How the World's Most Difficult Bouldering Problems Get Made (2015) | Hacker News Reader

How the World's Most Difficult Bouldering Problems Get Made (2015)

outsideonline.com

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I think this article doesn't really explain what the setters are focusing on here, and it's actually quite interesting. When setting for a bouldering competition, the problems you create must satisfy very precise constraints: namely, create good separation between competitors, but still be entertaining for spectators. Separation is the hard part. In finals you have a handful of competitors doing a handful of problems, and the perfect separation you're going for is something like this:

    1st place: 4 tops
    2st place: 3 tops
    3rd place: 2 tops
    ...

Of course this rarely ever happens, but it's approximately what you're aiming for. It's hard. You have to know the exact level of the competitors that are participating, and fine-tune the difficulty of the problems so that they will be nicely separated, preferably without depending on height/reach or overly specific strengths. Even world-class setters sometimes fail at this, for example creating a world cup where almost every finalist gets 1 top, leaving only the number of attempts (or zones) to separate them. There's still technically separation, but it's catastrophically frustrating for spectators and competitors, and the results will be less likely to reflect each competitor's actual climbing skill. With all that, you also want the problems to have creative and interesting moves that get the crowd going wild (but that's really the fun part of setting). Source: I'm a routesetter, both regular gym climbs and competitions.

> preferably without depending on height/reach or overly specific strengths.

How do you attain this? From an amateur hobbyist eye it seems that bouldering as a sport favours lean + tall builds -> Reach + light-weight advantage. How do you set routes that disadvantage this type?

Surprisingly, there's a bit of a bell curve, maxing out at 5'9" being the ideal height. But it only makes about a single grade of difference.

Short folk have incredible strength to weight ratios and fine motor control from short levers. Tall people can reach farther, but can't apply the necessary force or use tiny holds as well. It all evens out in the long run, though you'll see big differences for individual lines that target a single style.

My wife and I climb at the same level despite a foot of height difference. She stays away from my long throws and compression problems. I try not to feel the tiny crimps on her projects, and it all works out in the end.

Agreed with tiny holds causing problems. But I presumed it was a grip strength problem, which still doesn't take away from my advantage as a tall-leaner. Though it could also be because I must've not done challenging routes.

It is. But again, with longer fingers you need more strength to produce the same force at the fingertip (because you're applying muscle force to the short end of the lever). Combined with the extra weight from the rest of a longer body, it makes pulling on small holds a lot harder for tall folk.

But then we can often simply reach past those small holds to the big jug beyond, so it tends to work itself out.

I can confirm this - as 188cm tall guy, even if I can reach further, the strain i get on my fingers from my relatively heavy body is taking its toll on the fingers. I can't climb few days in a row, would end up with tendinitis.

It doesn't help that I have a 'flexible type' of the body (can bend like crazy, but tendons/ligament injuries across whole body are much more common). And I started with climbing when I was 30, unlike many in their teens who seem to climb much harder without big effort.

If I would be a competitive person, I would be very frustrated with my little climbing progress. But instead I enjoy the constant challenge, the uneasiness of hard routes, the mental push through in cruxes. As they say, life begins where comfort zone ends. Overall, best sport for me for the warm days (rock experience is vastly superior to gym one), and ski touring/alpinism for the cold ones.

Ideally, setters should put up a variety of moves and problems that slightly favor different body types. Also ideally, have forerunners of different body types, and fix the problem if it takes discrimination too far (eg. a move that's literally impossible if you're a bit too short).

I'm tall and lean-ish, and my nemesis are those problems where you are compressed in a tight package... Depending on the climber's own physique and technique, the same problem can often be attacked in completely different ways.

As a lean and tall bouldering amateur, anything where my feet gets close to my hands will be extremely hard to keep. Sample size of 1.

Make that two :). To elaborate: different body sizes give you different balance points, different leverage and different angles of attack. That can make specific moves harder for taller people.

Are you familiar with Teknik Holds? A guy I've known from around the gym most of my life founded the company. I'm getting back into climbing after a long hiatus, and I ran into him a few weeks ago. Later on I looked up his company and apparently there are a lot of competition routesetters out there who swear by his holds, and that the style of holds he shaped were quite influential. I'm not sure if I got the right impression or not.

Totally! Teknik is one of the most popular makers out there. A while back I set a steep problem with only holds from their "geomatics" series, they're great to work with. (PS I'm out for tonight)

Awesome, that's great to hear. I remember when he brought his first batch out to the local gym in the late 90s, and those holds exploited all kinds of weaknesses I didn't know I had. They were totally different from any plastic I had climbed on before, and now the gyms are dominated by holds like what he was making. I was never sure if he was following a trend, or setting it.

