While I agree these are good for general fitness and will help in climbing, they definitely don't help you get strong from a climbing point of view.

Really important, not sure, I know people who can't walk 100 steps up the hill to the crag without stop and breathing heavy who climb pretty darn hard.

While slack-lining is fun, I never found it useful in increasing my climbing ability. Just seems to be one of the activities that climbers enjoy doing.
How does slack lining help specifically.

Want to build finger strength before your area has a climbing gym, do what climbers did for years before gyms were around. Finger tip pull-ups. Add weight to get even stronger.

The Power versus Endurance debate in rock climbing has been around for long time. With more of either, you are less liking to get pumped, or to recover quicker between pumps. (Shaking out has been in use for a long time too.)

I agree, many climbers rely to much on upper body, I learned to climbed on slabs and cracks, so I understand the importance of foot work. With that in mind, regardless of how strong your legs are, if you upper body and arms can't hold you, you won't climb overhanging routes.

When I started climbing overhanging routes, cracks and face, I had to learn to be less aggressive with my lower body and more aggressive with my upper. I spent forever trying to get perfect foot placement instead of just moving into the next stance. By doing so, I wasted energy. Once I learn to move, cut my feet loose, dead-point, and dyno, my climbing improved significantly. So did my confidence on run-out slabs. (I started trusting and moving on smears I wouldn't have otherwise.)

If you finish the route or boulder problem, it doesn't matter is you powered through it or not. Doesn't matter if you finessed your way through it either. Actually, it just doesn't matter how you climb as long as you are enjoying yourself.

It may seem silly or maybe obvious but a while back I started intentionally climbing open handed.... even on crimps almost all the time (90%). I did it to avoid injury from crimping but what I found was that It really taught me to use my lower body and core better ... really helped using momentum. Also, I think naturally you are forced to use your whole body to do a move instead of just muscling through. You may have to do this for while before it makes sense. I've always had good technique but this constant practice put me in the great technique area. My consistent flash level is much higher now than ever before.

I've been bouldering for nearly 3 years on and off and I still have less experienced climbers(Like day 1) being able to muscle through problems I've been attempting for weeks. I'll be honest I'm not light but, I'm not over weight. So far I've been getting through problems simply through experience and being able to hold onto crimps. I was wondering at what grade does this stop and if I should just buff up rather than doing fingerboard? I can flash V3's at the standard grading at Brooklyn Boulders but, the grading at my University's local gym is much more harsh.

You don't know the physical background and even childhood they have/had, they may have put in years of hard work in other things that may have at-least low level climbing pass over.

I see a huge differance day to day in new climbers. Some are just good, others.. to be blunt are not. Alot of it also comes down to how active said climber was in childhood. The poeple who had or are into everything as a kid, climbing roof tops.. tree's.. jumping over fences etc tend to pick up skills that do go toward our definition of climbing. The generation coming through now (from my pov) have a much larger portion of children/young adults who do nothing.. play video games & text all day or w/e. It realy shows in their cog and coordination, or lack of.

Im going off on a rant so will cut it short ;p.

Technique and physical ability are together, its not some war were you pick a side. But, seems the advice and mentality of many climbers is one or the other.

If you have been climbing for 3 years, and by the sounds of it fighting for el'techniqo, maybe pay some attention to the physical aspect?. It's clearly working for those 1st day warriors. Imagine what you would achieve with your technique and their strength.

DemolitionRed seems to have na axe to grind with strong climbers for some reason. /shrug. Being strong helps, having technique helps - they all work together.

I think overall fitness is very important. I know a lot of alpine guides and the first thing they would advise when it comes to climbing, keep up a good all round fitness.

I don't have an axe to grind so much as frustration watching some of you guys hurt yourselves.
I weigh just short of 100lbs and I am 5.5 tall. I'm skinny, Im female and I'm getting through those tough technical routes just fine. I have never used a hang board in my life and I have never lifted weights but as well as climbing, I spent my adolescence as a gymnast. Being supple and having a good understanding of my core body strength and my overall center of gravity is what allows me to climb with ease those same routes all you guys need to build muscle to do.
Just saying !

Fair enough. If you are a beginner climber 11 and under then yea girls usually use less muscle. The learning curve for girls is flatter since they usually realize they are not strong enough and rely on footwork and technique from the start. Someitmes being strong as a beginner can be a detriment.

If we are talking 12 and trying to break into the 13s a hangboard is a perfectly acceptable tool.

What grades are you talking?

All grades are completely subjective, so I only ever use grades as a guide and not as point scorer!
I'm a big wall and multi pitch climber and only use the gyms bouldering room to go through some of the highly technical and demanding moves sometimes asked of me when I'm a couple of thousand feet up.
Indoor bouldering allows me to practice those demanding pumpy moves. roofs and overhangs comprising of delicate foot holds, pinchers, heel hooks and slippery slopers will absolutely insist that I have great balance (know how to flag myself) good mind skills absolute determination and strength.

