Everything climbing and the outdoors.
Sean McColl writes about warming up for competitions. He has some good advice that can be adapted to any climbing warm-up routine. My 75 minute warm up starts with 5 minutes of cardio. You can do anything, jump up and down, go for a run, jump rope, anything to get your heart going. For the […]
photo credit: ~ Phil Moore UKClimbing.com offers up a comprehensive guide to bouldering at Fontainebleau, France complete with how to train, the local rating system, when to go, and where to stay. It has been used as a bouldering area since the 1870s and has almost continuously remained at the centre of the world bouldering […]
Gabor Szekely discusses something we all run into at some point: an unexplained slump in climbing performance. Every year, as my climbing schedule is pretty demanding, I go through an annual slump. For those of you that don’t know, a slump is a period of time (for me usually lasting a month or two), when […]
As climbers, we’re always getting injures – that’s just part of the game. Hopefully your injuries are minor; but when an injury makes you stop climbing for an extended period of time, another outlet is needed for all that obsession. ClimbingNarc has an injury and recently asked on Twitter for some suggestions on non-climbing activities […]
photo credit: Susanica Nalle Hukkataival has been sending many hard Hueco boulder problems including the first flash of Fred Nicole’s Full Monty (V12). ClimbingNarc has a good summary of the sends this season at Hueco. There appears to be access issues at the sport climbing hotbed of Margalef, Spain. The Book Of Bitter Aspects (V14) […]
Jon Glassberg recently posted quite a nice rant regarding climbing videos and the state of that aspect of the climbing industry. If you are going to make any money in the industry I would expect some personal progression. I want to see a desire to be better at that defining skill and a recycling of […]
I’ve been struggling with some climbing injuries recently and finally decided to visit a sports medicine doctor highly recommended by a friend. My issues were a recurring finger injury at the base of my right ring finger and pain in my elbows and thumbs. He rather quickly diagnosed the elbows/thumbs as flexor tendinitis and set […]
ESPN The Magazine profiles ice climber Will Gadd. Gadd stands at the base of the 40-foot-high frozen waterfall and looks up. He kicks footholds with his crampons and swings his axes overhead, driving the points deep into the ice. He pulls with his arms and pushes with his legs, then kicks his feet and swings […]
Sean McColl examines the various bouldering competition formats and discusses how he prefers the zone format scoring system. Another reason why I like the zone is because it rewards smarter climbers rathan than always the strongest. Iâ??ve seen very strong competitors make mistakes during qualifyers and semis and as a result, they did not make […]
Following up on my last gear review roundup, here are some more reviews floating around the web: Jay Young at RockClimbing.com reviews the book An Eye at the Top of the World by Pete Takeda. Team Geared Up offers up their thoughts on the climbing film The Fanatic Search. Björn Pohl reviews the Andrea Boldrini […]