Imagine: you are climbing a sheer cliff, higher and higher, meter by meter. Or you make your way to the snow-capped peak through ice hummocks and cracks. You go upstairs - the view there is such that you can’t believe your eyes. You are above the clouds, and the rest of the world is just below them.

In the photo: view from the 5th tower of Corona Peak. Ala-Archa.

Nice picture, heroic. Like in the movies. My hands are itching to take an ice ax and leave the house. But what to do next? Who to call, where to go and what the hell to do with this poor ice ax? Dmitry Shcherbina, CMS in mountaineering, spoke about how to conquer his first peak.

In the photo: Dmitry Shcherbina

Straight to the mountains

If it seems to you that climbers get to the top only after many years of training, this is not so. The most impatient ones can buy a ticket and go to the alpine camp as a beginner. They will teach you everything and even rent equipment. Every whim for your money.

In the photo: climbing to the top of Iskander (6A).

In Russia

Alpine camp Bezengi. A trip to the Caucasus for a beginner in 2017 costs 21,900 rubles. This amount includes transfer from Nalchik and back, accommodation in 6 or 8-bed rooms, 3 meals a day, instructor services and medical care. The price of air tickets to Nalchik starts from 3,000 rubles.

In the photo: Bezengi wall.

Equipment. Shift participants are given the necessary special equipment on site free of charge: a safety system, a helmet, an ice ax, ropes. They only require you to bring mountain boots, a headlamp, cream and sunglasses.

If possible, it is better to come “with your own”. Familiar equipment is more convenient, clearer and often newer. To understand exactly what you need, read notes Sergei Shibaev - editor of the magazine “EX” about extreme travel and adventures. (Notes: Part 2.Part 3.)

In the photo from left to right: a safety rope, rock shoes, “Friend” bookmarks for securing the rope on the rocks with quickdraws with carabiners, safety loops with carabiners, safety systems.

Camp program.In 11 days on the “Initial Training - 1” program you will climb your first peak and receive the “Russian Mountaineer” badge. You will be taught how to move on rocks, ice and belay each other. This crash course gives you a general understanding of mountaineering and the opportunity to decide if this is the sport for you.

In the photo: climbing to the top of Gidan (1B).

Flaws. Bezengi is a difficult area for a beginner. Just getting to the top, which you then have to climb, can take a whole day here. And due to the high altitude - about 5000m - many people have problems with high-altitude acclimatization.Climbing in this area is a severe test of the body's strength. Sometimes it’s better to go further away, but to make it easier.

All details on the climbing camp website.

In Kyrgyzstan

Alpine camp “New Ala-Archa”.The trip will cost 360 US dollars (21,600 rubles at the current exchange rate). It includes almost everything the same as in Bezengi, except for free rental of personal equipment. Team climbing equipment: ropes, rock and ice pitons - will be provided. And they will meet you not in Nalchik, but in Bishkek. Air ticket prices start from 7,500 rubles.

In the photo: Korona peak 5th tower (5B) Ala-Archi area.

Program. As part of the initial training, they offer to make 4 ascents of different categories at once in one shift. If bad weather conditions or other harmful circumstances do not interfere with your plans, you will be able to receive a third mountaineering rank.

Flaws. The main problem with this area is that you most likely won’t be able to buy suitable tickets for 7,500. With luggage for the dates you need it will be much more expensive.

All details on the climbing camp website.

Alpine clubs in Moscow

The tangible disadvantage of going to a mountain camp from scratch is the unknown. You don’t know who will be in your group, who will become your instructor, what you will have to study, whether you are ready for climbing. It may turn out that you are focused on winning, and the rest are just going to the mountains to look at the flowers. Or vice versa - you will slow everyone down. If you sign up for an alpine club in advance and train for a year, this problem will not arise.

In the photo: MAI alpine club training

Each club has its own comprehensive training program. It includes general physical training, rock climbing, ice and snow equipment, first aid and theoretical information about mountains and climbing.Find detailed information about work schedules and training on the club websites. To get there, just click on the picture. Here are a few famous ones.

Alpclub MAI

In the photo: Kazbek peak.

Alpclub MPEI

In the photo: Iskander peak.

Sports club CSKA named after. Demchenko

In the photo: the peak of Naranjo de Bulnes

SKA Zelenograd

In the photo: Fan Mountains

How does sport mountaineering work?

If, after the story about Bezengi, you have already bought a ticket to Nalchik and are now waiting for your flight at the airport, it’s time to figure out how everything works.

Difficulty of vertices.Each route has its own category. From the simplest - 1B - to the most complex - 6B. In order: 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B and so on. The category depends on many factors: the length of the route, the complexity of the ice and rock sections, the steepness of the slopes and many others.

In the photo: Amangeldy peak, Kazakhstan.

A climber can “go to the mountain” if he has already climbed a lower category. For example, to go to 2A, you need to have 1B experience. In addition, starting from category 6A, all members of the sports group must take special courses and receive a “Mountain Rescue” token.

In the photo: applicants for the “Rescue in the Mountains” token

To confirm completion of the route, climbers must pick up a check note from the tour at the summit. The note contains information about the group that made the climb, the route and weather conditions. Previously, these notes helped in finding a group in case of an emergency. Now it's more of an old tradition.

In the photo: control note

It happens that routes of different complexity lead to the same peak. In this case, you also need to remove the note from the control round in the middle of the route.

A record of each ascent is entered into the climber’s book. Marks of passed exercises in rock and snow-ice techniques are also entered there.

In the photo: a climber's book

Discharges. To get a rank, you need to complete a certain set of ascents. For example, for the third rank you need to go up one 1B, two 2A and one 2B. For the second - three 3A and two 3B. And so on.

In the photo: digit book

When the norm is met, the climber draws up a separate grade book for himself. Before completing the second category, climbers are required to walk with an instructor. Then you can climb on your own in a sports group.

Alpine events.But it's not that simple. The sports group can perform ascents only during alpmeropritium. Alpine camps are a year-round event. But each club can organize its own event - for example, a training camp.

In the photo: Ratsek parking lots. The upper shelter of the Ala-Archa mountain camp.

To conduct them, the club submits the necessary documents to the Russian Mountaineering Federation (FAR). The head of the training camp and the person responsible for safety are appointed, and a doctor is identified. Before going to the mountain, each group fills out a route sheet and goes through a commission with their participation.

In the photo: route sheet

The head of the training camp releases the groups on the routes. He checks the readiness of the group, looks at and fills out the exit log. Checks the chess grid of routes - where are which groups and is it even possible to go to the mountain now? The person in charge of security coordinates the group’s communication sessions with the camp. In case of emergency, he organizes rescue.

Mountaineering in the world

In Europe, America and some other foreign countries, mountaineering developed along a different path. Foreigners have their own classifications of routes and systems for recording achievements. But that's a completely different story. To take your first steps along mountain ranges, it is enough to know one. Happy climbing!

In the photo: a group of beginners through the eyes of an instructor

Look for more articles

In “Skala City” on Kutuzovsky, climbers are preparing for the season. Climbing (that is, climbing) takes place in autumn and winter. Everyone else is simply escaping the Moscow heat and getting a dose of adrenaline. Along the perimeter of the hall there are 12-meter walls with multi-colored patches or, as experts say, hooks. The first thing a beginner can do is climb up, clinging to these “squiggles” with all possible parts of the body. Of course, with insurance. The sensations are more than acute. At first you are simply afraid of heights, so you strain all possible and impossible muscles in order to at least grab onto something. If your body is accustomed to sports, you can climb up in 10-15 minutes, or even faster, but the feeling is like after a 10 km run. This is called a “test climb” - they don’t teach you anything, they just insure you and help you get to the top. If you like it, then start practicing. As coach Dmitry Tarasenkov explains, it’s not enough to just climb, you need to do it beautifully! What else do beginner climbers need to know?

Second half

Rock climbing is a pairs sport: one climbs, the other belays. You can find a couple on the Internet or join a group. There is another option individual lessons with an instructor. But in the end you will still need a partner. After six months of regular practice, you will understand how to climb, you will do it gracefully and gracefully.

Difficulty color

All trails are marked with different colors indicating the level of difficulty. In Russia, they are designated according to the French category - a number and a letter. The higher they are, the more difficult the route is considered (5a is the basic route, for those who just want to climb to the top, and 9b+ is considered the most difficult). The name of the author who developed it is often written next to the path number. The names of the tracks sound indicative, for example - “Gut twist”, “Kamikaze”, “Road to nowhere”.

Relax

When you look at the wall, it seems that a person is hanging on it - that is, holding it in his arms. The impression is deceiving. Is he standing or walking? You can feel this only in practice. You need to try to keep your arms straight and make movements without pulling yourself up with your arms, but pushing yourself out with your legs, and also try to be pressed against the wall as much as possible (but then what a press!) The most difficult thing is to learn to tense only those muscles that are needed to make the movement, and everyone else should be completely relaxed.

Get stronger

Strength and physical training will be needed. First you need to learn how to do pull-ups on the horizontal bar. And girls do this too. But what great shape the climbers are in is simply a sight to behold. And they seem younger than their years, especially after 40.

All ages are submissive

Even competitive rock climbers begin training as adults. For example, the last world champion started climbing at the age of 20, and won the title 4 years later. Championships up to 2nd category are very popular in Moscow. After just six months of classes, you can safely take part. In addition, Scala City organizes trips to the mountains for its students - to the Alps, Turkey and Vietnam.

It is safe

Don't confuse rock climbing with mountaineering in the spirit of the movie "Vertical Limit". If you comply basic rules, there is no danger. The first thing you learn at a climbing wall is how to belay. All equipment can be rented. And besides, for a rock climber it is important not to climb the peak of Victory or Communism, but to gracefully climb a beautiful rock.

