[Nibile]

 
Now that I'm retired I can dedicate all my time to the task!

[lagerstarfish]

Chin up Lore - we’ve got a fucking training guide to write!

in the style of Slaine?

I'd be OK with a Sandman style as well

[Hoseyb]

Chin up Lore - we’ve got a fucking training guide to write!

in the style of Slaine?

I'd be OK with a Sandman style as well

Lobo?

[Fiend]

GIMME THE CROISSANT.

(I need to keep the weight up to get maximum force through my feet onto blue grattons slabs)

[SA Chris]

Either follow dom's advice, Or embrace punterdom. I know you say you love climbing, but there may be other things you'll love you've never tired, and there's nothing quite like the beginners mind to open yourself up to possibilities.

the_dom, are you getting out MTBing with Jason W? Another CT climber who has embraced the biking vibe.

[lagerstarfish]

maybe it's time to make a few of these?

[Nibile]

Cheers Lagers, but my board is 53 degrees, I would end up crimping the edges of the filing anyway!

Chris, I could embrace punterdom - in fact I have already, basically.
What I'm really missing - due to present physical issues - is the chance of pulling very hard on my board projects and on the odd, selected and hyper-specific problem on rock.
As for the new things and the beginner's attitude, I have already so many things that I would love to dedicate myself to!
Just serious lifting and boxing classes would see me very very psyched. But I'm leaving these things for when I'll have nothing left in climbing.

[36chambers]

Reset your board, scrap all your projects and start completely afresh. You could even change the angle and/or get new holds.

My local board, which admittedly I've only been climbing on for a few years, has recently been reset (forcing me to scrap all my long term projects) and I'm enjoying it more than ever

[Nibile]

Chambers, I appreciate your advice, but I'll decline, sorry.
At the moment I don't need motivation to get on my board and try my projects, I need my fingers to heal. Given that temps here are back to 35/36 degrees, I could have some more time than expected! 

[Andy F]

Lore,
As someone who has had several 'crisis of faith' over the years, along with niggling injuries and loss of psyche I feel for you. It can be very difficult coming to terms with not doing what you love the most to the very best of your ability. There is more to climbing than being your own personal best. The act of moving over rock, banter with true mates, laughter, piss taking, jokes, belief in the moment are all actually much more important than beating what you did last time out.

It took me a long time to understand this.

But I still want to do my very best. I've just changed the goalposts.

[duncan]

Hope you’re feeling a bit more chirpy. Heat like you've been having can't help.

... in April I had climbed a four years old board project, something that I had sometimes thought I would never climb. Four years trying a problem that played to all my strengths, mean that it's probably quite hard and I felt it like a monumental achievement. Possibly the hardest thing I've ever climbed. Then I made a mistake. I went back climbing.

A performance peak, inevitably followed by trough, frequently accompanied by niggling injuries and loss of motivation. Frustrating but, as night follows day, entirely to be expected.

Others have discussed motivation. I’ll confine my ramblings to the finger and knee pains. Executive summary: the former seem like over-use, the latter under-use. 

I think that, simply, the connective tissue between the bones has gone.

I’d be very surprised if this was true, it is rare in climbers or sportspeople in general. Joints don’t wear out with intense exercise, if anything they get stronger. Climbers have denser bone underlying the finger joints than the general population, their joints are likely to be fatter (both adaptations to deal with the increased load), but the cartilage is not thinner and osteoarthritis is unusual.  Other connective tissues are thicker. Cartilage responds to mechanical stress as muscles, tendons, or other connective tissues do. Give it too much load and it will (temporarily) feel sore, give it too little and it will slowly atrophy, give it the right amount and it will gradually hypertrophy.

The knee issue is easy. You never heel-hook on your board. You never train heel hooking muscles in any specific way. After weeks of not heel hooking, it hurts when you try. Why is this a surprise?! You should know what to do about this.

The finger pains might be some kind of synovitis, as Ru suggests. A name is reassuring to have but not really that important. The most relevant factors are the aggravating movement and the (rate of increase of) volume of that movement. The pain you describe is most likely a sign of a little too much DIP hyperextension (and probably rotation, in the index finger). The background factors being your performance peak, not being 21 any more, and possibly other issues connected with a hectic lifestyle.

You know all this but you need to - temporarily - back off crimping a little. You choose how you do this. Psychologically, in the short term, it might be easier to just stop. Take a complete break and ride your bike? Alternatively, as others have suggested, change what you’re doing a little. Get beastly on slopers? Focus on big moves on bigger holds? Half-crimp or open-hand a little more? Assess what is happening with your index finger on small holds: look for rotation. Can you modify this? Taking one step sideways to make two steps forward is probably the better long term approach but harder as it challenges your persona as maestro of the crimp!

Good luck with whatever you do, just promise you won’t take up cycling.

[Nibile]

Hey Duncan, thanks for finding the time to post that.
I have to agree with basically everything, and curiously enough one of the crucial aspects that I've been checking for my fingers is exactly the rotation issue. Indeed, much of the pain that I feel come with a pressure that's not exactly vertical, but more sideways to the joint, internally. Surely front2 full crimps put a load of rotational effort on the index finger, also because of the thumb catch on it.
I intend to ditch the full crimp for a while, really.
It occurred to me yesterday that this current problem is perfect to focus on my back3 one arm hangs, that I've neglected as of late.

Hopefully in a few weeks temps will lower at least enough to get some decent foot on campusing: last time I tried I got two flappers on the first set.
Cheers again for the advice, much appreciated.

[Nibile]

Good luck with whatever you do, just promise you won’t take up cycling.

You can bet everything you have, I won't.

[Nibile]

I apparently got lost...
https://totolore.blogspot.it/2018/01/a-classic-tale-or-what-you-shouldnt-do.html

[jwi]

Top post. Thanks

[Nibile]

 
Cheers, my pleasure.

[duncan]

"you shouldn't be stupid. You should be smart. You shouldn't injure yourself.

You should train around your injury." Not just you can. If the 24 year old duncan had known that I might have had a very different climbing life.

[Nibile]

 
Better late than never.

[Monolith]

I apparently got lost...
https://totolore.blogspot.it/2018/01/a-classic-tale-or-what-you-shouldnt-do.html

Nice post as ever beastmaster! In the same camp at the moment and enjoying the diversity a little. You'll emerge from that garage come Autumn a hitherto unseen feral rocksmasher.

[Nibile]

You'll emerge from that garage come Autumn a hitherto unseen feral rocksmasher.

This is pure poetry, brother. Have a point!

[Nibile]

Here we go, the yearly Totolore ramblings.
http://totolore.blogspot.com/2019/02/in-which-autor-narrates-about-elbows.html

[DAVETHOMAS90]

"do people really want to know what happened before them?"

No.

Thank you for the Latin Lore.

Oh, and good luck with your knee! My post operation leg wastage was the best contribution to my campus board "performance" ever.

Edit. Forgot to put performance in quotes.

[Nibile]

"do people really want to know what happened before them?"

No.

Thank you for this, Dave.
As for the knee, fingers crossed really, the doc said this time the rehab is going to be very quick, I really hope so.
I any case, I plan not to touch a campus board for a long time...
 

[Nibile]

There you go...
Pure excitement.
http://totolore.blogspot.com/2020/02/in-which-author-narrates-about-knees.html?m=1

[Hoseyb]

For some reason I read this in the voice of Forest Whittaker a la Ghostdog.
Your drive is so impressive, an immovable object. Here's to full recovery!