Three new books and DVDs in the shop today

Three new products just added to the shop which provided me with some excellent climbing entertainment of very different types! I hope you like them too:

Climbing philosophy for everyone: A book that has been needing to be written for some time. Stephen Schmid has brought together a series of philosophers who are also involved in climbing to take a head on look at the philosophy of various aspects of climbing. It’s quite a big task, and this book definitely errs on the accessible side. In highly readable and easy going style, it examines in turn aspects of the climbing experience such as freedom, risk/reward, the enjoyment of climbing several aspects of climbing ethics, styles of climbing and climbing culture. 

Far from being a hardcore academic style book, it’s a fine door opener to the world of attempting to understand climbing on a slightly deeper level. Your next heated post climb debate or forum rant will be less without it under your belt, but in places it is certainly a source of climbing controversy itself! Entertaining stuff. The book is right here.

Reach DVD: The latest in the genre of skate/MTB inspired bouldering flicks coming out of the US. If you enjoyed the likes of Core from last year, you’ll love this one too. A host of talent is squeezed in, cranking out V13 plus boulders with good music and a feel good style. The beasts Dave Graham and Daniel Woods are of course the highlight. Inspiring as usual with their jaw dropping feats of strength. One to make the boulders tremble. Right here.

The Fanatic Search 2… A girl thing DVD: Yes that’s right, Laurent Triay’s latest film creation is all about the girls. And well impressive they are too! Charlotte Durif (8c onsight), Daila Ojeda, Lynn Hill, Robyn Erbesfield (plus 9 year old 7c+ climbing daughter), Martina Cufar, Berta Martin and others in full flow on the best crags of Spain France. Inspiration aside, it’s an education to watch - whether you are a male or female climber. I was particularly interested to watch Charlotte Durif and see her style on the rock. She is one of the best performing onsight sport climbers in the world but there is very little footage of her around. It was just as interesting as I hoped! Right here. 

They are all in the shop here.

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Mountain Equipment Pro-Team T-shirts back in stock

I know, I know, we only got a short batch last time and ran out pretty much as soon as we got them. As promised, a big box of them dropped into the MacLeod house this morning. The reassuring ‘thunk’ nearly woke Freida! They’ve only been live on the site a few hours and already the box is getting lighter. So get them in… 

They are right here.

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New wall in Oban

Checking the new climbs at Atlantis, Oban

Had a fun day working in Oban setting problems at the new bouldering wall in Oban at the Atlantis centre. The wall was built by the hard work machine that is Scott Muir and his company Dream Climbing Walls. He’s the only man I know that could give Tim Emmett a run for his money in terms of sheer overflow of physical energy. 

Modern climbing walls still amaze me - they are so good! It’s great how an intricate design of tapering or expanding shapes influence the constraints for setting really interesting moves. I guess the more experience you have as a climber, and especially as a route setter, the more you appreciate this. 

There is so much room for movement variety in climbing though, and for personal tastes. I’m not sure if it’s because I climb outside a lot and digest a lot of varied, undulating surfaces, but I’m often a fan of large areas of flat panels on climbing walls. I guess it’s just a nice change. The Oban wall is the best designed wall I’ve set on that has a complex shape. It’s weird - sometimes the shapes just don’t seem to work for making aesthetic climbing moves. This one does though! Looking forward to going back for my coaching sessions there soon. 

Much as the setting day was great fun, it did my head cold caught the day before no good at all. So it’s an extra rest day today before I’m back at Sky Pilot. Cubby reckons it’ll be soaking after the deluge, but I’ll show up anyway, armed with towels and ready for a training session on it..

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Review: Racing Weight quick start guide

Matt Fitzgerald’s first text on weight optimisation for endurance athletes is a first in it’s field and understandably a best seller-  it’s a rather essential book to have if you are a runner, cyclist or triathlete. Because there is so little well written and scientifically based information on weight management in sport generally, it’s also pretty essential reading for climbers too.

There was only one snag - climbing is not an aerobic endurance sport. Some of the information in Racing Weight was directly applicable to climbers, but the bulk of it still needs some interpretation to shoehorn the principles onto a completely different activity.

On first glance I thought that Fitzgerald’s sequel  - the Racing Weight Quick Start Guide might be not much more than a commercially led follow up with recipes and plans that follow directly from the ideas in the first book. Actually I think it could be better titled, as it’s not just that at all. ‘Quick Start’ actually refers to his ideas for weight loss at the start of a training cycle for endurance athletes. The whole premise of Racing Weight was that endurance athletes who dieted hard to get to their fighting weight would end up offsetting gains by the consequent loss of training intensity. However, even endurance athletes have time in the foundation phase of the new macrocycle where they can afford to absorb this, and they can adopt a more rapid weight loss program. This means a very different strategy.

Conveniently, this fits in a lot better with the types of schedules climbers tend to do. This book answered many (still not all!) of the lingering questions I had on weight management for resistance/anaerobic athletes like ourselves. Taking advantage of some key research findings in the past couple of years, together with his clear and very well constructed writing, Matt has produced another essential piece of digest for everyone whom this subject concerns. 

Most of the really ‘juicy’ scientific information that it’s in the first book fits into about 30 or 40 pages. But It’s well worth it for that understanding in my opinion. The extensive section on foods and choosing them for different situations is really excellent too, and I’m fairly sure the same information cannot be found anywhere else in such complete form and so well tailored to the intended audience.

I got some copies ordered for the shop straight away! It's right here.

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