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 This is the final installment in a multi-part series about my training for Shadowboxing. For the first installment click here. Wolfgang Gullich famously exclaimed “climbing is so complex!” after a winter of hard training failed to yield the desired results. Many factors need to come together simultaneously to complete a route truly…
By Mark Anderson This is the third installment in a multi-part series about my training for Shadowboxing. For the first installment click here. For the second installment click here. Visualization is an important part of any hard ascent, but the picture in our mind is often overly idealized. We imagine everything going flawlessly—executing the sequence…
By Mark Anderson This is the second installment in a 4-part series. The first installment can be found here. By the end of the Fall 2015 climbing season, I was consistently 2-hanging the route, and while my hang points were converging, the rate of improvement was glacial. Clearly I needed to reach another plane of…
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 Our friends at Trango generously footed the bill to send Mike and I to the International Rock Climbing Research Association’s (IRCRA) annual conference, held in Telluride, CO earlier this month. Ben and Jason at Fixed Pin Publishing also stepped up big-time to provide attendees with complimentary copies of The Rock Climber’s Training…
by Mark Anderson It’s been ages since I’ve done a proper road trip. Camping with young kids can border on misery, so we’ve made a point to avoid it since Logan came along. When Amelie turned two last month (Logan is four-and-a-half) we tested the waters with a 3-day trip to the Black Canyon and…
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…
As most avid readers know, my family and I spent the last 3 years living in the Florida Panhandle, far from climbing. In May, we made it back to Colorado, and our home in the mountains. These last 3 years have been psychologically challenging, and it seemed to be a massive struggle just to maintain…
The Rock Climber's Training Manual 