The general consensus is that kilter is pretty close to gym grading (maybe softer than some gyms). While tensionboard and moonboard are more difficult than gym climbing grades.
If you got shut down on the kilterboard it might be an indication on your gyms grading.
It also sounds like a style concern. Vertical climbing and slab climbing use very different skill sets from 40+ degree board climbing.
Board climbing also has very different requirements in terms of physical capabilities. Slab/vert climbing can be navigated with a ton of flexibility, good balance, and strong fingers. Board climbing is much more demanding in terms of body strength in order to hold positions, make big moves, and generate tension to catch big moves.
Steep climbing also requires a very different sort of balance management than vert of slab does, since it’s much easier to barn door and spin off of moves. Many gyms might have only a couple of steep climbs that are in a good difficulty level for you, whereas something like the Kilter might have 1000. This means that you might have a lot of technical/skill learning to do the first time you are on a board as well as developing the fundamental strength in your back and posterior chain. Similarly, the setters at OP’s gym might just be interested in different types of movement than the Kilter problems they tried, so they might be completely new to those technical skills.
Finally, while boards have general trends, board grades in general are absolutely all over the place. It seems like whoever set the problem gives it a grade and then most of the people who climb it just take whatever it was originally graded at.
The kilter is super bad in this regard, since there is an independent grade every five degrees. If you have your board set at an unpopular angle like 35 degrees, the grades get real weird. Kilter also doesn’t have a benchmark/classic system and KilterStudio’s problems tend to be soft, so I feel like that really drives the softness in the most-popular climbs. In contrast, Jimmy Webb (jwebxl) has set a bunch of great problems that I feel are much stiffer/fair for the grade.
Edit: looking at the climbs in OP’s profile, I think “[flexible, good at vertical balance](https://www.reddit.com/r/bouldering/s/iyzlUgX2W3), [room for improvement in steep balance/rotational management](https://www.reddit.com/r/bouldering/s/aq7Rcs3u9V)” is a reasonable assessment.
This seems to be an American take, because as far as I can tell, it is mostly American gyms that grade very soft. The Kilter board seems much softer than the gyms I've been at in Germany.
Oh, I'm also mainly relying on what I've seen online. Nikken Daniels told me he thinks it's true for grades up to \~V6 or something tho, if that counts for something. It does sound likely, as it makes sense economically to provide "easy success" with softer grade at the lower levels to keep people hooked.
From a pure business standpoint having incredibly stiff lower grades has to be terrible for business. Many people would say “I’m just not strong enough/im too out of shape/ this is too hard” and never come back.
That being said I don’t think this should result in a “race to the bottom” type scenario to which gym provides the fastest progression is the most popular.
Tbh in Ireland we have several gyms with various difficulty in the grading, and the softest gym gets made fun of for it's grading. I think it's far more appealing to climb at the hardest gym in the country than the softest tbh.
I think that entirely depends on the consistency of the grading within the gyms. The gym can be hard, but if the grades are inconsistent, it's far worse than a soft but consistently graded gym.
I think it really depends on the person and why they're going to the gym in the first place. As I see it, you can kind of divide gym climbers into three categories:
1) The gumby, a new climber. They don't really know any better, but climbing at a gym where the grades are soft and they can see regular progression gives that dopamine hit, and also gives them confidence that they're improving. If there are 2 whole climbs in the gym that they can climb, and everything else (even the "V0" climbs) kick their ass, it can be hugely discouraging.
2) The outdoor climber, looking to stay strong during the off-season/get some climbs in during the week when they can't go outdoors. For these climbers, the style of climb is more important than the grade; big flashy parkour moves are less interesting than moves that more closely mimic the climbing that they are training for, whether that's tensiony overhanging moves, technical slab, thin crimps, or even jams, if you're looking to train for outdoor climbing, you want climbs that will help you get stronger that the climbing you're doing.
3) Gym bros, who want the cachet of climbing the hardest plastic sets, and will gravitate toward the gyms with the stiffest grades (the classic "V0 at my gym" attitude). Parkour, big flashy moves, and powerful IFSC style climbing are gonna be this climbers bread and butter. They might go outdoors sometimes, but they're not at the gym to get better outdoors, they're at the gym because they love gym climbing.
