Here’s week 2 of our lead climbing mini course. This week we’ll be showing the right and wrong way to clip a quick-draw.

Lead cimbing course – week 2 from Rock Climbing UK on Vimeo.

Watching videos or reading climbing techniques is not a substitute for proper instruction. Climbing can be a dangerous activity. We would always recommend that you seek out professional instruction before attempting any of the techniques that we demonstrate.

Rock City, Hull provide lead climbing courses. You can contact them on: +44 (0)1482 223030

Check out the Rock City Facebook page for prices.

Lead climbing mini course, week 2 – clipping quickdraws 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 lik:

1. Lead climbing mini course, week 1 – Flaking out your 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

For those of you who are new to lead climbing, we’re going to be providing a mini video course. Each week we’ll show you a new technique. The first week is ‘how to flake out your rope’.

Lead climbing course – week 1 from Rock Climbing UK on Vimeo.

Watching videos or reading climbing techniques is not a substitute for proper instruction. Climbing can be a dangerous activity. We would always recommend that you seek out professional instruction before attempting any of the techniques that we demonstrate.

Rock City, Hull provide lead climbing courses. You can contact them on: +44 (0)1482 223030

Lead climbing mini course, week 1 – Flaking out your rope 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 lik:

1. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 7 – A review
2. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 8 – Core techniques
3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 9 – Guest post from Ignacio Romero

Climbing demands a lot of your body and your mind. The mental exertion can be felt as stress in your shoulders and up into your neck.

Belaying

Who would have thought that belaying could lead to back and neck pain?

Belaying, particularly if done one sided, can overload the muscles of the upper back and shoulder of your dominant side. Continuously looking up at your climber also stresses two areas of your neck:

1. The base of your neck as it meets your upper back. This can cause pain that spreads out to both shoulders and makes you feel like you have a coat hanger in your shirt.
2. The upper neck, where it meets your skull. Left untreated for long enough this can cause dull headaches, usually at the back of your head.

Climbing

Many rock climbing routes involve movement and extended periods of time on very small footholds. This causes your calves to take a beating and eventually become knotted up and shortened. This tension can lead to problems elsewhere in the body.

Hard pulls with our arms increases the load to the upper back and shoulders. Pulling on small, crimpy holds causes the muscles of your forearms work overtime. When these become tight enough they may refer pain down your arm into your fingers. Ah the fingers! The tendon attachments here are often sprained from over-stretch or over-contraction.

Preventative techniques

The most effective way for you to keep climbing is to look after yourself.

A small warm up before climbing and a stretching routine after will help.

If you have climbed really hard, conquering that route that had been your nemesis, and feel that you might have overdone it, when you get home, apply an ice pack. Put it over the area that aches for 15 minutes, 3 times a day for 3 days. Don’t leave the pack on longer and think it’ll speed things up, in fact the reverse happens! Remember to wrap the ice pack in something as it’ll burn your skin in this time.

Avoid going too hard too fast. You are most prone to injury when you increase grades or learn a new technique. Build up your strength, stamina and power slowly and you will avoid injury and the need to have take time off climbing to recover.

Try and get aches and pains seen to quickly. The sooner you have them treated, the quicker you’ll be back to 100% fitness. When you ignore or or mask a little niggle with painkillers, your body will cleverly compensate without ever leaving you a memo! Before you know it, that little niggle snowballs into a bigger problem that takes much longer to sort out.

The body responds well to manual therapy. Knots in muscles are worked out with deep tissue massage. Joints can be manipulated to free restrictions, to make sure they function well. Tendons and ligaments, (even the small ones of your fingers), can be worked on to improve healing of ruptured or strained fibres. It’s important, particularly in the case of sprains/strains to control the scar formation of the tendon/ligament. It maintains the elasticity of the structure so that it doesn’t become stiff in years to come.

If you respect your body and listen to the messages it gives you, it will enable you to climb for life.

Dr Jackie Cowie MTech (Chiro)
CHIROPRACTOR

Check out Jackie’s web site: Chiropractor Hull

Is rock climbing giving you back and neck pain? is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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1. Rock climbing training – Toughening and repairing your fingers
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3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 6 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 3)

Dean Potter high lining

What is Slacklining?

When not in use a slackline closely resembles a tightrope, however as soon as it is weighted the likeness ends, the key difference between the two being the level of tension. Unlike a tightrope a slackline is loose and bouncy and can stretch right down to just inches off of the floor. Not only does the tension differ but so too does the line itself, as instead of being a rope nylon webbing is used providing a greater surface area upon which the user can balance.

