[tomtom]

Afternoon all.

Mon: Small evening board session. 30-40 min - large holds - working on body position/hips in etc..

Tu: 1 arm day. 3 x -15kg sets, 2 x -8kg, and managed 3 sets at -6kg - though as it was hotin the attic I had got down to my pants at that time (so cheating? :D ). 2 x -15kg. Both the -15kg were for 7 secs on 3 off - and can get some good deliberate twisting going on there now..

We: Board session 1 hour or so. Good session - new problem - hips in - good!

Thu: Got some lovely oak edges and pinches from Rick Ginns - resisted temptation to fit them - instead had my planned 1 arm day. Same as per tues (10 sets going from -15k to -6kg and back again. Felt better than tues. Bit more on it.

Fri: Board setting day - and climbing day \o/ Shit. Couldnt get up anything - lovely new holds - all not quite incut enough for a 50+ board... tried so so so hard - but feet kept pinging off the jenga brick footholds - deeply unsatisfying. Stopped after an hour - shattered. Quite disappointed - lovely new holds - couldnt stick any of them

Sat: First - decided to move some of the bolt on plastic holds to become footholds just above the jenga blocks. Theyre small ish (20-25mm) but incut and textured - so far more positive.. resisted temptation to test too much - instead focused on 1 arm day.

Same set as tues and thurs - but much easier - in between sets tried  with -4kg (and felt breifly OK) then had a go with no assist... YYFY Couldn't hold them for long (2-3 secs) but certainly a milestone for me - never been able to do any sort of lock off bent arm hang on one arm before - in 28-29 years of climbing. Then went back to -6kg (felt piss) and back up to the heavier weight.

(Sorry for filming it - I was chuffed warning - clip contains weak man flailing :D)


Sun: Board day. Feels like cheating with larger positive footholds. Climbs VERY differently.. but managed to use some of my new holds properly - even got a problem with a gaston/press now which is hard on a 50 (for me at least). Really enjoyable session - love the pinches and starting to develop some good problems.

This is something I struggle with internally with the setting of my board. I can have good feet allowing me to use bad/small hand holds (20mm incut crimps become 20mm 10-20 degree slopers on the 50) and I can drive more through my feet to keep my body in (inc twisting/dropped knee). Or - bad feet meaning I have to make moves between large holds either cutting loose or desparately trying to bone down on a slick 10mm edge to keep a toe on. Nearly always frogs legged front on. I guess I can do both... maybe alternate sessions as they work different muscle groups (ish).

A good and hard week... non climbing wise its been really hard - childcare and doing all the cooking (and playing lego every morning for an hour from between 6:30 - 7:30) has started to take its toll - and yesterday and today I've slept very badly and have a consistent low level migrane. Negotiations are underway with MrsTT to work out a different way of sharing things.. Climbing - sorry training (!!) wise a good week. Got to holding that one arm (even though its a big slot) in my 9th session - from using every sinew to hold and stop rotating with 15kg assist in the first session. Board is now set (I have enough holds) and whilst I'm still working out what I want from it ~ its now fun rather than impossible.

Goals for next week are to consolitdate the one arm stuff (get that no assist hang up to a few non desparate seconds) then think about moving to a smaller hold with more assist and repeat the process etc.. etc..

[Will Hunt]

M - core. Ab ripper

T - board. Put the new holds on and started setting new problems on them. Did one of them quickly so might try that on red feet. The other one will take longer but will probably go. Can't do the crux of The Ratline in isolation.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_QjoE0jrff/?igshid=pnofkfivsdem

W - pull ups and push ups. Warm up and then, on the minute, 8,6,4,8,6,4. No added weight but found this surprisingly hard to finish. Threw some push ups in there.

T - lunchtime ride with stretching after. Attempted a steep hill and had to push the bike - the shame.

F - rest but did some very light arm work.

S - board. Decent sesh. Midges in the garage! Did Boneyard which was really satisfying climbing. Set another project but it feels like the living end. Need to set something that's hard but not impossible.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_a2WFBjmrE/?igshid=1e0uv9zz9axlb

S - rest

[shark]

11.9-10 Average 164.1lbs (up 0.4lbs)

Thanks Tom. Nice tick with the hangs.

Full disclosure Will? 

M.

T.

