[Oldmanmatt]

Sheez!
Did I really need to add [emoji12]?

Or 🤡?

Mind you, if you train up to Muscle-ups; Dips are a doddle...

[Fultonius]

In fact, I've just read through the entire first half of this thread and I've realised, that despite always having a feeling/belief/self image that I'm at the stronger end of the "general strength" spectrum for climbers operating at my level, I'm weak as shit!

Previously I'd always put this down to it "being the first session in ages" or whatever, but I've been reading around a number of benchmarks etc. and it just doesn't stack up - my self image is wrong. 

E.g: Last year I did a Fr7c+ (30 deg overhanging, short and burly) (video if you're bored)

And a F7c, a 7b in a few goes. Etc. Didn't do much in the way of bouldering really.

I've had some gym sessions recently where I've felt rested and reasonably "warmed up" for a session (as in recovered from previous DOMS and feeling ok). BW = 76kg

All I can do (set x reps) is:

Pull-ups (fairly strict, some momentum but not "kipped" - kind of power pull-ups): 3 x 10
Dips: 3 x 5
Bench: 3 reps @ 60kg (pyramid up to there)
Back Squat: 3 x 70kg  (pyramid up to there)
DL: 3 x 100 kg (could not get 110kg off the floor) (pyramid up to there)
Military Press: 5 x 35 kg (didn't try any harder)

I have recently joined the gym 5 mins from our flat, so I'm going to try to add a day or two a week of basic stuff like this to address some weaknesses.


I moment of realisation....

[Fiend]

Interesting!!

Pull-ups (fairly strict, some momentum but not "kipped" - kind of power pull-ups): 3 x 10

That does seem astonishingly weak for someone who is climbing well (surely Dumbuck 7c+s are the benchmark of simply being strong??), at 76kg you're not doing it by being an anorexic wee shite either.

Couple of Qs:

Can you give some campus / deadhang benchmarks?? (sneaking suspicion this will reveal all)

I presume your general level of fitness is high (running benchmarks)??

Why do you need to improve the weights at all?? You climb good, somewhere your "climbing strength" must be good, do you really need to deadlift any more*??


(* apart from deadlifting being cool, of course!)

[Oldmanmatt]

Also, you might be falling into the Hypertrophy trap, looking at your quoted reps.
Keep the resistance high and the reps low, to improve strength for minimum Hypertrophy.
Calculate your predicted 1RM for a given exercise (Epley is fine for this as long as you test with a resistance which you fail at at less than 10 reps).
Workout a suitable weight in the 80-90% 1RM range and do 3x3's. if you do each exercise once or twice a week and increase the load by ~10% each week, you'll be awesomely strong without being too heavy.


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[Fultonius]

Wow, re-reading that was some inconsistent use of grade nomenclature!  All of those were sport routes.

Can you give some campus / deadhang benchmarks?? (sneaking suspicion this will reveal all)

Not right now,no, not done any of that in ages. I'm back onshore on Monday so give me a list of what you want benchmarked and I'll give it a go. I can do 2 handed mono pull-ups no problems on the beastmaker....I know this as I did some for fun last time I was Ratho.

I presume your general level of fitness is high (running benchmarks)??

I'm pretty shit at running, but that's through particular local endurance issues from never having done any previous running. I guess I could do a 10k in around 50 mins or less. I can go up hills quite quickly.

Why do you need to improve the weights at all?? You climb good, somewhere your "climbing strength" must be good, do you really need to deadlift any more*??

Oh, I don't really. I just noticed the last few times I've been out winter climbing, or if I'm doing some more burly/thuggy trad it's taking it out of me more than it used to.

[Fultonius]

Also, you might be falling into the Hypertrophy trap, looking at your quoted reps.
Keep the resistance high and the reps low, to improve strength for minimum Hypertrophy.
Calculate your predicted 1RM for a given exercise (Epley is fine for this as long as you test with a resistance which you fail at at less than 10 reps).
Workout a suitable weight in the 80-90% 1RM range and do 3x3's. if you do each exercise once or twice a week and increase the load by ~10% each week, you'll be awesomely strong without being too heavy.


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So weighted pull-ups instead of more reps? I'd been aiming for more reps for more climbing crossover. Just so you don't think I'm plateauing/not improving despite training....that's not the case at all. This is just "where I'm at" after a whopping 6 gym sessions in the last 2 weeks.

For the last 4 years almost all of my exercise has been actual climbing (more recently the bulk of this indoor bouldering). Nothing structured. I'm very much a "dabbler" when it comes to weights, but I'm thinking of doing some more to offset the inevitable decline since i'm coming up 34, and also no because I am longer able to do the volume of exercise I was doing while living in cham (life, availability, weather etc.)

