[cha1n]

Hey up, I have a 3 week trip to Rocklands in 5 months time, is it too late to bother trying to get any stronger?

My training plan was going to consist of 'lose some weight and try not to get injured for the next 5 months' but others going on the trip are giving me shit and seem to think it's enough time to get strong.

In all seriousness, I am about a stone overweight so losing that's going to help a lot. Am I better off trying to lose the weight gradually or train heavy and lose the weight last minute?

Strength wise, I've got decent shoulder and general body strength but my fingers are and always have been weak as fuck. I'd expect to bash out low 7's quite quickly but basic style that requires strong fingers - I'd probably struggle on. Is there likely to be much benefit from doing some fingerboarding stuff leading up to it? I much prefer the woody if I'm going to do boring strength training stuff but equally, my fingers feel quite fragile when doing that stuff. I'm guessing I might break myself if I just train flat out for 5 months, so is there enough time to do some form of periodisation?

I can only climb properly around 2 sessions per week at the moment but could add some fingerboard/woody sessions in if they were reasonably short. Not expecting a tailored training plan or anything but if anyone could give some general advice like, if I should do some sort of base phase, and lengths of phases, order of phases, etc.

Instinct says I should do some sort of base conditioning phase so my body doesn't break straight away (maybe repeaters and core, etc?) for a month or so, and then do some more hardcore stuff like woody and campusing once the fingers are feeling prepared and then keep cycling the intensity from high to low every 3-4 weeks or something? Gotta be better than going down the wall and messing around on whatever tickles my fancy?

Appreciate any advice.

[cjsheps]

DISCLAIMER: I'm no expert. If I were, I'd be climbing harder and wouldn't need a coach myself.

too late to bother trying to get any stronger?

Of course not - it takes time to get strong, and now's as good a time as any.

Am I better off trying to lose the weight gradually or train heavy and lose the weight last minute?

I would say that ~3 months would be a good time scale.

I can only climb properly around 2 sessions per week at the moment

Are you climbing on the weekends? If not, training twice a week seems like not very much for someone of your calibre!

You mentioned that you enjoy climbing on the woodie - I'd say that if that forms a large part of your training plan, you're more likely to stick to the plan. Maybe have it there from the beginning, alongside conditioning, and carefully set finger-friendly problems. You could always crank up the intensity and drop the conditioning in the run-up.

Regarding injury avoidance, the most important lesson I've learnt from being coached is the important of "unloading" weeks. For some people, these happen naturally due to life commitments. But Free Folk would benefit from backing off every three-four weeks and letting the body catch up with adaptions.

[cjsheps]

P.S. Good luck!

[cha1n]

Cheers sheps.

I wouldn't say I enjoy the woody, it's just the handful of times I've climbed on a woody were more fun than the handful of times I've hung on a fingerboard. I've had one play on a woody this year and it was actually quite good as there was a good 'board scene' but I could also tell that I could quickly get injured on it if I was unable to show some self-control.

I did consider getting someone to write me a training plan, I'm not concerned about paying for one, it's just that I'd be fairly unlikely to follow something vaguely structured from my previous experience of following training plans. I could deal with slotting a regular fingerboard session in once per week and having months with general themes such as, 'woody', 'campus board', 'horizontal roofs', etc. It would be nice to have some general advice of what order to do them though.

Yeh, 2 sessions per week sucks but I made the terrible decision of buying a house and then ripping it back to brick on the inside, so I have to commit some time to that unfortunately. That may ease off closer to departure depending on how much tradesman lie to me about them turning up to do work on it (general pattern so far is that if they ever turn up, that's a bonus).

I must admit that my reasons for wanting to improve aren't 100% pure, I mostly want to be able to work the stuff other people in the group are trying and I'm currently the weakest in the group I reckon. If it wasn't for that, I actually fairly content at pottering on low 7's at the moment, though this could be an opportunity to pull the finger out and bump my max grade up from 7C. Decisions, decisions...

