Articles specifically written to target COACHES rather than climbers
At the turn of any year, the attentions of millions of people around the world will turn to New Year’s Resolutions. While the most popular among the wider public will remain resolutions such as losing weight or saving money, for many of our clientele this is often a useful time to set some goals for …
Being Smart? Digging Into Some Goal Setting Theory Read More »
Let’s imagine we’re buying ourself a new car. And given we’re really passionate about climbing, we’re looking for one that will take us to the crag; the perfect climbing vehicle. So we go searching the options. Maybe we’re into bouldering and want to make sure there’s room in the boot for our pads (quick note: …
Adding Fuel To Your Fire: The Importance Of Nutrition and Recovery Read More »
Marshmallows. Generally considered yummy (sorry vegetarians). So yummy in fact, that they were used, back in 1970 led my social scientist Walter Mischel, in one of the most famous studies on human behaviour of the twentieth century: the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. We’ll come on to the details of the experiment, suffice it to say that …
Can We Test For Injury With Marshmallows?! No, But They Can Be Useful Read More »
Route reading. Heard of it? Probably. So what is it? It’s one of things that we all know about but I dare say struggle to actually define successfully. Responses to ‘what is route reading?’ often range from “visualisation” and “sequencing” through to “well, it’s just looking at the route” right down to “erm, dunno”. Even …
One Chapter At A Time: Introducing Reactionary Route Reading Read More »
Special credit must go to Aled Oddy for his assistance in developing this model. PrinFrAp? What is that?! No, it’s not a new hipster Dutch brewery, PrinFrAp is possibly the best model with a terrible name you’ve ever heard of. It is an abbreviation (I think) of three points of a model that describes the teaching of …
PrinFrAp: Possibly the Best Teaching Model in the World Read More »
31st December, let’s have a think: drinking, fireworks, celebrations. Kissing at midnight, time off from work, resolutions. There are plenty of traditions but it’s the last one i’m particularly going to focus on here: resolutions or, as we often know them better, goals. For the majority of people, this is a perfectly sensible and logical …
New New Years: Using Changing Clocks for Seasonal Goal Setting Read More »
A quick google search suggests that this as a phrase doesn’t exist so I’m nabbing it before anyone else does. It is possibly the single most extensively used technique in my coaching repertoire. In some ways, it is not new and is even now developing more and more alongside technology (more on this later). However …
Copy and Paste: A Definition of Replication Training Read More »
I’m sure we’ve all heard of ‘warming up’, how it’s really important and how it keeps us from getting hurt but I have it on good authority from a physiotherapist friend of mine that there is no conclusive academic research that states that warm ups prevent injury (I’m not making this up, check out McCrary, …
Are You Ready For This? Discussions on Warm Ups for Climbing Read More »
One of my local climbing centres is called the Beacon and there, you’ll find one of their senior staff called Gareth Pritchard. I have a lot of respect for Gareth, he’s a great bloke and very experienced. Yet occasionally, we do find ourselves locked in ardent debate; much like happened recently. Gareth is great for …
Take a look at this genuine review from a client from the summer of 2025: I’m always drinking tea when I’m working. Armed with one of my two flasks, or sometimes both, drinking tea at the wall has become part of the Prowess image. At face value, it may seem like a quirk; one of …
Let’s Have a Brew: Why Tea is a Secret Weapon in Coaching Read More »
