Coping with Comp Week: Basic Tips for Roped Setting on a Schedule

With local SCS comps well underway, I thought it would be good to go over some basics for roped setting. Setting 50 routes in a sprint is a lot to deal with. Starting with the general:

Have a plan. Re-setting most of the gym is a huge task, and one that shouldn't be played by ear. If you don't have one, designate a head routesetter to take responsibility for final decision-making. Take an hour the first day, walk around the gym, and decide what should go where. The team goal is very likely to be separating the competitors, so make sure each range of routes has a mixture of terrain, style, length, setter, etc. For an onsight comp, the plan will need to be much more comprehensive, including setting up isolation, organizing the routes so that competitors can't see other routes in their category, and a mixture of other challenges. Onsight comps are a topic in themselves which deserve a focused post.

Stick to the plan. Don't let setters get off track by making ad hoc decisions about what should be done. Include a work plan for each day - when to strip which walls, what will be set, and even by whom and when. There will always be exceptions, but those decisions should be made by the head routesetter and not on the spot.

Work complex tasks first. For instance, deciding where large volumes should go and getting them on the wall is a task that can require teamwork and time. Waiting until there are routes up can be limiting. If you're creating any custom features, best to do it early in the week when complications won't threaten the comp schedule. Decide where they will go, how to integrate them, needed materials, and estimates of cost and time. Creating an interesting and unique comp atmosphere is crucial, but it shouldn't (and doesn't need to) threaten the setting schedule.

Prioritization is crucial in competition setting. When you have a lot of routes to set, focus on skeleton setting. Get the ideas up, then come back and tweak them. When you've been setting all day for several days in a row, it can be daunting to do the hard work: I've seen many setters make the mistake (myself included) of constantly tweaking the opening boulder problem of a route as a means of delaying roping up. Set the skeleton, discuss what needs to be fixed, and execute with fair attention to each sequence of each route.

Prioritize your effort on sequences. Are you so dead set on forcing your flashy crux sequence that you blitzed through the rest of the route? Each move builds on the last. Routesetters care about that specific cool sequence - gym climbers and competitors care about the experience of the whole route. You need to be the first, and think like the second. Especially with route climbing, "flow" can be more important than style points. Save the boulder problems for learning how to force a tricky new move - then you can put it up your sleeve for the next route.

There is always another move. If you're having a hard time forcing a move, drop the ego and set something else. Sometimes it can be frustrating when an innovative sequence just won't work out for you; instead, set something you know and move on. If the sequence needs tweaking later, it'll be tweaked later. Set a move, change the body position, and you have a fresh chance to be creative.

There is always another route. If you're dead set on a hard sequence, don't sandbag an easy climb because you can't step up and adjust. It makes ordering and forerunning the routes a nightmare. Similarly, if you're feeling tired, you might feel like setting something easier than you have to. Maybe this means hopping off the ladder and setting a different route right now - not always an option for routesetters who operate on a fixed schedule. But it might also mean saving up that inspiration, setting the route in front of you, and having that extra creative gas in the tank for the next route.

Stay organized. When there's a lot of setting to do, something as mundane as making a list of minor tasks / tweaks can feel like a waste of time. In reality, keeping a running task list can drastically alter how well a setting sprint goes. Anyone with downtime or facing setter's block can refer to the list and check off a few quick items. These tasks might be setting-related: adding a new foothold, adding or removing tape, adding a set screw, or forerunning and tweaking a sequence for consistency or equity. They could also be event related tasks - routesetters are often expected to follow through on creating route placards, printing scorecards, setting up seating and safety lines, or helpful secondary tasks like printing out a map of the gym for visiting competitors.

Manage the mundane tasks. Some of the most important things that happen during hectic setting are forgotten by most setters. And yep, that means doing jobs everyone hates. If there isn't someone designated to keep a load of holds in the wash at all times, there probably should be. Organizing holds for better access. Keeping the task list and route plan updated.

Communicate well, especially on small tasks like holds in the wash. This helps with sharing of gear. Keep track of your tools - if you're borrowing someone else's ratchet or drill, or taking a hold from their pile, let them know so they don't spend 15 minutes looking for it. And for the love of red wrenches, write down which routes are being set! Nothing says disorganization like an inexplicable 51st route on the last day. Communication is also crucial when tweaking, which I'd like to talk about more - for now, read the forerunning primer.

Distribute resources. In a smaller gym, aid gear and ladders might be in short supply. Set in rotation to maximize their usage. Setters should never be waiting for gear; there's always something to forerun, tweak, holds to wash, etc. If holds or bolts are at a premium, set up a ration. Set clear limitations and expectations for route length. Strategically save holds, but don't allow hoarding. If absolutely necessary, consider a lottery for choice holds. It can be tough to remember that the primo holds are better spent on a route that'll see a lot of traffic than the hardest route.