[Dexter]

As far as the weight goes I'd recommend losing it over the next 4 months or so for a few reasons
1) You will be less injury prone training up to the trip (the last thing you want)
2) Crash dieting will likely make you feel strong for a bit but if you're doing 3 weeks you will burn out pretty quick
3) It's probably generally healthier

Not sure about the whole periodisation thing I'm afraid but I'm sure there are other ukb'ers that know a thing or two.

Other than that sounds pretty sweet I'm gonna be there too so need to get stronger as well 

[joel182]

Just as a quick ball park, 5 months is enough time to do four 4-week deadhang cycles, each cycle followed with a rest week (as per Eva Lopez's instructions on her poster) - that seems to me to be a very significant amount of training!

[Duma]

1) 5 months is fucking ages (like I said to you the other day)

2) what dexter said about the weight - doing it soon and slow will be more sustainable, better over a 3 week trip, and better for your fingers, esp in terms of injury risk.

3) Careful on the woody, it's easy to get carried away.

Gotta be better than going down the wall and messing around on whatever tickles my fancy?

Where's Nik @ Work when you need him?

I must admit that my reasons for wanting to improve aren't 100% pure, I mostly want to be able to work the stuff other people in the group are trying and I'm currently the weakest in the group I reckon. If it wasn't for that, I actually fairly content at pottering on low 7's at the moment, though this could be an opportunity to pull the finger out and bump my max grade up from 7C. Decisions, decisions...

we're all going to get better too!

[cha1n]

Yeah, that's a valid point regarding the weight loss, never thought of it from that angle. Does everyone still rate the Eva Lopez approach? I remember it getting rave reviews on here for a while and then it all went quiet. Most of the people I see fingerboarding at the wall are either doing beastmaker app stuff for the Chris Webb-Parson approach. I'd certainly want to do a period of lower intensity fingerboarding, think of my fingers as dry twigs.

Duma, you're all going to be injured by the time we go, maybe I should just follow my original plan for the tactical approach!

[Duma]

It's weird how heavy folk always seem to complain about weak fingers...

[bendavison]

As others have said, 5 months is plenty of time to make significant progress.

In general, I'd do a bunch of bouldering, some boulder reps/short circuits, and some fingerboarding. I suspect the order doesn't matter a great deal, but perhaps an ideal order would be:
1. some bouldering just to get you into it.
2. boulder reps/short circuits for a bit (till you feel like they're not working much)
3. fingerboard (always boulder a bit too)
4. Boulder (+1 fingerboard/boulder reps sesh if you're psyched)

When doing each of the above, I normally wouldn't only do that, but it would be priority. But since you don't climb often they might be the only thing you'd do.

Don't worry too much about the precise time spent doing each one or the precise methodology of each session. Make it hard and make it progressively harder. Have an easier week if you think you need it, but climbing only twice a week you might not. If you like being sure of progress/measuring it, then, where possible, time your rests and keep a mental/written note of problems/circuits/pb's/fingerboard sessions etc - so when you come back a few days later you know how much harder you can make it.

[Coops_13]

Cheers for starting this thread as will be useful for me too. Also planning on heading out to Rocklands in June  I'm heavy with weak fingers too, so that's where my focus will probably be, when I get myself uninjured obviously.

[SA Chris]

Instead of worrying too much about climbing intensive training stuff, you could pay some attention to the things that get neglected; core strength, antagonistics and and structured fat burning weight loss.

These can be included in day to day life with little time commitment and low risk of injury.

[cha1n]

Cheers for starting this thread as will be useful for me too. Also planning on heading out to Rocklands in June  I'm heavy with weak fingers too, so that's where my focus will probably be, when I get myself uninjured obviously.

Fuck it, let's binge on food and beer for the next 5 months and climb 6C's in June eh?

