UKC

Sport CLIMBING +, the first Rockfax book to venture into the instructional genre, has already received some high acclaim from some of the World's top sport climbers (other reviews here - http://www.rockfax.com/publications/books/reviews.php?id=129 ).

But what do the UKC public think of it? Ashley Lewis (better known as Tyler on the Forums) casts his experienced eye over this latest offering from Rockfax.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=307

Alan
UKC

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

it does look good indeedy....is there a trad one to follow?

In reply to Morgan Woods:

TradClimbing+ is currently in preparation. The authors are Adrian again, with John Arran. Possibly out in the middle of the year but it may be more like October.

Then we have plans for a Snow and Ice book, an perhaps an Alpine book and maybe even a Training book.

Alan

In reply to Alan James - UKC:

Might the short training section in Sport Climbing + which Tyler mentions be because a more thorough training book (complete with McClure's tips on how to rest by hanging upside down off your toes?!) be on the way?

In reply to Tom, UKC News Editor:

Actually the short training section was because the major idea behind the book is telling people how they can improve without training.

However, Steve and I are chatting about ClimbTraining+

Alan

In reply to Tyler if he's reading this:

Good review

In reply:
>for the vast majority of climbers this book offers a wealth of otherwise hard-to-find information and should lead to improved performance in all aspects of your sport climbing.

Is the information really that different to all of the currently available material on mental techniques and redpoint strategies etc that performance rock climbing, Horst's training for climbing, Gresham's articles offer? All of which i'll hasten to add are readily available with the Gresham articles being for free?
I just cant imagine what this book entails (maybe because I havent read it) that could make it appealing to anyone other than a new sport climber.

Alan - if a training book is to be released it would be very refreshing if it could offer something new rather than (as horst did) pretty much being exactly the same as all earlier work. (I acknowledge the fact that training really hasn't progressed a massive amount and thats maybe why these manuals seem similar.)

In reply to Paul B:

I would say that is pretty much who it is aimed at. Speaking as a trad climber who intends to do much more sport this year, I didn't gain a huge amount from the first few chapters and as Tyler says the most useful sections are those on tactics and general approach, the key message (again as Tyler points out) being that the typical British climber would get a lot more from sport if they didn't treat it as trad on bolts.

I was also slightly disappointed by the section on training. Alan, could you prioritise Training+ after the trad book please?

My only other gripe about the book is the minor errors (page crossreferencing, typos, one chapter in the wrong order). Minor of course but it's true across all Rockfax output that it would benefit from more stringent proofing. (I can't help it, I'm a pedant!)

Excellent review Tyler.

In reply to Alan James - UKC:
sounds too good to be true...i might just have to go out and buy it!

In reply to Paul B: I should say as well, that it's far more accessible and digestible, in fact, more logically presented that Horst's book.

In reply to Stig: do those chapters offer anything on top of the mental stuff offered by gresham? just out of intrest.

In reply to Paul B:

There is a vast difference between Gresham, McClure, Macleod, Adrian Berry and Eric Horst.

The difference being that Gresham, Macleod, McClure and Berry actually perform on the rock at a high standard and have vast experience around the world. I'm afraid to say that, despite Eric's advice being sound, he does not perform or have the experience of Gresham, McClure, Macleod and Berry......much of it is theory and is not garnered from experience.

There is a great bank of information out there, some you have to pay a small fee for, some freely available.

Mick

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
Many of the spanish elite are coached by NON climbing coaches to a high level with great success, patxi, ramonet to name but a few. It would appear that a good grounding in theory works for them.
I guess your trying to imply that steve has also gained some extra knowledge through experience im just doubtful of this book having anything majorly different to what is already available however thats purely speculation as I havent read it, and I'm doubtful i'll purchase it. The previous post was merely an inquisitive post to find out wheter or not this is the case.

Stig - I can certainly see that it may be more digestible.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

He does have a pretty fit wife though....if she's the blonde in the photos.

In reply to Paul B:


With all due respect Paul you really cannot comment specifically about Sport Climbing+ until you have read it.

In reply to Morgan Woods:

Yes indeed. She did feature in Playboy several years ago as well.

Apparantly she's quite a handy golfer.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
Fair enough, i'll have a flick next time i'm in planetfear I guess.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

curious Mick, not really turning up much on google images (i guess i am at work afterall) i think i'll need a year and an issue number to confirm this....for research purposes....right.

In reply to Stig:

We'll see. Quite a lot of work to do on that one I think though.


It wouldn't be a Rockfax without the typos. It is an area that we are poor in I acknowledge, however we get books on shelves quicker than most others which is a direct result of us not spending weeks proofing them. Also, we include many features that others don't hence there is much more potential for little errors.

On this book I'd love to know what cross-referencing errors you have spotted since I haven't found any yet.

