by Tom Markiewicz on June 24, 2009
If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Rick from Cremnomaniac has complied a nice list of trad climbing techniques, tricks, and tips.
Trad climbing has lost some of its appeal, or is a smaller blip on the radar. I still know plenty of folks that prefer trad, but [...]
by Tom Markiewicz on June 19, 2009
Climbing Magazine has a detailed bouldering tech tip on how to top out on a boulder problem (obviously for those slopey, nasty ones).
by Tom Markiewicz on June 3, 2009
Dave MacLeod is writing a series of introductory articles for the Mountaineering Council of Scotland’s magazine and site.
You can find the first three parts here and the fourth is due this August. The articles are PDFs and contain some great tips for climbing and training from the Scottish hardman.
by Tom Markiewicz on May 28, 2009
As climbers, we suffer from numerous injuries. One of the more common climber injuries is medial epicondylitis or golfers elbow. Essentially this is pain on the inside of your elbow and it originates from overuse of the flexor muscles. All our gripping without exercising the opposing muscle groups is usually the culprit for climbers.
As I [...]
by Tom Markiewicz on March 16, 2009
I’m always going through a lot of tape for my fingers, but buying it at REI or other retail stores is getting ridiculously expensive. I did manage to find a great deal on Amazon a few days ago, but I was almost skeptical at the low price per roll. My order just showed up and [...]
by Tom Markiewicz on March 5, 2009
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 [...]
by Tom Markiewicz on March 4, 2009
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 my [...]
by Tom Markiewicz on February 27, 2009
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 [...]
by Tom Markiewicz on January 22, 2009
The American Alpine Institute points out a series of videos by Canadian climbing guide Mike Barter on the pre-equalization on anchors:
There is a little bit of controversy over pre-equalized anchors. Some feel that one leg of the anchor will get more force than another, which means that such an anchor could never be fully equalized. [...]
by Tom Markiewicz on January 7, 2009
Over the years, I think I’ve read almost every book on training for climbing. Always looking for that missing element to my training plans or that hidden technique I never knew existed.
Obviously, there never has been a magic bullet, though many books would have you believe so (although I do recommend Training for Climbing). As [...]
by Tom Markiewicz on October 8, 2008
The prusik hitch may be pretty basic for many readers, but there are certain essential knots that every climber should know.
The American Alpine Institute has posted a great video illustrating the prusik knot.
Alpinists keep a variety of technical tools in their back-pockets. One of the most important tools is the prusik hitch. The prusik hitch [...]