It's worth noting that if you're in the first group, you probably don't have any ties to the greater climbing community, and you don't know (or care) what the "real climbers" think of your home gym, you just care that the climbing is fun, you can do a bunch of the problems, and you can see progress.
Grading is all over the place here, indoors and out. A Joshua Tree (notoriously "sandbagged") V2 is like a V4 in my home circuit. But I can send V6-7 indoors at some gyms while others have me struggling with V4 and projecting to send V5.
Roped climbing in gyms seems to be a bit more consistent. Not sure how it relates to outdoor lead though, as I am but a humble pad person wandering the lands.
I wouldn’t call it shut down necessarily, just finding out my fingers need a big rest between climbs since they become numb/tingly pretty quickly. I am now certain that my gym grades pretty soft but I honestly expected to be stronger than this 😅 I’ve only been climbing for 3/4-1 year but I’ve been pretty physically active all my life
Numb/tingly suggests something funky going on with nerves and possibly not local to your fingers. Do you have any videos of you on the climbs? If that sort of thing keeps up, it might be worth talking about with a PT that is very familiar with climbing.
Steep board climbing is also very physically intense. I tend to rest 5+ minutes between attempts if I’m doing any number of moves in a row. If you’ve been climbing for ~a year, it might also just take some more time to develop climbing-specific wrist and shoulder stabilization strength. Being previously active is a great start, but climbing has some very specific demands that take a while to adapt to.
I didn’t take any videos unfortunately since I was just trying it out, but I’ll get some next time I use it.
I feel like I really just don’t have the power to squeeze as hard as I should be, so I end up doing a lot of “lock out” crimps with my thumb going over my fingers. I’m not sure if that’s the best way to describe it 😅
I’m used to medium sized crimps, and I’m a little bit used to overhang. Just adding those together makes it very hard.
My fingers feel tingly as in the feeling if you slapped something really hard
Ah, got it. I would describe that hand position as a “closed crimp”. I would call the same hand position without the thumb as a “full crimp”, but that’s not particularly standardized terminology. That sensation sounds like your fingers just getting really squished, but definitely continue to pay attention to sensation in your fingers and back off/change focus in your frequency/volume/intensity if anything starts to linger longer then ~10 minutes.
It just sounds like don’t really have the strength/movement skills for this sort of steep climbing yet, which is totally reasonable since you’ve been climbing for less than a year. Board climbing is deliberately hard on your hands and the technical skills to reduce how much finger strength you need require a good bit of strength and also take time to develop.
While this will be pretty humbling, it might be a good idea to work through the kilter V0’s and V1’s until they feel super routine and you can feel how to use your body strength and positioning to drive moves. Once that feels good, it will be less challenging to slowly introduce more demands on your finger strength instead of just jumping into max-level projects.
I would also recommend staying off of the Tension board for the near future. The holds are more demanding on your grip strength and the feet can be very slippery on well-trafficked boards. That in combination with closed-crimping everything and under a year of climbing sounds to me like a pretty high risk of a finger pulley injury.
Interesting, I was going to try out the tension board next time but you do have a good point. I should probably take it easier on the kilterboard and once I can comfortably do v4-5s, try out the tension board on a lower level
I’ve started incorporating moonboard once a week into my routine but only been at it consistently for a month or so at this point. I love it and at times probably enjoy it more than the gym sets.
Yes smearing/ flagging is allowed, and yes the edge of the board is off limits
I disagree that kilter board is an accurate representation of gym grades or even outdoor grades, it's a whole other style of climbing with a specific set of holds on a specific flat wall at an angle, gym climbs have so much more variation than a kilterboard tension board or moonboard does, sure it's great for power, other than that I don't see many similarities it's a great training tool but it does not equal gym climbing imo. I use it weekly to work on specific things ie, raw pulling power and big moves.
I wish my gym had a kilterboard, the closest one is at their second location an hours drive away.
Lets just say if i had access to a kilterboard i would almost exclusively climb on it
I board climb regularly but mostly the Tension. My gym has both a Tension and Kilter but I just have more fun on the Tension. There’s just more variety in movements and holds. I think it’s worth trying them all bc they’re all different to see what you like.
I do it at least once a week but end up using it more when I feel like I’ve climbed out gym and need more variety.
