Over the last few years there has been a boom in climbing wall construction across the country.  The newest facilities are providing a really high quality of indoor experience and promoting an increase in standards.  A great recent example is The Climbing Academy which has taken bouldering to new levels in Bristol and will no doubt do the same at their new wall in Glasgow.  Other sites in Reading, Leeds and right across the country are also proving that indoor climbing is on the up.

Modern facilities offer a huge variety of wall angles from slabs to roofs and a massive selection of routes at all grades.  There are also dedicated training areas with campus rungs and finger boards.  For those who strike the right balance between rock and plastic, indoor climbing has the potential to offer huge benefits on your outdoors projects.  It’s an excellent way to improve endurance, power and technique in just a few hours each week, and of course it makes the perfect activity after a hard day at work.  So the dark evenings of winter are the ideal time to rediscover your indoor climbing centre and take advantage of the opportunity to train and improve for next Spring.

The good news is, there’s a minimal amount of kit required for indoor climbing.  If your local wall has full length routes, check out Kieran’s article on gear for beginners for some great ideas on harnesses and belay plates.

Five Ten Anasazi Arrowhead

If you go to a bouldering wall it’s even easier – just a pair of shoes will do it.  Go for a Velcro fastening so you can get them off quickly when you’re taking a break.  The Five Ten Rogue would be a great choice for the beginner or intermediate looking for a comfy fit.  They use Stealth rubber which is known as the best in the business.  If harder problems are in the pipeline, consider the Five Ten Anasazi Arrowhead.  This shoe is designed for steep problems with power focused through an asymmetric fit and downturned toe.  What you may sacrifice in comfort they more than make up for in performance!

Then there are many smaller products designed to give you an edge when climbing.  The first thing to consider is chalk, and how to store it.  The best loose chalk is probably Metolius Super Chalk which incorporates a drying agent to mop up more sweat.  A covering of this provides reliable grip when you most need it.  Store it in the cavernous Moon Chalk Bucket for easy access when bouldering.  However the most desirable of chalk bags is surely the Arc’teryx C80 which is made out of Schoeller softshell fabric and is super ergonomic in use.

Black Diamond Brush Kit

Indoor holds can be very abrasive when new and an intense session may lead to some ripped skin.  In cases like this it’s wise to prepare with some Metolius Climbing Tape.  This is big, wide, tough strapping that supports fingers and protects skin.  You may also find that holds are very well chalked from the hands of so many previous climbers.  Excessive chalk can clog up the surface of a hold, rendering it smooth and reducing your friction on it.  A quick going over with one of the brushes from the Black Diamond Brush Kit will bring a hold back into prime condition and make the problem that bit more achievable.  A range of three different brush sizes mean you can clean chalk and dirt from any size of hold, from mean little crimps to the largest slopers.

After finishing a session, you may need to help your skin recover.  The quicker you reduce soreness, the sooner you can come back for more climbing.  Try Metolius Hand Repair Balm.  This really does do what it says on tin, giving your fingers the moisture they need to recover from the combination of chalk and rough holds.  You may also want some assistance in warming down from a session.  That’s where the Metolius Grip Saver Plus comes in.  This squeezy ball has a unique elastic mid-section that exercises your fingers in extension as well as compression.  It’s also great for injury rehab.

If you balk at paying an entry fee for your climbing, or the indoor arena just isn’t for you, it may be worth investing in a home fingerboard.  These are a relatively inexpensive way of increasing upper body strength and allow you to pursue gains in fitness in your own time.  Some fingerboards are not for the faint hearted and it requires dedication to stick at a training regime.  It helps if you site the board somewhere with a television or radio to provide some entertainment while you’re doing reps!

Beastmaker 2000

If you’re a hardcore high grade climber (or looking to become one) there is no contest – you should go for the Beastmaker 2000.  This is the ultimate board with some gnarly holds, particularly the 45 degree slopers and mono pockets.  The guys at Beastmaker craft each one from sustainably-sourced and skin-friendly wood.  It’s nice and subtle to look at, so your partner is less likely to object when you put it up!  There is also a Beastmaker 1000 which still boasts tricky slopers and pockets but is less likely to bring you to tears.  Wood may be nicer, but for value look no further than the Metolius Project.  This compact resin board still has plenty of hold variety, is top quality and shaped in three dimensions to give a more ergonomic hang.  It also comes with a training guide to give you ideas and inspiration.  For something even easier to use, go for the Metolius Rock Rings 3D.  These are a superb minimalist, portable training tool.  The two grips rotate as you pull up which keeps your shoulders aligned to help prevent injury.