For the sake of communication

At the climbing walls in Moscow there is a whole climbing community, active and fun. They gather in the bar at Scala City and on the Internet on

“Being famous is ugly,” but not for climbers who achieve recognition with sweat and blood, and in the literal sense of these words.

Many mountaineering enthusiasts have a desire to go down in history and rank with the world's elite of mountaineering. Since Soviet times, our compatriots have kept the bar high and were not inferior to their foreign colleagues in skill. Their successors were able to maintain their position: the names of Valery Babanov and Alexander Odintsov appeared on the pages of popular foreign outdoor publications.

Nowadays, climbing trends are changing, but, fortunately, the role of Russian climbers, who are still on the list of climbers with the most striking projects, does not change. The international climbing award Piolet d'Or is not complete without Russians on the list of nominees and laureates. The names of Sport-Marathon ambassadors Sergei Nilov and Dmitry Golovchenko have appeared on this list more than once. And the fanfare in honor of the climbers for their second Piolet award has just died down d"Or 2017 (the best ascent of 2016 - the first ascent of Talai Sagar, Nilov-Golovchenko-Grigoriev), how the ovation sounds again. The team sets records, continuing to prove its leadership: a new route to the top of Asgard brought Nilov and Golovchenko the fourth “Golden Ice Ax of Russia” - the main national mountaineering award. Sergei Nilov is unofficially recognized as the best climber of the decade - in the entire history of the award, he was nominated for it 8 times and achieved his goal in 4 of them. And add to this the nominations and awards of the Risk.ru “Crystal Peak” national award, so you can also consider them the favorites of the entire outdoor community.

Those who have already begun to envy Sergei and Dmitry with white envy have a unique opportunity to learn how to achieve similar success. The author's life hack from climbers is only 5 steps, some 10-15 years long...

Nilov-Golovchenko: “You should start by determining the role of mountains in your life. Mandatory conditions: love the mountains, take care of your health from a young age and be ready to spend the summer in the cold, and the winter in even colder weather, spend all your money and time on the mountains and preparing for them. And remember that sport mountaineering is hard work!”

Five steps to recognition and fame

Step 1. Sign up for a mountaineering club and go through “5-7 circles of hell”

Approximately this number of years must be spent acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills in mountaineering in order to be called an “experienced mountaineer.” During these years you:

master the technique of moving on grass, loose powder, rocks, snow and ice; learn about dangers in the mountains, and not always only in theory (avalanches, rockfalls, closed/open glaciers, etc.); learn to work with rope and safety equipment; learn how to provide first aid to the victim and learn how to transport him correctly; find about 20 routes from 1B to 5B difficulty category; according to the new rules, you will undergo training for the “Rescue in the Mountains” Token, so that, having the above baggage of routes and new knowledge about rescue and self-rescue, you will go on your first route of the highest category of difficulty; you will regularly visit the climbing wall, at least 2-3 times a week, and run, preferably 30 km a week.

Step 2. Participate in Russian mountaineering championships and get into the top three winners

This condition will allow you to be included in the list of the strongest athletes in the country. The list of names in it is small, since this sport is “elite” and the entry requirements for participation in the championships are also high. All the names of the athletes become well-known within the mountaineering community and among those who regularly read mountaineering news, and this is a good start for wide popularity in narrow circles.

Fortunately, in classical mountaineering there are as many as 5 classes of national championships and you have the opportunity to choose where you have the best chance to prove yourself:

Rock class, full-time: technical mountaineering in low mountains with short routes. Technical class, full-time: spectacular competitions when several teams come to one area and walk predetermined routes for speed and beauty in a marathon format. Ice-snow class, correspondence: popularly called “winter”, where ascents made in winter are taken into account. High-altitude class, correspondence: climbing routes from 5B to mountains above 6000 meters are taken into account. Altitude-technical class, correspondence: as a rule, these are technical (wall) ascents of high mountains, also not lower than 5B.

“Nowadays, to become a master of sports, you must participate in intramural competitions. Seryoga received a master when this requirement did not yet exist. I gained everything during 4 years of participation in correspondence championships in Moscow and Russia. We took part in the Russian championship in person only once, but our climbs are regularly on the list of the best in correspondence competitions.”

With his first mountaineering instructor Elena Valentinovna Kuznetsova, alpine club named after. Demchenko © Yulia Davydova

Step 3. Organize an expedition

When you are already something of yourself in sports, and your ambitions and passion for the mountains never cease to pull you towards new achievements, the question arises about some truly extraordinary ascent, which will become noticeable not only among your compatriots, but will also force you to pay attention to yourself. attention of the world community. What do you need:

Select an object to climb. The trend of modern mountaineering is new complex technical routes to peaks in hard-to-reach areas. But the mountain, first of all, should be interesting to you. By the way, she may be completely virgin - first ascents always attract attention. The success of Nilov's team is new routes. Assemble a team. Most of the mountains of Nilov's team are similar in three. “This is the optimal composition - not yet a crowd, but already easier than just two people. But it is very important to have a real Team! So that everyone knows their role and is ready to fulfill it without offense or grumbling!” Calculate your budget and find money. It’s good to have sponsorship, but its availability directly depends on the degree of recognition of your team. “The cost of the expedition greatly depends on the chosen object. We have never had an expedition costing more than $10,000, but we really want to go to a place where we will spend more, but the object will be much more complex and interesting - Antarctica, Everest...” Make the right list of equipment and don’t take too much. In practice, this is a very big problem, despite the fact that the temptation to collect equipment, equipment and various devices for future use is almost always limited by the limit on kilograms of luggage on planes. But it’s worse when it turns out that what you really need was not taken. However, even tents are not always relevant on expeditions: “This year we didn’t take a tent, since we had a suspended platform and an awning for it, we abandoned the traditional slackline, took down sleeping bags because they are lighter, etc.”

Step 4. Climb

There is no lyricism in this question. Only real skills you can’t do without:

Be patient all the time. “When climbing you always have to get up before sunrise and go to bed after. It is extremely rare to sleep longer than 6-7 hours, while plowing every day. You either climb, or belay, often in an awkward position, or lift loads upward, or do both. All this can be tolerated when the sun is shining on you, but if it is not, then it is much more difficult to tolerate. Then adventures begin in the form of bad weather and various types of precipitation, usually snow. The wind blows it from below, a snowdrift sticks to the tent or platform, which melts and seeps inside. But sometimes it doesn’t melt and then the snowdrift begins to push the tent off the shelf. You need to get dressed and get out to dig her out, this needs to be done regularly and often this happens at night. But this is not the worst. It happens that you spend the night hanging, on a self-belay, no real sleep, just waiting for the morning to come as soon as possible...” Keep a diary. This is a really necessary thing: “While you are in the mountains, it seems that you remember every day in the smallest detail, but when you return, it turns out that the details are confused and mixed up. You look in the diary, and there “all the moves are written down”: when they arrived, how long they walked, how they climbed, what the weather was like on that particular day, etc.” Take photographs of all key sections of the route and shoot a beautiful video. This is a skill that requires skill and practice, but there is an important and not obvious piece of advice: do more static shooting - without moving the camera. Be sure to climb to the top. It would seem that you can’t walk 50 meters of the route, but climb a kilometer of the wall - what’s wrong with that? But mountaineering is climbing Mountain peaks, so even 10 meters of the mountain cannot be left unclimbed. You need to walk, climb or crawl to the top. You need to take photographs on it so that no one has questions. It happens that the pictures are unsuccessful due to bad weather, for example, but they should be there! It is important to protect cameras from freezing and keep additional batteries warm. Go down to base camp safe and sound. Otherwise, the ascent can hardly be considered successful...

Robbie Phillips – Climbing coach from Edinburgh. Robbie has compiled a number of detailed recommendations for climbing training, which are currently published in English on ukclimbing.com.
Robbie, who has climbed routes up to 8b+ and has climbed numerous 8a's, trains the British Youth Climbing Team and also trains individual climbers.

“I don’t want to know everything there is to know about climbing training and improving in climbing – that’s unlikely – but I continue to learn and my enthusiasm for the sport has taken me quite far. I traveled the world climbing on natural terrain, took part in competitions and helped train leading British youth team athletes - Natalie Bury, William Bosey and Angus Davidson."

Tips for beginners and more

A series of articles from Robbie Phillips will help you navigate your climbing training. Here you can find answers to many questions that arise when you first get acquainted with rock climbing. However, more experienced people will be able to glean a lot of useful information.

How to properly warm up before climbing

Everyone knows that warming up before training is necessary, but how many of us actually do it? When we climb, we put a lot of stress on tiny ligaments and tendons that are not designed to support the full weight of our body. Over time, our muscles and tendons adapt to the load and begin to withstand greater loads, but this does not eliminate the need to warm them up before each workout.

Before starting your workout I always try to increase my heart rate. As a result, blood begins to flow through the muscles faster and prepares them for active work. If this is not done, our muscles, not being sufficiently warmed up, will become more susceptible to sprains.
To increase your heart rate, just five minutes of aerobic activity is enough - running, jumping, riding a bike.

The second stage of warming up is stretching. Before climbing, I prefer dynamic stretching, which ensures increased secretion of synovial fluid in the joints, which means that they are lubricated and prepared for intense work (that's your biology lesson for today).

