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by 8a Founder and Editor-in-Chief Jens Larssen including also Analyses, Reviews, Training, Polls and Opinions etc.
Is Yuki Hiroshima strongest in the world?
By checking his Insta, it is easy to think that Yuki Hiroshima could be the strongest climber in the world. This 35-year-old started publishing Insta hang board…
May Boulder WCs postponed to October
IFSC has announced rescheduling of the Boulder World Cups in Wujiang, China and Seoul, South Korea from May to October. The reason for this is the Covid-19 travel restrictions in those countries. The first Boulder World Cup in 2021 is scheduled to Meiringen, Switzerland 16-17 April.
Return to climbing carefully!
As we found that a lot of climbers have not been climbing during lock down we asked physiotherapist, researcher and 8a member, Gudmund Grønhaug, Insta if there …
Should unhealty climbers be allowed to compete?
One of the official goals for IFSC is to promote climbing "as a healthy and educational activity for youth." Occasionally, the organization measures the BMI of athletes and notifies the Federations if a male is below 18.5 or a female is below 17.5. Possibly, the IFSC could go even further by prohibi…
Underweight is really common among climbers
Based on 700 unique votes - How common is underweight in Climbing? we can see that only 10 % have said they have never seen it. Actually, 8 % of the voters say …
47 % have almost not climbed this winter
The results of the 8a Poll, with almost 1 000 unique votes, "How has your Covid-19 training winter been like?", is quite chocking. 25 % did answer - "Almost no training at all" and 22 % answered - "Mainly hang boarding". In other words, half of the poll participants have had almost no climbing at al…
Work steep dynamic cruxes with rope drag
Doing a steep dyno means that your feet cut loose and it is all about stopping the swing. The most effective way of doing so while working the crux is simply by having tight belay in order to reduce the swing. The belayer can then give more and more rope for each try, until you make it without assis…
BMI monitoring by IFSC
During the last month, several top climbers have come forward talking about their eating disorder. IFSC have for several years been aware of the problem and there is a medical commission which has the goal, "to protect Sport Climbing from deliberately induced underweight climbers - associated with e…
How to reduce the underweight problem?
Lately, many athletes have spoken out about their previous eating disorder problems. Such information campaigns are good but the question is whether this will have enough impact making successful super skinny climbers gain weight? Alizée Dufraisse has just published her story on Insta, which we foll…