Of course, take every opportunity to climb outdoors when you can this autumn and winter; for many of us it’s the rock, the mountain, the views, the outside experience that counts.  But if your only option is to head indoors and you’re determined to make gains in performance, make the most of every session by using some of the gear above and you will reap the benefits!

How To: Indoor Climbing and Training is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

1. 5 Essential Pieces of Kit for the Beginner Climber
2. Moving from indoor to outdoor rock climbing
3. First indoor climbing session in Singapore, some new friends and an unexpected gift

Craig Watson

Craig is a Sport & Exercise Psychologist (in training), NLP Performance Coach and Clinical Hypnotherapist. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Psychology, PG Cert in Sport & Exercise Science and is currently undertaking a masters in Sport & Exercise Psychology. His research and applied interests focus on sport performance and motivation, which has been a constant theme throughout his work.

As well as his academic work Craig spent 10 years as a climbing coach, working with a wide range of ages and abilities. It was this work that led him to his research interests as well as formulating a plan to develop workshops and 1:1 clinics to help climbers who want to improve by training their minds more effectively. He uses a wide variety of methods and techniques from Neuro Linguistic Programming, contemporary psychological theories to hypnosis depending on what will benefit the individual the most with the overall aim of removing psychological barriers and maximising performance.

The Climbing Psychology Workshops

These series of workshops focus on helping climbers to enhance their training by learning about how the mental side of climbing can help or restrict performance and practical techniques to reduce barriers and maximise your focus, concentration and motivation…
In each workshop the time is split into both classroom and wall time, this enables you to try out the techniques immediately on the wall to see for yourself how the mental aspect of climbing can have a positive and immediate effect.

For dates and prices, visit the Harrogate Wall web site.

Mind Coaching with RCUK contributor, Craig Watson at Harrogate Wall is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

1. Craig Watson – contributor
2. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game (and mine)
3. Contributors

In this truly inspirational climbing book, Dave MacLoed embarks on a step by step mission to destroy every excuse that stands between you and your success as a rock climber (or if you think laterally, between you and success in your job, or any other sport).

The book is broken down into 5 chapters:

1. Creatures of habit

Dave really gets to the bottom of some of the psychological reasons that climbers don’t succeed. If you really take it to heart and examine your own climbing, there’s some pretty tough things to come to terms with here. For me this is the most important section in the book. Climbing is such a psychological sport, if you’re not prepared mentally, you’ll never succeed. I loved the stuff about avoiding getting into the habit of only climbing the type of routes that you can look good on, or being afraid to climb in front of strangers who might be better climbers than you. This stuff is solid gold. I think most people will be able to admit that at some point, they have been affected by the issues in this chapter.

2. The big four: movement technique, finger strength, endurance, body mass

In this section Dave gets into the physical aspects of climbing. What’s really nice is that he has a deep understanding of motivation and external factors that might influence your climbing ability. He really takes into account that everyone has a different level of time and emotional commitment that they can give to the sport.

3. Fear of falling: the real problem, probably…

All climbers (humans) have a fear of falling, it’s hard wired into our DNA to keep us alive. However we all have different levels of fear and ways of dealing with it. There’s some really practical advice on dealing with the fear of falling here, complete with some drills to help you to overcome it.

4. The other big four: attitude, lifestyle, circumstances, tactics

This section smashes a few more of the excuses you might have about improving your climbing – think you’re too old? Forget that! There’s some top quality advice on training to be the best you can be whatever age.

5. What’s next coach? Planning your improvement

Here you’ll find a blueprint for planning your training and recovery. As with the other chapters, it’s real, easy-to-follow, practical advice.