Here's an example of a typical dynamic stretch:

Neck – Gently move your head back and forth and left and right (5 repetitions each)
Shoulders – Rotate your shoulders back and forth (10 reps).
Shoulders (2) – Rotate your arms in a circle (mill), changing the direction of rotation on each set (10 reps each way)
Hips - Rotate your hips like you're in a seventies disco (10 reps each way)
Legs – Imagine someone you really dislike and kick as hard as you can, both forward and backward. Just make sure that no one is standing nearby (unless, of course, they are the ones you imagined) (10 repetitions each way)
Toes -...no, I'm kidding :-)
Fingers - clench your palms into fists and fast movement Unclench your fingers. At the same time, you can hum “twinkle twinkle little star...” - warm up your psyche at the same time!

The third stage of the warm-up is specific climbing.. You will need a good traverse with a lot of active holds. The exercise I want to recommend to you is what I call regeneration (regular traverse climbing on simple holds). It would be good to climb like this for 10-15 minutes, because this will prepare you as well as possible for the main climbing, and it will also be useful for practicing your technique.

Here are the main stages of “regeneration”:

Footwork (2-3 minutes) – place your feet on the holds as accurately as possible, while making as little sound as possible and without hitting the plywood.
Body Positioning (2-3 minutes) – Position yourself on the wall in climbing-specific positions.
Transitions (2-3 minutes) – Watch how you move from one static position on the wall to another. Instead of simply reaching with your arms to reach the next hold, do so by engaging your entire body.
Increasing speed (2-3 minutes) – try to climb faster, but try to maintain precise foot placement and correct technique

Once you're done with this, you can increase the intensity of your climbing until you feel like you're ready to climb something real. I usually climb several boulders until I finally come to a problem that is really difficult for me. It's the same with regular rope courses. That, in fact, is the whole warm-up.
You should not spend more than 30 minutes on it. Cooling down plays no less a role than warming up. It allows the body to relax after intense exercise. Having a good workout, you will sleep better due to the decrease in the level of adrenaline in the blood, you will not wake up in the morning with clogged muscles, and the recovery process after training will be much faster.

The first stage of the cool-down is regeneration (see warm-up).
Second – stretching, but not dynamic, as in the warm-up, but static.

Here's an example of a typical cool-down:
Shoulders: Straighten your arms and place them on the wall at shoulder level.
Begin to twist your torso and immediately feel your shoulders stretch.
Chest – Do the same as above, but bend your elbow 90 degrees and press your forearm against the wall.
Legs – sit on the floor with your legs straight and spread, stretch your arms forward as far as possible until you feel discomfort. You can pay more attention to one of your legs by stretching towards it.

How to start climbing better? Training Tips - Part 1

So, you've already entered the world of rock climbing and you can't resist the urge to climb more and more. It’s hard for me to tell you this, but... your life as a normal person is over! There are rock climbers different forms and sizes, but they all have one thing in common - they are all abnormal. All you can do is sit and watch as your life is gradually consumed by what these people call climbing.

If you are reading this article, then most likely you have a desire to improve your climbing skills and you have probably decided to pay more attention to your daily training. Understanding the fact that structuring your training will lead you to success is the first step towards this very success.

To enhance clarity, we use a fictional character in this article: Tommy Toproupe. Tommy is an example of a typical climber who would benefit from the training I'm about to talk about.

Name: Tommy Toprope
Occupation: works as a fictional character
Climbing experience: 2 months, once or twice a week.
About Me:“I just started climbing and mostly I climb simple threes, fours and sometimes I try my hand at fives. I tried to read about training, but I’m not sure I’m ready for it yet. I really want to increase my climbing level, because I think that I climb worse than I could. A little push that would make me understand in what direction I need to work would not hurt me. All the guys I look up to climb 6b – that’s what I strive for.

So how do you get Tommy to climb 6b?
When you're just starting to climb, you need to Special attention focus on two main things: footwork and body positioning.
Your climbing shoe consists of several main parts:

• Sock
• Interior
• External part
• Heel

Proper use of a rocking shoe in different climbing situations is essential to mastering good technique. If you look at the average beginner, he probably puts his entire foot on the hold, instead of choosing only the necessary part of the rock for this.

From a technical point of view, this is very bad because:

• Reduces the grip force on the hitch and promotes slipping,
• Reduces freedom of movement,
• Reduces the height of the holds you can reach with your hand.

As you get better at climbing, footwork plays an increasingly important role, and if you start paying attention to it early on, it will be easier for you to progress later when you really need this technique.

An example of incorrect foot placement

Exercises to practice proper foot placement: This is a very simple but effective exercise that can be part of your warm-up. You need to find a convenient and simple traverse on the wall with large handholds and a wide variety of footholds. Climb this traverse for about ten minutes, paying special attention to placing your feet on each hold. Toe, inner, outer or heel? (We'll talk about the heel next time, since this is already an element of a more advanced technique).

Game of corks (not only for children)

Another simple exercise, which, moreover, is a good excuse for those who like to drink. Find a bunch of champagne corks somewhere and place them one at a time on footholds on a vertical or slightly positive wall. Now try to traverse all these holds, trying not to knock down the traffic jams.

Terrain climbing. If the plywood boards at your climbing wall have elements that imitate real terrain built into them, try to use them as much as possible for your feet, since nothing can be better for practicing technique on rocks than real rocks.
Understanding how to properly position your body on the rock is essential to improving your technique, and if you can master it from the start, challenges like balance, coordination, course reading, and even strength and endurance will never set you back .
Using your body effectively on the wall depends primarily on your arms, legs, and knees. If you look at a good climber, you will see that he is almost constantly in a state of balance, using his limbs, primarily his legs, to balance his center of gravity. It's also noticeable that he tucks his knees, pressing his hip against the wall to provide greater positional stability even during the most difficult movements.
There are a number of exercises that instill the ability to use your arms and legs correctly.

Climbing with tennis balls.

Take a tennis ball in each hand and climb on positive planes. Since you can't use your fingers, your hand strength is now severely limited. This will force you to use your legs to the fullest extent for climbing. While performing the exercise, try to remember exactly how and why your legs work.

Climbing with one hand.

This is the next stage of climbing with balls. Choose the hand you will use during the entire climb - and do not change your choice under any circumstances! This will slightly change the balance of power and force you to monitor your movements even more. To make the task more difficult, hold a ball in your hand.

Climbing without hands.

Of all three exercises, this is the most difficult. You will be forced to use your arms, legs and knees as efficiently as possible to take high, precise steps and maintain full body balance. It is allowed to lean your palms against the wall, the main thing is not to touch the holds.

Attention! All these exercises should be done with a top rope!

Gaining versatility

To become a good climber, you need to have a good foundation in many different styles of climbing. This is very important because many climbers prefer only the style they are best at, without paying enough attention to everything else.
This happens to everyone, especially those who have been climbing for a long time and are unwilling to admit their weaknesses. I often see this among experienced athletes who, for example, have many years of experience in climbing vertical walls, but they flatly refuse to even touch bouldering.

But there is a way out here too. When training on the wall, don't forget to change the style of your routes and boulders.

For example:
Route 1: Vertical wall along liabilities.
Route 2: Slightly overhanging plane along the pinches.
Route 3: Very overhanging plane through pelvises and pockets.
Route 4: Vertical technical route along passives and pinches.
Route 5: Pocket wall.
Bouldering 1: Pinch Overhang
Bouldering 2: Vertical on Liabilities
Bouldering 3: Ceiling by handles
Bouldering 4: Tackle Ceiling
Bouldering 5: Minor Verticals

Training becomes more specific as skill increases.
Don't neglect overhanging routes or you'll never climb them

On a note: Climbing heavily overhanging routes is very difficult, especially at the beginning. Try to climb routes that are as difficult as possible, but not so difficult that they challenge you insurmountably. If the route doesn't work out at all, try increasing the size of the holds, then reduce the overhang angle. You need overhang routes to strengthen your core muscles and learn proper climbing technique.

Training Tips - Part 2

So, you've been climbing for a while, but you still don't know how to get better at climbing.

If you read the previous article, then you now have the necessary training baggage to improve your basic technique. IN new article We will continue to train technique and also focus on developing the strength needed for climbing.

But first, let's meet my new imaginary friend Freddy.
Name: Freddy Flag
Occupation: imaginary character
Climbing Experience: 6-12 months, 1-3 days a week.
About Me: I've been climbing for some time now and have some successes, but I want to improve further, which requires being more systematic in my training.

How do we push Freddy to the next level?

As I said in a previous article, the two pillars of climbing are proper foot placement and body positioning. Last time we talked about this very superficially. Now let's look a little more in detail.
Legs and body are the most basic. If we have mastered both one and the other well enough, then both of these skills are linked together, since some technical elements, which are based on body control, cannot be performed without correct positioning of the legs. Let's give a couple of examples.

Rifles- one of the first technical elements that a beginning climber becomes familiar with. It consists of lifting your leg high onto a hold and immediately transferring all your weight to it. This movement allows us to lift our body higher, and also in some cases allows us to balance the position on the wall and gives us the opportunity to rest. Using your heel instead of your toe for support in this position can improve balance and provide more confident disposition. However, the use of a sock can also be justified in many cases, since it makes it possible to walk more energetically and further.

The next position looks similar to the images on ancient Egyptian frescoes - the knee tuck. Place your foot higher on the toe, bending your leg at the knee, and turn your knee inward and lower it down. This movement is useful on steep and overhanging routes, reducing stress on the arms and bringing the hips, and therefore the center of gravity, closer to the wall. To perform such an element, you need to place your feet correctly on your toes, otherwise, when turning up, your foot will simply slip. This is the first time you actually see the need for correct toe positioning. In the future, such situations will become more and more common.

