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Mina Leslie-Wujastyk

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Training!
21 December 2011, 12:38 pm

The last few months have been training, training, training. I come from a background of not really training at all, just climbing lots and the occasional pull up….so I have been surprised by how much I am enjoying it! I have done bits and bobs – 6 weeks here and there – in the past, but nothing as full on as this. Part of my decision to immerse myself in training was because I am now a student again. I am studying part time for an MSc in Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy and it is a lot easier to do training sessions around uni work than it is to go out climbing for the day and the course also means I am at home in Sheffield, not gallivanting around Europe. The other part of the decision came from a desire to do better in the Bouldering World Cup circuit this year. I have done a few events in the last three years but I have always competed in them off the back of long outdoor trips – which isn’t necessarily bad – but isn’t the perfect preparation….. Thirdly, after the comps are pretty much over (after the Vail event) I am going to stay in Colorado for a couple of months to get my outside climbing fix for 2012. So, all in all, lots of reasons to get psyched and get better.

So the training. Essentially I have been a pupil of David Mason who has been helping me out with a training programme. It all began in September with 8 weeks of conditioning. This was a bit of a trial and error phase and I was a guinea pig for ideas. The guinea pig expired. I overdid it and began to fatigue. I have never experienced real fatigue before and it was an odd experience for me. I was tired all the time but the oddest thing was that I began to cry randomly for no reason (quite often during or after any kind of training). I had nothing to cry about so this began to ring alarm bells and I cut the training down. At this point I began to look more closely at my nutrition. The British Team trainings were just beginning and through the team I received a lot of help from Rebecca Dent (the team nutritionist) who has been brilliant. I also got in touch with Optimum Nutrition and Nick and Sara have been really supportive too, providing me with supplements so that I can recover better and get the most out of my training. The crying stopped! Now I have moved onto my strength phase which is more my kind of thing and I am really enjoying it. At the moment I am doing two fingerboard sessions a week (which are made up of assisted one arm pull ups, weighted pull up pyramids and pull downs), two weights sessions a week (exercises like bench press, bicep curls, squats, roll outs and flies), two or three climbing sessions a week and three runs a week to help my fitness. One thing I can really recommend for training is keeping a diary; it helps you stay organised and (more importantly) keeps you psyched as it shows your progress right there on the page in front of you (even if it’s minute).

I’m looking forward to a bit of a break over Christmas in London with a couple of WestWay sessions, New Year in Fontainebleau (!!) and then into a power phase in January……

Source: Mina Leslie-Wujastyk

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Font
14 January 2012, 12:23 pm

After the joys of a decadent festive season in London I headed out with friends to Fontainebleau to celebrate the New Year and do some bouldering. As we drove there, it was raining; when we got there, it was raining; and for the first four days, it rained. Fontainebleau is an amazing climbing venue, one of the best in the world but the one thing that brings it down is the weather. During our trip of seven days we had two and a half days climbing, which is better than nothing and worth the wait. I was lucky enough to try Irreversible, a high ball 7C at Manoury. It is a great line, a bit scary and brilliant climbing. After taking two falls from the last hard move, I finished the climb with my heart in my mouth and my hands a bit shaky! On the last day of the trip I went back to try again on Big Golden at Cuvier Rempart. I had tried this climb one afternoon earlier in the trip and was astonished to find I could now do some moves on it that I had, on previous trips to Font, never managed. Filled with psyche I tried to piece it together and, after a last change in beta, I found myself topping out. Very happy, I really thought I may never do this problem.



Big Golden, Photo by Bart van Raaij



Big Golden, Photo Bart van Raaij

Back in the UK, the weather has suddenly turned nice. Blue skies and cold air inspired me to head out to a grit problem I had failed on a year or so ago – Suavito (7B). This problem is fairly high and committing at the top, requiring a big throw and a big span. I was psyched to try it again and this time (after one fall landing flat on my back!) I managed to climb it. Hopefully this weather will continue…..

Source: Mina Leslie-Wujastyk

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Cold Temps and Bad Piercings
13 February 2012, 3:13 pm

The temperatures have dropped in the last few weeks here in the UK, giving us brilliant conditions. However, although I don’t want to be negative, these temperatures have been too cold for me. I am a lucky climber in that I have pretty durable, strong, non-sweaty, non-splitting skin on my fingertips, thus meaning that I don’t always need the coldest of cold days to feel good friction. Having said this, I have been out and about on the rocks and have climbed some cool problems like Flatworld (7b+) at Baslow. I have also been up to sample some problems in Northumberland, spending a couple of days at Bowden Doors. I was really impressed with the area and am keen to go back to climb some more.