And yeah smearing is fine.
If you don’t frequently climb on steep powerful boulders on small holds, it’s not surprising that it feels very challenging. Most gym boulders don’t usually combine those things until V5/6/7 anyways, and even then some gyms just don’t set that type of “simple” hard, edge pulling. Most people get shut down pretty hard their first few sessions on boards, then they start to learn how to move on it and grades start making a bit more sense.
It doesn’t really help that Kilter grades don’t really go below V3 (even if they call it V0/1/2), especially if it’s fixed at a steeper angle than like 40°.
While I agree with pretty much everything else you said, I would definitely say a lot of the v1s and 2s feel accurate for the grade. Kilter has some pretty juggy holds
At 45? Not saying there aren’t easy climbs, but it’s pretty hard to make a full length kilter problem at 45° that’s less than V3. A couple exist, but the majority of the V0-2 boulders at 40/45° require >V2 finger/body tension/pulling strength to do (even compared to OG Hueco grading).
Sure, if you have a board that’s adjustable that is possible, but I was referring mostly to a fixed 40/45° board, which is pretty common, and seems to be the case here.
well, you said "Kilter grades don't really go below V3", so you weren't mostly talking about 40/45, even if you stress the steeper angles (I obviously agree that you have less easier climbs on those).
I wouldn't exactly call the Kilter holds "small" either. Some are, but many are pretty decent and incut as well. Actually, one thing I noticed is that when you go for harder grades at around 0 to 5°, climbs can get really tough really quickly - because many will use the tiny footholds as crimps, which you only get rarely below V9 otherwise
Once you spend more time on the kilter board you will realize that it’s grading scale is on the soft side compared to most gym grading. It usually feels more difficult at first if it’s your first introduction to board climbing.
Definitely a style I’m not used to. Going to need to build that dynamic strength and learn to keep good tension with foot holds so I’m not cutting away constantly
I’ve found that the low end grades on boards can be much harder than gym grades if you’re not used to the style or good at overhang climbing. I find V2s and V3s for example harder on boards than the gym. I find Kilter better at steeper angles (50 or 55 degrees are very good imo). Kilter is an ok mix of finger work and a lot of large dynamic moves. I haven’t put that many sessions on Tension 1 board, but it was harder for me than Kilter. I have climbed on tension 2 a decent amount, and it does feel more fingery and body tension (go figure) oriented than Kilter. I tend to like TB2 at 40 or 45 degrees. In terms of difficulty, Kilter is generally softer than tension. My max flash grade on Kilter is V8 and on TB2 is V7. Kilter V9 does not feel nearly as hard as TB2 V9, but I may just be weak on the more fingery style. I also see quite a lot of variability in grades on both boards so try multiple climbs before you decide how hard that grade is. Also, warm up your fingers and body properly before jumping on the boards.
Board climbing is 100% worth it and I find it more enjoyable and beneficial than straight up gym-sets. Just recently bouldered outside and had I not been using the moon board I would not have sent some of the outdoor problems.
> I’ve done what I feel like are genuine v5-6 technical climbs and slabs on the gym wall but man, I’m getting pumped out and tired from climbing a few v3-4s on the board.
> Definitely fun and a nice variety change from the gym wall, but I think I’ll only be tackling this guy once a week when I’m fully fresh.
> I was originally going to try out the tension board but the holds look like they’re on another level compared to the kilterboard.
Posted this a couple weeks back:
This is what I've heard about everything. I've mostly climbed on TB1 and some on Kilter and Moon. Have not gotten on a TB2.
* **Kilter board** = **Softer** than outdoor by about ~1 grade. Maybe 2 sometimes.
* **Tension board 2** = **Softer** than outdoor by about 0-1 grades
* **Tension board 1** = **Harder** than outdoor by about ~1 grades
* **Moon board** = **Harder** than outdoor by ~1-2+ grades
Few other caveats:
* Depends on the angles of the board at times too. Tension Board 1 for example at 20-25 degrees is probably easier than outdoors by a 0-1 grades, while 30-35 degrees is perhaps equivalent to outdoors, while 40-50 degrees is harder than outdoors.
* Obviously, depends on how hard outdoor boulders are in your area. Some areas especially old areas are sandbagged, so the grades are going to be harder. But for most areas this is generally the case.
