BURSTThe skills required to be a good setter are many. It’s important to be a good climber, and it is perhaps even more important to be conscientious and detail-oriented, as climbing involves complex movement and setters are the architects of that movement. Setters need to set climbs that are interesting and the right level of challenge.
Setting is also a very physically demanding job. Setters forerun the problems and boulders they put up and, of course, they also physically carry and install every single crimp, sloper, jug and volume you see to the height in which it is positioned. They hold these often heavy features in place and drill them into the wall. Before doing so, they carefully uninstall the previous route or boulder problem and safely lower each hold or volume back to the ground.
The many and diverse demands of setting had us wondering: how does setting shape a setter’s climbing, indoors and out? Does it make them stronger or does it just render them too tired to pursue their own climbing goals? Does it improve their technique and help them better identify and understand beta? We interviewed Karlo King to gain some perspective on how setting has influenced his personal climbing life. King is the head setter of Climb Base5 in North Vancouver as well as a setter at Ground Up in Squamish.
“I definitely feel the strongest I have ever been,” said King when asked how setting has affected his climbing. “I have also been living in Squamish now for 3.5 years, so that has had an influence, too – but I think setting has had a huge impact on my climbing. You’re asked to climb a lot, forerun a lot, and set things that are sometimes beyond your limit. When you’re setting boulders and forerunning the hardest things at the end of the session, and you’re doing that every week, it’s just built-in training. It’s a physical job overall. You do a lot of lifting of buckets full of holds, you’re on ropes, and you’re hauling things. You’re constantly holding on to gigantic volumes and screwing them in. So, I definitely feel stronger overall.”
When asked about just how physically demanding the work is, King said, “I remember when I started at Ground Up [in Squamish], I needed to have a nap every Monday after we would set. I would go back home and nap for an hour and a half before I could do anything else. But my body has acclimatized to it now.”
He explained that he needed to be more mindful with his management of load and another precious resource for climbers, skin. “I learned that after a full day of setting, I shouldn’t climb. I also learned that I needed to save skin for forerunning days. When the weather is nice, it’s easy to get carried away climbing outside, especially if you’re psyched on something, but you have to save your skin and be sure you’re not totally wrecked for a day of setting.
“It’s also important to be more intentional on rest days with antagonists and injury prevention. I’ve noticed that tendonitis develops more easily in my elbows and shoulders from constantly pushing holds and volumes into the wall and from using the drill. I’m constantly achy, but that’s because I also climb outside of work. It’s a tough one, but it’s ultimately worth it.”
King also shared that setting continuously improves his climbing IQ. “One thing that’s been really cool in my recreational climbing is that I’ll be describing sequences to my friends or moves, and they’re like, “How do you remember that?” It’s all from setting!
“Before I was a setter, I just wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing on the wall. I would forget sequences and not remember what I did. But I worked with a Head Setter, and when we were forerunning, he would say, ‘What did you do?’ And when I said I didn’t remember, he would tell me, ‘You have to remember what you did. And you have to pay attention to what other people did.’ Of course, it’s true, because you don’t want to repeatedly physically climb something just to remember what the sequence is. This comes back to preserving the body. Visualizing and remembering sequences is a learned skill. Setting has definitely improved my ability to see and remember beta.”
The post How Does Working as a Route Setter Impact Your Climbing? appeared first on Gripped Magazine.