Delegate to save time and energy. If you're working from a plan, either delegate routes to specific setters, or let them pick.  Be flexible, but have a plan ready. Don't expect one setter to handle steep terrain several days in a row - mix up terrain to keep ideas and muscles fresh. Newer setters may be expected to set the easiest routes, handle secondary tasks, and assist the setters, so that those with experience can work faster - just like any other workplace.

Work in batches. This should be rote for any serious routesetter by now, but never make a trip twice. If you're heading up to finish setting a route, ask yourself what else you might be able while roped up. Check the task list to see if routes on the same anchor need any edits, set screws, tape, etc. Check with setters of nearby routes. And of course, bring extra feet, bolts, screws and tape. Need to grab a hold from the pile? Check for what else you might need, and save yourself a trip across the gym. Better yet, if you're setting from a pile or set, bring them all over from the get go. Setting from a ladder and need a tap? Grab your harness and aid gear for when you rope up later. Heading to lunch? Grab everyone else a burrito... okay, that last one is dubious.

Small efficiency is big efficiency. Learn from your mistakes. Try to set every route faster and better than the last one. Use fixed lines, jumars, and other aid devices to save muscular effort for forerunning. Tweak by directionality, not by changing holds. Practice, practice, practice. Proper setup seems like a lot of extra work, but it saves more time in the long run. Check this list of basic efficiency tips to brush up on the basics.

That covers a good chunk of it. I'll make a specific post about forerunning for sport comps. For now, what did I miss? Share your secrets to a smooth comp week either here on the Facebook page.

Quality Assurance

What do newspapers, websites, household goods, food, computers, cars, and virtually every other consumable product have in common that routesetting often lacks? QA.

What is QA for routesetting?

• Good forerunning - ego at the door; objectivity; fair, concise and constructive communication. No one should be exempt from having their routes forerun.
• A plan for improvement - if you have too many of a certain move, too much of a certain style, too many sequences being skipped by climbers, etc - how will you prevent that from happening next time?
• All routes are equal - spend time on routes based on the attention they will receive, not the attention you want to give them. Harder routes sometimes necessitate more effort, but easier and moderate routes will receive the most traffic, abuse and criticism.
• The primary goal of QA is to make a better product. Are your routes better this week than last week? This month than last month? Where can your process be improved?

Ergonomics of Setting, Part 1

This is a concept I've been wanting to get to for a while. Most recently a nagging finger injury brought it to the front of my mind, as the gym I train at most frequently has a bad habit. I've covered this problem in this blog before: who cares about the V0 climbers when you climb V10? A jug is a jug is a jug, right? Unfortunately, basic physics interferes with this notion:

Force / Area = Pressure

Therefore, more Force (harder moves) or smaller Area (smaller holds / less ergonomic holds) = more pressure on the fingers. Pretty straightforward math.

Injury prevention is a subject often avoided in routesetting. Usually considered the responsibility of the climber, routesetters who consider injury avoidance are an utterly crucial asset to their gym. Ergonomic setting makes for symmetrical, strong, well-rounded climbers. Unergonomic setting makes for muscular imbalance, shared weaknesses, and injuries. Which set of climbers will be happier? Which gym's competitive teams will perform better?

Healthy, happy climbers rely on routesetters to subtly suggest good climbing habits. This is applicable at any and all grade - from the first-timer complaining about how tight climbing shoes are to the mutant warming up on your hard problems to the 55 year old that throws down on his lunch break.

A jug is not always a jug. What do we know about new climbers?

• They move quickly and inaccurately ("thrutching")
• They weight holds before grabbing them properly
• They are not as good at positioning their body to keep their weight on their feet
• They do not optimize their hand/arm positioning
• They are not experienced enough to recognize when a move or sequence may be dangerous

With these factors in mind, let's go back to our math equation.

Let's say a new climber comes into a climbing gym and climbs two VB-rated problems. The problems involve the exact same movement on the same terrain. On one problem, the setters carefully picked each hold to be rounded. On the other, any hold from the "jug" pile is used as the next hold.

Red areas represent surface area of contact with the hold, Area. Assuming the same movement off of each hold, Force remains constant. Note that with the hold on the left, advanced climbers will automatically lean back, straighten their arms, and put more of their hands' contact area on the hold. Beginners will lock the hold in to their chest, endangering their fingers.

"But RC," you say, staring poignantly at your boxes of flat, sharply incut jugs laying in the corner. "If we only set with the comfortable jugs, what do we do with all these things?"

Our job is never easy, and this is one part of it. There are times that unrounded jugs are acceptable. In a steep enough roof, the pressure = force / area argument is largely nullified. Let's rotate the previous example image 90 degrees, as if the holds were in a roof:

More incut holds are a bit friendlier on steep walls.