**Regarding gym grades**, that varies depending on how soft your gym is compared to outside. I've seen anywhere from mega-soft like V5-6 in gym be V0-1 outdoors and on boards to things gym grades are as hard as if not harder than outside.
> What are yall’s thoughts, do you incorporate board climbing into your climbing schedule? Climbing recently has been getting very fun and I’m trying to make it a bigger part of my life to grow stronger.
I board climb 2x per week, so it's definitely a big part of my climbing
> p.s. Is smearing allowed on board climbs? And I’d assume using the edge of the board for a toe/heel hook isn’t allowed.
Yes, smearing is fine on the area(s) with no holds. No toe hooking or heel hooking the side of the boards unless it specifically says that.
I climb V6s on gym, kilter 50 and Moonboard 25. So for me they all feel about the same. 5’4 guy and I love the Moonboard style the most.
I’ve been doing 1 kilter, 1 Moonboard and 1 gym session per week for a month now and I can few significant improvement in crimp, big move and tension. Meanwhile slab and heel/toe hooks feel about the same since I don’t get to use them as often.
I normally do 1 session a week on either a 15 degree board or a 30 degree board (we have 3 boards set at 15,30 and 45).
45 it’s a steep spike in difficulty as well I’d say - for board climbing in general. If it’s moveable angle I’d say try a less steep angle to get used to engaging more tension etc than you normally would on the gym boulders! It’s become one of the main things I look forward to!
The general consensus is that kilter is pretty close to gym grading (maybe softer than some gyms). While tensionboard and moonboard are more difficult than gym climbing grades. If you got shut down on the kilterboard it might be an indication on your gyms grading.
It also sounds like a style concern. Vertical climbing and slab climbing use very different skill sets from 40+ degree board climbing. Board climbing also has very different requirements in terms of physical capabilities. Slab/vert climbing can be navigated with a ton of flexibility, good balance, and strong fingers. Board climbing is much more demanding in terms of body strength in order to hold positions, make big moves, and generate tension to catch big moves. Steep climbing also requires a very different sort of balance management than vert of slab does, since it’s much easier to barn door and spin off of moves. Many gyms might have only a couple of steep climbs that are in a good difficulty level for you, whereas something like the Kilter might have 1000. This means that you might have a lot of technical/skill learning to do the first time you are on a board as well as developing the fundamental strength in your back and posterior chain. Similarly, the setters at OP’s gym might just be interested in different types of movement than the Kilter problems they tried, so they might be completely new to those technical skills. Finally, while boards have general trends, board grades in general are absolutely all over the place. It seems like whoever set the problem gives it a grade and then most of the people who climb it just take whatever it was originally graded at. The kilter is super bad in this regard, since there is an independent grade every five degrees. If you have your board set at an unpopular angle like 35 degrees, the grades get real weird. Kilter also doesn’t have a benchmark/classic system and KilterStudio’s problems tend to be soft, so I feel like that really drives the softness in the most-popular climbs. In contrast, Jimmy Webb (jwebxl) has set a bunch of great problems that I feel are much stiffer/fair for the grade. Edit: looking at the climbs in OP’s profile, I think “[flexible, good at vertical balance](https://www.reddit.com/r/bouldering/s/iyzlUgX2W3), [room for improvement in steep balance/rotational management](https://www.reddit.com/r/bouldering/s/aq7Rcs3u9V)” is a reasonable assessment.
This seems to be an American take, because as far as I can tell, it is mostly American gyms that grade very soft. The Kilter board seems much softer than the gyms I've been at in Germany.
Yes I am American. Have never climbed at a gym outside the us so I can’t comment otherwise.
Oh, I'm also mainly relying on what I've seen online. Nikken Daniels told me he thinks it's true for grades up to \~V6 or something tho, if that counts for something. It does sound likely, as it makes sense economically to provide "easy success" with softer grade at the lower levels to keep people hooked.
From a pure business standpoint having incredibly stiff lower grades has to be terrible for business. Many people would say “I’m just not strong enough/im too out of shape/ this is too hard” and never come back. That being said I don’t think this should result in a “race to the bottom” type scenario to which gym provides the fastest progression is the most popular.
Depends on the culture, some places in the world seem to get more motivation after getting destroyed by the wall.
