In December 2004, I (Mike) made the First Free Ascent (FFA) of the historic North Face of Angels Landing (aka Lowe Route). This amazing feature (the N Face of Angel’s Landing) was the premier climbing feature in one of America’s most beautiful National Parks, and yet it had never been free climbed. The route went…
Hello, this is Janelle…Mike’s wife. Since someone is off to Germany enjoying his 12 hour long flight, I thought I would seize the moment and post on his beloved blog without permission. HA! You know your husband is a little INSANE when he turns the basement into a movie set straight out of the ET! Keep in…
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…
The following is a guest-post from Seiji Ishii, well known to readers of the RCTM forum as “Coach Seiji”. Coach Seiji has an extensive background in Exercise Physiology, has coached world-class athletes in various sports, including stints working for Carmichael Training Systems and Ultrafit. He currently trains professional supercross/motocross athletes and operates a CrossFit gym…
In honor of our nation’s liberation from the tyrannical tax policies of King George*, we hope you take the opportunity to free something that was, for you at least, previously subjugated by the oppressive bonds of “A0”. In other news, we have a bunch of random announcements to make. First, if you haven’t already, please…
This is part 2 in a two-part series about our experience (so far) training Pro Climber Jonathan Siegrist. You can check out “Trainer to the JStars: Part 1” here. We had learned quite a bit the first time around, and by the end of his first cycle, Jonathan was training completely independently, though occasionally asking…
Over the past six months we’ve been extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to train one of America’s most accomplished sport climbers. I can say unequivocally that the experience has been one of the highlights of my varied climbing career. It’s every coach’s dream to work with the very best athletes within a given sport,…
The family and I just got back from a great week in Lander. If you’ve never been, Lander is a throw-back; it’s a small community at the foot of the Wind River mountain range in Wyoming, so the pace of life is a little slower, and life is a bit simpler. When we’re in Lander,…
Focus is all about summoning maximum concentration and attention at the moment it is crucially needed. Most climbers think of this when its time to send, but the ability to summon and maintain sufficient focus is also vital during daily training. With training cycles that last for months, often involving several weeks of training on plastic,…
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…
The Rock Climber's Training Manual 