As you can see from this picture, the goal is to maintain the hold's sharpest point at a 90 degree or more angle away from the climber's plumb line of hand positioning. In other words, when making the move, you want as much surface area of your hand touching the jug as possible. Any time a hold is contacting across one segment/phalange of the fingers is a danger zone for connective tissue. (I am in no way suggesting here that you should intentionally set with sharp holds in a roof - just illustrating the ergonomic difference between profile and incut.)

A good basic rule of thumb is: for vert or gently overhanging, a jug is a hold with a deep profile and a slight incut. For steeper walls, a jug is a hold with a deep incut. It will still be more comfortable if it also has some depth, so that the contact area is a bit more rounded.

Explaining profile vs incut. While it might be slightly harder to make a move from the hold on the right, beginners' fingers will thank you.

If you simply don't have enough comfortable holds, then you get to work extra hard at finding the ideal position for the hold to not be tweaky. This is a fine art.

Some holds, of course, have sufficient incut and profile depth to be usable anywhere with no issue. Most gyms reserve these size of holds for steeper walls anyway, where beginners need the largest possible grip surface and depth possible. These type of "mega jugs" are irreplaceable for a commercial gym - beginners can use them just to hang on, intermediate climbers can make hard moves off of them as they learn how to negotiate large moves on steep terrain without destroying their fingers, and advanced climbers can use them to practice dynos, recovery / power endurance, and campusing. New holds these days are much more comfortable, ergonomic and (in most cases) intelligently designed than they used to be. If your gym has a budget, ergonomic jugs should be a significant part of it.

Let's quickly cover our knowledge of new climbers again:

• They move quickly and inaccurately, so beginner jugs should be mostly grabbable surface, with no extraneous sharp parts
• They weight holds before grabbing them properly, so holds should be fairly uniform
• They are not as good at positioning their body to keep their weight on their feet, so holds should be directly above footholds, especially if they're sharp/incut - never expect beginners to smear.
• They do not optimize hand/arm positioning, so pulling sideways or outwards on holds should be just as safe as pulling down (probably not as functional or "good" of a hold - but safe!)
• They are not experienced enough to recognize when a move or sequence may be dangerous, so don't put them in a dangerous situation.

To summarize: You can't change the amount of force a climber will put on a hold, but you can change the surface area that force will be distributed around. Good routesetting should be fun, but it should also be safe.

In this post I mostly covered the ergonomics of holds, specifically jugs. In the next two parts of this topic, I'll go into a bit more depth on the ergonomics of directionality and movement. Until then, happy setting!

Movement Analysis: The Frog Pinch

The frog pinch is a pretty specific move, so I thought it would make an excellent candidate for my next movement analysis. I set this move on accident a few times, but the first time I forced it was at the level 2 USAC clinic, with E-Grips' Myorcan Tufapinch. I was somewhat on the spot, since I was setting it specifically for Chris Danielson himself. However, I didn't struggle with it and actually found it fun and intriguing to set. Since then I've set the move a few times with increasing success. The first thing you need to know about this move is that unlike the last movement analysis, this move might be a bit unintuitive - it's more technique than power. Lots of climbers do not have the hip flexibility and lower body tension necessary to quickly grasp this move when they encounter it. That being said, it's most logical to set this move on a slightly harder route, where climbers are likely to see the move as a challenge instead of a frustration. Gym rats hate this move. Flexible strong females, techy people and Smith junkies will eat it alive.

Basic Summary

The gist of the frog-leg is a move where the climber has to create body tension by compressing their legs towards each other. This means a few things off the bat. First, the hand holds need to be poor enough that the climber will fall if their feet aren't secure. If the climber can dyno or campus past the move, it's a no go. Second, The number of feet available needs to be limited; actually, it needs to be one - the pinch. Third, that foot option needs to have zero upward foothold potential. If the climber can use the top of the foot even as a poor smear, they will drop their other leg and make the move without using the frog.

Black denotes the start holds and route trend.

Generally the move works best when the climber is traversing over the frog pinch footholds, because it's hard to generate upward momentum when your legs are both pinching. Since that upward motion would make the move a lot more upper-body dependent, it could ruin the equitability of the sequence. I have found the easiest way to set the Frog Pinch is by having the climber do a cross move from a wide open position. We're going to have them start on the big pinch and a small right hand crimp by hand foot matching their left heel on the pinch from the ground. This sets the climber up for the frog by having half of the body position implied by the time they get to the move.

Starting position.

After they pull on, they'll bump their left hand from the big pinch to the first left hand sloper (Hold 2.) At this point they are creating compression with the three holds.

The opening move, to the first sloper.

Moving their left hand to Hold 3 is not an option because of distance, so the climber knows they need to move their right hand. The logical option is to create compression to replace the right hand's tension by using their right leg - for some climbers this will mean automatically adopting the frog position.