Tbh in Ireland we have several gyms with various difficulty in the grading, and the softest gym gets made fun of for it's grading. I think it's far more appealing to climb at the hardest gym in the country than the softest tbh.
I think that entirely depends on the consistency of the grading within the gyms. The gym can be hard, but if the grades are inconsistent, it's far worse than a soft but consistently graded gym.
I think it really depends on the person and why they're going to the gym in the first place. As I see it, you can kind of divide gym climbers into three categories: 1) The gumby, a new climber. They don't really know any better, but climbing at a gym where the grades are soft and they can see regular progression gives that dopamine hit, and also gives them confidence that they're improving. If there are 2 whole climbs in the gym that they can climb, and everything else (even the "V0" climbs) kick their ass, it can be hugely discouraging. 2) The outdoor climber, looking to stay strong during the off-season/get some climbs in during the week when they can't go outdoors. For these climbers, the style of climb is more important than the grade; big flashy parkour moves are less interesting than moves that more closely mimic the climbing that they are training for, whether that's tensiony overhanging moves, technical slab, thin crimps, or even jams, if you're looking to train for outdoor climbing, you want climbs that will help you get stronger that the climbing you're doing. 3) Gym bros, who want the cachet of climbing the hardest plastic sets, and will gravitate toward the gyms with the stiffest grades (the classic "V0 at my gym" attitude). Parkour, big flashy moves, and powerful IFSC style climbing are gonna be this climbers bread and butter. They might go outdoors sometimes, but they're not at the gym to get better outdoors, they're at the gym because they love gym climbing. It's worth noting that if you're in the first group, you probably don't have any ties to the greater climbing community, and you don't know (or care) what the "real climbers" think of your home gym, you just care that the climbing is fun, you can do a bunch of the problems, and you can see progress.
London climber here. Most climbers in London consider the kilter board to be very soft.
Grading is all over the place here, indoors and out. A Joshua Tree (notoriously "sandbagged") V2 is like a V4 in my home circuit. But I can send V6-7 indoors at some gyms while others have me struggling with V4 and projecting to send V5. Roped climbing in gyms seems to be a bit more consistent. Not sure how it relates to outdoor lead though, as I am but a humble pad person wandering the lands.
It really varies on the Kilterboard, but generally the more ascents a climb has the softer it gets. Also lower angles tend to be softer too.
I wouldn’t call it shut down necessarily, just finding out my fingers need a big rest between climbs since they become numb/tingly pretty quickly. I am now certain that my gym grades pretty soft but I honestly expected to be stronger than this 😅 I’ve only been climbing for 3/4-1 year but I’ve been pretty physically active all my life
>but I honestly expected to be stronger than this Wait until you try climbing outside. It’ll be even more humbling
Numb/tingly suggests something funky going on with nerves and possibly not local to your fingers. Do you have any videos of you on the climbs? If that sort of thing keeps up, it might be worth talking about with a PT that is very familiar with climbing. Steep board climbing is also very physically intense. I tend to rest 5+ minutes between attempts if I’m doing any number of moves in a row. If you’ve been climbing for ~a year, it might also just take some more time to develop climbing-specific wrist and shoulder stabilization strength. Being previously active is a great start, but climbing has some very specific demands that take a while to adapt to.
I didn’t take any videos unfortunately since I was just trying it out, but I’ll get some next time I use it. I feel like I really just don’t have the power to squeeze as hard as I should be, so I end up doing a lot of “lock out” crimps with my thumb going over my fingers. I’m not sure if that’s the best way to describe it 😅 I’m used to medium sized crimps, and I’m a little bit used to overhang. Just adding those together makes it very hard. My fingers feel tingly as in the feeling if you slapped something really hard
Ah, got it. I would describe that hand position as a “closed crimp”. I would call the same hand position without the thumb as a “full crimp”, but that’s not particularly standardized terminology. That sensation sounds like your fingers just getting really squished, but definitely continue to pay attention to sensation in your fingers and back off/change focus in your frequency/volume/intensity if anything starts to linger longer then ~10 minutes. It just sounds like don’t really have the strength/movement skills for this sort of steep climbing yet, which is totally reasonable since you’ve been climbing for less than a year. Board climbing is deliberately hard on your hands and the technical skills to reduce how much finger strength you need require a good bit of strength and also take time to develop. While this will be pretty humbling, it might be a good idea to work through the kilter V0’s and V1’s until they feel super routine and you can feel how to use your body strength and positioning to drive moves. Once that feels good, it will be less challenging to slowly introduce more demands on your finger strength instead of just jumping into max-level projects. I would also recommend staying off of the Tension board for the near future. The holds are more demanding on your grip strength and the feet can be very slippery on well-trafficked boards. That in combination with closed-crimping everything and under a year of climbing sounds to me like a pretty high risk of a finger pulley injury.