“Flag” - it’s generally easy to describe.
Try it yourself. Stand on one leg - almost immediately you will feel an irresistible urge to maintain the stability of your position by balancing with your other leg. "Flag" is the use of your free leg to balance your position if you only have one hold under your feet. You can also use your free foot to push against the rock and stop the loss of balance. The “flag” has two types: internal and external. The second photo shows an “inner flag” - the free leg is under the body. However, if the climber were a little taller, then perhaps it would be more convenient for him to launch his free leg across the supporting leg.
So, now we understand what rifts and flags are and we can climb the Egyptian way. And now I want to talk about what I think is really important - about the gates!

Twists consist of twisting the toe of the foot on a toe, which gives maximum freedom of movement for the rest of the body. The ability to make turns comes only when you learn to place your foot on the hold correctly and accurately. Otherwise, the leg will certainly slip when you try to twist it in any way. Therefore, from the very beginning, you should not get used to placing your foot on its side or on its heel.
To make any of the movements described above, the foot must rotate freely on the toe.

How can all this be secured?

In a previous article, I described a series of exercises for honing wall positioning and footwork. This article also contains
some interesting tips. Now that you know more about technique, you can incorporate new movements into your workouts. Head-
new - constantly look for opportunities to put a new movement into practice. Only then, sooner or later, will it begin to work out for you confidently and naturally.

Body workout

Here we come to what many of you have been waiting for for so long - physical training. However, sky-high
training regimens and rigorous campus board exercises are not what you need at the moment. Main attention
One way or another, you need to pay attention to technology.
What I would advise you to do is structure your training in such a way that the physical side is improved in parallel with the technical side. You need to pay attention to such parameters as endurance, strength and power.

Endurance is the ability to climb long routes so that your forearms do not become clogged. With good endurance comes the ability to recover quickly, both on routes, between routes, and between climbing sessions.

To train endurance you need to do the following:

• Climb long routes
• Climb routes in circles
• Climb looped traverses
• Climbing “bouldering marathons”

You can train your endurance by simply climbing long routes. If you mainly climb short walls, then climb not only up, but also down, then up again and so on - this is good for both endurance and technique, because when climbing down you pay more attention to your legs and body .
If you have limited time or don't have a spotter, then climbing bouldering traverses is what you need. You can come up with a traverse to suit your specific needs. It’s better to make it long, at least 30 interceptions, or even loop it

After all, if you're training for strength endurance bouldering, it's possible to give yourself a bouldering marathon of sorts. Instead of working on your ultimate problems, try intermediate boulders (those that take you no more than three attempts to complete). Try to limit yourself in time. Reduce or eliminate rest time between bouldering sessions - this will definitely have a good effect in increasing endurance.

Static and dynamic force

They are necessary for both sports routes and bouldering. Static strength determines the ability to hold a hold in a static position, while dynamic strength involves dynamic movement.

Dynamics=force+speed

There are a few simple things that will help you develop in both directions:

• Bouldering
• Difficult routes - projects
• Three second blocks

Just bouldering alone will improve your strength. The best climbers in the world simply walk and climb - and nothing more! They don’t use all sorts of terrible sports equipment like campus boards, but in order to become stronger, they simply climb boulders. If you want to train static strength, choose extremely difficult bouldering where you can barely do one or two movements at a time. If you lack dynamic strength, look for problems
with dynamic movements.

If you want to climb rope routes, but at the same time train strength, climb extremely difficult routes. It is possible that you will spend more energy to connect individual movements in such a route than in the most difficult bouldering. However, even with such a load, you will not only become stronger, but also learn new technical subtleties.
One of my favorite exercises for strength training is three-second blocks. You can do them on both routes and boulders (the latter is preferred).
Record each movement for three seconds. This will not only significantly improve your physical capabilities, but will also teach you the correct positioning of your body and foot placement, because without these skills you are unlikely to succeed in anything. Do this exercise on fairly difficult boulders and it will have a positive effect.

And in conclusion, let me remind you - do not forget to warm up before training and cool down after it. If you forgot how, you can read it again.

Training Tips - Part 3

In the previous article, we focused mainly on the technique of maintaining balance (tucks, placements on the wall, rollouts), which reduces the load on the arms.
Now we will look at more specific techniques that help on such relief elements as fireplaces, spalls and liabilities. We will focus on bouldering and how to structure our training to combat our weak points. We will also look at tactics on the route, as well as the psychological aspects of improving your climbing.

As in my previous articles, for clarity, I will invent a suitable hero.
Name: Sally Slabmeister
Occupation: fictional character
Climbing Experience: 6-12 months, 1-3 times a week
About Me: I have difficulty climbing on unusual surfaces, which results in poor body positioning. I climb ineffectively and make a lot of mistakes during my first attempt. I also lack stamina and after an hour of climbing I'm exhausted. What should I do?

Climbing skills on slabs, inside and outside corners
Both on the climbing wall and on the rocks, these three types of terrain cause the greatest difficulties. The reason is simple - they seem inconvenient, incomprehensible and lacking in clues. And if you do not yet have experience in climbing on such terrain, then you will probably find it difficult. The funny thing is that it is from this kind of terrain that we usually start learning to climb.
So do we just forget it?
It's very simple - most modern climbers train on climbing walls and improve physically faster than technically. Since the main forms of relief in the halls are overhangs and ceilings, we improve in climbing precisely these routes. However, when we go out onto the rocks, instead of overhangs with large grabs, we are faced with a completely different specificity: smooth walls, corners and rocky buttresses.

The best way to improve on these routes is to simply climb them more often. However, we need to decide on the technology needed on such a terrain, so let’s take a closer look at the issue:

Plates- this is essentially everything that has an angle of inclination greater than the vertical. Once the wall goes down, gravity redistributes the climber's weight from the hands to the feet, which increases the demands on proper foot placement. As already mentioned in the first article, the toes, as well as the outer and inner edges of the sole of the climbing shoe, are the most important parts of it. We will mainly use them on positive terrain.

The less overhang the route has, the more your weight is transferred to your legs. We also recall from Article 2 that rollouts play a big role on positive terrain. In essence, slab climbing is the easiest of all (I kindly ask those who like it not to kick me), because there are no special technical elements to learn here (unlike overhangs), but a lot depends on
how you can manage your center of gravity and load your legs without letting them slip.

Angles– this is the place where two walls meet (just like in your apartment). This is another type of terrain that many climbers are afraid of. The main technical elements here are thrusts with legs and arms. Expansion - the position of the body when you rest your feet on the opposite walls of the corner. It's like you're building a bridge from one wall to another by transferring your weight from your hands to your feet, which often allows you to let go of the rock while on your feet and give your arms a rest.

However, to rise higher from this position, you cannot do without hands. With one hand you rest against the wall and, expanding with one leg and arm, you step up with the other leg.
What you need to work on is the length of your movements. What is better - big movements or small ones? On difficult routes with almost no holds, you will stay in the corner only with the help of friction that you create by pressing your feet against the wall. If you apply adequate force in in the right direction, then your foot will not slip. It is this skill of applying proportionate force that needs to be practiced.

Buttresses- these are the antipodes of the angles. They climb with terrible balance, often do not have good grips for their arms and legs, and are scary to fall from.
The main technical element for overcoming outside corners is the tilt, although knee tucks, correct hand grips, and precise foot placement will also come in handy here.
When climbing outside corners, practice the correct placement of your hands in relation to your feet. Try to try all possible options and find the most energy-efficient one that allows you to make further interceptions with less difficulty. After all, a poorly placed leg when trying to make the next movement will certainly lead to a breakdown.

So, we have looked at elements that are new to us and now we want to consolidate them.
As I always say, the best way to improve is practice. Even if you train in the gym, look for similar terrain elements and practice your technique on them. Soon you will feel that you are experiencing fewer difficulties on such terrain, you will be able to experiment more, coming up with more and more new boulderings for yourself, or even going out onto the rocks to try your new skills on natural terrain.

Inventing problems
Bouldering is the best way to train technique. Since you don’t need a partner here, you can come and train yourself. In addition, the abundance of holds on the climbing wall gives freedom in inventing the most specific problems.
If you have a hard time on outside corners, find one at a climbing gym and train on it, using a variety of sets of hand and foot holds. Is it hard on the slabs? – climb boulders on a positive wall.

Experience is important for learning. But your mistakes are no less important. To learn from mistakes, you must first make them. Instead of learning the ropes of slab climbing on easy routes, try bouldering that's actually challenging for you. Something that really requires good balance and technique from you, and not simple routes that you climb without any equipment.
ical problems.

• Think about what causes you difficulties (slabs, buttresses, plucks, passives, tucks, heel grips, etc.)
• Find the wall that is most unpleasant for you in this regard.
• Choose a line with handholds that are comfortable enough to allow you to focus more on your footwork.
• After completing the route once, make it more difficult by rotating the holds or removing those that make it much easier.
• Work on it until you feel it comes easy to you again.
• If you have climbed your route at its most difficult and cannot make it any more difficult, then why not reduce the number and size of footholds.

This is especially interesting if you are training with friends. You can look for the most successful solutions from them. That's enough popular game based on this principle. A group of climbers (no less than two) take turns bouldering, adding one movement to it each time. Each player has a certain number of “lives” and each time he reaches the current top, he loses one. If the player reaches the end of the track, then he makes one more move from it (than
more difficult, the greater the probability of winning).

