[shark]

A change is as good as a (kneebar) rest. Gritstone?

 

Whaddya reckon George ? Plenty out there for you to go at

[gcarmichael]

 

[leeroy]

A change is as good as a (kneebar) rest. Gritstone?

 

Whaddya reckon George ? Plenty out there for you to go at

i agree, whats stopping you george? 

[gcarmichael]

not as convenient when i'm at uni and i normally get shut down on it...

[andy_e]

There's another weakness to train. And I refuse to believe Burbage is less convenient than the Tor.

[gcarmichael]

Takes me twice as long to get to Burbage than the Tor when i'm at home... But during term time I live in Nottingham so dont get out in the peak that much anyway (hence the indoor training). Where as over Summer I have 3/4 months off with no uni work so tend to climb on limestone a lot. But yeh grit is no doubt my main weakness. 

[andy_e]

Ah, I assumed you lived in Sheffield...

[gcarmichael]

oh right, no i live about 5 minutes from Litton/Tideswell.

[shark]

not as convenient when i'm at uni and i normally get shut down on it...

Takes me twice as long to get to Burbage than the Tor when i'm at home... But during term time I live in Nottingham so dont get out in the peak that much anyway (hence the indoor training). Where as over Summer I have 3/4 months off with no uni work so tend to climb on limestone a lot. But yeh grit is no doubt my main weakness. 

 

Sounds like a diet of grit could be a good way forward

 

[Paul B]

not as convenient when i'm at uni and i normally get shut down on it...

this was pretty much my point, avoiding things such as this leads to a very one-sided climber and it WILL bite you in the ass at some point in the future. Also, I think its increasingly difficult to correct such things once you've learnt to pull really hard. Just my 2p though.

Anyway surely the 'yoof' of today should be mis-spending his/her time hanging off a beastmaker too much? 

[sidewinder]

On this topic, if you do have periods of time, as I do at the moment, where you have a lot of time available to train, how do you go about maximising this time, increasing the amount you can do in a week?  This is all assuming you are aiming to climb both weekend days.

It seems perhaps the amount of power training you can do in a week is perhaps limited to ~3 ~2-3 hr sessions?  What should you fill the rest of the time with.

[erm, sam]

Girlfriend, finding a job or other hobby, that sort of thing?

[abarro81]

Take up route climbing, then you get to spend hours doing stamina training.

Paul - depends on your goals. If you want to be good at everything then avoiding things will screw you over. However if, for example, you are 99% interested in limestone sport climbing then grit is pretty irrelevant. I think I'm worse on grit/sandstone now than when I climbed 8a rather than 8c on bolts. The reason I now climb harder on lime routes is precisely because I don't spend my time on grit getting good in that style and weak a lime route style, so whilst it makes me a worse all-round climber it makes me more likely to do the routes I want to do over the next few years. It would be lovely to climb what I want to on lime and be good at other styles too, but I've not got the talent/time to do that.

[joe dobson]

I've suffered from symptoms exactly like this, I found that it was because of the same reason ie lots of training and it just took its toll. I reduced the training and found I actually felt stronger afterwards.

For this reason I train heavily while at uni (sept - dec) and then take all of xmas off, I've done this a few years now and its worked well. Means you can focus on exams, eat lots of food and let any niggles/injuries sort themselves out.

[Paul B]

Take up route climbing, then you get to spend hours doing stamina training.

Paul - depends on your goals. If you want to be good at everything then avoiding things will screw you over. However if, for example, you are 99% interested in limestone sport climbing then grit is pretty irrelevant. I think I'm worse on grit/sandstone now than when I climbed 8a rather than 8c on bolts. The reason I now climb harder on lime routes is precisely because I don't spend my time on grit getting good in that style and weak a lime route style, so whilst it makes me a worse all-round climber it makes me more likely to do the routes I want to do over the next few years. It would be lovely to climb what I want to on lime and be good at other styles too, but I've not got the talent/time to do that.

I disagree with you.  Your interests are ridiculously polarised towards a very specific type of climbing and you're choosing to specialise. I may be wrong but I don't see this thread as someone choosing to specialise (looking at chosen problems/routes and rapid grade progression, I could however be wrong).

Training a lot on a board = basic and more often than not learning to be inefficient by default (to make things challenging), which (personally), I've found a huge hindrance on UK based routes. Ok, so if you have enough power you'll likely do fairly well but it's a fools game and has been shown to be thus numerous times.

My original point wasn't about making someone a good all-rounder, it was about making yourself a 'good', efficient climber. After all power is nothing without control.

