I love rock climbing!  There are few things more exciting, intimidating, rewarding and down-right frightening than climbing a giant rock! Now imagine my surprise and supreme enthusiasm when I looked through our stunt mats and throw mats and found that these are absolutely perfect for bouldering mats.  Now if you are not aware, or are just starting out; bouldering is a version of free-climbing.  Free climbing is where you are not supported by a harness or top-rope.  This is because most bouldering is only 10-15 feet up on average.  So since you do not have the safety of a rope, you definitely need the comfort and safety of a suitable mat to break your fall, and yes…you will fall. 

Our stunt mats are made exactly for situations like this, and with the 2 handles on each of the 4 sides of all our crash mats it makes it perfect to center it in place right where you need it.  Also with 4”, 8”, and 24” thicknesses that we have them in, it makes for great practice mats for most low height bouldering climbs.  So if you’re looking for a great, versatile, quality stunt mat; whether you’re climbing rocks or falling off them, I would definitely recommend you take a look and get back out there to solving your problems on those pesky walls.  Till next time everyone, take care and Happy Holidays!

A bad spill can be embarrassing or monstrously hilarious. Is it too late to use spooky adjectives? Monstrosity? Devilishly? I think I missed the boat so lets move on.

This past weekend, I got to rejoice in the misfortune of a stranger. Poor fellow took a nasty spill walking up to his front door. Not sure if the sprinklers were recently working or some kind of freak sheet of ice covered his concrete walkway to his front door (SoCal so not likely), or perhaps misusing new exercise products, nonetheless it was quite glorious.

His arms flailed upwards while he tried to use one of his hands to hold on to the grocery bag he was carrying and the other to maintain his balance in a weird pose like a half-demon on a Dore engraving. In slow motion, right before my eyes, his body angled itself toward the ground and the expression of his face spoke of inevitable shame, humiliation, and a possible doctors visit if the landing is botched. I thought to myself, if only he had a thick exercise mat, better yet, stunt mats to cushion his fall.

A quick split second passes, he’s on the floor, the grocery bag is in the air, and he covers his face as if it were to land on him. It misses him by a hair and I try with every ounce of my strength to hold in my laughter as I run across the street to help him up. He’s okay.

He lost his footing. However, I did notice, he’ had no welcome mats or walkway mats. In a quick fit of opportunistic sales tactic, I hand him a card and point him towards our website. He stares at me blankly…

I have been getting a lot of requests from various people and companies regarding what type of mat to put under their climbing walls.  Some people know what they want, but most don’t.  I have a couple customers that own athletic facilities with climbing walls. We have worked close together to figure out the best thicknesses, sizes and foam types to use. Basically we are customizing climbing wall mats that were previously created for other purposes.

A good example is our stunt mats which come in three different thicknesses and multiple sizes. We have altered multiple things from the sizes to the types of foam and placement of them.  Sometimes, you may want a stiffer foam on top and softer on the bottom, or the same stiffness all the way through.  What’s great is we have the capabilities to do that.

We can create mats for climbing walls in various sizes, thicknesses, colors, etc.  We can create mats that are suitable for gyms, clubs, parties or home use.  Quite often custom mats are not necessary and our stock mats will work just fine for your needs.  It is still a learning process where we can work and help the customer to decide what may work for them, but in the end we also can’t guarantee that they won’t hurt themselves.  We can just go off recommendations from previous customers that have created custom mats and customers that know exactly what they want.