Tactics and route reading
Tactics play an important role in how well you climb a route or boulder. It consists of making decisions both before and after the next attempt. In this article, of all the issues of tactics, we will mostly touch on reading the route.
Reading a route means inspecting, studying it, assessing possible movements, places to rest and the sequence of passage as a whole. If you have been to a rock climbing competition, you have probably seen athletes standing under the climbing wall and making strange passes with their hands.
Thus, they played out every move on the route in their heads, creating a mental picture of how they would climb it. However, you can see this not only at competitions, but also on the rocks, and probably at your climbing wall too.
Learning to read a route is not difficult, but it also takes practice. Before each attempt, perform the ritual of reading it. You yourself will feel how climbing will become easier if you already have a ready-made picture of the route in your head. Over time, you will become more advanced in the science of reading routes and learn to find the right sequences of moves, and you will climb the routes themselves faster and more efficiently.

Here are a few things to think about when reading your itinerary:

• Hand Sequence – Repeat the hand movements and grips you see on the course.
• Sequence of foot moves - think about how and where you will place your feet on each move.
• Relaxing Positions – See where you can rest.
• Attachment points - think about where and from what positions it will be more convenient for you to attach, even if such positions are already above the guy rope.
• Keys – find the most difficult sections of the track.
• Pace – Think about where on the track you can speed up. By the way, the latter is ambiguous - it all depends on the situation. You can also speed up on the key so as not to hang for a long time in exhausting positions, and in simple sections not to push the horses.

Endurance training
In the previous article I touched a little on what endurance is and how to train it. Now I want to delve more into the realities of such training in order to find the best way to achieve it. First you need to clarify for yourself what endurance is. I would say it is your body's ability to tolerate high levels of lactic acid in the blood for a long time. For those who are not in the know, I’ll explain: Lactic acid is the main factor leading to a feeling of muscle fatigue during prolonged and intense exercise. When your hands get clogged on the route, this is the effect of lactic acid. By training endurance, we stop getting hammered quickly and can recover faster in rest areas.

One of the most current issues in rock climbing – how to achieve this? There are many options, but my favorite is the 4x4, which has proven its effectiveness in my own skin.
This is a very simple exercise, usually performed on a large wall. You climb 4 routes without rest, after which you rest as long as necessary for complete recovery - 10-15 minutes. 4x4 is what I use in training at my climbing wall with 20-30 meter walls. On smaller walls I practice sets of 4x5, 4x6 and even 4x8.

The exercise looks something like this:

• You climb a route that results in only slight muscle strain (that is, you are not shaking half the route with clogged arms).
• Descend, unfasten and climb the next route of the same difficulty
• Repeat two more times, maintaining the feeling of muscle contraction.
• There is no need to increase the load - each time follow the level that was on the first route.
• If you feel that you are going beyond these limits, reduce the intensity.

This seems very simple, but many climbers have difficulty maintaining muscle levels on a route. Since our climbing is based on difficulty categories, many climbers mistakenly assume that a route of the same category will be just as intense, which will cause them a similar feeling of fatigue. This is why categories can have a negative impact on your training. Any assessment of difficulty is subjective, and it often becomes impossible to follow the intended level of intensity. So, the overhanging 6a will “clog” our Sally more than the vertical one.

• Level 1: Don't overthink it. Climb routes that you could climb all day without getting hammered. Use large grabbers and vertical or positive planes.
• Level 2: Slightly clogged. You are allowed to shake your tired hands a couple of times, but no more.
• Level 3: You are already seriously feeling overwhelmed. It increases, and along the route you stop and shake your hands several times, but you still feel quite comfortable.
• Level 4: Severe congestion! You have to fight for every interception, and it becomes more and more difficult to climb further.
• Level 5: Exhaustion! You gradually lose control of your body, then there is light at the end of the tunnel and a breakdown!

At this level you will definitely fall apart, since staying on the wall is almost unbearable. This is already beyond your capabilities.
If you follow this plan. You will soon understand at what level you should train your endurance and when you have gone too far. For effective training you need to climb at a level of 2/3 full. If you complicate the task, you will fall into the framework of strength endurance, which we will talk about in more detail next time.

Another thing I noticed about this exercise is that when you climb such large volumes without being distracted by fatigue, you can focus on technique. Climb as much as possible without losing control of your body, looking for more efficient movements instead of just training your physique.

If you only have access to a bouldering wall, then all is not lost. This year it was too cold at my climbing gym, so I went to the bouldering gym with all my students. They came up with a route with 30-40 moves and climbed it in series with a one-minute break to simulate the descent, tying out, pulling the rope and tying up at a new route.
Don't forget to adjust the load according to yourself. This exercise is only as effective as it matches the climber's current capabilities.

Training Tips - Part 4

This is the fourth installment in a series of articles on climbing training and is aimed at intermediate level athletes (around 6b+/6c, or V3/4 bouldering).
Future articles will be aimed at climbers with more high level. Well, welcome to the next level. 90% of climbers reach it but never get past it. Largely because they simply don’t want it and are content with what they have.

However, those who want to move on need to change their approach to training.
You can't continue doing the same thing you've always done. You will simply bang your head against a concrete wall.
You have to constantly change your approach: where you climb, what you climb and how you do it. I can't even tell you how many climbers I've seen climb the same boulders or routes day after day. The same movements, the same logic and everything is the same - and they still wonder why they are not progressing. As a result, it is usually concluded that further growth- the lot of young or genetically predisposed monsters. I think that anyone who devotes enough effort to it can rise to a higher level. It is not at all surprising that climbers who have been marking time in one place for a long time can “shoot up” and significantly improve their results after changing their approach to training.

In this article we will continue the theories put forward in past publications and bring new concepts into your training. But first, let's meet our imaginary hero:

Name: Vanya Polotochnikov
Occupation: imaginary character
Climbing Experience: 1-2 years, 2-4 times a week
About Me: I have been training regularly for the last year, 2-4 times a week, and have been steadily improving my level. I believe that my level of climbing is characterized primarily by the level of onsight, so I want to raise it both in sport climbing (indoor or on the rocks), and in bouldering or trad. I have problems with heavily overhanging routes, I can’t position myself and distribute forces correctly.

Footwork + Body Positioning – Overhangs

As you move from verticals to overhangs, gravity picks up. Vertical or positive walls redistribute your weight to your feet, reducing the impact of gravity. However, on overhangs, almost all of it falls on your hands, and you get much more tired. However, there are ways to reduce this unpleasant effect. The techniques described in previous articles help us climb more efficiently and with balance. However, we have only scratched the surface of their study. Let's dig deeper.

The turning technique works on overhangs almost better than on vertical routes. It allows you to take a lot of the load off your arms and bring your body closer to the wall, giving you the ability to make longer, more energetic movements.
As I said in my first article, a rock shoe consists of several parts: the inner and outer edge, the toe, the heel. We've mostly talked about the hems, but now let's take a look at the toe and heel.

Heel grips

I use this technique whenever possible. As a child, I was weak and fat and could not even do a single pull-up, unlike my comrades. Therefore, when it came time to climb overhangs, I had to find workarounds for this, rather than take everything with brute force. I remember that my friend and I once tried a rather tricky problem, invented on the heavily overhanging “bow of the ship”.

We both reached for the same pinch, but we couldn’t resist this nasty thing. My comrade was very strong... but what can I say - he was the British champion. However, this movement did not work out for him either. What can we say about me? It became like
turning point in my development. I suddenly realized that you don't have to be super strong to climb hard routes. I threw my heel over my hand and made a static movement, after which I climbed to the top, which put my friend into a state of complete intoxication.

Heel grips are simply an irreplaceable thing for overhangs. All you have to do is hook your heel into the toe and press down hard, providing another point of contact with the wall. This is much more effective than just walking out on your toes (which we’ll also talk about now). In addition to redistributing weight, heel grips can provide the opportunity for rest, longer movements, and better balance.

On less overhanging walls, using your heel can be the difference between the stability of your position. If I'm rolling out onto a positive flat toe, I'll often put my heel on it instead of my toe, which allows me to get closer to the wall and make my position more stable.

Toe grips

The meaning of this element is clear from the name. On overhanging routes, toe grips will give you extra rest and allow you to stabilize your position. The most convenient cases for using a sock are elements protruding from the wall such as buttresses, reliefs and large grabbers

Here are some examples:

• Use on holds - in this position there are no other foot holds that would allow you to maintain stability for
  next movement. In this case, a toe grip is necessary and, with proper pressure, provides good point contact.
• Use on corners and bends - by hooking your toe, you will significantly stabilize your position.
• Rest – The toe grip can allow you to take some stress off your hands and rest. At the same time, a two-legged grip can give you
  complete rest for both hands.
• “Bicycle” - with the toe of one foot we press on the toe, with the toe of the other we hook it.

Clinging toes
This element is often forgotten, but this is also a kind of art. If we climb a vertical wall, then we put pressure on
sock and stretch higher in this way. However, the nature of the overhanging surface prevents us from getting the same effect, simply
pushing off the toe from the toe.
Try to press on the hold not parallel to the wall, but, as it were, to pick it up with your toe away from you and slightly downwards, as if trying
pry it up and rip it out of the wall. If you go into any climbing store and look at all these modern models of climbing shoes, you will notice that many of them have a toe that is curved at the end, as if it were a beak or a claw. This is precisely what is necessary for such a movement.

How to learn all this?
It's simple. Stop fooling around and start climbing more overhanging routes. Many climbers I know don't want to do it because, you see, they don't like it and climbing overhanging walls won't give them anything. It is not right. Overhang climbing will improve your technique, make you stronger, and make you feel better on any route. And why not learn something new?

Try adding overhangs to your warm-up and observe how simple examples, where and how this technique works, so that on real routes you know how to apply it correctly.

Movements on the wall

Is it just a matter of technique and positioning of the body to move along the wall? Of course not, the correct location does not solve everything. Climbing dynamics also have a lot to learn. For example, when should you climb quickly, and when is it better to take a section slowly and steadily? With each stage of development, the questions facing the climber become more specific, and their solutions become more important for further growth.