[Coops_13]

Cheers for starting this thread as will be useful for me too. Also planning on heading out to Rocklands in June  I'm heavy with weak fingers too, so that's where my focus will probably be, when I get myself uninjured obviously.

Fuck it, let's binge on food and beer for the next 5 months and climb 6C's in June eh?

[SA Chris]

Or save the binging and drinking for when you get there; cheap beer and wine, quality steaks and seafood. And just sack climbing off completely.

[Nibile]

Before embarking in any training, I think you should make yourself very clear about what you want out of this trip. You can't plan according to the process, you plan according to the goal.
And on this matter, no offence meant, you seem a bit weak: if you simply want to work the same problems of your mates, just do that. You'll marvel at how much you can improve during a trip, with no specific training.
But you say that you'd be happy to simply climb in the low 7's, so why don't you do that?
Really, I don't want to sound rude, but this 5 months training thing seems a bit self-imposed to me, a bit too rational and not deeply felt.
If you want to catch up, fair enough, but you have to get into a mindset: it's going to be boring, tiring, not funny. You'll have to find bits of spare time everyday to smash a couple of deadhanging sets in, you'll have to change your eating habits, etc.
Don't make a half effort, because it's like no effort.
Be sure about what you want to achieve, and bear in mind that success is never guaranteed, so be familiar with the thought that you could spend 5 months training and still not reach your goals.
I'm playing Cassandra here, just because you don't seem totally committed to this thing, so you're at risk of a big reality check.
Hope this helps.

[Duma]

Listen to Nibs Ross.

[dave]

If you want to catch up, fair enough, but you have to get into a mindset: it's going to be boring, tiring, not funny.

Or alternatively make sure your training is enjoyable, varied, and fun.

[finbarrr]

If you want to catch up, fair enough, but you have to get into a mindset: it's going to be boring, tiring, not funny.

Or alternatively make sure your training is enjoyable, varied, and fun.

if you've climbed for years and really have weak fingers, fingerboarding will be both boring and rewarding at the same time.
because it is not fun or social, but you're gonna progress every session..
at first it should not be tiring the way you think about climbing being tiring.
i started four months ago, because my golfers elbow didn't like being bent to 90 degrees.
i'd done some fingerboard work before, repeaters, usually one day a week, climbing three days (indoors as i live in the netherlands).
did six weeks of max hangs (two or three sessions a week).
no climbing
did do stretching and core and straight arm theraband stuff.
then went to font and had best two weeks (x-mas and new years) ever

[Nibile]

If you want to catch up, fair enough, but you have to get into a mindset: it's going to be boring, tiring, not funny.

Or alternatively make sure your training is enjoyable, varied, and fun.

Yes, for sure. Maybe attaching on the fingerboard a picture of a unicorn riding a rainbow.
The perception of fun is subjective, and from what I've read Cha1n isn't very psyched or determined, so probably whatever he's going to do will feel not fun at all.

[cha1n]

Yeh,  it's starting to get hard to ignore all the people who are recommending finger boarding.

So over the course of 5 months, how should I cycle my finger board sessions? Surely doing max hangs for 5 months would be a bad idea, even if there were rest weeks added between blocks?

[cha1n]

Cha1n isn't very psyched or determined, so probably whatever he's going to do will feel not fun at all.

Don't get the impression I'm not psyched or determined to climb, just not massively psyched to train. I climbed like a thousand routes in my first year of climbing, I climbed 4 times a week, 4 hour sessions, etc. 7 years later and I can't imagine my life without climbing but training still doesn't fill me with psyche. Maybe because up to this point I've not had to train to be able to climb classic stuff all over Europe.

[peewee]

After my last 2 trips there id say that climbing on a board would be most applicable to the style of climbing out there.

[Nibile]

Cha1n isn't very psyched or determined, so probably whatever he's going to do will feel not fun at all.

Don't get the impression I'm not psyched or determined to climb, just not massively psyched to train.
I can't imagine my life without climbing but training still doesn't fill me with psyche.