Creating compression with the feet - the Frog Pinch.

Then the climber can cross through to hold 3. Optionally, an extra (very poor) hold can be added above hold 1 to help this body position transition.

Crossing over - not too much upward motion, mostly moving laterally.

The route can go lots of directions afterward, provided none of the holds used in later sequences are accessible from the opening moves.

Hold Considerations

Basically, we're talking about four holds. One big start pinch, one small start crimp, and two non-matchable directional slopers / sloper pinches.

The right hand starting hold, doesn't matter much, as long as it's poor enough to prevent moves from being skipped. Placing it facing straight up will make the opening move easiest; placing it horizontal to the right will make it quite hard. Straight down or left will make the move (almost) impossible.

Holds 2 and 3 should be semi directionals so they can be easily tweaked to make the move feel more natural. The fastest way to make the move harder is to make the holds face outwards more, making the climber more reliant on compression and less on being able to actually pull down against gravity. I've found the most natural way to set the move is to have Hold 2 be basically straight down or just a bit left (since the climber will be using it the most.) The optional bump hold should face gently right, so the climber will struggle to bump their left hand from the start hold to hold 3, making the intended sequence more obvious. Hold 3 can be oriented depending on your next sequence, but I try to have it face slightly rightward with a decent thumb catch and keep the route trending left. This also makes it harder to skip moves.

The frog-leg foothold is going to be the centerpiece of the route. I'll emphasize again that this pinch can't be smearable! The three holds I've set this move on are the E-Grips Bubble Wrap Pinch, the Tufapinch and the Atomik Granite Pinch. The granite pinch was the most smearable, but also the most comfortable heel hook for the start. The Tufapinch is quite hard on anything steeper than about 20 degrees. There are several other holds that could theoretically be used for this purpose.

Troubleshooting hold choices:

• Thumb catches can generate a lot more compression than you might think. Consider using holds with no or poor thumb catches.
• If the climber can't pull off the ground, try moving your centerpiece pinch hold down (or in) a bit, or making your right hand starting hold better by rotation or hold change.
• If the climber can smear on top of the centerpiece hold, either it's too low or too good, hold 2 and 3 are too good, or your terrain isn't steep enough.
• If the frog-leg is uncomfortable, watch someone climb it and try to rotate the frog pinch so it points directly at their ideal center of gravity during the move. Just rotate it for fun if nothing else - a five degree shift makes the move completely different. Experiment. Rotating the pinch hold has been the final step of tweaking the move every single time I've set it.

Terrain Considerations

This move works on just about any terrain, but it's easiest to keep the climber from smearing on top of the pinch hold on a wall at least 20 degrees overhanging. Slabs and vertical faces it's just too easy for the climber to forego compression in favor of balance. On a steep enough wall, the hold has to better than the ones I outlined - Lapis volumes are a fun alternative, if you have them; although the move at that point is less like a frog pinch and more like stock gymnastic roof climbing. In fact, I think doing the move on a gently overhanging wall where it feels new and foreign is what makes the move so interesting to set and climb.



Possibly the best place to set this move is on a staggered overhang, if you have one near the ground. In this scenario you can move the entire setup up and down until you find the appropriate average angle to make the move "go." I didn't figure this technique out until I had set the move several times - it's much easier on this type of terrain, so it's a good place to start.

The Answer to Most Setting Questions

This might feel like obvious knowledge, but I still like to think about it. Basics are powerful.

Defined crux, or consistent difficulty?

Cryptic, beta-intensive climbs, or flash fodder?

Aggressive power moves or delicate footwork?

Big moves or small moves?

High feet, low feet, slopey feet, edging feet?

The short answer to this line of questioning is yes. Not all at the same time, not all on the same route, but yes.

If you're worried a route is too much of any one thing, don't - as long as they're not all that way.

Contrarily, if you're starting to feel like your setting is one-dimensional then you already know what to do - expand your scope. We get comfortable setting one style, and tend to neglect the others. My gym has a lot more steep bouldering than not, so it's easy to get stuck in a rut.

I went through a phase recently of setting more technical sequences on vertical terrain. Not exactly my usual style, so it felt good. For me, at least, it takes a different headspace to climb a hard compression problem in a roof than it does to climb a technical lead up dead vertical. Similarly, the techniques and obstacles for setting in varied terrain requires distinct mindsets. These skills need to be developed to be a well-rounded routesetter.

It's something I know I could do more of as a setter - work the weaknesses. Set things you suck at climbing. If you crush at Smith Rock, you might want to set in the steep for a while. If you're more of a Red River Gorge kind of climber, try getting techy. It might take some getting used to, but you (and your climbers) will be happier for it.

Happy setting!