Ramon Julian, the best combined rock and competition climber of the last ten years, has done the FA of Ficció digital 9a in Berga. "Good route bolted by Oriol Maraver." Last week he also opened one 8c+ and onsighted Corrida 8c in Osp/Misja Pec. In total, the 159 cm tall climber has done 45 routes 9a and harder. The only climber to exceed him is Adam Ondra who has sent 110 routes 9a and harder.

The more of your muscle fibers you use, the more blood you shoot in circulation. In general, when up to 20% of the muscle fibers are in use, the blood vessels are fully open meaning that you can more or less go on forever. When 50% or more of the fibers are used, the blood vessels are completely shut. In other words, as you get stronger, using smaller percentage of your fibers, the better your blood circulation gets, i.e. you get better endurance. If you have low maximum power, especially when it takes long time to recruit maximum power, you will get better endurance by including some maximum moves in your warming up. In practice, this can mean that instead of using 50% of your muscle fibers during a hard sequence doing your first hard route, you might only use 40% of them. This means that recruiting maximum power on warming up will ensure better blood circulation and thus better endurance. On the other hand, if you have high and fast maximum power, it might be that a very soft and relaxed warming up will get you better endurance. The reasons of it are that you will not overgrip on the easier sequences, which might hinder your blood circulation. Another way to improve your endurance, might be compressions sleeves, as in the picture.

Matyas Luzan has dedicated almost two years of his climbing life to trying to jump from 8b to Action Direct 9a. This means that just during the last 16 months he did 200 sessions on a replica, including hang board and campus boards sometimes with just one finger moves. Three months ago all was set but as soon as he started trying hard, he injured himself and had to go back home. Now on his blog, he reports that he is stronger than ever and he plans to have another try in April.

During the last ten years we have moved from boulder grade inflation to deflation. Based on the original grades, the boulder community has in fact not improved a lot since the beginning of the -00 decade. The best possible way to explain this could be videos in which climbers help the boulderers to select and make fast ascents. To make The story of 2 (grading) Worlds, Dave Graham's classic test piece from 2005 which stopped the grade inflation, is much easier today due to videos. Some actually thought it was an 8C+ at that time but today it is considered a soft 8C. Climbers normally use Time Comparison as a grading indication and thus it is logical that videos have created the boulder grade deflation, especially for complicated boulders. When there are just three straight forward crimps with only one sequence, a video does not have much impact of the number of sessions. Subjective grading and the Time Comparison Grading must always be based on the best sequence. Today, better sequences have been found on The Story of 2 Worlds, which logically explains why it feels easier today. On the other hand, just because you need much less time to repeat a complicated boulder thank to a video, should not effect the grade. If it took you four sessions, including finding the best sequence, to do an 8B some ten years ago and now you just need two sessions, including checking beta videos, it does not mean that the it should be downgraded. Videos and Time Comparison Grading might be the best way to explain boulder grade deflation.

Tom Randall wrote an interesting article in the latest issue of Rock & Ice - World's Hardest Cracks. Out of the Top-10 listed, Tom has done the FA of four and Sonnie Trotter of two. The most interesting story in the article is this about Beth Rodden's Meltdown 8c+ put at a pedestal much higher than any other trad route in the world. It took Beth five months to do it but in reality she never gave it a grade. At the time, Beth was married to Tommy Caldwell and they both said it was harder than any trad climbs that they had done. Beth did previously the Optimist 8c. Old interview in Climbing and here is one from Crux Crush. "After a few hours of working the moves, both Pete (Whittaker) and I walked away having done only 10 percent and scratching our heads over how the crux was even possible". Taking into consideration that when the best trad climbers in the world, such as Sonnie Trotter and Nicolas Favresse, go sport climbing, they often perform two grades harder doing 9a's, Meltdown might be equivalent to a 9a or 9a+ sport route, and possibly the hardest female ascent ever? (c) Corey Rich

Based on official Google statistics, 8a has increased by some 6% in both the number of visitors and unique visitors in November compared to last year. Yesterday, we had over 10 500 unique visitors, which is the highest number since last spring. All the major banner sponsors will continue supporting 8a also in 2016 and Prana has also signed up, including 350 8a Prana T-shirts. The picture shows the planned new design that we are about to finalize. We are looking for more guys that can help us spell check the database and the news, etc. Just send an email to [email protected]

Mina Markovic, the winner of the Lead World Cup 2015 (video), reports on Facbook that she did Histerija 8c+ in Misja Pec in her third go. (c) Luka Fonda
Two days before that, she did Corrida 8c. "It is really nice that after season I can spend days outdoor together with strong climbers and just enjoy on the rock. No expectations, just climbing, sharing good vibes and meeting nice people!"

The 310-page book about the full climbing history by David Chambre could be named the new climbing Bible. Each of the almost A4 size pages are just full of nice stories and great pictures. Having spent about four hours reading it in fascination, I understood that there are many more interesting hours to follow. What a great book! From the 8a visitor perspective, we get more insight of some of the historical grades, indicating that it might be better to start calling Fred Rouhling's Akira a 9a+. Chris Sharma's Es Pontas was given a 9a+ even if 9b is mostly used for it. In general there are many comments that go in line with what 8a.nu has been saying for many years like Action Directe was originally an 8c+/9a but actually slash grades are not used in the Bible. It seems that everything is included in the Bible but Flatanger and from my point of view, also Santa Linya, Ashima Shiraishi and Alex Megos' 9a onsight, should have gained greater focus. On the other hand, 8a.nu and the impact it has on the climbing scene is mentioned on almost one page. "Hence the brilliant but slightly perverse idea of the scorecard, attributing points for each performance and placing climbers in classification enabling them to dream and exploits to improve their position." All in all, paying 49 Euro including free shipping, seems to be the perfect bargain for a very nice Christmas gift.

Vertigo Boulder Contest 2015, the biggest bouldering competition ever organized in Portugal, will be held in Lisbon on the 28th and 29th of November with 5 000 euro to be shared. More than 400 participants are expected. The first day is reserved for the seniors but the youngest can also compete and are eligible for granting the prize money. The second day is for the youth and the format for both of the comps are the same as the IFSC youth rules.