Training Beta has made a great one hour interview with Adam Ondra focusing on what it takes to do 9c; Physical training, physiotherapist, relaxation, speed, kneebars with calf focus, diet, visualization and being happy. This just might the most in-depth training interview ever done with Adam.

Cathy Wagner, who has done more than 600 8a and harder, has done two 8b's, Nelson Mandela and Paulololol in Verdon. Checking her scorecard we can see that she is at her peak with 11 routes 8a+ and harder the last 12 months. Cathy did her first 8a in 1994. Here are some previous comments from the 52 year old how she has been able to keep up her level. "I warm up less and less. I have not the patience to deal with and it's an error. My best flash routes have been done completely cold. The few warm up I do it's tai-chi movements, I started lessons a year ago. It permits at the moment for me to keep moving my energy with softness and to focus about the moves of the route I'm trying when I'm at the ground."

Alex Puccio, who just have won Arco Rock Master and Adidas Rockstar, has done her 22nd 8B, Riverbed in Magic Wood. "Psyched! second day on it. Also got to watch Joel (Zerr) smash the boulder first try today! This place is so beautiful, psyched for more boulders in the forest!!! :)" The 28 year old is #1 in the ranking game which she has been more or less for eight straight years in spite of some bad injuries. During her last 23 World Cups her worst result is #10 including taking the silver in the World Championship in 2014. (c) Joel Zerr " I will be taking over @vertical.life.climbing Instagram today! I will be posting some pictures from our climbing day and I'll post a story of our day, make sure to check out @vertical.life.climbing Insta!!!"

Body weight in climbing is a hot topic of discussion and has been for a long time. It’s widely acknowledged that carefully controlled body fat composition can help in some situations, but is lighter always better? We (Lattice Training) have looked at this in the past but it’s always good to have more data, so we’ve teamed up with 8a.nu to have a little look at some of the climbers in their database. As a starting point we’ve looked at the distribution of BMIs for all (non-anonymous) climbers in the top 100 female/boulder/route rankings (183 females and 124 males). The female average is 19.3 and the male average 21.1. The ‘healthy’ BMI range is typically given as 18.5 - 24.9 so, 85% of the women lie within the healthy range and of the remaining 15% of women the majority are only just below the ‘healthy’ mark. For the men, 99% are in the healthy range.

Paige Claasen reports on Facebook that she has done Odin's Eye 8c+ in Flatanger, after some ten days of projecting. On the picture from Trainingbeta she is on the, "burly undercling sequence that I struggled to link even from the hang. Paige, who was #14 in the Bouldering World Championship in 2007, has previously done Just do it 8c (+). So it seems she very well knows how to handle both 3D climbing as well wall climbing at crimpers. More info at her website On her Instagram she has added, Now I can move on to my secondary project of trash cleanup around the crag - the global climbing community should be embarrassed by all the trash that is tucked beneath that talus field. We're all to blame, as it's easy to accidentally leave things behind, but c'mon folks. We can definitely do a better job to keep our crags trash free!

Adam Ondra reports on Instagram that he has done a 9a+ FA in Flatanger, which starts from Thor's Hammer 1, 9a (+). The 80 meter link up makes for a new 9b+ project. ( c) Bernando Gimenez On his way home, Adam stopped in Hell, a small village just located by Trondheim airport, where he did the FA of Hello 9a. In total the 24 year old, has now done 134 routes 9a and harder. The runner up, Alex Megos, has done almost half as many.

Iuri Reusa has done his first 8c+, L'extremacura plus in Gravere. On the picture is also his coach and his two sons, Michele (10) and Matteo (9), who have already done 7c+ respectively 7c on top rope. (c) Marco Guidotti "I started to climb twenty years ago. After one year I was able to climb my first 8a. In the next years I climbed without regularity and without a specific training. Three years ago I started to climb more seriously because my sons had started to climb and mostly I started to train with the help of my brother, who is my personal coach. I think that my improvement was made possible also for the opening in my city of a beautiful climbing gym, Kuota, where I train often. Last year I was able to climb my first 8c and after numerous 8b and 8b+ in a few attempts my coach recommended me to try to break my limits. After five days of attempts I was able to climb it. My goal for the future is try to send "TCT" a famous route in Gravere opened by Stefano Ghisolfi and graded 9a.