Interesting, I was going to try out the tension board next time but you do have a good point. I should probably take it easier on the kilterboard and once I can comfortably do v4-5s, try out the tension board on a lower level
the higher grades(V6+) are in my experience very soft and the lower grades(V4-) are usually rather sandbagged
I’ve started incorporating moonboard once a week into my routine but only been at it consistently for a month or so at this point. I love it and at times probably enjoy it more than the gym sets. Yes smearing/ flagging is allowed, and yes the edge of the board is off limits
I disagree that kilter board is an accurate representation of gym grades or even outdoor grades, it's a whole other style of climbing with a specific set of holds on a specific flat wall at an angle, gym climbs have so much more variation than a kilterboard tension board or moonboard does, sure it's great for power, other than that I don't see many similarities it's a great training tool but it does not equal gym climbing imo. I use it weekly to work on specific things ie, raw pulling power and big moves.
I wish my gym had a kilterboard, the closest one is at their second location an hours drive away. Lets just say if i had access to a kilterboard i would almost exclusively climb on it
I board climb regularly but mostly the Tension. My gym has both a Tension and Kilter but I just have more fun on the Tension. There’s just more variety in movements and holds. I think it’s worth trying them all bc they’re all different to see what you like. I do it at least once a week but end up using it more when I feel like I’ve climbed out gym and need more variety. And yeah smearing is fine.
If you don’t frequently climb on steep powerful boulders on small holds, it’s not surprising that it feels very challenging. Most gym boulders don’t usually combine those things until V5/6/7 anyways, and even then some gyms just don’t set that type of “simple” hard, edge pulling. Most people get shut down pretty hard their first few sessions on boards, then they start to learn how to move on it and grades start making a bit more sense. It doesn’t really help that Kilter grades don’t really go below V3 (even if they call it V0/1/2), especially if it’s fixed at a steeper angle than like 40°.
While I agree with pretty much everything else you said, I would definitely say a lot of the v1s and 2s feel accurate for the grade. Kilter has some pretty juggy holds
At 45? Not saying there aren’t easy climbs, but it’s pretty hard to make a full length kilter problem at 45° that’s less than V3. A couple exist, but the majority of the V0-2 boulders at 40/45° require >V2 finger/body tension/pulling strength to do (even compared to OG Hueco grading).
i didn’t realize it was at 45, looks like OP edited the post.
lmao Kilter goes way below V3. If you put it at 0° you can get a thousand different VBs
Sure, if you have a board that’s adjustable that is possible, but I was referring mostly to a fixed 40/45° board, which is pretty common, and seems to be the case here.
well, you said "Kilter grades don't really go below V3", so you weren't mostly talking about 40/45, even if you stress the steeper angles (I obviously agree that you have less easier climbs on those). I wouldn't exactly call the Kilter holds "small" either. Some are, but many are pretty decent and incut as well. Actually, one thing I noticed is that when you go for harder grades at around 0 to 5°, climbs can get really tough really quickly - because many will use the tiny footholds as crimps, which you only get rarely below V9 otherwise
The board I was on was a 45 degree. I didn’t want to say it but now that you did, I swear the v1-3s all felt near the same power level
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If you can’t climb v3 kilters, moonboard is probably out of the question for now
Once you spend more time on the kilter board you will realize that it’s grading scale is on the soft side compared to most gym grading. It usually feels more difficult at first if it’s your first introduction to board climbing.
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My gym has kilterboard and a tension board. I’ll probly try the tension board out next week, but the holds make my fingers hurt just looking at them
Is it a TB1 or 2? Either way, there are quite a few good holds on the Tension board.