If one likes the "bouldering is problem solving like programming is problem solving" paradigm, you may enjoy training tools like the Moon Board, which is an array of holds spaced out uniformly with problems programmed in using LEDs (use only the holds where the LEDs are on). You can share the same problem around the world- anywhere there's another moonboard, and collaborate that way.

https://www.moonboard.com

In case anyone isn't already familiar with indoor bouldering, here's a great competition video: https://youtu.be/uHlV_nLLXLc?t=49

Cannot recommend bouldering enough. Problem-solving minds tend to love it.

I’m more into mountain stuff when it comes to climbing, but I will be the first to say bouldering is such a beautiful balance of strength and finesse. It kind of has a “yoga” feel to it, in that it’s all about deliberate motion through the moves.

Bouldering is the ultimate exercise form for me: it's physically taxing, and I don't even care because my brain is enjoying the challenge too much! I can't commit to running, cycling or swimming because 30s in, I start to think about all the stuff I could be doing instead; when I'm bouldering, there's nothing else in my mind except for the problem :)

That's a shame, because cycling is absolutely incredible. Running or swimming? Eh, screw those.

I'd definitely enjoy cycling more if I didn't live in central London, which makes it more of a "death wish experience with lungfuls of toxic shit" than I'd like :)

That was an awesome move at the end!

I loved rock climbing, but overdid it by doing it 2 times per week in combination with squash and badminton. Too much for the tendons of my arms, and it never really went away.

One of my favorite childhood memories was going to Fontainebleau, just south or Paris. They have fantastic outdoor bouldering there.

25 years later I went back there for my honeymoon and it was just a great as I remembered.

Part of the joy of bouldering for me has been putting tons of pressure on my tendons/joints/pulleys and then figuring out how to get them conditioned to endure the strain. I used to get such bad tennis elbow that I would have to lay on the floor after climbing, elbows just aching for 1-2 hours. Stretching, long warmups, yoga, foam rolling & other fascial releases, diet (collagen & fish oil especially) have gotten them to the point where they can take an insane amount of abuse and keep going, Now I am working on my fingers :).

There is a kind of glamorization of these really intense training sessions in the workout community, but the real work and struggle is rehabilitating injuries, and having the patience for the best practices that allow you to train hard safely at the next level.

I'd recommend anyone curious about bouldering get into simply top rope climbing first. Bouldering is HARD which isn't so much the real problem, but it can also be frustrating. Some problem solving strategies like throwing yourself into the problem (metaphorically)can result in nasty injuries and a short bouldering career.

Get some easy climbing mileage!

Starting easy is definitely sage advice, but I like recommending bouldering for the simple fact that you can just go. You don't have to start by scheduling ahead and paying for a class, coming back the next day to get a belay card, and then finding a partner with an agreeable schedule (or scheduling and paying for a gym-staff belayer).

Most gyms are catering heavily to beginners nowadays and offer tons of beginner problems. If you've never been bouldering before and curiosity strikes on a Saturday morning, you can literally drive to a gym, sign a waiver, rent shoes, and start climbing the walls, usually for about $25 or less depending on your location.

Of course, this isn't without risk. If anyone reading this decides to do it, take at least a few minutes to learn the gym etiquette and start slow!

When I take friends climbing for the first time, I start them on top-roping. That way they get used to how climbing works, without the fear of falling or having to learn how to climb down. (Down-climbing, even with extra handles, can be difficult when you've used up all of your energy getting to the top.) And they get to enjoy coming back down as a sort of victory lap.

After that, we go bouldering. There are plenty of intro and V1 problems they can do even on a first try, now that they've got a general introduction to the concepts. And I get to show off a few mid-grade problems to aspire to. (I'm only a V3-V4 climber myself.)

I prefer to boulder myself, because I can do it without any coordination. But you need somebody there to help you on your first day, and top-roping has a lot of advantages for new climbers.

Bouldering is HARD

It's as hard as you want it to be.

Here in Fontainebleau, there are bouldering circuits in the forest set for the level of our three year old. (Seriously. Painted with little pink hearts next to the arrows).

They get used, too. Even for me, climbing pretty hard these days, I'll often run off and do an easy Blue or even easier Orange circuit just for the joy of movement over 40-80 nice problems, few of which would even get a V0 if you translated the grade across.

The difficulty scale goes as far as you want in either direction.

Can we compare difficulty levels with children? They seem to be naturally better at climbing at that age. Faster recovery period and their tendons and ligaments seem to be able to handle their small weights well.

