Rock Climbing - 5th-10th October

As the leaves are now turning to their Autumn colours, we have just finished our last Rock Climbing/Yoga course of the season. For serious climbers its now the time for action, cooler rock and belaying in duvet jackets await, but for the moment even this late in the season, shorts and tee-shirts were still necessary on a couple of the days. 5 girls and a lone Alistair made up the team for the week. Two of the team were back for their second visits Sophie and Natasha (KGB) from Russia who had both started climbing with us in the spring came back to push their leading and have a last ditch warm rock session. This was a pure coaching week with all pushing their limits with 5a leaders leading 6a+ by the end of the week and 6a climbers pushing 6b+'s.

We were slightly thwarted by the weather having to resort to the Chamonix Climbing wall at Les Houches on the last day due to very heavy rain.

A few tips for those heading back into indoor walls for the next few months.

1) Treat the wall as a means to an end not the only place to climb. It is as a training tool.

2) if you max level is X warm up on routes 2 full grades below your max,

eg max level 6b warm up on 5b's and do 2 or 3 of them before you start on 6a's and then work up to you target route.

3) Use routes for stamina and endurance and bouldering for strength and power. So do not try and push you power limits on a lead route as you are more lightly to force a move and injure yourself.

4) Try and climb on the foot holds as if they were on a route on real rock. Avoid high stepping and use the little features for you feet

If you are serious about progressing, work in blocks of 4-6 weeks per physical "area"

4 weeks doing masses of easy routes one or two grades below your max for endurance

4 weeks bouldering doing problems with 5-15 moves for power

rest for a full week... repeat until the tulips arrive

have fun on the wall

See you in the spring...