It is thought that slacklining was born in Yosemite by two climbers Adam Growsky and Jeff Elllington during the early 1980’s as they took to walking across loose cables and chains within the national park, as word spread and popularity grew the sport progressed and became known the world over.

Why should you slackline?

I recently heard it stated ‘If I had the spare time to slackline I would be out climbing’ which I guess is a fair point but don’t let this deter you from trying it. Not only does slacklining improve balance, coordination and core strength (all transferable skills for rock climbing), its really great fun too! For those that need more than a 50cm fall to feed their adrenaline addiction check out the following video of Dean Potter ‘Highlining’ at 3,000ft without protection, a feat originally achieved by Scott Balcom in 1985.

What you need to get started

One of the really great things about slacklining is that it costs relatively little to get started and can be set up pretty much anywhere (including atop El Cap demonstrated in the video above) providing you have two anchor points between which you can set up your rig.

I purchased my (Gibbon) slackline from Amazon, the kit provides everything that you need to get started with a 50mm x 15m long line which ideal for beginners, plus a ratchet which is essential for achieving the desired level of tension.

How to Slackline

Granted there is not a great deal to slacklining, balance from one side of the line to the other, but there are some basic principles which, if adhered to will help you to progress.

Stand in place with your leading foot placed facing forward with all of your weight centered right above it, use your anchor for support.

Take a second to relax yourself, if you begin to shake you will loose control and plummet a matter of inches  – Intense I know!

Focus on a point on your horizon, such as a feature on the anchor, don’t, look straight down or that is where you will be heading.

Keep your back straight, let go of your anchor and stretch you arms out wide for stability, you may have noticed some raise their arms above their head – the principle remains the same.

As you take a step out bend your weighted leg and use your arms and free leg for balance as you slowly bring your second foot to the line, again facing forward remove your first foot – and repeat.

Remember as with anything slacklining takes a whole lot of practice, don’t be discouraged as you are most likely to fall of on your first step! Ultimately for me slacklining will never replace rock climbing however it is great fun, especially indoors when it’s wet or on rest days. Plus with the kit being so compact it can be easily rolled up and taken along on climbing expeditions.

For those who are new to the concept I hope that you have found this article informative and that you take the opportunity to give it a go, let me know how you get on with a comment below.

Try Slacklining to improve your balance, coordination and core strength for rock 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 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 5 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 2)
3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 8 – Core techniques

Already done the damage? Here is my top tips on repairing your fingers from climbing session induced carnage…

Give it time

I appreciate that this may sound contrary to my advice of the previous post ‘Use it or lose it’, but bear with me. The key is not to climb on damaged, lacerated or blistered skin. Trust me, that immense route you have your eye on can wait till the next dry day. Continually battering damaged skin will only delay the healing process, putting you out of action for even longer. It can even lead to permanent scarring.

‘Climb On!’

Climb On, Miracle finger repair

This product is legendary! Using ‘Climb On‘ is without a doubt my top tip for maintaining climb-fit hands. You can either purchase in a tin, containing a lump of the stuff, which has a soap bar like consistency (and lasts forever), or putty like cream in a tub. Whichever your choice, it works the same way; you rub the stuff into you hands after climbing. You’ll feel a  warming sensation as it draws blood to the surface of your skin, accelerating the healing process. Your hands will feel moisturised for the rest of the day, and it won’t undo all that hard work you put into building up your calluses either.

I hope you find this article helps you to keep your hands in great shape, so you can climb as hard and as often as you want to.

If you have any tips on hand care, please share these, using the comment box below.

Rock climbing training – Toughening and repairing your fingers part 2 is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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Climbing can be tough on those fingers!

Aside from the obvious aches and pains, I’m sure that if you ask any regular rock climber, the pain they’re all keen to avoid is damage to the skin on their hands and fingers. Climbing places a great deal of stress on your skin, which can easily lead to painful sores or tears. This week I would like to give you some tips on how to toughen up your skin to prevent such injuries. Next week I’ll tell you how best to heal them quickly if you do happen suffer with them.