Power to weight ratio is very important. I don't dispute that top climbers tend to have low body fat levels and good strength. They also have a very high level of fitness, excellent spotting skills, have a competitive and daring edge and are incredibly supple.
Whilst I may be skinny, I'm pure muscle. That though, doesn't mean I'm going to beat you in an arm wrestling competition. I may however, fly past you on the wall, because although you may be stronger than me, I am probably more agile than you. I gained my strength through climbing. I gained my agility through climbing.
I love watching people boulder because they give other climbers the edge when it comes to intermediate movements. The climbs are short, fast and pumpy but strength on its own is pretty useless if you want to progress beyond the most basic of grades.

I love watching people boulder because they give other climbers the edge when it comes to intermediate movements. The climbs are short, fast and pumpy but strength on its own is pretty useless if you want to progress beyond the most basic of grades.

I don't have an axe to grind so much as frustration watching some of you guys hurt yourselves.
I weigh just short of 100lbs and I am 5.5 tall. I'm skinny, Im female and I'm getting through those tough technical routes just fine. I have never used a hang board in my life and I have never lifted weights but as well as climbing, I spent my adolescence as a gymnast. Being supple and having a good understanding of my core body strength and my overall center of gravity is what allows me to climb with ease those same routes all you guys need to build muscle to do.
Just saying !

Strength is all about strength/weight. At 100 pounds with a gymnast background, your strength to weight ratio is likely badass and superior to the males you are criticizing for trying to get an equivalent strength to weight ratio.

I don't have an axe to grind so much as frustration watching some of you guys hurt yourselves.
I weigh just short of 100lbs and I am 5.5 tall. I'm skinny, Im female and I'm getting through those tough technical routes just fine. I have never used a hang board in my life and I have never lifted weights but as well as climbing, I spent my adolescence as a gymnast. Being supple and having a good understanding of my core body strength and my overall center of gravity is what allows me to climb with ease those same routes all you guys need to build muscle to do.
Just saying !

All grades are completely subjective, so I only ever use grades as a guide and not as point scorer!

I'm a big wall and multi pitch climber and only use the gyms bouldering room to go through some of the highly technical and demanding moves sometimes asked of me when I'm a couple of thousand feet up.

Indoor bouldering allows me to practice those demanding pumpy moves. roofs and overhangs comprising of delicate foot holds, pinchers, heel hooks and slippery slopers will absolutely insist that I have great balance (know how to flag myself) good mind skills absolute determination and strength.

Power to weight ratio is very important. I don't dispute that top climbers tend to have low body fat levels and good strength. They also have a very high level of fitness, excellent spotting skills, have a competitive and daring edge and are incredibly supple.

Whilst I may be skinny, I'm pure muscle. That though, doesn't mean I'm going to beat you in an arm wrestling competition. I may however, fly past you on the wall, because although you may be stronger than me, I am probably more agile than you. I gained my strength through climbing. I gained my agility through climbing.

I love watching people boulder because they give other climbers the edge when it comes to intermediate movements. The climbs are short, fast and pumpy but strength on its own is pretty useless if you want to progress beyond the most basic of grades.

Yes, I understand what you are saying. I mean, you made a good point. A point I would like to make though is, I only have the muscle I need and that's because I don't use muscle power to do anything other than climb. Gymnastics made me supple which helps but if I had continued to do gymnastics it would of hindered my climbing because of the unwanted muscle development.
I think what I'm trying to say, though I have done it in this huge round about way is, the best thing to improve climbing is climbing and spending time around other climbers who are good.
Time and time again I hear guys who are fretting about their performance in the gym and rushing off to pump some iron. Going to a gym and doing resistance exercises with weights, in my opinion only trains the wrong muscles. It just adds weight onto the body that the body will probably never use for climbing.

If you could watch everyone is this thread climb before you listened to them, the following coversations would be much different.

technique will sometimes help you depending on the situation. strength will always help you.

people who use equal portions technique and strength max out around v6..v7. at this point, technique will start holding you back.

more problems will have smaller holds, bigger moves and less feet. there simply isn't an opportunity to use technique. the strength based climbers will see it as every other problem and muscle through it.

suppose technique turns a v5 into a v2. you only need a v2 worth of strength and you're done. on a v6 where no technique is available, it's now 4 vgrades higher than the strength requirement of the v5. the reason that the v6 seems to be miles away from the v5 is exactly that - it is for the technique based climbers. the strength based climbers will never build giant gaps. without technique some problems will get harder.

if without technique it's harder, learn the beta for this particular problem and do it. technique can be trained instantly and is a subcategory of beta.

on a sufficiently odd beta, everyone is equal since even the best technique users will have trained exactly as much as a strength based climber: none.

Just because you have strength or technique doesn't change the grade from one climber to the next. One person V4 isn't another V11 anymore that one climber's 5.12 is an others 5.8.

If the sequence require you to hold all your weight on a single one finger pocket in the middle of a roof, you need the strength to do the move, regardless of knowing how it's done or not. If you're not strong enough, you can't pull the move.