Mina Leslie-Wujastyk was taken to hospital two weeks ago after a bad up-side-down fall on Rainshadow 9a. She is OK now and has said it was probably due to the harness being too big for her. Having watched the video and talking to Mina, who wants to spread awareness, here are my five factors, besides the size, that possibly had some impact on why she turned up-side-down. Falling and rotating sideways: Prior to the fall she was standing high on her right foot. As she fell she rotated to the right with her right foot still high up. As the rope caught her, her right hip had turned almost sideways to the wall, still having her leg high. Tie-in point moved towards her right hip: The up-side-down fall could possibly be explained by her tie-in point had moved some 10+ cm sideways towards her right hip. A couple of the cm can be explained by her harness being over sized but most of the movement of the tie-in point were probably due to: long elastic leg loops (2) and the very long and loose strap under the tie-in point (1). See picture. Body type, bolt placement and belay: Further more, as Mina is 170 cm and 57 kilo with relatively small hips and rather broad shoulders, her upper body including her head is placed far out from her center of gravity. The bolt was placed midways out in a roof and as she fell standing from the lip further out of it, the rope dragged her inwards. Lastly, the belay was normal meaning it could have been more dynamic. Lessons-learned could be: In order to avoid having the tie-in point moving towards the hip, harnesses should have shorter elastic leg-loops which also should include warnings. The elastic leg-loop is in one way misleading as you think it fits when it is in reality maybe five cm too big. In practice, it would be great with in between sizes if you can not adjust the leg loops. Further more, the producers should reduce the length of the distance from the leg loop to the tie-in point (3) as well as make the tie-in point (1) more narrow.

University student (although candidate to firefighter if his diopters don't get increase), Lucas de Jesús is one of the young spanish crushers that send 9a's. After a successful summer in Rodellar, he answers some questions about his workday routine to send his first 9a. (C) Guillermo Domínguez Looks like 2017 is your year, isn't it? I think that 2017 is the most I have ever climbed. I moved to study in Huesca last September and since February I have been climbing 4-5 days per week. I almost stop with the gym just to be focused outdoors and climb everywhere. During the summer I've been working in Rodellar and I could climb everytime I wasn't working. Did you clearly think to climb a 9a when you started climbing of was it just 'accidental'? I couldn't believe it. Two years ago I was still talking with my friends about 9a's as something out of our range. It was something big and I never had the courage to try once. This suited me and it was just be stubborn and persistent. What about Olympics, do you fancy? I love the idea about the climbing scene into the Olympics because it will bring many advantages to this sport, but the format is a mistake because in Speed there will be not seen anybody climbing that 15m wall in 6 seconds, and the same in Boulder and Lead. Can you imagine a non-disciplines athletic championships where a guy like Usain Bolt is out of the final cause he wasn't good in marathon? Maybe is excessive, but in many ways is the same. And of course that I would like to go, but I think that I will watch it on TV.. I'm realistic and I know it will not happen because in Spain there are a lot of climbers with a level above mine and in addition they're focused on it. We need to push the youngsters for Tokyo 2020."

Daisuke Ichimiya has done his first 8C+ by repeating Daniel Woods' Creature from the black lagoon in RMNP and is #3 in the ranking game. "I took seven days. 3rd and 4th move was hard for me, so I trained to pull up on those holds! I also practiced many other moves and the knee bar." (c) Chikara Ishizuka The Japanese man, who has been in Colorado for 40 days, says the environment is so good with all these strong climbers has three more days and hopes to do some more hard stuff. Once back, he might start competing again.