I can hand on heart tell you that the advice contained in this book contributed to my improving my climbing performance by a good couple of grades. Those improvements largely came about from mental and attitude changes rather than some kind of physical regime, so they came pretty quickly.

If you feel like you have hit a bit of a plateau in your rock climbing performance and you want to find a way to push to the next level, I defy you to read this book and not find at least a couple of things which will help you to do it.

I’m proudly stocking it in my new, online climbing books shop. Buy Dave MacLoed – 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes for just £15 – bargain!

Climbing book review: 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes by Dave Macloed is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

So what strategies do climbers employ? An example is when you’re at the crux of a climb, your gear is way below your feet and you’re tired do you?:
A) power through the crux hoping for better holds and protection
B) stay where you are until gravity makes the choice for you
C) down climb
D) whimper and ask for a rope?

As I’m sure you know, climbers have to make decisions very quickly and under pressure – Useful in both the climbing and business worlds. There are many other similarities between being successful in climbing and business including: determination, focus, training, commitment   and hard work.

Not only can business learn from climbing, but climbers can learn things from business too.  For those of you involved in project management you will be aware of S.MA.R.T. For those of you who aren’t it stands for:

S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Realistic
T – Timely

There are variants around this acronym but these are the ones I use the most and although they are usually applied to specific projects; from construction to finance, they can also be used to help achieve your climbing goals whatever they may be.  Let’s start with:

Specific

Have you thought about what you want to achieve this year? Maybe you have a number of climbing goals. It could be to reach a certain grade or maybe there are particular climbs you would like to do. It is worth having a proper think about this as it can help focus your training and the type of climbs you would like to do to build up to achieving your desired end goal(s).  It is a good idea to have short, mid and long-term goals, which leads on to the next part….

Measurable

How do you know that you’re improving? This isn’t always as simple as “I climbed steady 6b and now I’m able to climb 6c” Smaller improvements can be just as important, such as, “I struggled on a 6b and it took me a few goes before red-pointing it now I can often on-site 6b”. I often find it useful to write down extra information about a climb – Have I done it before, if so did I find it easier or harder than last time, did I feel strong, was I feeling good…? Keeping a log with additional information can give you a useful and objective way of seeing where your strengths and weaknesses are and this should help keep you on track.

Achievable

Are your goals achievable ‘in theory’ and do you have the necessary resources, such as; equipment, finance, transport, people to climb with?  There is no point in starting something if you have no chance of finishing which brings us nicely to the next point.

Realistic

If you climb 6a now and want to climb 7a do you have the time and commitment to achieve this? It is worth pointing out that just because something is achievable in theory it doesn’t make it certain in practice. Being very honest with yourself at this junction is a good move. I know many talented climbers who would climb a lot harder if they didn’t have family and work commitments, niggling injuries and a penchant for good beer!

Timely

How long are you going to give yourself to achieve your goals? Giving yourself a time-frame can help with focus and motivation, however, be careful to set a time-frame which is: Realistic, Measurable and Specific.

For the above exercise I chose sport climbing to highlight each part of SMART as it this genre seems to be the best suited for SMART method, although, it can be useful for any genre including bouldering and trad climbing.

Next time mental rehearsal…..

SMART Climbing is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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1. Climbing equipment review: Mammut “Passion” climbing rope
2. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 7 – A review
3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 8 – Core techniques

This week is a really special week because this post is from a new friend from Argentina. Please allow me to introduce Ignacio Romero from Mendoza. Ignacio has been kind enough to send me a climbing drill for those of you who don’t use a gym but would like a structured training plan that you can implement at your local wall.

The workout is split into 2 sessions; short endurance and long endurance. You can do them alone or with a climbing partner.

Day 1 – Short endurance

1 – Warmup: “Traverse”
Traverse around the climbing wall for 5 minutes straight. Easy movements.

2 – Warmup: “Five plus five”
With a partner: start traversing, taking turns adding 5 holds each time, partner repeats and adds 5 more, so on, until you reach a maximum of 50 movements each. Challenge each other to tougher and tougher movements.

Without a partner: set an easy traverse, but of 80 movements. Resting is allowed if necessary, but never without hands.