[Nibile]

I'll say it again: putting up lean mass is hard. With a good diet, i.e. no junk food, you can train at will and you won't put up much at all, unless you go with monster sets of 15+ moves.
I personally found good results by training speed. Instead of adding lots of weight, I now only do explosive movements and it really helps.

[Fiend]

Speed is a good idea, gonna start mixing that in. Most of my 1RMs are pretty slow.

Went for squats first today to try to get a good session of those. I put a soft medicine ball beneath where my arse would go down to and that seemed to get my thighs a few degrees below horizontal. Worked up to 1x100, then 2x2x100, getting down to touching the ball each time, so I was happy with the form.

Managed 2x45kg overhead press but felt pretty sketchy as my right shoulder is so unstable / prone to impingement, I also concave my back too much. Then did deadlifts after and they felt desperate, only got to 2x140 but was focusing on keeping my back straighter.

Lots of core work and some dips / pull-ups / rows too.

[Fiend]

Fatonious, we need benchmarks for:

Campussing medium rungs.

Campussing small rungs.

Number of consecutive laps on TCA foot-on campus ladder single rung pulls (1-2-3-etc)

Number of consecutive laps etc etc alternate rung pulls (1-3-5-etc)

Max hang on smallest Beastmaker edges.

Max hangs as above with 5/10/15/20kgs added.

Number of pull-ups on smallest Beastmaker edges.

Max hang on Beastmaker 30' slopers.

Number of pull-ups on Beastmaker 30' slopers.

Max hang for a front lever.

Number of horizontal leg raises.

Number of horizontal leg raises on a campus rung.

Anything else I can think of that would be either likely to injure you or cause an arrest for public indecency.

All numbers must be checked in triplicate, formatted correctly, and presented in a way that will be statistically satisfactory to slackline (LOLOLOL good luck with that OMG).

[Fultonius]

 

I'll sue you if a tendon pops!

[mark s]

for climbing you really need to watch how much weight you put on. my strength is a massive amount more than when climbing lots

seated o/h 80x8 ,bench 120x6 ,deadlift 130x23 (220 1 rmax), sqaut 140x6, bent over row 100x8

but with that strength can over 3 stone of weight and i know find climbing hard and get pumped very quick. flexabilty is horrendous but thats down to me not stretching i guess.

lifting weights is very addictive as seeing your strength go up and your shape change keeps you doing more.

[Fiend]

6 reps, 8 reps, pffft sounds like crossfit to me. Post some more 1RMs - you might as well top-trump everyone properly 

I'm trying to avoid too much addiction and keeping sessions short and reps few.

[Fultonius]

Mods - maybe split this?

Fatonious, we need benchmarks for:

Campussing medium rungs.

13579

Campussing small rungs.

1234567981011 & 1357

Number of consecutive laps on TCA foot-on campus ladder single rung pulls (1-2-3-etc)

2 sets (from 1 to top, dropping off and starting again) plus a set to 7

Number of consecutive laps etc etc alternate rung pulls (1-3-5-etc)

Just shy of 2 sets

Max hang on smallest Beastmaker edges.

BM2000 small edge - 27 seconds

Max hangs as above with 5/10/15/20kgs added.

10 kg = 14s
15kg = 12s
20kg = 12s
got scared, didn't want to go any heavier

Number of pull-ups on smallest Beastmaker edges.

7 strict

Max hang on Beastmaker 30' slopers.

33 seconds
can't currently hang the 45s. 8 seconds with nessle

Number of pull-ups on Beastmaker 30' slopers.

8 strict

Max hang for a front lever.

Zilch

Number of horizontal leg raises.

12, but stopped due to lower back not feeling to nice

Number of horizontal leg raises on a campus rung.

I think you were just making shit up by this point

Anything else I can think of that would be either likely to injure you or cause an arrest for public indecency.

All numbers must be checked in triplicate, formatted correctly, and presented in a way that will be statistically satisfactory to slackline (LOLOLOL good luck with that OMG).

All done once in one session, so the later stuff might be a bit under.

Also did 2 x pullups +20kg.

And???????? What's the fiendish verdict?

[Fiend]

Verdict? You didn't get it checked by slackline, so all invalid (actually I haven't seen him for a while, if there's a correlation between those things, well done).

Number of horizontal leg raises on a campus rung.
I think you were just making shit up by this point

Not at all! There's one on the back of the TCA fingerboards, I find it quite satisfying to do the leg-raises off there. Going to guess 10, based on your "rung" performance being at least 80% of your "bar" performance.

Verdict? The entirely bloody obvious, your finger strength and your ability to do arm-based exercises using fingerholds instead of rungs is vastly higher than certain contemporaries who may or may not be stronger at bar / weight based exercises, you may +karma me for predicting that if you like. (P.S. try doing first joint pull-ups on a comfy edge, I bet you get the same as your 3x10 bar pull-ups or very close).

