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TOTOLORE

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comPiler:
EYE CANDY
18 June 2010, 1:18 pm



Images courtesy of Filippo Galluzzi.



Source: TOTOLORE

comPiler:
ONE YEAR, ONE MONTH, WEIGHTS, A MISSION
21 June 2010, 12:43 pm

Two months ago I did my first serious Beastmaker session. Then I decided to call it quits for a while, to recover my elbow, and dedicated myself to moving weights around in a dusty, dark and stinky gym. I have been doing this for the last month, three or four times a week, and I think I got some result. I immediately noticed that somehow, during the winter, I had retained the power I had put up in past summer's cycle. So I started again from there.

I have trimmed the session in this month, cutting off useless exercises (useless in terms of climbing training) and adding some others. In particular, I started training my back, and recently my triceps, with super sets.

So I first do parallel dips and then cable extensions for the triceps, and I do bicep curls with a dumbbell followed by one armed pulley machine or one armed lat machine. It's strenuous but effective. I hadn't felt my biceps and back this worked in a lot of time. I still am very very cautious with my right arm, I try to pull down but avoid the fully locked position due to my elbow, which, despite the repeated beatings I give it, is getting slowly better. The combined one armed sessions at the fingerboard I did all April, also gave some results. My left arm is definitely overally stronger and more stable, and my bicep has changed its shape, which is a clearly good sign.

Yesterday I did my second Beastmaker session of the past week. Progress. I am currently training with 6 sets of 10" hangs for each chosen hold and grip. Still refining the session to obtain the most from power and skin, yesterday was a good one. I did:

warm up; big rungs; 20°; 30°; middle two; slopey monos; front two on small ones; back two; back two on small ones; small rungs; back three small rungs; small rungs again. Felt good and satisfied at the end, with a decent volume of 11 clean minutes of deadhangs, and also a quite high intensity, working two fingers at a time is hard for me, almost never done it before. It's good to train this way because you can go at the limit without having to add weight or go one armed, two things that I don't want to do anymore (the frist one), and for the moment (the latter).

One other good (or bad, depending on your opinion) thing about the Beastmaker, is that it's widely popular among strong climbers, this allowing everyone to share data. Speaking with Tom the other day I realized (once more), how weak my fingers are. Seeing footage of Ned campusing between the 30° and the small monos in the , made me realize how weak I am. Reading the Beasts' feats, made me realize how weak I am. The road is so long, steep and difficult, and it's so easy to get overwhelmed by other people's power. But, despite being so depressing, playing with the big boys is the only way to grow up stronger. I don't want to be the king of the gym, I want to go around and touch many different kinds of rock and climb many different, hard problems. I go to the gym to fail, to be shit and to feel shit. Not to succeed. Or not mainly.

Sometimes I am a bit sad because I feel the need to put more effor into my climbing: recently I feel like I've been a bit slack, not traininfgproperly or seriously, even though I know that this wouldn't be fair to say. I have trained as hard as I could with my injury, but this thought lets me not satisfied. I would like to dedicate my entire day to climbing and training, doing more and more, but sadly it's not possible.

Even having the time needed, I don't know if my body would allow me, but for sure I would try.



Source: TOTOLORE

comPiler:
HOT ROCK, BUT STILL ROCK
29 June 2010, 7:55 pm

I spent the last weekend at Amiata, in a super posh B&B that my girlfriend chose. The plan was to bake in the sun and chill in the swimming pool, for her; to destroy hard boulders, for me.

Predictably, she had more success, but despite a months long layoff due to the elbow, the lack of specific training, baby skin and hot, aggressive rock, I definitely pulled.

At first, I was feeling very nervous; it was as if everything was new. I felt unsure about doing moves that didn't seem that hard; I felt unsure to be able to actually complete a problem without screwing something; I felt unsure if it was a good idea to really give it a serious try, or if it could have been better for me to hide in the shadow of my elbow injury and step back from stage.

Predictably again, I decided to give it a go. On the first problem, I was very tense. The move off the pinch seemed hard and as I tried the topout I immediately started to have problems, until I found a sequence to the right side of the boulder. So I took my chances, stepped under the small overhang and concentrated. Then I pulled on, and I felt everything easy as it once was. Despite this, I did manage to screw it on the topout, due to not being used anymore to climbing. I was tempted to take the tick nonetheless, the move that I fumbled is easy and I was scared to try again the bottom move, the slap to the sloper. Then I thought that I had to get used again to the pressure, that I had to get confident again, to see myself doing every move and to believe. So I did it again and crushed it.

This brought great joy and satisfaction. I had previously cleaned another line to the right, dynamic slaps and compressions between the arete and some pinches, but the rock had already taken its toll from my fingertips and my body was tired, I didn't have much core tension and could barely figure out the bottom moves. The top ones will be hard, but I will do them and it will be a great problem.

I walked back down to another small overhang.

Months ago I had been there, and I had done the problem, but I couldn't complete the sitter I wanted to add. So I set to work, but every hold was too painful, and despite getting the last crimp twice, I had to admit defeat.

It was time to get back to the pool.

Sunday, with my already acheing tips, I found myself again there. I warmed up, and felt comfortable under the pressure of wanting to do the sitter first go. It wasn't a flash, in my mind it was even harder than a flash attempt. On a flash, you can blame everything for blowing it: a wrong sequence, a suddenly greasy hold, or whatever. I couldn't. I knew exactly what I had to do, how every move and every hold would feel, how hard. So it was with great joy that I did it first go, cutting loose even if I didn't want to, but climbing it well.

I went back to the problem of the saturday, and added a sitter to that also.

Finally, I went back to another sector to give a try to another project of mine, a traverse on slopey holds. I made progress and I felt happy and grateful. I felt grateful to myself, because I never let go and kept my faith in a better future, even when I was feeling sad and I found everything unfair.

So I came home with new problems done, and, which is even better, new projects to bash my head against.

My elbow was tired but fine, so maybe that better future has finally arrived and I am ready to welcome it.



Source: TOTOLORE

Nibile:
excuse me,
could someone tell me if the video on the blog post works properly? I checked it out but it seemed to stop at around 1.50
thanks.

slackline:
Nice short vid Nibs.

Streams the full 3m54secs here ok.

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