W. Morning. Bachar ladder. Managed to do 2 or 3 doubles off right and got close off left. Also did 1-3-5 off left then bump left to 2 and go thru to 7 off right a couple of times off both arms. Couldn’t do it off other arm
PM Density hangs. Reintroduced full crimp to routine. Felt unstrong on warmup. Results a bit meh but not that bad

T.

F.Morning. Bachar ladder. Did doubles off both arms. Also followed through with bumping trailing arm up to fourth rung and pulled through to seven again off both arms, twice. Happy with that

S. Morning. Throw practice mainly trying and failing on hardest version. Also could pull on crusher crimps but painful and not a good idea but good to know I can. AeroCap three sets. First set completed. Second set interrupted by telecoms engineer. Third set got pumped at about move 100

S.

Planned for easier week. Going to take a break from fingerboarding next week but start to do a bit of board climbing as fingertip probably up to it now.

Edit: ladder rung confusion / innumeracy.

NB Ladder rungs are spaced about a foot apart. Get confused each time I try to work out what the equivalent is on the campus board

[JohnM]

Weight: 146-148lbs

M: 5km recovery run with 170m of elevation gain to make it 1000km of running with 53,000m of elevation gain this year.

T: Suffering from some kind of bad fatigue/exhaustion carried over from the weekend so complete rest.

W: Climbing at Höttinger Graben. Finished a bouldery 7c/7c+ I'd tried the week before and tried a wildly over hanging 30m 7c but ran out of time/energy. Probably not the best crag choice with an hour and a half walk-in. Exhausted again.

T: Badly fatigued all day. Did nothing physical and barely any work.

F: Still exhausted. In the afternoon went to the shittest crag I have been to for a long time. Rock like glass with 95% of the holds drilled or glued on for the harder routes. There was some easier routes for the mrs though, but they were also quite shit. Did what appeared to be the best line, a 6c+ crack leading to a smooth dihedral which was a real struggle. This crag has access issues. It is an issue if you have the misfortune to access it. Felt terrible again in the evening after barely doing anything.     

S: Woke up feeling bad again but the fatigue seemed to clear by mid-morning. Went to Schleierwasserfall. Finished the 8a+ Überflieger i'd tried the weekend before. Quite a cool route up a big headwall 30 metres up. Tried an 8a after. A nice 25m 7b+ to a decent rest then a pretty hard boulder on grey crozzley rock. Worked out the boulder but it destroyed my tips including my thumb pads. Had a decent 1st redpoint but fired off with very sore skin. Energy levels stayed reasonably high during the day and I felt normally tired in the evening instead of wiped out.

S: Woke up feeling a bit sore but not fatigued which was good. Did a nice run above the Mieming Sun Plateau (19km with 1075m height gain). Legs felt amazing for the first climb but faded a bit after that. Normal levels of tiredness again afterwards which was good.

A pretty good week climbing-wise although until Saturday any form of physical activity would leave me feeling completely exhausted afterwards and the day after. I was starting to get pretty worried by the end of the week but from mid-morning Saturday this bad fatigue seems to have disappeared. I hope it stays that way! I will try and get back to some climbing training this week with a couple of light runs and see I how I feel.

[Nutty]

Mon: Garden board session. Working the same problems as before, got a move higher on one.
Tue: Rest
Wed: Garden board session. Cracking session. Warmed up then did a long-term project on the first attempt of the session - probably the hardest thing I've done on my board.
Thu: Rest. Right wrist/arm feeling some soreness.
Fri: Rest. Still some lingering soreness in right arm/wrist.
Sat: Rest
Sun: Fingerboard and bodyweight/mobility exercises: 5 x 20sec hangs, 15mm edge, bodyweight +20%. Right wrist feels sore again afterwards.

Highs and lows this week. Doing a long term board project was great - hopefully a sign of progress. Fingerboard session was steady compared to last week's at the same edge edge size and weight. Tweaking my wrist though is frustrating; one rest day between board sessions might not be enough. Will see how things go this week.

[Nibile]

Hey John I can't remember: why did you get into running?

[Murph]

Good stuff guys on your home training setups.

M-5k jog
T-
W-5k jog
T-
F-5k jog
S-
S-

Getting bored of this injured shoulder now and dont want to risk hurting it more. But perhaps erring too much on the side of caution.

Weight seems stable though so theres that.

[mr chaz]

Goals: 1. Some form of exercise everyday. 2. End lockdown fitter than start. 3. Maintain finger strength.

