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Route Setting
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items Everything from apparel, gear, and tools to workouts, creative inspiration, and podcasts, this list is for route setters! If you're new to the game, if you've been in it for a while like me (since 2015), you just might find these lists useful.
Sections
8
What's In My Setting Bag?
Inspiration for Setting - Articles & Podcasts
Injury Prevention and Nutrition
For Head Setters
Apparel
Climbing Holds
What's In My Setting Bag?
Whether you're at your home gym or guest setting at another, these are items that have come in handy and I cannot do without now. While the gym you are employed by should absolutely be providing everything you need for your route setting job, ask for...
There is plastic, metal, wood chips, and sparks flying around on a set day. Stoggles are my favorite eye protection because they fit my face well, they wrap around the top and sides, and a huge bonus - they're so cute! Protect your eyes, setters!
Stoggles
Even if you're using a soft impact driver, a set day is still a construction site. You want to protect your ears when 4-7 people are driving holds in the wall, but you also want to be able to hear your teammates when other safety issues are involved,...
Loop Ear Plugs
2
Sometimes you get a screw stuck in a hold or have to clamp a t-nut high up behind the wall, but the big vice grips take up too much space in your tool belt. What's better than a normal sized thing? A mini thing! I really love my mini vice grips becau...
Mini Vice Grips
There are some funny shaped climbing holds out there that you just can't fit your driver around when you're trying to attach it to the wall. This is where the Right Angle Attachment comes in handy. I've used this not only on the setting side of the w...
Elbow
Most modern climbing holds come with screw holes already in them. But sometimes you want to use an older hold, or even a hold that just doesn't have enough in it, and you need to put screws into it without the head sticking out in a dangerous way. A ...
Countersink Bit
Keep your bag organized by making sure your all your driver bits are in one place, and keep them all in a bit box. And I recommend cute ones! Because cute is always better. I'd also recommend a metal box that you also include a magnet in- this way, w...
A Cute Bit Box
Having a tool belt for setting and maintenance is incredibly convenient. If you hate going to the top of the ladder, or jugging to the top of the wall, just to realize you forgot a bit, or the perfect size screw, or even your driver, a tool belt is N...
Organic Tool Belt
Ditto from the Organic Bag, but this one is smaller if you're looking for something more minimal.
360 Routesetting Tool Belt
You have your Milwaukee people, your DeWalt people, and your Makita people. I'm a Makita person…with Milwaukee bits 👀 Not but really, I love my Makita driver and I will always recommend it over the other brands. And the reason I'm not promoting the ...
Makita Impact Driver
While my gym does provide screws, washers, and other smaller items, I like keeping some in my personal tool bag because I may not want to go all the way over to the other side of the gym where our screws are kept, OR the gym I'm guest setting fore do...
Snap Lid Storage Bins
Sometimes tnuts be stubborn and need to be cleaned out a little. Taps help with clearing out any gunk or metal build-up. But be careful! It can get stuck and may have to be cut out…
T-Nut Tap
Inspiration for Setting - Articles & Podcasts
Omg it's me :) I talk about my experience as a short, female routesetter. I'm not as anti-tall as this title makes me sound!!
Anti Tall Setters Club (Members: Short Setters Only) - Abby Tran | Climbing Business Journal Podcasts
In today’s episode, Kris sits down with shaper and setter Roy Quanstrom, of Tension Climbing. They talk about Roy’s newest holds from Trango, the Khans and the Fuegos, and the climbing experiences that inspired their design.
Roy Quanstrom | Translating Movement Through Shaping and Setting
Sometimes it's nice to mix things up on your set team. When there is a creativity block or low motivation, try these fun setting challenges!
Boost Your Setting Team's Creativity with These 5 Exercises
Learning to let go of that ego. Blake is the head setter at High Point Climbing and Fitness in Birmingham, Alabama. A veteran of the craft with over a decade of routesetting experience under his belt, Blake is a USAC Level 4 routesetter and has set f...
You Can Strip My Boulder – Blake Green | Climbing Business Journal Podcasts
industry growing pains, what it means to be a professional routesetter, the evolution of the trade, the ethics of unpaid work, and the effects of social media on routesetting.
On Eye-Pro, Ugly Boulders, and Influencers – Kegan Minock | Climbing Business Journal Podcasts
If you're wondering why she sounds so familiar, it's probably because you've come across an Instagram account she founded and co-manages, called Expensive Boulders. Myr talks about social media's impact on routesetting, aesthetics versus function, he...
Routesetting in the Age of Social Media – Stefanie Myr | Climbing Business Journal Podcasts
Claire and Holly’s simultaneously fun and serious conversation meanders from gender inequities to ladder fiascos and covers Claire’s most controversial setting opinion, the pervasiveness of imposter syndrome, offering inspiration and energy to cowork...