We've all seen Adam Ondra literally run up the wall. For example, I don’t know how to climb that fast, but to argue that increasing the speed of climbing without sacrificing efficiency is undoubtedly a good turn. On vertical and positive routes, where everything is about balance, speed can be sacrificed, but on overhangs, where every second drains your strength, sometimes it would be nice to speed up.

When I was in Spain this year, I had the chance to chat with my friend Tom Bolger, perhaps the most talented British climber. Every day he sees the most elite athletes climbing on the crags of Santa Linha, Rodellare and Disblia. And in his opinion, the correct choice of speed on a route is an invaluable skill that is inherent in
most top climbers. For the first 8–10 meters of his project (30-meter 9a+), he climbs almost without stopping, making only barely noticeable pauses for rest between movements. When he reaches a resting spot, he stops, stabilizes his breathing, and after a minute or two speeds up again to tackle the next bouldering section. Another minute of rest - and he proceeds to the next, easier one. He has more control over his movements, but is still quite fast and flexible. This approach seems to me to be the most effective for completing difficult routes.

To master this technique, include elements of it in your training. Every time you approach a new route, try to see where you need to speed up, where you should climb slowly and carefully, and where you should try to hang and rest. If it's a redpoint route, run some sections of it with a top rope, trying to increase your normal speed, and see how that affects you. general feeling and muscle tightness.

Increasing your climbing speed may seem difficult at first, but if you do it regularly, the necessary skill will soon come. I would advise including a couple of easy routes or traverses in your training as a warm-up and try to climb them quickly, but not at the expense of technique. No need to rush ahead. Try to figure out how to do each movement a little faster.

Dynamic movements

Many climbers just don't understand what it's like to be dynamic, some say they lack the strength, but I think it's all a matter of ignorance. Dynamics is a very important element of technology. If you are a boulderer, then the ability to move dynamically is simply necessary and usually comes already early stages. If you are a “rope climber,” then this skill will help you raise your level, since you won’t get far with static movements. If you are climbing trad, then, it seems to me, you will not want to jump without unnecessary necessity, but there are also routes where you cannot do without it.

After warming up, 30 minutes of climbing with deliberately dynamic movements will significantly improve your technique. Look for large holds on the wall and practice on them:

• Make long, dynamic movements from one hold to another
• Standing with your feet on one hold, jump up and down on the holds with both hands
• Try increasing your climbing speed by introducing dynamic elements into it.

Trying a variety of movements will give you the new skills you need to improve.

Redpoint Tactics
In the previous article we talked about reading the route. This is very important for onsighting, but in redpoint climbing, thinking through your tactics in advance will give you additional advantages.

Practicing movements
Many climbers, as a rule, after a failure, climb a difficult section again, preferably to the top, and then descend down until the next attempt. Some don’t even climb to the top, but simply go down for the next attempt. This practice is common among trad climbers, but is rarely used in route climbing.
When going through a redpoint route, you need to learn the key moves as accurately as possible. If you fail, it is better to do the following:

• 1. Think about why you relapsed.
• 2. Try to connect all the sequences of moves if this will be important for the next attempt.
• 3. Go through the entire route from quickdraw to quickdraw, trying to pay attention to all the elements: resting spots, foot holds, stitches, key movements, etc.

It's a mistake to quit working on a route and start a new attempt after a breakdown, even if you think it's all about fatigue. I also did this before and paid for it by falling 5 meters from the top of the 70-meter 8b+ because I was too lazy to learn the final sequence after the key section

Rest between attempts

Even if you fall off at the very beginning, take enough time to rest before returning to the route. And the point here is not only in the physical stress from which you need to recover, but above all in the psychological stress that you experience. I need a five-minute rest even after just mentally visualizing the course. This is true for any discipline and some aspects of recovery in one will take longer than in another. For example, if you fail badly on your 20-meter project, you will be exhausted both physically and mentally and will take 30-45 minutes to recover before the next attempt. If you are exhausted from the bouldering top, then the fatigue will be mainly of a physical nature, and you will be ready for the next attempt in about ten minutes.
But having fluttered from the thread, you will spend a long time collecting the remnants of your nerves until you prepare yourself for the next approach. This process can take from a couple of hours to several weeks. The point is that resting until full recovery, no matter how long it may be (we are not taking into account specific training), does not reduce your chances of passing.

Body Training: Strength Endurance
Strength endurance is a term that can often be heard among climbers, and often misinterpreted. The correct definition is:
"Ability to perform moderate to vigorous intensity movements for extended periods of time"

Not many people know this, but strength endurance matters for most single-pitch routes. Any climb where you feel the grind but still have to keep going with fairly heavy movements is a strength-endurance route. I often hear that classic European routes require more endurance than, for example, English island routes. This is true to a certain extent. I would say that they also require strength endurance. Since there are no rest areas along the route that would guarantee full recovery, you will be in the anaerobic zone and your strength endurance will work.

We have already looked at the training cycle for developing endurance. Now it's time to bring in the strength component here. It will include a number of exercises, some of which you will already be familiar with from previous articles, while others will be new. When training strength endurance, it is important to maintain the required level of load (just like when training regular endurance).

3x3 cycles
The same 4x4 cycles as before, with the only difference that there are three of them (but more difficult). When training endurance, we focused on working at 3/4 of our capabilities (see the previous article to understand). In strength endurance training we will aim for level 4/5. This means that after finishing the approach, we will be almost completely clogged, and we will be separated from failure by para-
three movements.
I usually start this type of training with a hard route, then maintain the fatigue level by climbing slightly less difficult ones.

Bouldering cycles
Select a bouldering problem based on the strengths of 8-12 moves in length. Repeat this five times, resting only long enough to magnetize and approach the wall again.
You need to choose a level of intensity that will last you a maximum of four approaches.

Climbing cycles
Perhaps the most common way to train strength endurance is at climbing walls. It involves climbing difficult routes, but on bouldering walls. The beauty is that you can tailor the climbing to suit you. For example, if you are going to go somewhere to Margalef, set the routes in your pockets.

I like to change the style of routes throughout the cycle, combining a variety of climbing styles. If I’m in the strength phase, then I reduce the number of moves to 15-25, if I’m training strength endurance, then I make the routes longer (25-35 moves), just routes 35-50 moves long will bring me endurance. I'm planning on going to the short courses at Malham Cove next month so I'm training on 15-25 turn routes. It's a really fun approach to training, especially in a group with friends where you can participate in the choreography together and benefit from watching each other. The competitive nature of man plays an important role here. Plus, while your friend is climbing, you use this time to rest (I would always wait until full recovery before attempting the next attempt).

Repeat cycles
Same idea as bouldering repeats, but only for regular routes. Do 3-4 repetitions of the route with a rest of 1-2 minutes. This is a great strength endurance training tool that will surely take you to the anaerobic limit. Routes should be no more than 15-35 movements long. As you progress, reduce your rest time. Try reducing the rest duration to 30 seconds or a minute over time, or increase the difficulty.

It is important to come up with routes that are interesting and effective. The ideal route should consist of movements, each of which is no more difficult or easier than the others. There should be no rest areas on the route, it should be a uniformly difficult climb that will achieve the desired anaerobic effect.

The difficulty should be around your onsight level (one or two grades below your maximum onsight) so that you can repeat a route you've already learned even if it's very crowded.

Training Tips - Part 5

Hello again, my future climbing stars! It's time to talk about what we are going to achieve this year.
1. What are our ambitions for 2012?
2. How will we implement them?
3. Where will we be by 2013?

Since progress in climbing is best achieved by improving both physical and psychological abilities, in order to make a qualitative leap in your development, you need to pay attention to the formation correct thinking. If you look at all the leading athletes, they will have one thing in common - determination. You can call me an idealist, but I firmly believe that nothing is impossible in this world. The climbers who inspire me and who I aspire to be like are not necessarily the strongest - they just have the ability to dream.

In this article I will try to reveal my thoughts about what makes a good climber great. But first, let me follow tradition and introduce a new friend.

Name: Dan Perchilkin
Occupation: fictional character
Climbing Experience: 2-4 years 3-4 times a week.
About Me: Climbing is mine! I train on the wall 4 times a week for as long as possible, and only an earthquake, tsunami or another universal catastrophe can stop me from doing this. I try to go to the rocks regularly, and once or twice a year I go on a big climbing trip. I remember life before I discovered rock climbing like a bad dream. Very
I want to progress further, but over the past couple of years progress has slowed down. What else could there be that I don't know about?

So what's slowing you down?
If you find yourself in the description of our hero, it means that you climb a lot and probably think that you have structured your training quite well and effectively. What else is needed to overcome the new limit? What other aspects of you need attention? What separates you from the local climbing celebrities?

The truth is that there seems to be a little bit of everything missing. Someone is stronger and more technical than you, but why?
Should you make the excuse that you haven't been training for that long? Is the time spent training so important? Your opponents may have been climbing longer than you, perhaps even since childhood. But the main thing that distinguishes a good athlete is his attitude to climbing, training and the ability to visualize. Every moment is important: from how a climber perceives his failures, and ending with how and what goals he sets for himself. It is these little things that many people forget about that are often key to achieving progress.

Speaking for myself, success in climbing came not due to any special techniques or hard training, but due to my passionate desire to become better.

What happens to you when you get off track?
Are you angry at yourself?
Angry about the route?
Maybe your insurer (a particularly funny case, especially if your girlfriend (or boyfriend) insures you)?

