Following a recent Facebook discussion, I have been insired to write this blog on how climbers progression is limited by their surroundings. This is more noticeable in young climbers as you can see their progression through the grades more noticeably in a shorter period of time. The youth climbing scene in Scotland has gone through a massive boom over the last 10 years with respect to high performance climbing both in competitions and outdoors. This is true in every aspect of climbing: Competitions Sport Climbing Bouldering Trad Climbing Mixed Climbing Alpinism  As I am more involved in the training of Youth... Continue reading

Last Time... In the last post I proposed a few different ideas as to what creates greatness in people. When I say "greatness", I mean those with exceptional talent or abilities in something like a sport, academics or art. For climbing I identified Adam Ondra as an example. Nobody in the rock climbing world can disregard Adam's obvious "talent" to climb pretty much everything he puts his hands to. Many have looked on at his abilities and claimed them to be "super human", "godly" and even "lucky" (with reference to the possibility of a climbing positive genotype). Although many would argue... Continue reading

Opportunity for Success "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them"   William Shakespeare - Twelfth Night (Quote Act III, Scene 1)   Are some of us born to be successful? Is it a natural element to the human type that some of us have greatness embedded within our DNA and others do not? I do not to believe this is the case, we are all individuals that live our own unique lives, each different from another and I won't succumb to the thought that success in life is pre-determined... Continue reading

The title of a book I've read recently thanks to a good recommendation by Mr Randall. The book itself is not remotely climbing related, in fact it's a book on training swimmers :P Irrespective of this, I have found it useful in describing the energy systems as well as the application of exercises aimed at stimulating them. When investigating the scientific principles of training, a lot can be gathered from reading what other sports have discovered through their own scientific research. As climbing has a fairly modest research and development contribution, we can benefit a lot from literature published by other... Continue reading