Also, the chapters are in the correct order, two of the thumb tabs are in the wrong order which is an altogether less serious problem.

Alan

In reply to Morgan Woods:

It must be 10 years ago....after her 'enhancements' which I saw live at the Salt Lake Outdoor Show many years ago.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
And that's my problem with Horst, not all of his advice is sound, a lot of it is just speculation, or worse, designed to sell his sponsors product. As far as I'm aware he has no hands on coaching experience.
This is why I tend to recommend Neumans 'Performance Rock Climbing', and now Hague and Hunter's 'The Self Coached Climber'. All climbing coaches with sport science qualifications.
I've thought Rockfax could expand into 'how to' books, I look forward to reading your training work when published.

In reply to Paul B:

Maybe if you ask Alan he'll send you a copy and you can write your own review for UKClimbing.com.

Mick

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com: Cheers mick but i'ts that fun time of year again....EXAMS, then ive got the bolt fund website to get up and running and then to get the rebolting started (Oh, thats going to be fun with the conditions as they are), and also enough climbing/training to counteract my badly timed month off.

In reply to tobyfk:


Of course he is!

In reply to Paul B:

I just cant imagine what this book entails (maybe because I havent read it) that could make it appealing to anyone other than a new sport climber.

To be honest Paul, someone of your ability and experience is unlikely to get anything out of this, or any, book of its type. You've done enough projecting of routes and problems to know what's works for you.

As to whether the stuff hard to find I'd say yes, it doesn't have as much trainig stuff in it as the others you mention (is the Neuman & Goddard book still available) but has more practical advice for tactics etc.

In reply to Paul B:

Profound!


Chris

Just to answer some of the questions posted so far in this thread:

Trad Climbing + is coming along very quickly, and is being written by myself and John Arran, as for Sport Climbing +, nothing like this has ever been written before – if it had, I wouldn’t be interested in it!

Winter Climbing + is also in progress, and is being written by Ian Parnell and Neil Gresham. Further titles will follow, but no authors have been lined up yet.

The training section in Sport Climbing + is very short for three reasons –

One, training is a big subject, and really does deserve its own book

Secondly, the emphasis of Sport Climbing + is that most advances can be made within HOURS of making tactical, and psychological changes to how we go about climbing. The content of this book is based half on the author’s own experiences, and half on the experiences of other climbers that we have coached – I’ve coached over 200 climbers, and very few were being held back by their physical strength, though nearly all thought they were – it would be contrary to the very point of the book to over do the training section, hence it is just enough to go about training in the right way.

Thirdly, hardly any climbers actually ‘train’ most of us, myself very much included, just go to the wall and have fun, I get the impression that the obsession with training articles in magazines is a bit like cookery programs on TV, and that very few people actually do it. 98% of climber just need to become better climbers, not stronger ones.

A point was made as to how much of the content is new. Well, we’ve not made any major scientific discoveries here, but the book pulls together everything that you need to improve at sport climbing. I actually put most of the articles you mention onto the web, and the content of the book is far more comprehensive. A lot of the content has never been written about before, or at least not in the detail presented by Sport Climbing +. The info is also bang up to date, books like Performance Rock Climbing are ancient now.

This book isn’t aimed at new climbers, but we made sure that there was something in if for them. It is aimed at climbers who have been climbing for a few years and would like to get some new ideas as to improve – without training – it would have been easy to say ‘here’s a two year training program’, but people have jobs, so that’s not going to be very helpful. I should add, that in the year I spent writing this book, I personally learnt a heck of a lot, and I’ve been climbing for 18 years. In fact, during last spring I did a road trip around France and Northern Spain, climbing in exactly the way the book prescribes – to see if it would make a difference, and my onsight went up from 7c to 8a, and that was mostly mental and tactical changes.

Errors – there are a few! Sorry.

Mental stuff and Neil’s Articles – for what it’s worth, I know Neil was quite impressed by the mental stuff, which did involve a fair bit of research, and, again, was based on coaching experience of what works well.

About coaching and experience. Personally I think that to coach climbing, you need to be a climber with a lot of experience and have a high personal standard. I don’t think you need that experience to be a physical trainer – which is where the story of the top Spanish climbers using non-climbing professional comes from – and at their level I think that the only room for improvement is probably physical performance – oh to be at that level!

About comparisons with 'Performance Rock Climbing', and Hague and Hunter's 'The Self Coached Climber'. These are both good works – I bought the latter recently, and found it informative, if a little dry – and the DVD on how to Redpoint should be re-titled ‘How NOT to redpoint’ – it’s got it place though.

Lastly, to not get anything out of Sport Climbing +, you’d have to be a pretty good climber – like I say, I got a lot out of it myself whilst researching and compiling it, and I know a number of the world-class climbers who proof-read it commented that they learnt something.