That's exactly what I was referring to with my reply. Cheers for making it even clearer.

[SA Chris]

I've got a fingerboard at home, and occasionally get a video on the iPad and bang out a few repeaters, but get no real enjoyment out of it as an activity in itself. Whereas my weekly (or occasionally biweekly) steep woody sessions down the wall get me really motivated and I look forward to trying my ass off on  something i (personally) find really hard and getting better on the woodie is what fuels my motivation for fingerboard sessions. Which in turn are fuelled by my motivation to get some harder stuff done when I (eventually) get on rock again. Psyche follows through.

[cha1n]

How much of the year do you spend climbing on the Woody Chris? Do you occasionally mix it up with other styles? Could woody climbing alone be enough to improve finger strength or is it better to combine it with fingerboardind?

Off all the training I've seen, the few things I could see myself sticking to is woody climbing and campusing. Basically activities that are 'hidden training'. I class bouldering as secret training really, it makes you way better for sport climbing, yet I don't see it as training at all. It's just the most fun type of climbing!

[peewee]

I normally do 2 board sessions a week with a session at the wall in-between then outdoors at weekend. I've not done any finger boarding for the last 4/5years, so I'd say if you do enough and the right type of training on a board it can be a substitute for finger boarding to a point although I'm in a similar situation to yourself with Rocklands, I'm planning on slowly increasing the intensity of the board sessions and adding a few hangs in at the end of session and started to use a weight vest for the sessions at the wall.  hopefully get out on the road bike a bit more to drop a kilo or so before the trip. what dates are you out there?

Have you booked an extra suitcase for all your shoes?

[SA Chris]

How much of the year do you spend climbing on the Woody Chris?

I try get on it at least once a week and usually have at least an intense two hours. In the summer time I will boulder outdoors two or three times a week if weather allows (I am lucky enough to have bouldering 15 mins walk from the house so can have a good session after the kids are in bed) but conditions normally preclude this. I'll sometime get on a rope at the wall, maybe once a month, and sometimes do a trad route or sport climbing day.

Could woody climbing alone be enough to improve finger strength or is it better to combine it with fingerboarding?

It all depends how strong your fingers are already? And if weak fingers are really your only weakness? Yes there is always room for improvement, but the returns will probably diminish over time. How long, I have no idea. Fingerboarding and campussing should probably supplement it, not replace it?

Also woody training will stimulate the whole climbing "chain" and, as peewee says, probably your best overall training for the trip.

These are all views of course, and may not all be based on any training or SCIENCE.

[cha1n]

Cheers guys, it's good to know what everyone is doing training wise, especially other Rocklanders. I've always just gone to the wall and climbed whatever I liked the look of. I remember I once got to the top of the works woody, that was a good day. I'm out 24/06 to 15/07 how about you guys? Any spare room in your luggage for my climbing shoes?

I'd say my two main weaknesses in climbing are slab climbing (who cares) and steep climbing in a basic style on crimps. If it involves weird gymnastic moves, power, slopers, I can usually get by OK up to my max grade of 7C (though the 7Cs were a couple of years ago now). Pulling hard on crimps usually gives me the sensation that my fingers are going to snap at the joints, so I usually avoid it. I also used to get loads of A2 pulley injuries on various fingers so I've moved away from crimpy holds over the years. All that being said, I really like the woody style of climbing, I guess I'll just have to build up slowly.

[the_dom]

After my last 2 trips there id say that climbing on a board would be most applicable to the style of climbing out there.