How to Toughen Fingers

Your girlfriend or boyfriend is not going to thanks me for this, but tough skin on your fingers is essential if you plan to climb regularly and at a high level of intensity. With regular, hard climbing the skin on your fingers will eventually toughen up, but there are several ways in which you can speed up the process…

Surgical Spirits

Not long after I started climbing I found myself complaining to friends about painful skin tears on my fingers. Funnily enough, it was a non-climber that suggested that I use Surgical Spirits to toughen them up. A tad skeptical I decided to ‘Google’ their advice. Imagine my surprise when I found that it’s a common practice! The stuff is about £1 from any chemist and all you need to do is dab some on your finger tips using cotton wool or a cloth. Try it once or twice a day for a week and you will notice an improvement – I did! Surgical Spirits doesn’t dry out the hands like you would imagine, it just firms them up nicely.

‘Use it or lose it’

Speaking from personal experience on this one, I find that if I spend several days climbing, or have a heavy week training, then take a week off my fingers pay! The firm skin seems to wear down and come away – sounds nice I know. It leaves them with raw and tender skin underneath, then I’m back to square one! This leads to my next tip . . .

Callus builder

I came across this device on Amazon. I had a £10 gift voucher, with which I bagged myself a Grip-master, leaving me with £3 change. Hmmmm, how to spend the remaining £3?. I searched a bit more, and discovered the callus builder (reasonably priced within my £3 budget). I decided to give it a go. It’s essentially a sprung surface folded in two, with rough, sandpaper like edges on the outer layer. As you squeeze it this offers slight resistance whilst rubbing lightly against the fingers keeping them firm. I find this great for days off or on wet days, when I can’t get to gym.

I hope you find this rock climbing training advice useful, watch out for part 2 next week – repairing damage to the skin on your fingers.

Rock climbing training – Toughening and repairing your fingers 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 lik:

1. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 7 – A review
2. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Roundup
3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 8 – Core techniques

The other day I gave a talk to a group of business people about how climbing could help their business. Not surprisingly they were a little skeptical at first, especially after I showed them the intro to the Progression DVD – What could this have to do with them?

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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3. Climbing techniques – a plan to raise your game: Week 7 – A review

As regular readers of my blog will know, I have been writing a series on climbing techniques, focusing particularly on climbing improvement. This has involved a good deal of research and learning from climbers far more experienced than I.

At the same time, I have been working hard to follow this advice to improve my own climbing. One of my targets is to push my outdoor trad-climbing grade from VS to E1.

Now the winter is out of the way and we’re starting to see some good weekend weather, I have been able to get back out on the crags to see if what I have learned through the winter, on the indoor walls has paid dividends.

Last Sunday my brother David and I headed over to the Peak District to climb at Frogatt and Curbar, then over to Millstone for a bit of crack climbing. While climbing at Curbar we found a nice HVS slab climb called Short Slab. I felt this might be a good introduction to leading at HVS level. We started a bit of a ground level inspection of the route, it looked like a reasonable slab, good holds at the bottom part then tiny features for hands and feet from about a third of the way up. The only thing putting us off was the lack of protection. There was a pocket, about 2 moves in that would take a cam. After that – nothing! This meant that from the half way point of the climb, if you slipped off one of those tiny features, you would be hitting the deck – ouch!

Now I’m not averse to risk. I have climbed pitches on big multi-pitch routes where the climbing was easy enough to give me the confidence to put little or no gear in. The consequence of falling from one of these pitches would almost certainly have been death or serious injury, but I felt there was very little risk of falling off. Climbing a slab where for most of it there are no real holds carries a pretty significant risk of falling off, so I naturally felt a bit nervous about it.

David and I decided that in the interests of safety we would climb the route on a top rope. This gave us both the confidence to make the bold moves required to complete it without any real risk of injury. We both cleaned the route without a slip, but I couldn’t help feeling that it would have been extremely easy to slip off. Perhaps I have still to gain more trust in the grip that rock shoes give you on grit stone.

I think that to continue to try to push my grade, I’ll be lead well-protected routes with harder moves. The poorly protected ones I will climb on a top rope until I’m confident enough in my ability to lead them. Obviously they will be recorded in my training diary as being top roped (I would never advocate cheating. After all, you’re only cheating yourself).

My view is that at the end of the day, for most of us rock climbing is about fun. There is an element of risk, which is a big part of what makes it fun. However, there’s little point exposing yourself to so much risk that the odds of a serious incident (probably involving an unscheduled ride in a helicopter) is the result. Surely no fun is worth that.

I’m really interested to hear your views on this. Please feel free to comment below.

