The after school climbers were at Ratho EICA tonight. Laura cruised the Speed route after warming up on 5 easier routes and mixing – face, corner, bridging and overhanging – routes, this is the ‘coached’ method. Climbers last longer and can achieve harder routes this way. Often, climbers jump to harder routes too early. We avoid ‘dynamic stretching’ and prefer to warm up the whole body first. The clibers are encouraged to so some simple floor excercises at home for ‘strength and conditioning’ eg Planks, side planks. Avoiding sit-ups as recent research says this can be risky for females. Planks work the whole core and replicate the ‘body tension’ we need for climbing. Samantha has been doing Strength and Conditioning floor excercises, Planks, press-ups etc, which has built her Core Strength up over the 7 week summer hols. Her weekly kayaking – with the school- has also contributed.