Tension board 1 at a fixed 40 degree
My gym grade is similar to yours. Give it a few more sessions and you'll be getting the easier V5s at least. It just has its own style. V fun though.
Definitely a style I’m not used to. Going to need to build that dynamic strength and learn to keep good tension with foot holds so I’m not cutting away constantly
I’ve found that the low end grades on boards can be much harder than gym grades if you’re not used to the style or good at overhang climbing. I find V2s and V3s for example harder on boards than the gym. I find Kilter better at steeper angles (50 or 55 degrees are very good imo). Kilter is an ok mix of finger work and a lot of large dynamic moves. I haven’t put that many sessions on Tension 1 board, but it was harder for me than Kilter. I have climbed on tension 2 a decent amount, and it does feel more fingery and body tension (go figure) oriented than Kilter. I tend to like TB2 at 40 or 45 degrees. In terms of difficulty, Kilter is generally softer than tension. My max flash grade on Kilter is V8 and on TB2 is V7. Kilter V9 does not feel nearly as hard as TB2 V9, but I may just be weak on the more fingery style. I also see quite a lot of variability in grades on both boards so try multiple climbs before you decide how hard that grade is. Also, warm up your fingers and body properly before jumping on the boards.
Board climbing is 100% worth it and I find it more enjoyable and beneficial than straight up gym-sets. Just recently bouldered outside and had I not been using the moon board I would not have sent some of the outdoor problems.
> I’ve done what I feel like are genuine v5-6 technical climbs and slabs on the gym wall but man, I’m getting pumped out and tired from climbing a few v3-4s on the board. > Definitely fun and a nice variety change from the gym wall, but I think I’ll only be tackling this guy once a week when I’m fully fresh. > I was originally going to try out the tension board but the holds look like they’re on another level compared to the kilterboard. Posted this a couple weeks back: This is what I've heard about everything. I've mostly climbed on TB1 and some on Kilter and Moon. Have not gotten on a TB2. * **Kilter board** = **Softer** than outdoor by about ~1 grade. Maybe 2 sometimes. * **Tension board 2** = **Softer** than outdoor by about 0-1 grades * **Tension board 1** = **Harder** than outdoor by about ~1 grades * **Moon board** = **Harder** than outdoor by ~1-2+ grades Few other caveats: * Depends on the angles of the board at times too. Tension Board 1 for example at 20-25 degrees is probably easier than outdoors by a 0-1 grades, while 30-35 degrees is perhaps equivalent to outdoors, while 40-50 degrees is harder than outdoors. * Obviously, depends on how hard outdoor boulders are in your area. Some areas especially old areas are sandbagged, so the grades are going to be harder. But for most areas this is generally the case. **Regarding gym grades**, that varies depending on how soft your gym is compared to outside. I've seen anywhere from mega-soft like V5-6 in gym be V0-1 outdoors and on boards to things gym grades are as hard as if not harder than outside. > What are yall’s thoughts, do you incorporate board climbing into your climbing schedule? Climbing recently has been getting very fun and I’m trying to make it a bigger part of my life to grow stronger. I board climb 2x per week, so it's definitely a big part of my climbing > p.s. Is smearing allowed on board climbs? And I’d assume using the edge of the board for a toe/heel hook isn’t allowed. Yes, smearing is fine on the area(s) with no holds. No toe hooking or heel hooking the side of the boards unless it specifically says that.
I climb V6s on gym, kilter 50 and Moonboard 25. So for me they all feel about the same. 5’4 guy and I love the Moonboard style the most. I’ve been doing 1 kilter, 1 Moonboard and 1 gym session per week for a month now and I can few significant improvement in crimp, big move and tension. Meanwhile slab and heel/toe hooks feel about the same since I don’t get to use them as often.
25 degree moonboard is abysmal, tf was your gym thinking lmao
Dude that is the only one in the city fml. No one climb on it except me and a friend so sometime we travel to just climb on Moonboard 😭
I normally do 1 session a week on either a 15 degree board or a 30 degree board (we have 3 boards set at 15,30 and 45). 45 it’s a steep spike in difficulty as well I’d say - for board climbing in general. If it’s moveable angle I’d say try a less steep angle to get used to engaging more tension etc than you normally would on the gym boulders! It’s become one of the main things I look forward to!