Although gym climbing does not exactly replicate climbing outside, it was born from, and is based upon, outdoor climbing. Although some gyms use a no-number color-coded grading system, most gyms use the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS), which is the same system used for climbs outside. Although not all gym climbers go climbing outside. many eventually do. For these reasons, gyms should stop doing this one thing - grading their climbs too softly.

This isn’t true for all gyms, but I’ve climbed in a lot of gyms and many share this same problem, they are grading their climbs too softly - sometimes excessively softly.
 
If you own, work, or climb at a gym, consider the following and, perhaps, advocate for moving away from the “soft gym grades” and bumping up the “hard” factor. Here’s why:

• Make it a good imitation. Since gyms use the YDS system to grade climbs, it needs to more closely approximate outside. If gyms used a completely different grading system then it wouldn’t matter, but they aren’t. With each climb, mental and physical associations are being made with the grade. Although there is variability in grades in outdoor climbing (i.e. some areas are softer or more sandbagged than others), climbing outdoors is consistently more difficult than climbing in a gym. To imitate it better, the grades need to align better. To begin, stop starting your easiest juggy, thoughtless, ladder climbs at 5.7. Many outdoor 5.7s can be nuanced and spicy with some challenging moves. A juggy ladder or low angle slab climb should be about a 5.4, maybe a 5.5.
• A new climber doesn’t know the difference. If a new climber learns that a 5.4 is the “easy” juggy starting point (instead of a 5.7), then that is what they learn. They don’t establish an inaccurate vision of a 5.7 that they will carry with them for the rest of their climbing life. 5.7s, especially old school 5.7 trad climbs, can be challenging.
• Softening grades does no one any favors and, outside of the gym, it can actually be dangerous. Joe thinks he’s a 5.12 climber because he crushes the 12s in the gym. But, Joe's gym marks 5.10d as a 5.12. Now, Joe goes to climb outside for the first time, starts leading a 5.12 and… tweaks a tendon, can’t finish and leaves a bail biner (or worse, puts his rope through the hangar and tries to lower off a single bolt), falls and decks because he couldn’t make the clip. You get the idea.
• Egos may also get bruised because climbers new to the outside might not be able to climb what they are able to climb in the gym. Some people may make the snarky little violin symbol for a bruised ego, but, honestly, bruised egos suck. To some it can be highly discouraging, even debilitating, and it may cut them off from climbing altogether. There is no way to escape the bruised ego in climbing, that’s part of the sport, but no need to unnecessarily obliterate someone. Grading a 5.10d climb as a 5.12 does no one any favors.

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