M. 20 minute HIIT. Fingerboard - 2 arm 20s hangs.

T. Front levers, some slight improvement from last week. 20 minutes of yoga.

W. 30 minute HIIT.

T. Fingerboard - couldn't decide what to do, so did a few sporadic hangs to warm up then tried to do 2 sets of 5 pullups on every available hold (can only do 1 pullup on the both of the rattie moonboard crimps!).

F. 25 minute kettlebell session, working lower body and lower back.

S. 20 minute HIIT session with some kettlebell exercises thrown in.

S. Fingerboard - 1 arm max hangs, probably my best performance on these. Intended to do some exercise in the afternoon, got distracted by a G&T.

I feel strong, fit and motivated! WTF.

[monkoffunk]

M - Rest day. Some core/stretching.
T - Horst style hangs. 1 set 10kg, 10 seconds. 2 sets +15kg, 8-10 seconds.
W - Total rest.
T - Total rest.
F - Horst max hangs. 1 set 10kg, 2 sets +15kg. Better than Tuesday, but not feeling strong at all despite rest. Unrecruited?
S - Warm up. Finger tip pull up pyramid, 5 at top. Short finger board problems, one min on, on off. Pumped and powered out 40s into set three! Work to be done here. Felt better.
S - Rest.

Steady week. Slightly lower volume as concerned about elbows on finger board too much. Weight static around 80kg. Think I need to focus on that next week!

[HarryBD]

Nice one keeping it going people. Good to be hearing about some climbing John. Still waiting for Will to claim all his own board problems are piss. Glad to hear your fingers are getting better Shark.


Just failed on my weight target but only just as avg for week was 81.0kg. I'm definitely leaner though just hard to measure that. I'm blaming it on my chonky cycling thighs coming back. Managed the cardio target easily with 6:45hrs of running or biking. Hit the conditioning targets except for hip flexibility because I struggle to get psyched for this.

M - Ride 60mins, core workout. Coming out of Silsden I saw a cyclist absolutely twat it round a corner into a drystone wall, knock themselves out and bleed out their entire face. Struggled to keep social distance measures giving first aid but they didn't die and I don't seem to be coughing so counting that as a win. Supposed to be doing my first aid refresher course today but that was cancelled.

T - Ride 90mins with an explore of some bridleways. Max pullup effort with 17 again. 5x5 pullups on the minute with 8kg added (failed with 4 reps on last two sets). FB MAx and Density hangs.

W - 60mins run on Ilkley moor felt amazing, hip flexibility + core

T - Ride 70mins on the MTB, 5x5 pullups on the minute with 8kg added (failed with 4 reps on last set), FB Max + Density hangs

F - Run 45mins

S - Walk with Lily round Shipley Glen, 5x5 pullups on the minute at bodyweight managed easily, core, FB max + density hangs. Managed to hang over 25s at BW on HC small edge and 17s on 3FD on the bigger edge. which are definitely PBs. I was doing max hangs and failing with BW in HC on small edge before lockdown and now feels steady and couldn't hang body weight in a drag grip.

S - Ride 90mins.

Blood pressure raised by our elderly neighbour ragging at us for helping order the specific soap she needs online which turned out to be more expensive than from B&M Bargains. She started demanding money from L and suggesting we're conning her. Really not interested in helping her right now. There are others in the building who can help the witch for the next few weeks. We gave her some of our (really nice) home-cooked food a couple of weeks ago FFS. L told her where to go - proud of her as she hates confrontation.

[Nibile]

Power Club

Mon - boxing bag. Power.
Tue - recovery session, boxing bag.
Wed - board climbing, one foot only + 8 kg. Static push ups + Ab wheel 20 reps x5. Pull ups finisher, not even close to finishing it. Two mad dogs munching my lats.
Thu - snatch 5x5 80 % (40 kg). Power clean 5x5 70 % (56 kg). Overhead carry.
Fri - light weights or boxing bag.
Sat - boxing bag, power.
Sun - abs, landmine core, glutes, full clean and press finisher 27 kg 30/30 x10. Tired.

[SA Chris]

This crag has access issues. It is an issue if you have the misfortune to access it.

I laughed, might use that.

[cheque]

M- Nothing.

T- Walk to Bell Hagg and back.

W- Nothing.

T- Deadlifting. 5 reps each at 20, 25 & 30kg then 2 reps each at 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 and 105kg. 105 is 1&3/4 body weight and a new post-broken back PB. 