I have also been struggling a bit lately to train/climb as much as I would like due to a recurrent shoulder/neck problem – nerve pain down my arm with numbness, tingling and weakness. I have been seeing a Chiropractor (Matt Pigden at Element Chiropratic Clinic in Belper) and I was doing very well with recovery before Christmas, only to have a bad relapse in the last few weeks. Initially, when I first saw Matt, he tested out how my piercings may be affecting my neural system and found that removing my earlobe piercings and tongue piercing had a dramatic effect, instantly improving my performance on specific proprioceptive muscle tests. He also tested my nose piercing but back then it seemed not to be an issue. My shoulder/neck pain had settled down dramatically until this recent relapse. The sudden change for the worse didn’t seem to make sense so Matt retested my remaining nose stud and we found that all of a sudden it too was having an impact. Matt explained that previously it may not have shown up as the tongue piercing was the main stress on my nervous system but when that settled and when I increased my training it seemed it was stressing my system. The day before seeing Matt and removing this piercing I had struggled to climb an easy circuit at the Climbing Works because of the pain but the next day I was on the 45 degree board, feeling strong and pain free! Very interesting. I will never be getting a piercing again. Obviously there will be skeptics to these ideas, all I can say is that it has been an eye opening experience for me and all I can report are the results!

Source: Mina Leslie-Wujastyk

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Power Endurance Training Begins…
21 February 2012, 11:06 am

I have just come to the end of my power phase in training; a 6 week block that has seen me doing assisted one armers, weights, campussing and lots of power climbing. So now, with David’s help and planning, I am moving on to power endurance (PE). The idea behind all this training is to be strong for the World cup circuit this year and also for our trip to Colorado this summer- so a lot to be excited for and a lot to persuade me to do “just one more” in my training.

This is the first time I have ever trained in an organised way for so long. I have done the odd few weeks of this and that over the years but nothing to this degree. It will be interesting to see how it benefits, I think already I am a lot stronger for it. One of the great things I find when training is to keep a record in some kind of diary. Mine is called “Mina’s training book of self-loathing”! It helps to look back and see improvement and also to write down when you train, what you eat etc.

Yesterday, in preparation for PE, I went to see Tom Randall and have a go at his power endurance tests on his board. We looked at anerobic capacity and also low end aerobic capacity. This essentially looks at the power end and the endurance end of PE. We also did a one arm strength test to put the endurance in the context of my strength; thus enabling us to get an idea of my efficiency when climbing. Hopefully, after 8 weeks of training I will do these again and be better!

So this week is the beginning of my PE phase; today is the first proper training session. Wish me luck!



Source: Mina Leslie-Wujastyk

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Team training and some beautiful days…
7 March 2012, 11:14 am

I’ll start with team training. Our most recent one was at Boulder Uk and it was a really good day. I’m sure there is some rule whereby team trainings are always on good weather days which makes it seem more important that they feel worthwhile and helpful – this one certainly was. The GBR Bouldering team has improved so much in the past couple of years, our manager Nick Clement has been great and has expanded our team to include a Nutritionist (Rebecca Dent), a Sports Psychologist (Victoria Cassell), a Sports Scientist (Dominic White), a Chiropractor (Matt Pigden) and a Coach (David Mason). With all these people in place, how could we fail?!



This training session we did competition simulation sets in the morning and afternoon – helping us to practice and get used to the 5 on/ 5 off format and working our power endurance. We also each get to have a 1:1 with any of the above mentioned if we want. It is a very supportive set up, especially given that all the above help us for free as the team has limited funding. All in all, a good day.

Since my last blog I have been training power endurance like there is no tomorrow, exhausting myself with 4×4 circuits on the wave at the Foundry. For those of you that don’t frequent this wall, I recommend it. It is a good place to get strong, very basic climbing on a variety of holds on steep ground.

Today, however, I took the morning to go out on the grit. It was a beautiful day and I went to try The Terrace (7C) at Burbage North. This problem is not much to look at….it is small and a bit pokey but it actually climbs really nicely and is right on the doorstep – perfect if you only have a couple of hours. I’m happy to say it went well and I made it to the top after some fighting! Here are some pics and I will put up a video when we have worked out how to put it together (new camera….)



Source: Mina Leslie-Wujastyk

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