[abarro81]

I agree that climbing outdoors (e.g. on lime or rhyolite) is better training than being indoors because it makes you better at climbing rock whilst getting strong rather than just making you strong. I also think that indoors it's best not to have totally dumb rules, e.g. rules about not dropping knees when it would be easier to - set the hands and feet then do the easiest method with those. I stand by the claim that grit is basically useless for lime, even vert/techy lime. Sparky and Bob will back me up on that and are less technically retarded if that will make the argument more convincing.

P.s. I don't just climb tufas or things over 45 degrees.
Just mostly.

[Wood FT]

Sparky and Bob will back me up on that and are less technically retarded if that will make the argument more convincing.

both known to be completely open minded about the Grit.....billy bollocks

in my short and relatively shit rock life I've found that the only cross over to lime is balance

George - you're not far from Staffordshire Grit (arguably the best grit) and you'd love things like Tetris and Inertia Reel trav, get to it

[shark]

"George, GEORGE..where are you??"


 

[andy_e]

My guess is the Tor or still asleep having nightmares about slopey mantelshelves....

[Paul B]

I agree that climbing outdoors (e.g. on lime or rhyolite) is better training than being indoors because it makes you better at climbing rock whilst getting strong rather than just making you strong. I also think that indoors it's best not to have totally dumb rules, e.g. rules about not dropping knees when it would be easier to - set the hands and feet then do the easiest method with those. I stand by the claim that grit is basically useless for lime, even vert/techy lime. Sparky and Bob will back me up on that and are less technically retarded if that will make the argument more convincing.

P.s. I don't just climb tufas or things over 45 degrees.
Just mostly.

What Bob "full time pro" Hickish (funded by Sparkys rent, not in that way), who travels extensively all year round? Sparky would only be relevant (sorry Mark) if he ever actually looked like he could possibly get strong enough on a board to suffer from the above.

[gcarmichael]

haha sounds like i need to be getting on the grit more, will try and find a good balance between training and getting out. In the meantime im going to rest a bit more, cheers for the advice.

[Sasquatch]

Don't let their pissing contest put you off.

Right now you're overtrained for 2 reasons.
1.  You didn't take the time to adequately build to the load you were putting on your body.  Hence your body was not trained to recover. 

2.  You spent too much time doing the same thing. 

The grit vs. lime thing is indirectly related #2, but there's more to climbing than grit and lime(sacrilege I know).  There's steep vs. slabby, there's crimps vs. slopes, etc. 

To address #1:  Your body has the ability to recover from a certain training load - this means ALL training.  Over time, you adapt to that load, add more, and your body will eventually learn to recover from the higher load.  Typical peridoization has both micro and macro cycles.  One idea is to break a training cycle down into 4 weeks, where you will increase your load incrementally for 3 weeks, then decrease load for the 4th week to recover.  The next cycle will start at about the loading of week 2 of the first cycle.  Over time, this incremental increase adds up  and your body learns to handle massive volumes of training.  This is how the pros are able to train 30-40hrs /week, but this takes years to build to that level.  As you're looking at loading, remember that both volume and intensity increase training load, so if you increase the intensity, don't increase the volume until you adapt to the higher intensity. 

To address #2:  Varying your training can help recovery by changing the focus from one aspect to another and giving the area worked a chance to recover.  For example, If you've been working straight-on 45 wall stuff, your shoulders are probably getting worked.  By shifting to balancey crimping, your shoulders wil get a rest while your hips and fingers get worked. 

[abarro81]

Don't forget in Nottingham you're not too far from Anston or presumably Forest rock. There's some more 'limey' grit not so far too e.g. River of Life

[cheque]

Don't forget in Nottingham you're not too far from Anston or presumably Forest rock. There's some more 'limey' grit not so far too e.g. River of Life

Don't forget Pleasley Vale! 

There's no excuse not to get out to anywhere in the Peak from Notts- only places like Running Hill Pits are more than 90 minutes drive away. I'm always meeting people who say "Wow, you travelled all the way from Nottingham?" and are surprised to learn that the trip was less than an hour.

When you're used to being able to pop home for lunch during a day at Raven Tor it probably seems like a long way though!

[Three Nine]

Dunno about relevance to proper climbing, but i've always found that people that climb on grit a lot are more likely to be cunts then those who don't. Therefore I think that the luck-based scrittle encourages cuntishness and is best avoided, lest you meet lots of cunts and become more of a cunt yourself.

For the avoidance of doubt, this isn't supposed to be a joke.