Climbing techniques – Is it OK to use a top rope on poorly protected trad routes to push your grade? is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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There are several routes to becoming a climbing instructor. The route you take largely depends upon the type of mountaineering or climbing instruction you aspire to be involved with:

• Supervising at an indoor climbing wall
• Supervising at a single pitch outdoor venues
• Leading walking groups
• Supervising multi-pitch mountain climbs
• Mountain guiding

My favourite climbing is outdoor climbing on single and multi-pitch crags. I would love to able to supervise groups in that environment, so I opted to start my training with the Single Pitch Award (SPA). If I qualify, I’ll be able to supervise groups in a single pitch outdoor climbing environment.

Costs

Let me start by saying this is not a cheap endeavor! There are quite a few costs you need to consider:

1. You need to be a member of a mountaineering Council.

If you’re in England or Wales, that’s the BMC (British Mountaineering Council).
If you opt to pay by direct debit, this will cost you £14.97 per annum.

If you’re in Scotland, you’ll want the MCofS (Mountaineering Council of Scotland).
The standard annual fee is £27.30, if you opt to pay by direct debit, you get your first year for £13.65

There’s a whole bunch of additional benefits for joining either council, so it’s by no means a waste of money.

2. You then need to register for the Single Pitch Award (SPA) to get your log book and hand book.

If you’re in England you need to register with MLTE (Mountain Leader Training England).

In Scotland you need to register with MLTS (Mountain Leader Training Scotland).

If you’re in Wales you’ll need MLTW (Mountain Leader Training Wales) (MLTW).

Registration costs £35, and they send you your log book and handbook in a nice ring binder.

3. Book onto an SPA training course.

There are providers all over the country offering SPA training. You can find their details on the MLTE, MLTS or MLTW web sites.

I opted to go with Peak Mountain Training, located at Edale in the Peak District.
Their 2 day SPA course costs: £150
I can wholeheartedly recommend them. Friendly, professional and very knowledgeable. I thoroughly enjoyed the training from start to finish.

4. Assessment

After a period of consolidation, you’ll probably want to take an assessment to gain your SPA qualification. This is a 2 day practical assessment. With Peak Mountain Training, this costs £150

5. First Aid Certificate

You will need to gain an outdoor first aid certificate. This needs to be a full 2 day (or 16 hours) minimum, course with some kind of assessment: £100+

Experience required

Before you register you need to:

• Have at least 12 months climbing experience
• Have led at least 15 routes on leader placed protection

This is really the absolute bare minimum. I would recommend that you climb double the number of routes before registering for the award, so that you can comfortably contribute while you’re on the course. It is very interactive.

Once you do register, you need to fill in your log book. When I got mine, I had to look back through my training diary for the previous 2 years and a selection of guide books to remind myself what I had climbed. It’s a good idea to start recording all your climbs now if you plan to do any climbing instructor training.

The SPA course is a packed 2 days of practical coaching. It’s a lot of fun but there’s loads to take in. I was full of cold when I did mine which was less than ideal, but I still really enjoyed it. Even if you never end up taking an assessment, the practical knowledge gained from the course is super valuable.

Once you have completed the SPA training you have a period of consolidation. This can be as long as you need. Really experienced climbers may only take a couple of months, others may take a couple of years. I’m hoping to be in a position to take mine around September this year.

Taking the assessment

Before taking your assessment, you’ll need to:

• Log at least 40 lead climbs, with a good few at the severe adjective grade. Once again, this is the bare minimum. I hope to log maybe double that before I apply for assessment.
• Log 20 sessions of supervision (or assisting someone with supervision). Note: If you are going to be supervising or assisting with any group that has children or vulnerable adults you’ll need a CRB (criminal Records Bureau) check. That’ll be another £50 then! I have just completed the forms for my CRB check. I’m going to be helping out at my local climbing wall to log some experience.
• Gain an outdoor first aid certificate

My brother David lent me his book “Rock Climbing – Essential Skills and Techniques” before I took my SPA training. I found it to be extremely useful. It’s actually the official handbook for both the Mountaineering Instructor and Single Pitch Award schemes. It’s available to buy from The Climbing Book Shop for just £16.99. A real bargain. It’s like the rock climber’s bible!

Climbing instructor training – The Single Pitch Award is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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A couple of weeks ago I told you about my halt in progress in my climbing improvement plan. I explained that I have gained weight, and although much of it is muscle weight it is putting extra stress on my fingers (which is impairing my performance, especially on overhanging routes).