Only when we think we know it all, do we stop learning.

In reply to Paul B:


I had a similar blinkered approach when I first went on coaching week with Adrian - I'd been climbing for 15 years, so what could I learn? I did however want to climb at Arco, having driven through it a few times, so this was an opportunity, and any improvement would be a bonus. I remember being pissed off when Adrian decided we would spend a beautiful sunny morning at an indoor bouldering wall.

Suffice it to say that he was right and I was wrong, and it's not often you'll hear me say that!!

In reply to Adrian Berry:



The comparison I was making when I introduced these titles into the thread was with Horst's books.
I bought the latter recently, and found it informative, if a little dry – and the DVD on how to Redpoint should be re-titled ‘How NOT to redpoint’ – it’s got it place though.

Not sure about the 'how NOT to redpoint' comment, I took it as a case study on an actual rp showing movement, and rp tactics.
the book itself would probably have been better called 'How to Coach Climbers' as it's taught me more about how to spot movement errors in others, than myself. Video analysis is probably the way forward, but now we're getting wildly off-topic.

In reply to Adrian Berry:

Firstly thanks for the reply. These posts are in no way meant to belittle your efforts they are simply down to the fact that training for climbing and anything else to do with climbing intrest me greatly, because of this I have a few more questions:

"I did a road trip around France and Northern Spain, climbing in exactly the way the book prescribes – to see if it would make a difference, and my onsight went up from 7c to 8a, and that was mostly mental and tactical changes."



Can you really say that this was down to your change in tactics rather than the natural improvement you have on a road trip?

I'd also be impressed if the book contained tactics that would enable people to make such progress on home turf, where the progress could actually be quantified rather than the ego massage you can get from some nice 'holiday ticks', This is not necessarily meant to imply that the ticks you talk about are soft just that if it were at home your max redpoint/onsight may be more quantifiable.

In reply to Paul B:

I've redpointed 8a in the past, but now I'm a tad rusty when sport climbing. Used to do it on brute strength alone and gaining stamina by climbing.

Now I'm a little older, just as keen mind. I've found Adrian's book very useful as regards tactics and head techniques.

I'm always looking at my feet now too when climbing!

Mick

I used the trip away to really 'climb by the book' to test whether it worked with me. This meant taking proper rest periods, warming up properly, spending time reading the routes I was trying, and getting over my anxiety about falling. I practiced what I'd been preaching to others, and it simply worked. I flashed an 8a after about 5 days - so not due to making new gains in fitness. I went on to onsight 1x8a and 3x7c+s (two that had been downgraded from 8a I hasten to add - I would have done a lot better if I'd taken guidebook grades, but I'm quite harsh with myself there.)

It wasn't just the tactics, there was a more 'positive approach'. It certainly wasn't down to training - I don't train as such, and had sat on my ass (writing) nearly all year, so I wasn't exactly fit and strong.

Can tactical changes help people make progress on home turf?

Well, I had a client who came to me with this summary:

"I currently feel fairly confident leading most trad VSs although I have issues with jamming. I haven't fallen off leading in years which tells me that I'm probably not pushing myself hard enough, so I'd like to have the extra confidence to step up to the next level. I have an ongoing long-term mission to tick all the 3* VSs and HVSs in the Peak Gritstone East Rockfax guidebook but I'd also like to be able to push myself beyond this."

With a changed tactical approach, I watching him climb his first E4 (Calvary) after one day of coaching, and that was entirely down to making a small change in tactics.

Tactics is such an important thing, but all anyone seems to understand is training training training - and if you don't belive me - read Dave Macleod's comment about the book - there's someone who has his tactics sorted.

In reply to Adrian Berry:

I don't really think thats fair to say, its been adressed in almost all previous literature, and many people do employ (and value) the correct tactics. I am now starting to see the usefulness of a culmination of all the available ideas for people that maybe have not had the experience (for various reasons, as you illustrated) to learn from their mistakes. However I do believe that the example you have highlighted is extreme and this amount of improvement will not be attainable to most by a simple change in tactics, and that leads me to question how useful the book will be for the majority of people?
I appreciate D. MacLeods application of the tactics have lead to good achievements but it would be extremely naive to think that this doesn't have a great deal to do with strong fingers, power etc. developed through training.

In reply to Paul B:

Paul...where are you coming from? I'm interested. What kind of circles do you climb in?

On what experience do you base these presumptions about the numbers of people? You say many, most, majority.

It is very easy to get blinkered when the peer group you spend most of the time with sport climb at the higher grades. Maybe I'm presuming that your peer group are all high achieving sport climbers and I apologise for that.