I bet there's a lot of things going on:

* children are smaller, so holds in general are proportionally larger

* children may have a different lower and upper body ratio (they've got shorter legs than adults), making them better suited for climbing.

* Better flexibility/mobility

* don't have to be (re)taught how to play

* perchance better strength/weight ratio

* relatively fearless

* usually can find a enthusiastic peer group that isn't so centered around competition/jealousy (similar to, "knows how to play")

* A lot of kids I see at the gym have parents that have been climbing half their own lives, so they've got incredible coaching from a trusted source, and an amazing cheerleading section. They'll be climbing most of their lives, if they decided to keep it up.

The only real detriment may be that problems in a gym setting aren't always made for their sized bodies, so some of the moves may be a bit reachy. A children's general creativity could allow them to solve such issues though.

Bouldering is as easy as you want it to be. The easiest routes are doable by people with no experience or much strength.

It seems to me that the learning curve is much more of a precipice, no? Of all the gym bouldering problems, only a few are rated for absolute beginners - the rest are much harder. Even the V-grade of, "0" is compared roughly to a 5.10 roped climb. In at least my bouldering space, you'll simply run out of things to do, quickly, as a beginner.

It may be also where I train, as the gym isn't one specifically geared towards beginners, the grades may not be as inflated as other places, and the route setters read like a who's-who of American sport climbers (Matty Hong, Jon Cardwell, etc).

I think it's just your gym. I don't know about your grading system but with 2 being walkable, my bouldering gym has about a dozen 3s, a dozen 4s and a couple dozen 5s. Routes are replaced monthly or so.

Wow! That's almost a bit of watering down of the activity!

But again, I'm in a climbing epicenter (Boulder), so I can go outside and find V1's that are nigh impossible for me to do. Problems that have been put up by people like Pat Ament, John Gill - there's still boulder problems put up 40+ years ago that still haven't had a second ascent.

I guess maybe my sentiment is also almost: bouldering should be hard. It's a problem! I would love to see footage of your 3's or 4's - I'm almost in disbelief.

I don't understand - are you surprised there are some easy routes? 3s are mostly for first timers and warming up. I'm not saying there aren't also difficult ones.

I'm surprised there's "a dozen" that are one step above, "walk-able" - absolutely! I'm used to 1 or 2 absolute beginner/warmup problems set.

I do believe my gym has a V15 set at the moment. I was watching Dave Graham unsuccessfully work a tricky V12. Pros winter over and live in the parking lot of this place.

What gym do you go to?

I tried toprope but never really liked it, because heights are scary. You also need experienced people to secure you so you can't easily do it alone. Only once I got into bouldering did I discover that climbing can be fun.

It's different things to learn I guess. Heights are scary! But I feel it's something of a universal fear, like fire - or the dark. But you're on a rope, right? So there's nothing to be afraid of, and getting psychologically past that is something of a minor miracle, and a way to grow.

Finding a climbing buddy is one way that climbing can be social (there's also gyms set up w/auto belays).

The worst climbing injury I've ever succumbed to was bouldering. Chronic pain in my ankle from a fall. It's a safe enough hobby, but it's not impossible to be injury yourself (being as klutzy as me, helps!)

Getting that mileage, though, on a rope while going over easy terrain is a great way to build up confidence and allow those slow-developing tendons to get stronger, so that you can pull harder bouldering, and not kill yourself (spoken from experience!)

The best summary of bouldering (and sport routes, and trad to an extent) is that it's like solving physical puzzles with your body. If you're relatively fit and have a problem-solving mindset, I'd strongly recommend dropping in to your local climbing gym for an intro class.

I'm a fat-old-man in climbing terms. I still prefer the mental challenge of trad leading (although I haven't done much recently) to bouldering. The zen like state of staying calm while placing gear that your life depends on is quite something to me. Whereas bouldering is an art form of movement... and one I suck at...but it never appealed to me in the same way

I share your sentiment. Though I find bouldering good practice for hard sequences in roped climbing. My philosophy has been " if you can't climb the crux, you can't climb the route!"

I don't do many outdoor activities where this same concept holds up. Like if I'm mountain biking and can't clear a section cleanly, I can still ride the rest of the trail. That's not always so in climbing (even when aiding through)

Same here. Plus, when I was more in to that scene, it seemed like a disproportionate number of folks got injuries from bouldering vs free climbing.

Yup. It is vastly more dangerous than trad or even sport climbing. No rope+fall=bad, even if only a few feet off the deck. Bouldering also leads to pushing a vertical boundry, exactly where does bouldering become free soloing? I also worry for the boulderer/gym rat who's physical abilities are not matched with the technical knowhow that comes from trad.

