By Mark Anderson You may recall from this post that I had an abnormally long and successful Fall 2016 climbing season. Typically after I send a hard project I take along break from climbing, but I sent my season goal-route (Shadowboxing) so early in the Fall 2016 season that I was still stoked to continue working (and…
by Mark Anderson Last week Mike and I did another podcast with our friend Neely Quinn over at TrainingBeta.com. You can check out the podcast here. The interview runs about an hour and covers a wide variety of topics including: What went into designing the Rock Prodigy Forge, and why we think it’s the most advanced hangboard…
by Mark Anderson A home climbing wall offers many advantages to the performance-oriented climber. Chief among them are: Convenience – with a wall literally in your backyard, commuting time and cost is eliminated along with most other excuses for skipping workouts. Those with families or pets can train with their loved ones without disturbing others, and…
by Mark Anderson I’m a big fan of puzzles. Crossword puzzles, brainteasers, jigsaw puzzles. Without a doubt, my favorite part of project climbing is solving the sequence puzzle. The more baffling the sequence, the more rewarding it is to solve. This challenge is magnified on first ascents, which typically lack obvious clues like chalk and…
by Mark Anderson Roof climbing is my nemesis. As someone who “grew up” climbing at Smith Rock, I always gravitated towards clean, monolithic faces that sweep skyward in one continuous plane of consistent steepness. My best angle is probably plumb vertical, and the steeper it gets after that, the more I struggle. The climbing on…
by Mark Anderson As soon as Kate and I committed to a trip to Germany, I started looking for information on “The Campus Center”, the birthplace (and namesake) of the Campus Board. Legend has it that Wolfgang Gullich was looking for a new way to train explosive power for a new cutting-edge route he was…
How often have you visited a climbing forum and stumbled upon an endless debate over some trivial matter like the definition of “is”? It seems that many of us would rather argue about training terminology than actually train. This pre-occupation with semantics can be a real distraction from the truly important matters (like the phone number for…
Previously we described how to install a hangboard, even in tight spaces. In this article, we’ll expand these approaches to Campus boards. Campus training is important to the Rock Prodigy method, but it’s often the first training activity to be skipped because it requires unique equipment. This is unfortunate because; as described in the Rock…
As implied here, I’m inspired by the climbing career of the legendary Jerry Moffatt. During his prime, Moffatt was the best climber in the world, and he dominated on redpoints, onsights, boulders and competitions. What inspires me most though, was his commitment to hard work and his dedication to training. He was a phenom in his…
Campusing is one of the best training activities for climbers who are looking to improve explosive power and contact strength (detailed rundown on these terms here). However, campusing is one of the most difficult training activities to perform well. Many would-be campusers struggle during the initial stages of learning to use this tool, they become frustrated, and so…
The Rock Climber's Training Manual 