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Open forum

Do I climb adequately

Hi, I know this is a bit weird question, but I have to ask: Is it adequate to climb 6b+ after two years? My weight is 79 kg (was 95 a year ago) and my height is 190 cm. I was starting with 4. thx for comments, Regards, Tibor
Pano
sorry to say but that is an question that you can only answer.. what is adequate anyway?? - just as long as you are enjoying it,its all good
Interesting question! For most of us (not the lucky bastards that climb 7b after their first season) it seems we develop rapidly for a year or two moving up into the grade 6 spectrum. Then we plateau, perhaps because we have figured out the basics, got rid of our beginner´s errors and grown a bit stronger. This would probably be true in any sport. Your curve is by no means unusual, and actually pretty good. Me, I climbed for 15 years and I still only on-sight 6c occasionally. On the other hand I focus a lot on long routes, trad climbing, climbing with my family and giving courses.  But I have developed in other ways, widening my repertoir, meaning I can climb almost any route within my grade, I can climb in varying conditions, I can place safe protection, and I´m still alive. To develop further from our plateau it´s usually a matter of changing tactics and increasing training volume. Three training sessions a week is often quoted as required to develop in any sport, for example. But beware now. If you move to fast you will risk injury now or in the next few years. Half the climbers I know including me suffer from more or less chronic injuries due to bad training practises. Give yourself plenty of rest days, esepcially if you´re feeling pain in fingers or elbows. Talk to a physiotherapist at the first signs of reoccurring problems. You seem to have lost a lot of weight, which sounds good, but you are still a big guy at 1.90, so be careful and warm up well to reduce the risks to muscle and tendons. And work on your technique! Red point a lot! Work on you weak areas! Buy a book on the subject (such as "How to climb 5.12")! Talk to a sports climbing instructor or fellow climber that may be willing to coach! And as Fernando just wrote: if you´re having fun, then you´re doing all right. Don´t get fooled into comparing yourself with all the other gym rats. Good luck! John
If you are aiming at high grades - start training by a programme, start a sport diet to boost your post-training recovery time and so on. But if you are a weekend climber like me then I think 6b+ is pretty OK and you'd better not rush things too much. So... "Thumbs up!" Don't worry! Climb! Have fun! Improvements will come. :)
The most important thing is to enjoy. At 6b+ you can choose many routes, however at 7a you have more... I would say that the fastest improvement is to be fun from the mental approach. However, for some the mental improvemtent is to most difficult one. If I had the mental capacity as Said Belhaj, who I have been coaching since he was 13, I would immeadeately climb one grade harder. After two months of this training approach I would easily gain another grade. I would guess that you would go from 6b+ to 7a just by pushing harder. I would say, that most climbers could reach 7a in two years. I am not talking of any training programme or diet, just to enjoy and push the mental capacity.   
First of all thank you very much for your comment. I train 3-4 times a week, so this shouldn't be the problem. I do warm up with routes around 5, then increasing difficulty to maximum extend. And last saturday I was finally managing to climb a 7b in my gym (after trying for about 30 times all in all) :D , because there was a big airbag so I could do it without ropes, so my motivation is back ! I think this was essential, because I started to have a lack of self confidence ... Thanks guys for the comments and happy climbing!
What do you think the difference between 7b in a gym and 7b on real rock is? Is there a big difference? I almost never climb in a gym so I wouldn't know.
Hard to compare gradings. Some area's are graded harder than others and the same is true for climbing gyms. I would say that an outdoor climb can be less sustained than a typical indoor climb. This will be true for any grade. The routes are graded by the single hardest move. This means that an outdoor climb with only one 7b move will be graded as 7b. Whereas indoors it will be built with more 7b moves in sequence. The routes and holds are more obvious and predictable indoors though. In my experience indoor climbs can be more athletic and technical and outdoor require more physical strength. Outdoor I don't project much and prefer to onsight routes which means I climb in the 6b-7a range. Indoors I like to project more and will try harder routes as well.
The same grading theory apply for rock and indoor routes, with outdoor grades as the standard. If the community on an average, based on the same time invested, can climb one grade harder indoors. The routes/boulders have to be downgraded one grade. In general, I guess that less experienced climber and especially yougsters will find outdoor grades hard as compared to indoor routes where less technique and endurance is involved. Oldtimers and women who have been crimping hard on vertical routes since the 90-ties will have hard time to do the same grades on short very steep terrain indoors.