I struggle to get enthusiastic about outdoor bouldering. I've done it in Bishop, Squamish and just get demoralized after getting shutdown on V1 problems after 3+ attempts. Love trad though.

I recently got into climbing (+ bouldering). Although I get super bored at regular gyms, I never bore of climbing, I think, because it's like programming -- for the body. Problem solving applied to an element that is both sociable and physical.

I also got bored at regular gyms, and realized that combat-oriented martial arts may be the ultimate problem-solving challenges. You have to muster all your intellectual and physical capabilities "against" an intelligent opponent who acts/reacts "in realtime", but also is prepared to it (the boulders layout is carefully crafted beforehand, but it doesn't react!). Jiu-jitsu may be one of the most adequate because it seems not as dangerous as striking arts (albeit by becoming competitive one may gain serious back-related aches or even injuries).

Agreed with the combat-oriented sports being the ultimate problem-solving challenge. Used to box (still occasional do), have never obtained the same technical satisfaction anywhere else. There are so many different facets to it. Ring generalship, creating angles, stances that gain or lose out on defensive or offensive capabilities, psychological game by use of feints and disruptive rhythms. It's not called the sweet science for nothing. Should hold true for other combat sports as well.

There's freedom in it: sometimes I wanna play chess; other times: just checkers.

Climbing is a lot of fun. It is talked about on HN occasionally but IMO not often enough. Hope to see more submissions about climbing on HN!

Oh and if anyone ITT is in the proximity of Gjøvik, Norway (slim chance) and would like to climb, message me on Mastodon. @codetrotter@vis.social

I am a bit out of shape but I belay safely and communicate well and that’s what matters the most when we climb single pitch, isn’t it ;)

Though of course it is preferable to climb with someone on about the same level to minimize the amount of switching back and forth between routes.

Bouldered a bit in college, feel like code challenge sites like Project Euler are like a programmer form of bouldering. you fail a few times, gain an insight, make some progress, finally get it, then feel a big rush of accomplishment.

42+ years old, climber since 2 years here, progammer since +30y.

Interesting comparaison, but bouldering problems relies on physical-traits that are harder to move up than the psychological-traits needed in Project Euler. ( think of size, balance, synchronicity ... ).

... but OK some PE are now too hard for me. Training during college would change the game.

Yeah I struggled with grip after a point, would use the hangboard all the time. My frame is thin. Also just a lot of understanding how to move is hard to get.

As much as I like the article, the title is flat-out incorrect. The most difficult bouldering problems aren't found inside a gym, they are out in nature. World Cup problems average V10ish, whereas the top climbers project V16 outside.

I understand your point but sometimes it is useful for authors to take a little artistic license. They are clear on the ratings of the problems and the challenges of setting for the world cup. To an extent, these are the hardest problems of their type in the world...because they are for the hardest climbing competition in the world.

Sure they aren't Silence, but most common folk would probably conflate 'problems for the world championship' with 'hardest' and to communicate to that audience the artistic license seems to me to have merit.

It literally says those things. It says boulder problems go up to v16, and that they aim for v10 at the comp.

To save other Europeans a Google. V10 = 7c+ font. V16 = 8c+ font.

Both grades I don't even aspire to!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(bouldering)#Comparisons...

To save those who don't climb...

I've climbed most of my life...

I boulder three times a week and run 30 miles worth of trails a week . I can do pullups from my finger tips on a 'hangboard' (it's a training tool).

I climbed a V5 last week and was so happy I nearly cried.

These people are freaks in the most awe inspiring and amazing way I can possibly imagine.

Climbing competitions are worth watching just for the sheer amazement at what the human body can be trained to do. I use them at the beginning of classes because students usually just stop talking and watch in stunned silence.

> These people are freaks in the most awe inspiring and amazing way I can possibly imagine.

I went to youtube to find out what you mean. Didn't need to search for long. Here's one example. I don't know what grade this is but the climb is definitely freaky.

https://youtu.be/4QrvLoxFAM4?t=180

I'm not sure there's a sport that puts so much emphasis on pushing the upper limits of human strength within a single muscle group (the fingers). Check out this video of Jan Hojer training, it really makes it clear just how ridiculously, absurdly, otherworldly strong elite boulderers can be:

https://youtu.be/DFojqoAfJ7g

And in top competition bouldering the problems aren't just physically hard, they are also fiendishly difficult puzzles to solve.

Those pinky levers are just amazing!