I’m into my third week of a body composition workout, designed to cut weight while maintaining lean muscle mass. I said I would share the workout with you, so as promised here it is…The workout is split over 3 days.

The exercises are performed in a circuit format – no rests! The idea is to stress your muscles and your cardiovascular systems at the same time, so you should be out of breath for much of the workout. Don’t be tempted to slow down so you can do more weight. You will notice that many of the exercises are the same ones used in the strength conditioning workouts, this is because we want to make sure we keep as much strength conditioning as possible as we shed excess weight. For this weight loss workout perform the exercises faster, more explosively and with less weight.

At the end of each workout you perform 15 – 20 minutes of interval training. For those of you that don’t what interval training is, it is where you have short bursts of very high intensity cardiovascular training. You slow down in between bursts just long enough to let your heart rate and breathing slow to a comfortable level, then go again. Rinse and repeat until the wheels fall off (or 20 minutes – whichever comes first).

Work out 1.

Circuit x 4

• Step up with shoulder press
  With a dumbell in each hand, step up onto a bench or a chair bringing your trailing knee up in front of you so you’re standing on one foot. As you step up and your leg straightens out, swing the dumbells up in a curl-movement, finishing with you hands palm up, wrist facing forward. Then, still standing on one leg, drive through with both hands to press the dumbells above your head. Lower them back to your shoulders and step down, allowing your hands to swing back down by your sides. Alternate feet for each repetition (10 – 12 repetitions either side)
• Chin ups
• 1 leg hamstring curls on a swiss ball
• 1-arm dumbell chest press on a swiss ball
• Barbell high pull
  Stand with your feet a little wider than shoulder width apart, holding a barbell with a narrow, overhand grip (palms toward you). Squat down, keeping your back straight (like you would for a dead-lift) until the weight just touches the floor. Return explosively to your start position but pull the weight up to your chin at the same time in an upright row. Repeat for 12 repetitions.

3 sets of swiss ball crunches

15 – 20 minutes of intervals (I like to do rowing, cross trainer then running for about 7 minutes each – do whatever cardio vascular exercises do it for you, Make it as hard as you can. No wimping out!)

Work out 2.

Circuit x 4

• 1 arm / opposite leg dumbell shoulder press
  Perform single arm dumbell shoulder presses while stood on one leg (the opposite leg to the side you’re holding the dumbell). Be careful not to fall over – start with light weights.
• Bent over barbell row
• Front squats
• 1-arm high cable chest press
• Alternate leg stride with rope triceps press
  Set up a cable machine at about chest height, with the rope triceps extension attachment. Hold the rope in both hands, elbows bent, hands at neck height with your back to the machine (palms facing in). Move forward so you get a little bit of tension in the cable. Step one foot about 3 feet in from on the other one and lean forward to take the strain. Push off explosively from your back foot, stepping through and past your front foot. At the same time, use the momentum to extend your arms out in front and above you in a triceps press. Return your arms to their original position as you step back. Repeat for 12 repetitions on the same foot. Swap feet on the next circuit (so you do 2 sets for each side).

3 sets of kneeling, oblique cable crunches

15 – 20 minutes of intervals – feel the gurn!

Work out 3.

Circuit x 4

• Half kneeling cable wood chop
  Very similar to the standing wood chop, but kneeling on one knee (the knee furthest from the machine)
• Alternate lunge on BOSU
  There’s a good example of this exercise on Youtube (but with a twist, they incorporate a lateral raise – cool)
• Dumbell straight leg deadlift
• 1 arm dumbell clean and press (with dumbell or kettle bell)
• Rope row to neck (performed seated in this video, but you can do standing or seated)

3 sets of kneeling swiss-ball balances

15 – 20 minutes of intervals – feel the gurn!

I’m going to be doing this workout for 4 to 6 weeks. In 1 and a half weeks I have lost about 2lbs so far. It’s imperative to eat a low carb diet with this work out if you want to cut up. Try reducing your intake by 200 calories per day.

I think for future workout posts I’m going to try to do video demonstrations myself. It’s very difficult to describe the exercises, and the video on Youtube is often pretty suspect. Until then, I hope you can work these out. Just drop me a comment if you have any questions.

Climbing techniques – weight loss programme is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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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 4 – strength conditioning and grip (workout 1)