Home Campus Board and Climbing Wall
Max Training with Minimum Hassle 

   
The following suggestions are for building two simple training devices that are inexpensive and easy to set up at home.

Warning: Set up is the only thing that's easy about a home climbing wall or a campus board. This home gym system will keep a climber entertained as well as mutatedly strong.

The wall, or woody is a freestanding cave with plastic or wooden holds. In small areas such as basements an angle of up to 130° is ideal. The woody originated in England as a means for training indoors in bad weather. Built in basements or “cellers” according to British climbers, the indoor environment provides excellent climbing conditions while the woody provides specific power training through endless elimination boulder problems.

While massive indoor home climbing gyms may be constructed, the original "Woody's" were all of a similar design: a freestanding frame constructed of 2"X8"'s, 2"X6"'s and 2"X4"'s supporting three pieces of 4' x 8' 3/4 inch plywood. The plywood is mounted at a 40° angle starting at approximately 2 foot off the ground. Usually a flat kickboard is placed from the floor up to about the 2 foot level.

Buying and Making Holds
For those who have the budget, buying a wide variety of plastic holds is ideal. For many who don't have it in their budget, wood is the way to go. Making the holds is the most time-consuming part of constructing your woody. First, gather wood scraps of all different shapes and sizes. Now you’ll need some type of sanding device to shape and comfortize the holds. I recommend a belt sander as it removes excess wood quickly. Be sure you clamp the wood down securely because belt sanders are not particular and will remove skin as fast as excess wood.

When making your holds, concentrate on a diversity of forms: crimpers, slopers, pinches, pockets with sizes from micro to jugs.

You want to make a woody that most people can climb on, including and especially yourself. So add as many holds as possible on the overhanging plywood. Put holds for feet and hands anywhere possible and more importantly, the bottommost horizontal beam, called the kickboard must have starting footholds.

A great option to add to your woody is a campus board. The campus board is a no feet dead point board. If your fingers can take it, this is an effective method for developing finger power by shock loading your muscles and tendons. The name “Campus Board’ comes from the original board that Wolfgang Gullich trained on while attending college in preparation for the standard-setting route Action Direct  (5.14d).  

Simple directions for building your own campus board 

1. Attach strips of rectangular and slightly rounded molding on a 3 foot to 6 foot wide by 4 foot to 7 foot long piece of 3/4 inch thick plywood. The larger your campus board is, a broader spectrum of sizes you can attach. 

2. Now mount the campus board at a 75° angle. The board should be in a place where you can reach up and grab the bottom rail while your feet are still on the ground. Remember to sand extensively for comfort and work a flat section on the back side of any dowels that you will use for sturdier mounting with wood screws and wood glue.

 

Training
Once things are operational, you can start training for hard climbing: dead pointing up and down the board, double dynos, isolated hard moves, lock offs and reverse double dynos.

The key to using the campus board for maximum effect is having a no thumb lock crimping policy. 

Having a home woody and a campus board complement each other well. You can train for powerful climbing movements and focus on specific strengthening of the arms and finger tendons.

I've outlined the basic woody in this article, so let your imagination go. You can add side panels, thousands of T-nuts, a horizontal ceiling continuation or make a giant campus board as the head wall above the woody if you have high enough ceilings. The possibilities are only limited by your space, creativity and pocket book.

It's worthwhile to start putting the word out to friends that you'll need mattresses to pad the falls that you'll inevitably take from V-whatever Boulder problems that you'll be projecting on. It takes most people quite some time to get enough padding, so start looking now.

There may be only one thing more difficult than the Boulder problems you'll be doing on your woody and that's staying off of it long enough that you'll be able to climb when you have a date to go outside.

Check our full article on Campus Board Training