Skills

A beginner climber is forced up a route, gets in a dangerous situation and her partner refuses to help. Should you intervene?

If you’re an aspiring trad leader, this document will provide you with more bad advice than you can shake a rack of hexes at.

Endurance isn't merely a function of fitness. The best climbers have tricks for fighting off the pump.

And how to prevent these simple mistakes.

There’s a fatal flaw to many climbers’ training regimen: monotony. Get strong by having fun.

It's easy to dismiss pinches as a grip you seldom use, but in fact you use your thumb in pinch mode more than you think. Train pinches and your overall skill and performance will improve.

The Keto diet may be all the rage, but your body needs carbs to perform optimally and be healthy.

Here are a few reasons to haul, tips on how to do it, and some cautions gleaned from years of experience.

If you’d like to add yoga to your training program, below are a few poses that open and stretch injury-prone areas.

Steve Hong, prolific first ascensionist and career dermatologist, explains the best way to heel splits, gobies, and worn tips

Achieve even strength on both sides of your upper body for harder sends

Alpine bouldering requires way more effort and consideration than a casual day at your roadside rocks.

And maybe even learning to love them.

Don’t believe that this resting exercise will improve your climbing and change your life in only 5 minutes a day? Try it for one month and get back to me.

The list of dangerous climbing acts continues to grow.

LED climbing boards have the potential to send your climbing ability skyrocketing. But only if you use ‘em right.

Accidents happen. Every climber should be able to troubleshoot difficult rappel situations, and one of the best ways is by mastering the buddy rappel.

As we age, does climbing hard go out the door? According to hard data, the answer is yes—and no.

With such a wealth of training information out there, it’s hard to know where to start. For some of us, simpler is better, as with this easy gym workout you can do solo, once or twice a week, either to maintain fitness gains or even push to the next level.

While there are numerous ways to haul and lower, we’ve outlined simple and efficient methods that are versatile for a number of situations and easy to learn by beginners and longtime climbers alike.

Heidi Wirtz, pro climber and yogi, shares 5 reasons climbers should take up yoga

Avoid these dangerous mistakes (and how to politely tell off others when their actions are unsafe)

Steep approaches, weighty loads, and full days make climbing in the alpine a serious affair. Likewise, climbers with big alpine goals should take their training seriously.

Parents love their kids and will do anything for them, including taking them toprope climbing when they don't have a clue.

Ever wanted to work your grip strength while sipping on a hot cup of joe? Take your morning multitasking to the next level by making your own climbing hold mug.

One great way to feel weak and damage your confidence or your tendons? Fail to warm up properly.

Strength training is intimidating, but trust me: If you can climb up a boulder, you can lift something heavy off the ground.

Climbing isn’t that special… physiologically, that is.

Training too hard and too much without allowing adequate rest and recovery can quickly get us into an overtraining cycle, which ultimately stunts progress.

Follow this handy flowchart to find out if you’ve earned a day off.

Learn to use your legs, because finger strength is useless on its own.

Michel Serres, mountaineer and philosopher, wrote that inhabiting the body and finding flow can serve as antidotes to our increasingly immaterial digital world. It worked for me.

What statistics can tell you about training to be a better climber.

Alongside a group of climbing-oriented phsyio students, "The Climbing Doctor" lays out how you can become your most powerful self.

Check out Kevin Corrigan's author page.

If you thought you'd seen everything, you haven't.

An ascender failure, a gear-stripping fall, a rappelling accident—Two Yosemite veterans analyze five Yosemite accidents and how they could have been prevented. (From 2017)

Why do some people take Tums for cramps while other people drink pickle juice? And why, in most cases, are bananas utterly unhelpful? 

From the print archive: "Having one leg created new balance points, and understanding them was crucial for progressing to the point where I am able to climb routes now that I wasn’t able to climb pre-accident."

Arousal regulation and mental toughness are crucial for success on climbs at your limit. Knowing when to activate your mind and how to control it takes practice, and here Justen Sjong shares his insight.