Conclusion (also predicted): don't give a shit about bar / weight based performance in terms of "being stronger" for climbing or indeed anything related to climbing, only do it for fun or to get hench like mark s.

[Fultonius]

Verdict? You didn't get it checked by slackline, so all invalid (actually I haven't seen him for a while, if there's a correlation between those things, well done).

Number of horizontal leg raises on a campus rung.
I think you were just making shit up by this point

Not at all! There's one on the back of the TCA fingerboards, I find it quite satisfying to do the leg-raises off there. Going to guess 10, based on your "rung" performance being at least 80% of your "bar" performance.

Verdict? The entirely bloody obvious, your finger strength and your ability to do arm-based exercises using fingerholds instead of rungs is vastly higher than certain contemporaries who may or may not be stronger at bar / weight based exercises, you may +karma me for predicting that if you like. (P.S. try doing first joint pull-ups on a comfy edge, I bet you get the same as your 3x10 bar pull-ups or very close).

Conclusion (also predicted): don't give a shit about bar / weight based performance in terms of "being stronger" for climbing or indeed anything related to climbing, only do it for fun or to get hench like mark s.

Any thoughts on which of these represents a climbing-related weakness that I should work on?  I'd say my BM bottom rung performance is fairly good for my level?? Is it?

I think my campus & front lever are pretty weak. Now here's the rub - would working on these carry over a lot to actual climbing improvement, or just an improvement at campussing & front levering?

I think I'm going to try to throw in half a hour of stuff like this at the end of my normal session. Maybe some 1 arm bottom rung with assistance to improve my 1-arm ability? 

[Fiend]

LOL I have no idea, for a 76kg lardarse they all seem very good - and consistent across the board - to me. Maybe the leg raises are a bit low but then you don't get up Dumbuck routes by having a weak core. In short if you find you have weaknesses in your climbing, train them??

[Fultonius]

75.3kg thank you very much. Big turd.

So, no easy gains dammit. I was hoping I could half arsedly flail at some aspect of my climbing for a few weeks and get up to Fr8b...

I keep wondering about blowing some cash on a day's coaching so that I can at least focus my meagre training motivation on something that matters. Or I could just continue punting about as always...

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[Nibile]

Very good lifting session yesterday, mainly aimed at conditioning, sadly, because as I pulled the first rep I felt I was on fire. Anyway I didn't change my program and went for 68 kg x 10, x 12, x 15 and x 20. Fuckin brilliant.
Everything was made even more pleasing by measuring the plates and discovering that they are smaller than "regular ones", so I've been lifting from a 3 cm deficit basically.
YYFY.

[Oldmanmatt]

The fun and games of a 150kg deadlift, when you can't fit enough plates on the bar (which bent alarmingly).
9 reps. (3x3).




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[rodma]

The fun and games of a 150kg deadlift, when you can't fit enough plates on the bar (which bent alarmingly).
9 reps. (3x3).




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Mentioned much earlier in the thread,  check out the load rating on your thin bar.  Not worth the risk.  The thin York bars can only handle about 125

Good work on the lift though

[Oldmanmatt]

It is a SWL 125. But I knew that. I'm a bit cheeky and calculated the actual... ish, with a few assumptions.
Like assuming it was Grade A ms. It's 25mm round bar and I assumed centre of effort for the load etc. Did it on a fag packet, so it must be right...

[Fiend]

3xBW is gonna be a bit harder when your BW goes up by 5kg by having half a snapped weight bar permanently embedded in your head 


Was at the gym the other day for general stuff, didn't want to do anything too heavy for me, so instead did 3 x 10 x 100kg fast deadlifts (heeding what people have suggested about explosive power), with dips and leg-raises in between as a rest. That was pretty tiring and my upper back had good doms afterwards.

[skelf]

York do a standard "beefy bar" that is rated to 150kg, that my plan once i manage to bend my standard bar. (and it will bend rather than snap).
I recon you have got to have 25 kg + of leeway on rated numbers before things are going to bend.

I thought about going Olympic but i'm using that as a measure of whether i have lost the climbing plot and am now a lifter...

Vinyl plates are the devils work tho !

[Oldmanmatt]

164kg
And overloading the bar without bending it? Put it in the middle.
Iknow it's 2.5 inches higher than it should be and my torn MCL is so heavily strapped I can hardly bend my knees; but when did sense ever ever come into anything I do?

https://flic.kr/p/UtpyVr


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[Nibile]

Matt, no offence meant, but I strongly disapprove what you're doing.
Please stop and get a regular Oly bar. Please.
Oh, and go barefoot, those shoes seem to be far too soft.