Some climbers don't believe me when I say I don't get nervous before attempts on hard routes. Here I explain how I do it.
If you are interested in some more coaching content from me, my course on climbing movement technique on Magnus Midtbø’s platform Altitude is about to open: https://altitudeclimbing.com/davemacleod
Back when you started climbing, finding motivation wasn’t really a big deal for a lot of folk. Yet for some, it becomes a real issue later on. In this episode I explore this and offer a simple (not not always easy) solution.
In this discussion with Joe French, we explore what Joe did to recover from post traumatic stress and mental health issues. In my mind, the simple activities he describes, which can be practiced in many different forms, are a big missing piece of many athlete’s training programs and also of mental health therapy.
We cover why the ‘barefoot’ part of barefoot running is only half the picture, cold water, the two disasters he suffered on Everest which killed many of his colleagues, the ethics of film making and social media and epics while new routing on Ben Nevis.
Joe’s excellent book Out of Mind is available in the shop here.
In the spring, we have to get our leading head back on. Depending on how you choose your routes, mileage can either train or detrain your confidence. In this video, I take you through how I choose climbs that get me ready for bigger leads as the season progresses.
Failure on projects has been the most important training tool I’ve had. But as with any tool. It’s all about how you wield it.
The first in a series on how to climb trad, from the absolute basics right through to E11. Its a huge subject and not one where taking shortcuts tends to work out well in the long term. In this video, we start easy, and fun!
I have spent a long time perfecting how to send hard projects which are above my level. Here are five of the most significant top level factors that I use constantly, either consciously or otherwise to make the send happen.
After climbing Hunger, I took a short break. Now time for a new 9a project!
Many people ask me how to get started climbing outdoors. This is what I did, what my climbing heroes did and why it worked.
Celebrating a send with junk never seemed to work for me. I go through what I do instead. The original blog post that inspired this episode from 2009.
Trying hard projects, hard goals, hard training all means encountering problems, setbacks and the mental challenges these bring. How you respond to them determines whether they upset your progress, or propel it. In this episode (Vlog #22) I go through my approach, which is pretty simple.