YES. Mind is blown. I'm going to be careful not to overdo it starting out but if I can manage to avoid injuring myself, I can only imagine how strong I'm going to get.
Yes! People who are serious route climbers will do bouldering as part of their training, just to boost strength and power.
But also! In my experience, it's an advantage to start weak (in terms of bouldering-specific strength), because it forces you to start learning technique early. Then your strength will catch up just from the bouldering, and then you'll have strength AND technique!
There is also immense appeal in being able to just pop in whenever I feel like it rather than having to get a group together and then spend ages trying to remember how to tie a knot
YUP. I now do trad routes outdoors as well as bouldering, but indoors, I pretty much always boulder. Works SO MUCH BETTER for me.
Re: I will be spamming these comments as I think of stuff
Yes! People who are serious route climbers will do bouldering as part of their training, just to boost strength and power.
But also! In my experience, it's an advantage to start weak (in terms of bouldering-specific strength), because it forces you to start learning technique early. Then your strength will catch up just from the bouldering, and then you'll have strength AND technique!
There is also immense appeal in being able to just pop in whenever I feel like it rather than having to get a group together and then spend ages trying to remember how to tie a knot
YUP. I now do trad routes outdoors as well as bouldering, but indoors, I pretty much always boulder. Works SO MUCH BETTER for me.