3 – Short endurance:
Set one or two routes of 25 movements, of high intensity, avoiding finger stressing holds.
Do 3 sets of 3 repetitions (a repetition being a full route) resting 5 minutes between repetitions and 10 minutes between sets.

4 - Flexibility: Stretching
Always stretch properly before you head home. I’ll post a full stretching routine soon.

Day 2 – Long endurance

1 – Warmup: “Traverse”
Traverse around the climbing wall for 5 minutes straight. Easy movements.

2 – Warmup: “Five plus five”
With a partner: start traversing, taking turns adding 5 holds each time, partner repeats and adds 5 more, so on, until you reach a maximum of 50 movements each. Challenge each other to tougher and tougher movements.

Without a partner: set an easy traverse, but of 80 movements. Resting is allowed if necessary, but never without hands.

3 – Continuity: Long endurance
Set one or two routes of 40 movements, of medium/high intensity avoiding finger stressing holds.
Do 3 sets of 4 repetitions (a repetition being a full route) resting 6 minutes between repetitions and 10 minutes between sets.

4 - Flexibility: Stretching
Always stretch properly.

I hope you enjoy this routine. I’ll certainly be giving it a go. Thanks Ignacio!

If anyone else out there has a killer climbing workout or even just a single exercise or tip that you want to share, please let me know.

Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 9 – Guest post from Ignacio Romero is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

1. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 8 – Core techniques
2. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 5 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 2)
3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 3 – strength conditioning and grip

This week I would like to focus on basic core technique (probably the single most important factor in being a good rock climber).

When I first started rock climbing I was amazed when I watched experienced climbers using impossibly small holds, as they progressed up routes that I could only dream of completing. I thought they must have spent years developing incredible strength in their fingers. Only now, after learning from those people, do I understand how it’s done.

Find your centre of gravity

To climb anything steep, you need to develop an understanding of your body’s centre of gravity. The closer your centre of gravity is to the wall, the easier it will be to hang on. If you’re hanging on with your left hand, turn your right shoulder and hip into the wall, you’ll feel immediately stronger (if you’re hanging from your right hand, turn in your left side). Use your legs as counterweights, if you’re stood on your left foot and you feel like you’re going to fall left, point out your right foot to equalise your body weight. This is called ‘flagging’.

Climb with your feet

Most climbing newbies focus far too much on their hands (especially people who have strong arms and hands). Always get your feet into position before moving your hands, your climbing will immediately improve. Focus on getting them into a position which means you will be balanced when you move up. You will be amazed how much your feet actually come into play, even on really overhanging routes. If you feel like you’re struggling with your grip, push from your feet, forcing your hips towards the wall. It will almost always relieve the pressure on your fingers.

Keep your arms straight

If there is weight on your arms and they are bent, the stress will be on your muscles. In a pretty short space of time they will get pumped up and you’ll be fatigued. Try instead to hang on your skeleton. If the holds are too low when you’re stood on a hold, bend your legs to allow you to keep those arms straight. Your legs are much stronger and less likely to become fatigued.

Breathe

Climbing can put you under pressure (we have all been there, several feet above a suspect piece of gear). When people get stressed they hold their breath. Breathe deeply. Exhale forcefully as you move for best physical performance.

More useful techniques

To have a solid all-round climbing ability, there are some other core techniques you might want to learn (I took this list from Wikipedia to make sure I didn’t miss anything):

• Heel hooks and toe hooks
• Finger, hand and fist jamming
• Arm bar and elbow bar
• Rest positions
• Holding a grip tendu or arqué
• Crimp / crimping
• Chimneying
• Egyptian / drop knee / lolotte
• Mantle shelf / mantleshelfing
• Bridging / stemming
• Egyptian bridging
• Laybacking
• Smearing
• Gaston
• Dyno

I have been thinking of offering a series of pocket sized climbing techniques cards for each of these techniques. They would cost 79p each (about the same as an MP3 download from itunes), and be delivered as pdf downloads. What do you think? Interested? Drop me a comment below. Thanks

Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 8 – Core techniques is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

1. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 6 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 3)
2. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 7 – A review
3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 3 – strength conditioning and grip

