How Do I Know If I Need to Campus Board?

The campus board can be an exciting but intimidating piece of training equipment. If you're doing it right, it can be a crucial player in your climbing progress. But it's essential to identify if focusing on it will help you reach your climbing goals. More often than not, if the campus board is exciting to you because you love campusing all the V3s in the gym, it's probably not in your best interest to campus board. If you are intimidated by it because you are unsure if you can campus anything, it's more likely that campus boarding will be an excellent tool in your training. First, ask yourself what your climbing goals are. Have solid climbing goals? Need help setting some? Keep on reading!

Identifying Your Weaknesses

Identifying your weaknesses is the first step in determining if the campus board is the next step in your climbing training. Ask yourself this: what is holding you back from reaching your climbing goals? There are a plethora of different aspects of climbing that could be holding you back. It could be your mental game, technique, specific hold strength, endurance, or power. It could even be a combination of a few of these, too. When trying to identify your climbing weaknesses, keep an open mind. Here are a few specific questions you can ask yourself to figure it out.

Do you often hesitate before making a challenging move? Do you imagine failure before even attempting a route/boulder? If your answer is yes to either of these, it would be a good idea to spend some time on your climbing mentality.

Are you falling off the wall because your body position feels uncomfortable and awkward? Or because your feet keep slipping off holds? Answering yes to either of these questions indicates your training focus should be on your technique.

Do you feel you can't hold onto specific holds on a climb you would consider around your ability level? That might mean that you need to train pinches, slopers, or crimps specifically. Or what about getting pumped out of your mind as soon as you get 15 feet up the ropes wall? That means your endurance could use some work.

Lastly, consider a climb with dynamic moves at your maximum ability level. Are you coming off the wall because you feel incapable of pulling from one hold to the next? That is an indicator of your power. If you are struggling with dynamic movements (dynos or deadpoints), which is why you are not sending, then it sounds like a great time to start incorporating campus boarding into your climbing regime.

Are you ready to campus board?

Now that you've decided that power and dynamic movements are a weakness let's discuss if you are ready to start campus boarding. For all types of specific climbing training, it's recommended that you have been climbing for at least 1-2 years before training on the campus board. This recommendation is standard, so you don't get injured. Climbing is intense on your body and involves stress on joints and tendons, unlike any other sport. If you have not been acclimating your body to these stressors for at least 1-2 years, the chances of getting injured are much higher. Injuries are no fun, so always use your best judgment on whether your body is ready for intense training. Secondly, in the first 1-2 years of climbing, the best way to improve is to climb often.

If you are well past 1-2 years of climbing and struggle with deadpoints and dynamic moves, your answer is yes! It's time to get on that campus board.