Some 20 years ago, there existed very few fixed boulders in the gyms. Instead, everyone had to be creative putting up new boulders on the spray walls. In the same way, beta videos of routes and boulders were rare, meaning that climbers were constantly challenged finding the sequences.

When it comes to training, very few protocols existed and most of the best were just climbing and possibly experimenting with training. Chris Sharma and Adam Ondra became the best climbers in the world without having had a coach or a fixed training program.

Today, a whole industry of online training has emerged, providing shortcuts to advancement in grades. This is, of course, a good thing, but at the same time such structured approaches might reduce climbers' creativity and you can get injured. Furthermore, following a protocol with the only purpose of getting stronger as quickly as possible might make you lose your climbing lifestyle perspective. It might also be that you will lack technical and tactical skills in comparison to your physical strength.

A balanced approach of following structured advices as well as maintaining and developing the creativity is preferred, especially for the kids.

Loic Zehani, who the last year has done five FAs 9a and harder, has done the FA of Les Colos Fachos 8c+/9a in Orgon.
"It is a route of about twenty natural movements bolted by Olivier Bert. There is the first section in approximately 8A boulder followed by another in approximately 7B+ boulder."

What are your next projects?
Currently, I am trying a combination between Sachidananda and Bronx which should be 9a+ or 9b and I fell on the last move last Saturday. In the Calanques at the Grotte de l'Ours, I try Electoman (it's an old big 8c+ by Rémy Bergasse) but a hold has broken in the crux and it should be 9a+ now. And a few other projects all over the place. Otherwise, my big long-term project is located at the Canal in Orgon, it makes 80 movements and will be 9b+.

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 work outs last spring, a couple of months after he took up climbing after a four years break. In the meantime he got twins twice!

His big goal is to do an 8C but that will have to wait until 2022 as it is almost four hours travel to the nearest one. Meanwhile his focus is hang board training where some of his 6 mm records are: 40 pull-ups, one pull-up with 50+ kg (95 % of his weight), one-arm pull-up and 25 seconds in two + two fingers.

Could you please explain how you train and what are your goals?
I have a lot of goals and I think I'll be able to pull-up a 4mm one arm in the near future. After that, I am aiming for 6mm one arm pull-ups 3 reps and one finger one arm pull-ups 10 reps.

Most of the training is hangboard, I do it alone I also climb with my friends at the climbing gym once a week. I train three or four times a week at lunch time because my workplace is close.

I think 30 minutes of training time a day is fine. For example, if you can pull up 3 times, make it 4 times. Repeat it. Above all, enjoying training is the secret to continuing for a long time. The real answer is to keep going every day as much as you can to break your record yesterday.

Jorge Diaz-Rullo reports on Insta that he has done First Ley 9a+ in Margalef after six days of projecting. (c) Eduardo Ruano Li

During the last 12 months, the 21-year-old has done 17 routes 9a to 9b and he is #1 in the 8a ranking game. Overall, he has done 44 routes 8c+/9a and harder, meaning that he is #7 in that all time list. Next up is doing Chris Sharma’s First Round First Minute 9b. Here is a shortinterview from January when he did his fourth 8C boulder.

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.

Hugo Parmentier, who has previously done eight routes 9a to 9b, has done the FA of L'hygiène de l'assassin in Seynes. ©2021 Aurèle Brémond

"After having done "Ça chauffe" 9a I checked out a project wich is the right exit of the classique 8c "La métaphysique des tubes". It's my first experience investing time in a non established route. It took me four days and more tries than "Ça chauffe". But I hesitantly proposed 9a because a friend discovered a providencial thumb on the crux hold. I only used it on the next sending go. Will see what are the next ones thoughts. Even if it's really bouldery the rest of the route is still pretty resistant with perfect classic mouvs."

Fred Rouhling put up Akira as the world's first 9b in 1995. The first repeats were done by Seb Bouin and Lucien Martinez last November, and they considered it to be 9a.

As other hard routes from that time put up by Fred, such as Hugh 9a, have been confirmed, he had a hard time understanding the downgrading. "I don’t know but limestone cracks. Perhaps the holds became bigger. When Yuji Hirayama and Dai Koyamada came to try. They thought there was a very big difference between Akira and Hugh...😭."

Fred considered the starting boulder to be 8B, while the repeaters considered it 7C. It should also be noted that the repeaters respected Fred's style by not using knee pads, while they claimed it could be even easier using them. Last week, Fred reflected about the downgrading on Insta (in french). In general, he thinks grades are so vague that you should not confirm or downgrade. Akira is not 9b or 9a, instead, anyone can suggest a grade.

Clément Lechaptois has done his third 8C, Crystal Ship in Cresciano, after five sessions. Giuliano Cameroni did the first ascent in January and actually, Lechaptois fell on the last move three times on the same day. Video is coming up on Mellow.

What is next?
Lechaptois (pictured): To pursue the development of my company SmartBoard. We plan to go back to Swiss for 10 days, and some nice projects in Rioupéroux and Chamonix in France.

Cameroni has previously done 17 boulders 8C and harder out of which seven FA, including two 8C+'. In other words, he is one of the most profiled FA boulder in the world, although just being 23-years-old. He is also one of the founders and editors of the Mellow Youtube channel.

Adam Ondra comments his FA of El Potro 9a in the Laboratori sector in Margalef. It shares the start of Chris Sharma’s First Round First Minute 9b and Ondra describes a potential 9c link-up.