From the category archives:
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 [...]
{ 4 comments }
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 [...]
{ 1 comment }
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 [...]
{ 8 comments }
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 [...]
{ 94 comments }
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 [...]
{ 4 comments }
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). [...]
{ 11 comments }
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 [...]
{ 10 comments }
I’ve been known to have a beer or two after climbing, so it’s encouraging to read that I may not necessarily be hurting my fitness. New research suggests that beer may be a decent source of hydration after a workout. Researchers from Granada University in Spain published results from a recent study that tested the [...]
{ 3 comments }
You can never have too much insight from great climbers on their technique. Steph Davis has an article on her blog, High Places, discussing her techniques for climbing cracks (via splitterchoss.com). The key to pure crack climbing, as with every type of climbing, is the feet. I like to start from the basics, which with [...]
{ 2 comments }
I just read the hangboard review in the new issue of Climbing and the Moon Fingerboard has really caught my eye. From Moon: As with all Moon products our design philosophy is definately less is more and the Moon fingerboard is no exception. Do not be conned into buying a fancy fingerboard at a high [...]
{ 10 comments }
The May issue of Climbing Magazine has a training tech tip tucked away that my climbing partner recently pointed out to me. This short article gives an overview of upper-body Tabatas, a technique that promises increases in both power and endurance – quite possibly the holy grail of training for climbing. So, what are Tabatas? [...]
{ 5 comments }
The scourge of many climbers, poison ivy is often a mystery to us. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed several climbers arguing amongst themselves at the crag over what is or what is not poison ivy. Three leaves someone says. Well, look around, every damn plant here has three leaves! To add [...]
{ 3 comments }