Once the training and physical preparation are done, and we’re at the crag in front of our objective, sending just isn't about strength. We have to cultivate a presence of mind, relax into our bodies, and climb at our peak of performance. All of which requires... breath.

 “Aside from knowing how to safely operate the belay devices, giving a soft catch is the most important, and least understood, aspect of great belaying.”

Will Bosi has been livestreaming his attempts on Burden of Dreams. There's a lot to talk about.

Check out this hard-won advice from one of climbing's veterans.

When considering avalanches, skiers are often the first group to come to mind. But avalanches are just as perilous for ice climbers, and perhaps more deadly. 

Project Direct coaches take a statistical dive into the strength tests and surveys of 600 climbers and find some interesting results 

No so long ago, hand jamming seemed a trad-only skill. But now jams play a crucial role in World Cup Comps and on America's first 5.15c sport route. Is it time you learned?

Her mother was "belaying" by holding on tight to the climber's end of the rope with her bare hands. The girl had the Grigri clipped to her harness with the rope running through it.

Having strength and being able to apply strength are two different things. But your training should work both.

Prevent extended gear from coming unclipped with these tips.

When your comfort zone is pushed, you become more curious, more adventurous, more dynamic—a better climber.

Feeling tweaks, aches, and pains? Finding it hard to finish your workouts? Believe that more climbing, more hangboarding, more movement is better? You may be experiencing exercise addiction.

With help just a button push away, deciding when you need a rescue can become the problem. (From 2021)

Being able to hold and control crimps is one of the most useful skills you can have in your climbing arsenal. (From 2021)

Neil Gresham digs into simulation training—replicating specific moves and segments of routes and problems so you can do the impossible.

Coaches Justen Sjong and Juan Usubillaga offer tips on how to train on plastic to become better climbers both outside and in.

Thinking they were using rope tugs for commands, this beginner belayer took their climber off belay minutes before the climber had finished climbing.

Internationally certified mountain guide Marc Chauvin shares three tips for climbing more-adventurous routes.

Instead of lowering to the ground, you can often “boink” back up to your last quickdraw by pulling up on the rope, unweighting, and allowing your belayer to quickly take in slack.

Learning how to build an “anchor in-series” will not only give you a solid option for bad rock, but also offers numerous solutions if you run into any other tricky anchor scenarios.

Use this expert advice to never lose touch with your partner on a long route.

Climbers must build strength, encourage flexibility, and practice proper movement patterns—throughout the body—to prevent injury.

When we talk about our training, we usually default to talking about how much we do. We talk about hours spent under the hangboard, or how we climbed late into the evening at the crag. Yet the thing we tend to miss, and that is a bigger key to progress, is quality: What, precisely, did we do with those hours and how focused were we?

Some love a nice cold beer after a long day's crimping. Others worry it will limit their strength gains. Who's right?

Instead of spending your climbs untangling a rope, learn a few simple methods that will help you spend more time sending.

Most of us train using unscientific and unproven methods. Here's what the experts say you should and shouldn't be doing.

Kathryn Perkinson, a 5.10 climber, set herself a goal: climb her first 5.12 in just seven months. And she achieved it. Here's how.

“At a certain point, your muscles can only produce the strength they use when you’re doing a weighted hang when in the presence of that extra weight.”

The “rodeo clip” is simple enough in theory and very stylish, but if this is your first rodeo, I advise practicing when no one else is around.

Trigger Warning, dear reader: the following is a humor piece on everyone's favorite topic—chipping. 

How moving sideways has pushed me up.

Let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of climbing physiology and then discuss training takeaways. This is Part I of a science-based series on how to train smarter to climb better.

A classic case of miscommunication could have spelled disaster.

Even if caves and steep routes aren't your thing, one can never have enough core strength.

Don't know how far it is to the next rappel anchor, and/or your rope is too short to make it?

Check out Bennett Slavsky's author page.

How you hold the rope is just one aspect of the belay—no more or less important than vigilance, rope management, how and where you stand, and communication.

Honnold is famous for (among other things) cramming as much climbing as he can into each day. To do so, he's developed some efficiency tricks that the rest of us can imitate.