Except that, if you think about a lot of the good mid-sevens in Rocklands, it's less about crimpy, board climbing, and more about steep, full-body climbing. That said, Rocklands often comes down to one or more of the following:

• Pulling hard off a small crimp on a steep wall
• Body tension-y, full body power - think heels, toes and beef
• Big moves between decent holds, often utilising said tension

I would work on the following:

• Session endurance - being able to climb, and try, a lot of powerful climbing in a session. I've always found that good trips to Rocklands involve trying four or five problems in a day until I find one that suits me, and then having the session endurance to put really good tries into the one that suits me
• Full crimp strength - through a combination of fingerboarding and crimping on a steep board
• Body tension and roof tricks through climbing on a very steep board.
• Iron skin - see the point about session endurance
• Losing weight the extra weight gradually

I know it sounds like a lot, but it'll prepare you pretty well for Rocklands.

[the_dom]

Oh, and climb lots. Problems at Rocklands are often a little longer than you think, and you need to be able to move efficiently through the easier climbing..

 

[James Malloch]

After my last 2 trips there id say that climbing on a board would be most applicable to the style of climbing out there.

• Iron skin - see the point about session endurance

This - Rocklands totally trashed my skin. Make sure you take enough rest days and take care when climbing. Needless tries/throws and not resting enough definitely wore through my tips quicker.

[36chambers]

Pulling hard on crimps usually gives me the sensation that my fingers are going to snap at the joints, so I usually avoid it. I also used to get loads of A2 pulley injuries on various fingers so I've moved away from crimpy holds over the years. All that being said, I really like the woody style of climbing, I guess I'll just have to build up slowly.

I've had a handful of finger injuries over the past couple of years and so spent quite a while being reluctant to use any small holds on the board. Eventually I began systematically going through various small holds, first holding them in static positions, then moving off them to jugs, then linking jugs via them and so forth, until I ended up with numerous testing problems that linked various small holds together (without any of the jugs).

I found once I had some experience using a particular hold that it was fine jumping to and off it without agitating my fingers. Furthermore I considered each step through the process to be progress, which was good for psyche as I was improving every session. 

[SA Chris]

Well done.

[peewee]

 I'm out 24/06 to 15/07 how about you guys? Any spare room in your luggage for my climbing shoes?

Ditto the skin comment, learning which bits are in the sun a what times help then you can plan which to try when its cooler.

Might catch you there, we are out 3rd June till 4th July.  Maybe, not decided how many pairs im taking yet heh

[cha1n]

Yeh I'm sure all us UKBers will cross paths.

I've managed to find psyche to train by the way, I just had to watch tomorrow I'll be gone, the rocklands film with Fred Nicole doing the FA s of the classics, etc. Now massively motivated, can't wait.

[SA Chris]

If it involves weird gymnastic moves, power, slopers, I can usually get by OK up to my max grade of 7C (though the 7Cs were a couple of years ago now).

Different league to me then!

[cha1n]

Ha, well the 7C's were so long ago now that they hardly count but I'd be disappointed if it took me to long to do low 7's. There's so much good stuff at that grade though, it's hard to motivate yourself you try harder in my experience!

[cha1n]

Double post.

[Reprobate_Rob]

I'm heading out with a few mates for the first two weeks of July too. Seems we managed to book the last of the available (non-camping) Rocklands accommodation for that period at the weekend. Bagged a couple of the new (yet to be built) cabins at DePakhuys 

I reckon that Rocklands beta thread may have caused a flurry of UK bookings!

[SA Chris]

Ha, well the 7C's were so long ago now that they hardly count but I'd be disappointed if it took me to long to do low 7's. There's so much good stuff at that grade though, it's hard to motivate yourself you try harder in my experience!

I hear you on that. When travelling I love getting through a volume of hard(ish) stuff taking me a few goes per prob rather than spending a longer time working on something harder (but I admit that may well just be me).

[andy_e]

Bagged a couple of the new (yet to be built) cabins at DePakhuys 

I've seen enough episodes of Watchdog for this to ring alarm bells! I hope for your sake they're finished by the time you arrive!

[Coops_13]

Seems we managed to book the last of the available (non-camping) Rocklands accommodation for that period at the weekend.

Balls, planning on heading out round then. Not booking until late Feb...