Here’s what my goals were / are, and where I’m at so far:

I would like to lose around 5% body fat – less weight equals less stress on the fingers when climbing.
Hmmm, not so great on this one. If you have been following this series, you’ll know that I started out with a very heavy strength workout. This combined with not really following my own nutrition advice has meant that I actually gained a couple of pounds. I have since cut my calorie intake a little and I’m now about where I was to start with (75kg). But I’m a fair bit stronger. I think some of the extra weight is muscle. I have yet to get onto some fat measuring scales so I can’t be sure. I’m going to be starting a body composition workout in the next week which will cut my weight, hopefully without shedding muscle. I’ll share it with you when I start.

I want to improve my hang times on the fingerboard by 30% – 50%
I have definitely improved here, but only by about 20%. I struggle with crimps and I’m truly dreadful on the campus board. I have very small hands, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse.

I currently lead around 5b (F6A+ / F6B) indoors. Outdoors I consistently lead HS, and have managed VS. My climbing goal is to lead climb at 6a (F6c+ / F7a) indoors, and E1 outdoors.
My last 3 visits to my local climbing gym has seen me nailing 5c lead and top rope routes. I’m going to do a few more before I claim it as solid, but I feel like I’m on the right track. My confidence is improving week on week and I’m thoroughly enjoying every single rock climbing session.

So what’s working?

I feel like my best gains can be attributed to the following:

1. I have doubled the amount of climbing I’m doing, from one session per week to at least two.
2. On the nights that I climb on my own I have had to concentrate on bouldering as I have no one to provide a belay. I feel like this is really forcing me to focus on individual moves and technique.
3. My workouts have been heavily focused on core strength and grip training.

So that’s me. How are you getting along? Drop me a comment below.

Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 7 – A review is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

1. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game (and mine)
2. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 6 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 3)
3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 5 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 2)

It has, however, served as a useful motivator for me to raise my game.

It also occurred to me that there are probably lots of other climbers out there who have hit a wall in their rock climbing progress.

So, if like me, you would like to improve your climbing and scale the higher grades, buckle up and get ready for some serious training (and hopefully some worthwhile improvements).I’ll be breaking this plan up into 4 distinct areas:

• Nutrition and weight management
• Strength conditioning and grip improvement
• Core climbing techniques drills
• Psychology / mental strength

Before we embark on our journey to climbing excellence, we need to decide where we want to go. Any athlete, personal trainer or fitness coach will tell you that you need to set goals. Just saying “I want to get better at climbing” is not a goal, we need to ensure our goals are:

1. Specific:

Here’s what I’m going for -

I would like to lose around 5% body fat

I want to improve my hang times on the fingerboard by 30% – 50%

I currently lead around 5b (F6A+ / F6B) indoors. Outdoors I consistently lead HS, and have managed a VS (I have only been climbing around 18 months, so don’t judge me too harshly).

My climbing goal is to lead climb at 6a (F6c+ / F7a) indoors, and E1 outdoors.

2. Realistic

If I had told you that my short term goal was to climb 8a, that would have been completely unrealistic and would have ended in disappointment. I aim to go up by 2 grades which will be tough, but is plausible. If I do reach that goal, I’ll set a new one and work out a strategy to achieve it.

3. Measurable

I plan to keep a training diary to measure my progress. Without measurement, how will you know how you’re doing against your plan? View the improvement plan as a journey, with the goal being your final destination. You need to make continual progress to reach that destination.

4. Timed

Goals need a timescale or they just don’t happen. If you have a deadline you will push harder to try to reach it.

For this challenge, let’s use the winter period as our training timescale. We’ll start the plan next week and aim to have the final “weigh-in” in 3 months (let’s say February 1st 2010). By this point we’ll measure against our goals.

Obviously you can set your own timescales – whatever works for you. Just make sure they’re long enough to be realistic, but not so long that you’ll lose interest.

What’s next?

OK, here’s where the work begins. Next week I’ll post the nutrition and weight management information. Until then, set some goals and get ready to make some gains.

I would love to hear what your personal goals are, and how you do on this plan. Drop me a comment below if you have a spare minute.

Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game (and mine) is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.