to have better endurance, any easy way is lose weight.
If anything, boulderers should be fatter than tradsters because theye are only going 10 feet not 1000.
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healyje
Dec 14, 2004, 5:44 PM
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In reply to: Ah, I love the Stock Trad Rebuttal...
Ah, and I love the Stock Boulderers Rebuttal: somewhere, somewhere there is a boulderer/sport climber doing hard trad. Again, if you look at the overall percentages of trad climbers that boulder/sport hard vs. the number of boulderers/sport folk that climb hard trad the trad folks have it all over you guys. As percentage of your numbers, only a small number of you lead trad at all, and of that number the majority exhibit the "deer in the headlights" syndrome about 10 feet out from their last piece of pro.
Gill [Bachar, etc.] led hard trad and bouldered hard, an example more of you might consider following given for all practical purposes he invented the activity. The fact that climbers are now spread out into a [spectral] gradient of a large base of boulderers, some of whom sport, and of those a few that trad is a sad result of two decades of gym climbing.
Pulling hard moves is only one third of the [trad] climbing experience - the fact that many if not most of you are either unwilling or unable to master the technical and emotional demands of trad climbing and opt for a one dimensional experience isn't something I'd brag about personally. Trolls such as this thread reflect a lack of respect for how your activity came to be and for folks capable of taking full responsibility for their existence in an aerial context somewhat higher than your average truffle hunt.
Any serious boulderer with a boredom threshold lower than your average suburbanite will eventually sport and then progress to trad, but most never escape the codependent confines of their social pod. Aspire to be more than one of the 99.9% that simply point out the fact that a Sharma or Caldwell can climb hard trad - get a rack and start leading - even if it means starting on a 5.6 and building up some stones to go with all those moves.
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joeschmoe
Dec 14, 2004, 7:25 PM
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ahhh it's so refreshing to hear a new twist on the my dick is bigger than your dick argument. so refreshing.... :roll:
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subtle
Dec 14, 2004, 7:30 PM
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Yes, yes, it's all true. I (and presumably every other boulderer) have been relegated to the junior varsity rocks because of our inability to master the "technical and emotional demands of trad climbing". I, also, blame it on my "boredom threshold lower than your average suburbanite" and my lack of "stones" that has led me to seek comfort in my "codependent confines" of my "social pod".
I'm so glad that you "Hard Trad" folks have it "have it all over you guys"...since this is apparently some sort of a contest, and I wanted to know the score. I do so admire the cognitive flexibility that it takes to simultaneous assert intellectual, spiritual, emotional, physical and, let us not forget, "stones" superiority over all other disciplines.
You know, I shouldn't be surprised to have stirred up something like this. I do make fun of Trad people...about 1/3rd as much as I make fun of boulderers. The boulderers generally laugh about it, and some of the Trad people have an alarming tendency to get all bunged up and present an intellectual discourse on the superiority of thier interpretation of the sport.
The difference between you and I, friend, is I don't think any form of climbing is better than any other.
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yanqui
Dec 14, 2004, 7:35 PM
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In reply to: I know a lot of Trad climbers and a lot of boulderers and the boulderers are always skinnier. Why is this? |
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nevenneve
Dec 14, 2004, 7:39 PM
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:lol: This is the reason internet forums exist. Last night at the gym I questioned a trad climber as to why he was wearing a weight vest. I reasoned that an extra ten pounds pulling down on your shoulders while resting against the abs was inefficient and non sport specific. A boulderer happened along and pulled me away, while trad climber started a route. Out of courtesy I returned to the trad climber and told him that the boulderer pointed out his balls weigh ten pounds. He fell off the route.
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