These are the most common cases. But you can often see the opposite, when people do not draw conclusions from their breakdown at all and do not experience it in any way.
If you have a passion for climbing and want to improve, there is only one correct response I can expect from you when you fail, and it certainly won't be complaining about the route. In such cases, you should only complain about yourself. Anger at yourself is good in all cases, as long as you do not begin to self-deprecate yourself to the point of losing motivation. You need to realize what you are doing wrong and start working to overcome that weakness next time.

Failure is not the end of the dream!
We now need to define failure in our quest for excellence. Is it bad luck to go off route? Definitely not! This is just one of many events in your climbing life. Of course, we strive to climb the route to the top, but our main goal is not to top a specific route, but to improve and prepare ourselves for subsequent routes, which will be the result of your many years of preparation.
Failure on one route is not a failure until you have given up trying to succeed. Instead of looking for someone to blame for your failures, try to learn from your experiences.

Think about why you snapped?

• Was it a technical error or a misread sequence of moves?
  Think about it again and try again!
• Psychological barrier or fear? Take it as a temporary weakness and strive to overcome it!
• Wrong tactical decision? Think about what negatively affected your progress (dirty climbing shoes, bad belay, an unlucky bag of magnesium, an unread prayer, little rest between approaches) and next time try not to repeat your mistakes.
• Fizuha? Then maybe you should practice a little? After all, physical fitness is not just a point goal - it is an ongoing process of training, where every failure represents an invaluable experience.
• Treat each route with respect, as you would a teacher helping you reach your goal...

Goals

Having learned the right attitude towards our failures and built the necessary thinking, we move on to the next stage - setting goals. What would we be without goals? We would just wander from one activity to another without any reason. Everything you do in life is a result of having goals, so why not set goals for your climbing?

First of all, we must distinguish the different types of goals. I usually come up with five:

• Short-term - a weekly project, a personal best on the track, or overcoming any barrier that will take me no more than a week
• Medium-term – within the training cycle (4-6 months)
• Long-term – within a year or several training cycles.
• The foreseeable future is about five years...
• Dream – your most incredible goals, regardless of time!

What you get from achieving your goals is not as important as who you become in the process of achieving them.
Awareness of your goals and the desire to achieve them is not everything. Ideally, it should be written down or otherwise visualized. Once written down on paper, they cease to be just ideas, acquiring a touch of reality. They are now something you already had a hand in achieving.

When setting goals, it is important to realize that this is not just a flight of your imagination. I mean that if you dream of climbing 8a, but you yourself are currently climbing 6a, then such a goal will clearly be a long-term goal.

Here's an example of our Dan's goal list:

Short term:
Climb "Chopping Block" (7b) in several trips over the course of a month
Beat your record on the Yellow Circuit at the TCA Climbing Gym by the end of the month.
At the EICA climbing wall this month there are 4 routes 6c, 3x6c+, 2x7a and one 7a.
Get out Green V6 in EICA and finish off "Monty Pythons SS" (6C+)

Medium term:
Increase your endurance and strength endurance for your July trip to Ceuse.
By the end of the cycle in July, there will be 10 routes 7a, five 7a+ and two 7b.
Solve V7 bouldering by July.

Local goals of the July trip to Ceuse (2 weeks):
Climb three routes 7a (in different styles), two 7a+ and one 7b – “Super Mickey”

Long term goals
Get to 7b+ by the end of the year
Work on strength in the second training cycle during the winter (week in Fontainebleau)
Maintain strength endurance levels and improve overall fitness for the spring trip to Geyikbari

Goals of trip to Geyikbari (2 weeks):
5 7a+ routes in different styles
Two 7b One 7b+
Attempt 7c in order to try what it is, in general, and, if trampled, to get out!

Future plans (5 years)
Get out 8a+
Bouldering V9
Continue structured training
Stay healthy and eat right

Dreams (within a lifetime):
Get Out 8c ("Dures Limites" (Ceuse))
Bouldering V11

Action field

Learning to relax

Climbing one summer with Mr. Neil Gresham, on the way to the rocks we started talking about what hinders the development of beginning climbers. We covered the usual aspects: footwork, body positioning, technique, confidence, etc. But Neil also believes that the hidden fault often lies in the fact that many of them do not know how to rest and recover. Since training climbers became my main job, I have seen all too often that many climbers simply do not know how, where and when they should rest on routes. It was a revelation to me - how is it possible that such an obvious thing is overlooked by most people?

Climbers learn technique through experience, and rest is part of that too. This became obvious to me when I started working with climbers who had never ventured beyond their own low crags. Why rest on the 10m route? Wouldn't it be easier to just sneak out?
In most situations this is true, but climbers who practice this approach do not learn to look for opportunities for rest and instill in themselves bad habit climb without rest even on long routes. The most important thing to remember is that rest is not a panacea, it is only a temporary measure taken from the moment of start until the moment of clipping into the top quickdraw. When I'm climbing a long route, I'm looking for any potential rest position, as well as shaking my pounding arms on almost every move. Even a slight movement of the brush will be enough if you do it regularly.

When I'm about to climb a route, I always look for possible rest spots. I look at them as waypoints along the way. Every holiday destination is different, some are better, some are worse, but they can all provide you with a chance to recover a bit and no matter how long you spend there, it will be worth it.

It is also important to understand that resting on the route can sometimes be inconvenient. My students often complain to me that they cannot rest on the route. From what? You can regain strength in one form or another on any route, even the most bouldering ones. I even heard from one guy about the great recreational opportunities on the Hubble route (8c+/9a or V14)! Sometimes the place to rest is not entirely convenient, and once I found myself in such a situation that I had to rest at the key of the route. The subsequent movement required a fresh left hand, which could not be achieved without the withering heavy pinch grip of the right on the previous movement.

Learning to rest will be difficult for many. The best way to do this is to put yourself in situations where it is necessary. For example, climb long routes or, if your climbing wall is small, climb in circles, finding rest positions every 15-20 moves. Even circuit tracks can force you to rest in places where you wouldn't normally. If your wall is only 10 meters high, then if you climb it 4 times, it will already be a 40-meter route. And if you also descend by climbing, you will climb as much as 80 meters!

Breath

We do this completely unconsciously, so why is it so difficult to do while climbing? Of course, getting air into our arteries will make climbing easier, but there are times when this isn't the case. You should hold your breath on a climbing route if there is a heavy forceful movement or an uncomfortable position in which you have to hold on. Both situations are completely different and require different approaches.
While holding my body in the desired position, I will hold my breath for a short time to maintain the effort. Sometimes some movements require such tension that one single breath can ruin everything.
Complex dynamic movement requires holding your breath, as this creates a short-term increase in air pressure in the lungs, increases the heart rate, reduces fear and motivates action.

But when climbing long routes for endurance, it is important to breathe deeply and measuredly, saturating the lungs with oxygen as much as possible. This will better prepare you for possible clues along the route.

Bouldering vs. Classic Climbing ( aggressive style versus controlled)

This thread is inspired by a post by a friend of mine on the UKClimbing forum. I wanted to answer right there, but I was afraid of being skewered by criticism.
Is there a fundamental difference and how much does one or another technique affect your success on the wall?
Of course, this depends on the style of route or bouldering, but in general, each scenario requires a different approach.
For bouldering you will likely use a more aggressive style than for a rope route.

Pros and cons of aggressive style

Behind:
An aggressive style allows you to make bouldering moves faster and easier.
You climb faster, which means more efficiently, and you don’t lose strength by hanging on holds for a long time.

Against
It is possible to lose strength due to too strong grips, which is inherent in an aggressive climbing style.
Being overexcited, you are prone to making technical errors and rash moves.
People around will be scared by your wild screams!

That is, an aggressive style can be both good and bad. It is definitely good for bouldering due to the predominance of power dynamic movements. On rope routes, many will defend the position that it is better to keep a cool head, at times using components of an aggressive style. But I beg to differ. I think an aggressive style on routes is also beneficial,
just like bouldering. The difference is that it must be used in a slightly limited manner in order to avoid overspending on excessively intense movements.

And here we again come to the idea of ​​going through the route step by step. Break the route into separate sections, at each of which change the speed and style of passing. Also try to change emotions in each section. Bouldering sections should be tackled more aggressively, while long, measured sections should be tackled in a relaxed style.

Body Workout: Strength

There is often a misconception in sports that strength and power are the same thing. I already talked about this in the second part of my series of articles on training, but in case you forgot, I’ll repeat it:

Power = Strength + Speed

Your power depends on your current state of power, meaning you are only as powerful as your power allows. If you can only hold the hold for a few seconds, then you will not get good powerful dynamics. If you hold it confidently, then such movements will be easy for you. Guys usually have more power than strength. That is, on larger holds they can work more efficiently than women.

Women, on the other hand, are usually stronger than men on small holds, but have great difficulty in moving between them. Even on better holds, if there is a lack of power, dynamic movement can be difficult.

What is better - power or strength? In general, you need to have both qualities. Therefore, you can spend time in your training program to train strength, and then focus on power.

Bouldering

The best way to train strength is to boulder. The only thing to remember when doing this is to identify the specific problems that isolate strength training from power. To do this, you need to come up with bouldering exercises consisting mainly of static movements. In 9 out of 10 cases, these will be routes on small or complex holds that require significant effort with each movement. I've found that for strength training, it's better to use specially designed routes or combinations of several projects where I can do 3-4 movements before breaking down.

Remember: bouldering exercises that consist of static rather than dynamic movements are suitable for training strength.

Another good way strength training – fixing a position on a bouldering route for 3-5 seconds. It roughly looks like this: you take a certain position while bouldering, fix it, then make a move, fix your position again for a few seconds, etc. This trains your strength very well. Moreover, you can use easier bouldering for training, which in this style will take much more energy from you.

