Articles - Training & skills - Technique & Tactics
How to improve your climbing: Pro rock climbing coaching for mortals
Posted: 30 Jan 2012
Stuck in a rut with your climbing or struggling to push on with the grades? Personal coaching is available from some of the UK's top climbers and it's not just elite athletes that can benefit from it. Andy McCue tries out a Masterclass with Neil Gresham to find out if it really does work for mortals too...
Neil Gresham's Masterclass: 15 training tips for beginners
Posted: 24 Feb 2011
In this Masterclass, Neil Gresham gives 15 essential training tips for beginners...
Beginner's Guide: Hand Care
Posted: 18 Jan 2011
Split tips? Flappers? In this article Jamie Maddison examines how best to keep your hands in tip-top condition, ready for days on end of hard climbing.
Book Review: How to Climb Harder
Posted: 09 Dec 2010
A Climber Book Club review Mark Reeves' new technique and training book How to Climb Harder.
How to retreat from a route
Posted: 30 Aug 2010
Ryan Simpson, instructor at the Plas y Brenin outdoor centre gives some tips for safely retreating from a route.
A Guide to: Fingerboarding
Posted: 17 Jun 2010
Fingerboarding can be an absolutely indispensable tool in aiding one’s progression up through the climbing grades but - and this is a big but - only if it is used correctly! In this guide Jamie Maddison looks at the do's and don'ts of training safely on the fingerboard.
Expert's Corner: How to climb E1
Posted: 06 Apr 2010
The experts at Plas y Brenin answer questions from Climber readers. Here Stuart McAlese, British mountain guide and senior instructor at Plas y Brenin, looks at how to break into the magical E1 grade.
20 climbing training tips
Posted: 01 Mar 2010
With winter here it's time for some training inspiration to get yourself in shape for getting out on rock again in Spring and Summer. Here are 20 training tips from top climbers, coaches, health experts and fellow Climber readers on everything from physical training, injury prevention and treatment to finger taping, nutrition and psychology. Dip in and take your pick.
Beginners' Guide: Rock Climbing Ethics
Posted: 16 Feb 2010
To a newcomer in the climbing world it must seem quite odd to have an ethical code for climbing pieces of rock. Indeed one never hears about the ethics behind cycling, fell running or any other outdoor sport, so why for climbing?
Rock Essentials: Dolerite
Posted: 23 Jul 2009
Libby Peter's Rock Essentials series continues with a look at the technical and footwork-requiring Dolerite - where to find it, how to climb it, how to place gear in it and it's special features and hazards.