I think that many, most, the majority even, of climbers who sport climbing will benefit by reading and implementing the tactics and knowledge in Adrian's book, and yes even some of those you see redpointing Zoolook at Malham. I base this on 25 years of climbing in the Europe and the US, and socialising (I like that bit) and climbing with thousands of climbers.

Mick

All I can say, is that I've coached over 200 individuals over about five years, and that I have witnessed nearly all of them improve the standard at which they climb as a direct result of being coached, and that the aspect of coaching that made the biggest difference was a better tactical approach.

The example I gave was obviously impressive in terms of the level accomplished, but it was completely normal to me to see a similar, if more modest, improvement in a short time frame.

Paul, you are clearly an experienced, and very able climber, and I too once felt that this was all pretty obvious stuff - gained through experience - but it has been my experience that the vast majority of climbers can benefit hugely from better tactics.

It has been proven to me again and again that the biggest single thing the average climber can do to improve the standard at which they climb is to become more tactically aware. Neil Gresham, who I've worked a lot with, is of the same opinion - one of his training DVDs is almost entirely dedicated to the subject!

Maybe if you spent more time around climbers operating at F6a/6b who want to climb F6c/7a you too would recognise that they probably already CAN, they just need to go about it the right way. I've spent five years getting my head around this, and the biggest lesson I've learnt is just how much I take for granted.

The book was written with the sole aim of being of practical use to the majority of climbers, who, IF they follow it WILL IMPROVE MUCH FASTER - it took a very long time (and a few dead-ends) to get it right. Can you give me the benefit of the doubt?

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:
Firstly no need to apologise for making assumptions, its not as if I haven't made some in order to comment about the book in question.

Background: I'll take it from the beginning, started climbing in the north east at an indoor wall, got a good trad apprenticeship with a great climber who i respect and appreciate greatly, as well as a fair few other people, climbed lots indoors and out mainly in the county and peak. Moved to sheffield 3yrs ago this being my fourth. I trained in the woodie (RIP) with people of varying ability (however enjoyed training with each and every person equally) and now train with some extremely talented climbers (a lot of who excel at trad as well as sport and bouldering) but also with some people I've known for ages who are not operating at the top end of the grades. Even sometimes with my dad who only started a year or two ago. I guess all of thise has been over 10 ish years? with a fair few road trips and mispent summers thrown in.

I can see that it may be easy to become blinkered regarding this but I struggle to believe that anyone who is trying to push themselves can make the leap from vs/Hvs to E4 with just some tactical changes, if thats the case then this person has been massively underachieving (or operating well within the comfort zone), (maybe the fact is I am unwilling to accept that there are that many people out there who do not push themselves to excel?)
My opinions above stem from knowing a lot of people who employ correct rest, hydration, route selection etc. and to the best of my knowledge have never been taught or read sportclimbing+, all of which appears to be just common sense.

In reply to Paul B:


Quick one Paul. I do appreciate the background you have outlined above but I will most certainly have to pull you up on the above statement, "all of which appears to be just common sense."

I don't believe there is such a thing as common sense, if you define it as knowledge that we all collectively know through some kind of osmosis.

You can learn from experience, and gain so-called common sense by the school of hard knocks, but in my experience it is far better to learn from a combination of:

experience

your peers, (but be very careful there and choose wisely)

a mentor

coaches and instructors as long as they have a track record

books, and other training type media

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com:

ok fair enough I guess the things that I myself class as common sense may have been digested throughout a long period of time obsessed with pushing myself within any given sport.

I guess your last point is that this book can be one of the ways that you can learn 'tactis' other than through trial and error which is a valid point, but brings me straight back to my original point of, "Whats changed since all of the previous available literature/media", and from what Adrian has said I believe he's added something to the mental aspect of the literature but aside from that it seems as if tyler and others see the book as a more easily digestible compilation of the available info.
Adrian - thanks for your replies and sure i'll give you the benefit of the doubt with regards as its usefulness to most people. I'm sure writing such a book is a hard task for anyone, i was merely interested whether or not others were as sceptical about the appeal of the book to others as I myself was/am.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKClimbing.com

I believe that every approach has validity-the horst book I believe is well written with good sections on a valid mental approach,good basic stuff on how to plan your training-authors of the latest training articles in CLIMB take note please.Bit to much on strenght training maybe etc etc.I think it irelevant that he might not climb so well if the ideas work use em-surely good strategy in itself.The rockfax publication I think is very good though the psychology stuff is bit old school to much emphasis on achievement orientation possibly but if it works for some fair enough.
I feel that the next focus should lie on busting plateaus when StevM os's his first 8c+,Adrian his first 8b and Neil does his first 8c(+) get all to write something about it- about what they did to get there.Now that will be interesting!First gains are always the easiest busting plateaus are the hardest and most interesting though.