Too Hard for a Caveman- Rock and Ice
You know that feeling when you're climbing and everything is going smoothly and then all of a sudden you're really pumped and you feel like you lose any sense of good climbing technique? We've all been there. "Too often our inner caveman—the beast with no technique—asserts himself at the worst [...]
4×4’s – What They Are & How To Do Them
4x4's - What They Are & How To Do Them The point of 4x4’s is to increase your ability to climb through a pump and improve your general fitness. Basically, it's a way to increase power endurance and your mental ability to work through some pain. You'll want to pick [...]
Freebie Grip Strength Exercise: Towel Hangs
Steve Bechtel, climbing trainer and owner of climbstrong.com, wrote a book on strength training called Strength: Foundational Training for Rock Climbing. He explains why strength training with weights and on the fingerboard is really important for rock climbers. However, he also states the following: "Occasionally training calls for more general [...]
Top 5 Pulling Exercises for Climbers- Nicros
(photo courtesy of nicros.com) "Although your fingers and toes are your primary link to the rock, it’s the larger muscles of your arms, legs, and torso that facilitate most of the upward movement in climbing. Of course, lack of leg strength is rarely, if ever, a limiting constraint on the [...]
The New School Room with Ben Moon- BMC TV
"Train Hard. Climb Harder." -Ben Moon quote posted on the wall of "The New School Room". In this video from BMC TV, British training master Ben Moon introduces his new top-end training facility in the Sheffield area, "The New School Room". Ben Moon tells us about the old and new School Rooms. [...]
Training for Endurance- Steph Davis
***GIVEAWAY!! In honor of route season being upon us, we're giving one lucky winner $246 worth of route climbing essentials! What You Could Win: 1. A 30m 10.1mm Sterling Gym Rope (worth $96) and 2. A 1-Yr Route Training Program membership (worth $150 and great for endurance training- learn more about what [...]
Freebie Endurance Workout
Climbing endurance is basically the ability to climb many moves in a row that are under your max ability without falling off. It's what it takes to do long routes (or very long boulder problems) without pumping off due to lack of vascularity. If you're falling off the tops of [...]
The Way of the Iron Fist- Forearm Training
Have you ever considered using rice in your training program? Kinda weird sounding right? As it turns out, using a rice bucket is actually a really handy, simple tool for strengthening your forearms and fingers, and can be a great warm-up routine to get into before hangboarding (or climbing). This article [...]
Shoe Review: Tenaya Oasi
Shoe review - Tenaya Oasi Written by Dave Sheldon $165 Trango.com or Amazon.com The Spanish climbing shoe brand Tenaya hit the U.S. shores two years ago and quickly carved out a piece of the shoe market pie. Their immediate popularity can be attributed to a number of unique design and fit [...]
Hangboard Training Timing
(photo courtesy of mountainproject.com) If you've ever been training on the hangboard and wished you had a better system for timing yourself than a simple stopwatch, this could be the solution for you. Josh Janes wrote this great forum post on Mountain Project (mountainproject.com) about the app Seconds Pro and how [...]