Keep Them Sketched Out – Claire Kawainui Miller | Climbing Business Journal Podcasts
Just a couple of dude's hangin out and talking about growth. <3
Jake & Niki talking about growth as a setter
A personal hero of mine - a route setting legend and just a badass of a human being
Molly Beard — The Language of Movement, Budgeting Your Body Dollars, and Advice From an L5 — The Nugget Climbing Podcast
Stefanie Myr is the head route setter, manager, and team coach at Climb Tacoma in WA. We met up in Leavenworth and talked about our similar upbringings in Christianity, why we both moved away from religion, finding “church” in the climbing community,...
Stefanie Myr — Miniature Carpentry, Becoming Polyamorous, and Finding “Church” at the Gym
Injury Prevention and Nutrition
From lifting volumes over your head, carrying 12 foot ladders across a gym, and forerunning, your body takes the brunt of the work! And if you get injured, that's work you can no longer do. So take care of yourself please!
Here are some workouts and stretches to help avoid injuries in the work place.
Common Route Setting Injuries and How to Prevent Them – Union Physical Therapy
Routesetting can be one of the most gratifying jobs out there for enthusiastic climbers. But it can also put so much strain on the body and mind that many routesetters have trouble staying in the game for very long. Use these guides on self-care for ...
Self-Care for Routesetters: Strength Training and Injury Prevention
To keep up with the heavy workload, you need to fuel yourself right. That means eating well, enough, and often for a steady stream of energy. Learn how to navigate nutrition as a routesetter.
Self-Care for Routesetters: Nutrition Tactics
This book is full of meal plans and ideas for all different types of climbing days, whether you're backpacking to a destination, competing, or just having a regular gym sesh.
Nutrition for Climbers Book
Burnout is so real. When your body is taking the toll, when climbing becomes your job instead of your joy, you need to find ways to balance it all. It takes intentionality and practice.
Prevent Burnout, Support Your Team
If you already spend 4 or 5 days a week climbing for your job as a setter, is it a good idea – or even just a feasible one – to take on a training program? How do you find the additional time, energy, and motivation? Plus, aren’t you just asking for ...
Considerations for Routesetters with Jess West
Injuries suck. And unfortunately, they happen to most of us who push our limits. In part 5, we talk about what to do when you get injured. We cover the emotional and psychological side of injuries and share some tips and pitfalls to help you get back...
How to Recover From an Injury — The Nugget Climbing Podcast
We talked about how doing mindset work with Hazel Findlay changed her life, why she decided to become a life coach herself, simple tactics for working through negative emotions and banishing shame, why working on your mindset will make you climb hard...
How to Find Contentment in Your Climbing, Banish Shame, and Send Harder Than Ever — Neely Qu — The Nugget Climbing Podcast
Dr. Tyler Nelson is back on the podcast! We talked about the biggest takeaways from all of his years of finger strength experimenting, how he warms up for a limit bouldering session, how to gain finger strength while minimizing risk, the value of wri...
Tyler Nelson— How to Get Stronger Fingers, Habits to Prevent Injuries, and Why Climbers Shouldn't Train like Gymnasts
For Head Setters
Complex problem solving is at the very top of the list of essential skills for career progression in the modern world. But how problem solving is taught in our schools, universities, businesses, and organizations comes up short. In Bulletproof Proble...
Bulletproof Problem Solving: The Key Skill
If you feel controlled by bureaucracy, unrewarded for creativity, and powerless to control your own destiny, this book is the breath of fresh air your career has been craving. Timeless tips from a master of business strategy alongside a framework for...
The Empowered Manager: Positive Skills, 2nd Ed
Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly. When you challenge without caring its obnoxious aggression; when you care without challenging its ruinous empathy. When you ...
Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss
While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, sel...
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Business
If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to ...
Atomic Habits: Build Good & Break Bad Ones
The Courage to Be Disliked unfolds as a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man, who, over the course of five enriching conversations, realizes that each of us is in control of our life’s direction, independent of past burdens and expectations...
The Courage to Be Disliked: Change Your Life
Too many workplaces are driven by cynicism, paranoia, and self-interest. But the best ones foster trust and cooperation because their leaders build what Sinek calls a "Circle of Safety" that separates the security inside the team from the challenges ...
Leaders Eat Last: Team Dynamics Explained
Turn the Ship Around! tells the story of how Captain David Marquet successfully transformed the USS Santa Fe in less than a year, from the worst-performing submarine in its fleet to the best. It presents a different approach to leadership, using a “l...
Turn The Ship Around!
Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It’s a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the M...
Made to Stick: Ideas That Survive
Beyond the fable, Lencioni presents a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players. Whether you’re a leader trying to create a culture around teamwork, a staffing professional looking to hire rea...
The Ideal Team Player: Recognize & Cultivate
Equal parts leadership fable and business handbook, this definitive source on teamwork by Patrick Lencioni reveals the five behavioral tendencies that go to the heart of why even the best teams struggle. He offers a powerful model and step-by-step gu...