Have fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYgDT9fSiAs

Having seen a national level competition up close and personal (and seen very good boulderers do V13+ on real rock), the most impressive thing to experience is their sheer determination. Yes, you can tell they are trying hard when watching a video, but it's just different seeing it in person.

I totally agree. One of the spider monkey's at my gym explained that my basic 'problem' was I can't will myself to deploy more force when I need. I asked how to fix that and he kinda shrugged and just said 'I mean you just pull harder'.

That was disheartening.

If it is any consolation, I am 3 months into returning to climbing after a 15 year hiatus.... I feel that this "push harder" thing is a feeling that can be learned. Like, when I am moving at near the limits of what I can do, I've been finding that I can just trust my body to do certain things that I don't think it can do (mostly having to do with pulling on very smooth slopers or feeling my feet doing way more pulling than I was previously able to muster).

Simply knowing that I "can" do thing that I did not think I could do has opened up a variety of possibilities.

I dunno if it is any help, but I find that pre-visualization immediately before starting helps immensely.

Hey, I'm about 6 weeks in after a 10 years hiatus, we're in a similar place.

The weird revelation for me was that getting that old strength back is a matter of remembering it, it's memory work. There was this boulder problem I was working on, and I couldn't even stick to the holds, so I used some jugs to ease myself into position, and for the first couple seconds I could barely hang on, but then suddenly it got easier, and it was my muscles remembering how to fire the way they needed to hold on. It's akin maybe to a guitar player who hasn't strummed in a while remembering how to strike a particular chord, it's a little bit of struggle but then it all comes flooding back.

On my first day back I was having a hard time with 5.8, and wondering to myself "Am I a beginner climber again? Do I need to build everything up again from scratch?", but after only 6 weeks I'm pulling 5.12a moves again here and there. I'm pretty impressed with myself, though I'm still a long way from my previous high water mark.

TBH, it was so long ago that I totally expected to be starting from scratch. I am guessing that I'm progressing a lot faster than I might have when I was 20.

I think you're right that it's largely mental, though working carefully on my footwork and other technique has helped with some easy gains. Simply getting that idea about how it works helps-- in my day tpo day life, I generally haven't needed to move like I do when climbing.

Even when I was 20 I couldn't pull 5.12. However, I've been able to successfully do harder "5.11" at my gym. I don't think that will translate to rocks... I could be way, way off base, but the 5.10s in my gym feel a lot like I remember the 5.8s I used to climb back in the day.

So I am super curious how this gym work will convert to climbing in the larger world. Ultimately my goal is to be able to do things like the casual route on the diamond, so I am not aiming to do super hard routes, just committed stuff that takes a lot of skills. I just got a rope and some draws, though, so I'll be seeing how the gym translates to actual rock over the next couple of weeks.

When you have many years of climbing under your belt, and you have a deep well of muscle memory to draw from, pulling at your absolute limit becomes a matter of will.

It's really apparent with someone like Adam Ondra, who has been climbing hard for 20 years. He'll get spit off of a problem a half dozen times and then suck up these elemental forces of nature and crank through it. I mean, he's a genetic freak amongst the upper eschelons of strong, he's more flexible than any top climber today, his ability to climb swiftly with technical precision is the best I've ever seen, but the real X factor that puts him head and shoulders above the rest might just be that he tries harder than anyone else.

You might benefit from reading Eric Horst's Maximum Climbing [0]; it covers precisely this just-pull-harder mentality and provides exercises to unlock it.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Maximum-Climbing-Training-Performance...

>>> In the most difficult challenges of the event, the setters wanted to do more than just test the competitors’ forearm muscles; that’s a recipe for a tie, because all these athletes are ripped. Rather, they wanted to create a men’s problem in the realm of V10 or V11, but one that was inscrutable enough that there would be a few successes (“tops”), a few falls, and one hell of a show.

Sure, although presumably the World Cup problems are made somewhat harder by having to do 4 of them in a row, with 4 minutes to do each one with only a quick look beforehand.

I was lucky enough to have and Outdoor Education class & a great teacher in High School that got me into climbing, which turned into a love for Bouldering.

Its one of the things I try to get all of my friends into who want to do something more active in their life or just something fun. Too me its the perfect balance of physical exertion and problem solving. The community is also (for the most part) great to be apart.

If anyone has any questions about the sport I would love to answer them.

I'm the founder and organizer of the Bouldering in Austin meetup. We are a little over a year old and recently surpassed 500 members.

If any Austinites want to try it out, either as beginners or experienced climbers, give me a holler. :)

https://www.meetup.com/Bouldering-in-Austin/

I climb at Crux... if you see an awkward bald-ish dude with a horseshoe mustache in the rope canyon feel free to say howdy.

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