Fingerboard

Fingerboards have recently sparked a lot of debate about how beneficial or harmful they are for climbers. different ages and abilities. Many agreed that training on a fingerboard at an insufficient level of development can lead to injuries.
In a certain sense this is true. But it is not the fingerboard itself that causes injuries, but the climbers themselves who use it incorrectly. If you haven't climbed for a long time, it would be better to give up such training for the next year or two. For beginning climbers, a fingerboard will be of little use. It's better to focus on hooked pull-ups. If the number of pull-ups reaches ten, then you can think about further complication.

For those who have been climbing for a long time and have reached level seven, a fingerboard has more to offer. It can be a good supplement for strength training. Notice I said “additional.” Because nothing should replace your climbing. However, once or twice a week, when you are unable to get to the gym or as part of a workout, you can use this equipment.

When training strength on a fingerboard, your main goal should be to stimulate the muscles to respond as we require. In short, hanging for long periods of time on tiny holds will not be effective for this.

Pull-ups

Pull-ups are a great way to exercise top part body, which will undoubtedly help you a lot on the rock at the right time. When working on this exercise, I would limit the maximum number of pull-ups at a time to five repetitions. If the number of your pull-ups without external help reaches 10, then you can complicate the procedure. The first option is to use weights. You'll be surprised how much more difficulty a little extra weight can make your task.

For greater efficiency, I would divide the entire exercise into sets of one, three and a maximum of five repetitions. In general, the weight will probably need to be greater for one repetition than for five.

In the future, you will understand for yourself how additional weight affects the exercise.
The second option is to lose one arm (no, no, not in the literal sense of the word) and do pull-ups on one arm. In general, I don’t like exercises with additional weight, so this option is preferable to me. As an additional auxiliary element, you can use a block with a counterweight [approx. transl.: I can’t vouch for the correctness of the translation].

Fatigue
This is a very important point. You can train while tired, but you need to feel your body and understand how it will behave in a given situation, for example, when after several days of hard training you feel completely exhausted. Simplify your exercises, increase the auxiliary counterweight when doing pull-ups. In the same way as in climbing you would reduce the category of the route.
The counterweight can also be attached to your harness for two-handed fingerboarding.

Visa
It is mine favorite exercise to train maximum finger strength. Can be performed on both straight and bent arms.
I usually alternate between straight arm hangs and cable hangs at various angles (120 degrees, 90 degrees and fully bent) on different sized holds so that the maximum time I can hang does not exceed 8-10 seconds. Ideally, this time should be between 5 and 8 seconds. If this time is longer, then you will train completely different qualities. Less time will not allow your body to understand the load and react to it correctly.
Vises are useful when used various types hooks: minuscule, shelf, passive and pocket. It's more difficult to work on pinch boards (many fingerboards don't have them at all), but you can look for them on the bouldering wall and try it.
As with pull-ups, counterweights will also help you here. On especially active holds, I try to hang on one hand for the same 5-8 seconds.
Remember: You don’t need to rush onto the fingerboard thoughtlessly. Take regular breaks of 4-8 weeks to benefit from your acquired strength and consolidate your gains. Find a workout structure that works for you. The best strength gains happen when your muscles are fresh. No need to fingerboard after three hours of bouldering.
Lastly, if you're not sure what exactly you should be doing at your skill level, get advice from a trainer

Have a good workout! Get ready for summer!

International Mountaineer's Day is celebrated on August 8th. It was on this day in 1786 that the highest point of the Alps, Mont Blanc, was conquered. Since then, mountaineering has become one of the most difficult and exciting sports. For those who decided to discover the mountains and test their strength of mind and body, a RIAMO correspondent found out where the most famous alpine clubs in Moscow are located and how to prepare for the climb.

Types of mountain sports

Today there are two main areas of mountain sports: mountaineering and rock climbing. For a beginner, these words may seem synonymous, but they are not. There are many differences between these sports, both in the basic idea and in the details.

Mountaineering is a sport whose main goal is to climb mountain peaks. Mountaineering, unlike rock climbing, is inextricably linked with mountains.

Rock climbing, as an independent sport, grew out of mountaineering. This is overcoming natural (cliffs) or artificial (climbing wall) terrain, and the more difficult the obstacle, the better for achieving sports results.

“If mountaineering is a team sport that involves working in a team, “in conjunction,” then rock climbing is characterized by a purely individual approach to business. If in mountaineering, when passing a route, risk is not desirable, then in rock climbing one can and must take risks, since this is not associated with a threat to the life or health of the athlete, but is aimed only at achieving a high sports result. They also say that a rock climber is a climber on bare rock,” Ksenia Sheiko, rock climbing coach at the Red Point climbing wall, KMS, explained to RIAMO.

How to choose a training base

Based on the listed features, preparation in these two directions proceeds differently.

Since the goal of rock climbing is to overcome the most difficult section of rock, the emphasis is on developing strength and ingenuity. “To develop climbing skills, athletes who do not have the opportunity to spend all their time on natural rocks train mainly on artificial stands - climbing walls,” clarifies Sheiko.

Even in the mountains, climbers, unlike mountaineers, choose a limited area for themselves.

“This is a different sport. We climb rock walls, the height is not important to us, the main thing is that the vertical section is as long as possible. In his projects, a climber can climb a wall and not even get to the top, so that, according to tradition, he can pick up a note from the previous team and leave his own,” says master of sports, member of the Russian mountaineering team and rock climbing instructor Boris Egorov.

In mountaineering, the main thing is to go all the way to the top. Here key role endurance and serious theoretical knowledge play a role. Therefore, when preparing, climbers, in addition to training at climbing walls, devote a lot of time to general physical training (GPP), and also attend lectures.

“Rock climbing is only part of the alpine training set, which has grown into a separate and very strong look sport, but still part. A beginner who starts with mountaineering can move in both directions, but someone who goes to a climbing wall, as a rule, will stay there,” says climber Dmitry, who has about 250 mountain routes under his belt, including as a guide.

Accordingly, different bases for training are chosen. Those who decide to take up rock climbing should go to a climbing wall, where a trainer will help you master all the necessary skills. And to become a climber, you need to join an alpine club. At the same time, it is important to understand that the future climber will definitely visit the climbing wall more than once. But a climber, without membership in an alpine club, is unlikely to end up on a mountain peak.

Physical training

Preparation for climbing in all clubs is approximately the same. The course includes: theoretical classes, general physical training (cross-country running, cross-country, cross-country skiing, endurance exercises), SFP (rock climbing, practicing the basics and skills of mountaineering techniques).

At the end general course Preparations include training camps - trips to the mountains on natural terrain. After completing the first route and meeting the standards, the athlete receives the “Russian Mountaineer” badge - this is only the initial level.

“But in order to become capable of independent ascents, you need to spend a lot of time on various training sessions in the mountains and climbing simple routes,” notes Egorov.

Mountaineering clubs in Moscow

By tradition, the largest and oldest alpine clubs in Moscow are organized on the basis of universities. As a rule, anyone can get into them, not necessarily students of a given university. The main requirement is active participation in the training process and competitions. This condition is the main one in order to get to the training camps in the mountains organized by the clubs.

Alpclub MPEI - on the basis of the Moscow Energy Institute. It has existed since 1934. To get started, just come to the general physical training training, which takes place on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays at the Energia stadium. To join the club, you need to fill out an application and pay an entrance membership fee equal to the monthly membership fee, about 100-200 rubles.

Alpclub of Moscow State University named after. R.V. Khokhlova - based on Moscow state university named after M.V. Lomonosov. Founded in 1935. To participate in training, you need to attend a general physical training class; the training takes place in the Shuvalovsky building of Moscow State University on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Joining the club will require filling out a registration card, active participation in the life of the club and monthly payment of membership fees in the amount of 150 rubles.

Alpclub MAI - on the basis of the Moscow Aviation Institute. Created in 1934. Anyone can attend general physical fitness training, which takes place on Tuesdays and Fridays in the Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo forest park.

Central Sports Club of Mountaineers named after. A.S. Demchenko - on the basis of the Sports Club of the Army of the Moscow Military District, the largest of the existing clubs in Moscow. A necessary condition for membership is the payment of membership fees, entrance and annual, in the amount of 3,000 rubles each.

Climbing equipment

The mountaineering training itself and club membership are part of the low-cost part. But ensuring the material base may require serious investments. By the way, membership in clubs, as well as in the Russian Mountaineering Federation, allows you to receive discounts on the purchase of equipment, specialized clothing, classes at climbing walls and mountaineering and tourist bases.

But a beginner should not immediately run to a specialized store. “Equipment is purchased during the preparation process, taking into account the recommendations of senior comrades. It is important to listen to the advice of experts and take into account your own preferences formed during training,” advises experienced mountaineer Dmitry.

“Mountaineering requires quite a lot of equipment. You need warm, multi-layered clothing: thermal underwear, fleece, and on top a jacket with a wind- and moisture-proof membrane or down clothing if it’s cold,” says mountaineering instructor Boris Egorov.

“Boots are very different, for different purposes: sneakers for fast hikes, of varying stiffness, high trekking shoes for walking on mountain paths and scree, special shoes with a crampon welt for walking on ice, there are multi-layer boots for high mountains,” — the specialist clarifies.

“You definitely need a safety harness; an inexpensive one costs 3,000-4,000 rubles. You will also need a huge set of equipment, depending on where you are going: trekking poles, ice axes, loops, carabiners, ropes, anchors for insurance, rock hammers and pitons, a helmet,” adds Egorov.

And of course, so complex and dangerous look sport places certain demands on the athlete’s health. According to mountaineer Dmitry, for mountaineering it is important not to have any health restrictions, as well as head and lung injuries.

Anna Semenova

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