Choosing the Best Climbs for Projecting

Picking Your Project One of the best features of projecting is that you don’t need any special training to start. It’s as simple as picking a project and trying it. In this article, we will discuss some tips for choosing a climb for a project and getting the most out of your time on it, […]
Want to Get Better at Climbing? Try Projecting!

How Do You Get Better at Climbing—Faster I’ve been a coach for over thirty years, and one of the most frequent questions I get from climbers of all abilities is: “How do I get stronger?” After training hundreds of climbers of all abilities—from first-timers to Olympic athletes—I’ve discovered that this isn’t the real […]
3 Simple Tips to Set Climbing Goals That Match Your Grades

How to Set Good Goals Based on Grades Perhaps the single most difficult thing for many of us to do is to set reasonable goals. We all have a tendency to set goals that are either way too hard or too easy. Both strategies, however, tend to be motivation killers: too hard a goal and […]
A Brief Introduction to Climbing Sets

The total number of possible sets in climbing is as large as your imagination. That being said, the bulk of them are variations off of a few common themes, or patterns, that are tried and true. We use several key patterns frequently, and tend to build sets off of these by varying details like difficulty, […]
A Quick Intro to Climbing Terms

All sports have their jargon and climbing is no exception. In fact, climbing is more saturated with jargon than any other sport we know. What follows is a very brief list of key climbing terms that we use in this guide, and in the gyms, plus a few more just for fun. General Climbing Terms […]
How Do Climbing Grades Work?

Two Systems In the U.S., climbing grades are broken into two systems: the V-grade system used for bouldering, and the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) used for grading routes. Why are there two different systems? Because for many decades one style of climbing—routes—was pretty much all anyone cared about. Bouldering did not become its own discipline […]
The Original Climbing Gyms: How PRG Looked in 1994

The original layout of the first Philadelphia Rock Gym was truly an exercise in old-school design. In the early days, as I have mentioned previously, many climbing gyms were built on shoestring budgets with whatever local labor was at hand and could swing a hammer- skilled or otherwise. This approach had its pros and […]
From Concept to Climb: Construction of Early Climbing Gyms

In the early days, many believed that climbing gyms were just a passing fad. They might survive a few years, maybe five. People reasoned that once the novelty wore off and enthusiasts moved on to the next new thing, there wouldn’t be enough climbers to support the business, much less keep it growing. In retrospect, […]
The First Indoor Rock Climbing Gyms: A Novelty

When the first Philadelphia Rock Gym opened in February of 1994, it was not only the first climbing gym in the Philadelphia metropolitan area but one of the first in the United States. In the early years, like many gyms of that time, it wasn’t founded by wealthy, business-minded people with deep pockets or […]
Top Skills to Enhance Your Roof Climbing Technique

What is a Roof in Climbing? A roof in climbing is a severely overhanging face. There is no hard and fast rule, but a steep face typically becomes a roof when the angle gets to about 60 degrees past the vertical. Horizontal roofs are generally close to or exactly parallel to the ground. Your Hips […]