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: 20th Anniv.
Bill Walsh taught that the requirements of successful leadership are the same whether you run an NFL franchise, a fortune 500 company, or a hardware store with 12 employees. These final words of 'wisdom by Walsh' will inspire, inform, and enlighten l...
The Score Takes Care of Itself: Leadership
We often make the mistake of assuming that our primary barriers to success in difficult conversations are strategic and tactical when the true issues are emotional and psychological. This book utilizes the latest psychological research to help you to...
Finding Confidence in Conflict: Negotiate Anything
Long hours, an excessive workload, and a lack of sleep have become a badge of honor for modern professionals. But it should be a mark of stupidity, the authors argue. Sadly, this isn’t just a problem for large organizations—individuals, contractors, ...
It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work
Apparel
Bolt & Revolt! Setting Coalition is a 501 3(c) non-profit creating a global coalition of women, non-binary, trans & genderqueer climbing setters that creates space to uplift, support, & empower our community.
Bolt & Revolt
Ok this one isn't for your set bag, but it's such a unique article of clothing for setters! Gorp Garb is a company that makes apparel with climbing shoes on it, and also did a setter line with both Makita and Milwaukee drivers on them! Sorry, DeWalt,...
Gorp Garb Driver Shirt
A good setting shoe is important. They need to be closed-toe, breathable, and comfortable. These shoes are just that AND they have a rubber toe, so you can forerun as you go without having to switch out into your climbing shoes. There are a lot more ...
Approach Shoes
Vans Slip On Skate, rand replaced with Vibram climbing rubber. Heel pull tabs and tensioner.
Setter Slip On
Climbing Holds
These aren't your regular climbing hold selections: I hand-picked these out because I want to see a change in the waste in this industry. I love the indoor climbing industry so much, but it breaks my heart to see what it's doing to mother nature. So ...
Working in the climbing industry is hard for a lot of reasons. One of my biggest qualms is the amount of plastic being used. Holds don't last forever, and most gyms put in new holds orders at least two times a year. This company is super cool in that...
Contact Refurbished Holds
Ballin on a budget and trying to reduce waste. We love that <3
Factory Seconds - Escape
Greengrip OY is a company located in Oulu (Finland) founded by climbers with a material chemistry research background in order to develop new, more sustainable materials for climbing holds manufacturing. Their intention is to produce high quality cli...
Green Grip
Instead of fiberglass, the body of Blocz macros is made out of 100% recycled industrial waste and is completely reusable.” Once the texture coating on the body of a Blocz macro reaches the end of its life, it’s possible to use Blocz’s DIY Upcycling K...
Blocz
Ghold, based in France, has had the mission of being a recyclable holds manufacturer for the industry practically from the get-go. Ghold also uses the injection molding production process
Ghold
According to Scott Eveleigh at Binary, their ABS holds produced using this process more closely resemble fiberglass macros on the market today, are far lighter than PE and even PU holds, and are 100% recyclable.
Binary Holds
Education for New Setters
A simple tip, but a good one nonetheless! Don't be getting spinners!!
Start Your Bolts Better!
The easiest climb in the gym doesn't have to be a boring ladder! What I like to remind my new setters is this: remember what you first loved about rock climbing. Was it just getting to the top? Or was it the figuring out of the puzzle of how to get t...
How to Route Set - Setting V0 Boulder Problems
Forerunning! It is the other half of setting and just as important as actually putting the holds on the wall. It is a collaborative process that requires teamwork, humility, patience, empathy, and understanding movement and body positioning. This vid...
The Art of Route Setting 👉Testing Phase | Climbing Daily Ep. 2420
Apprenticeship is where all new routesetters start. It's not the most fun part of the process, but understanding the origin of an entire gym set is vital for the job.
Being a Route Setter Apprentice
This is actually a very interesting video from the perspective of someone who has never set before and is given the opportunity to learn.
I tried setting a boulder with no experience
Other than movement, understanding angles and depths with both holds and walls is important to understand. Beta Routesetting breaks down some of the process.
Using Depth & Angles in Setting
Another great example of the forerunning process. I love these Kilter videos where we get to see setters getting to play around in these experimental environments.
Setter Session // Iza Nowak and Lauren Reynolds!
How To??
The art of setting a forced movement is not as easy as the climbers make it seem…There is actual movement science involved in setting specific moves, and there is a whole process on testing it and making sure it goes and is forced.
Crossing a line while climbing can send you careening off the wall. These setters are going to attempt setting a move in which you have to use your opposite foot to catch you from barndooring off the wall.
How to set a toe hook catch
A dynamic double palm rollover??? Please. Trying to figure out how to force this sounds like my personal nightmare lol But Beta Routesetting is going to try!
dynamic double palm!
Forcing a rose move is tricky…You have to take into consideration so many things so that climbers don't just bump through and break the beta.
What Is A Rose Move And How Do We Set One?