My other half joins in “Iron Thursday” with me now and we filmed each other to assess our form. I’d never done this before so it was interesting- my lower back is textbook while my upper back is less so but it’s hard to tell how much of this is poor form and how much is just due to my fucked-up back which always has a weird angle in it now. At 100 and 105 I pretty much do the lift in two stages, the first of which straightens my legs most of the way then a slow lift which gets my hips forward but is mainly in the back.

F- Walk to and around the Bell Hagg area.

S- Same as Friday.

S- Plan was for 3x8 pull-ups, 3x35 push-ups. It was hard and did 8, 7 and 5 pull-ups (so the same number as last weeks session just with more in the first set) and 35, 35 & 33 push-ups. Total failure on the last set.

Pretty much a slightly more intense copy-paste from last week. Getting a bit stronger but less fit and didn’t fingerboard again.

[Murph]

Fantastic on the DL PB cheque!! 

[nai]

M - board project. Managed the third move but only once.  Changed last move as it was too easy
Max hangs - scores ok
TRX - low row, Ys, Ts twaeked shoulder. Reverses

T - 3x10 30kg Front Squat, 2x14kg OH Squat (had to nail from final rep S2), 2x15+ 30kg hip thrust, 1x10kg 1, 21kg one leg HT , tried some light SL DL (20kg), 2x10 hamstring ext variations
 
W - Board - did the project, probably only because I wore Solutions rather than old Anasazis with holes in the toes. Anticlimatic
4RR, improvements.
shoulder feeling iffy though

Th added and swapped around holds on the board.

F
3x10 mins setting and working problems
4RR decided to shield shoulder and do BW hangs on smaller edges. Repeaters on a 10mm edge is fun.
Conditioning with bands

S added more holds

Sun
As Friday

[Nibile]

T- Deadlifting.

Good news!
Play it safe, though.
A slightly rou ded upper back is no problem as long as it's solid and controlled.
As for the lift itself, in the initial stage hips and shoulders should raise at the same rate, leaving the spine angle constant. It's difficult.
In the DL topic there are a few videos. I highly recommend Dan John's ones.
I also highly recommend a trap bar. Mush safer and more versatile.

[Nibile]

Rippetoe Bible here.
https://www.t-nation.com/training/deconstructing-the-deadlift

[Will Hunt]

These posts might need to move to this week's Power Club?

[shark]

These posts might need to move to this week's Power Club?

Done 

[Coops_13]

M: TA-focused core. Wrist strengthening. First run in c. 4 years - grim. 1 mile run, 08:25 - max HR 197

T: Wrist strengthening. 100 press-ups. 10 Front lever max holds. Lower body stretching

W: Wrist strengthening. 100 pull-ups. One are max hangs, 7s holds. 2 sets -20lb, -25lb (R, L), 4 sets -25lb, -30lb. Close to the 10% aim! Finger Curl hypertrophy 40lb.
1 mile run. 08:00 - max HR 197

T: Wrist strengthening. 100 press-ups. 300 core movements. Weights - Biceps, shoulders, lateral and front raise * 5 reps * 3 sets

F: 100 pull-ups.  Beastly 6C repeaters workout. Lower body stretching.

S: 1.5 mile run, 12:21. Max HR 186

S: 2 mile walk with pup

Wrist feeling a lot more sore after Friday, been pain-free for weeks now. Maybe all those press-ups were taking their toll. 1350 press-ups and 1125 pull-ups since lockdown

[JohnM]

Hey John I can't remember: why did you get into running?

Ha ha, good question! I got into it for a while because my shoulder was injured. But now I quite like it as a way of seeing lots of mountains and I can also push quite hard compared to climbing where I just seem to get injured. It could be the route cause of my fatigue though!

[cheque]

Fuck, sorry about that... cheers for fixing Shark.

Cheers Murph, I think I said the other week that The back pain I experience day-to-day has decreased since I’ve been deadlifting again this year. It’s a good exercise for me as it works the bits most fucked-up in my accident. Squats is the other (possibly even better) but without a rack in my flat I can’t do them on lockdown.

Cheers for the advice Nibs. I’ve always been aware of correct form and since my accident I’m super careful (physio said not to aim for 1RM and I only attempt new weights in 5kg increments these days.  Really good advice to focus on having a constant angle- I need to get a video of me lifting light with perfect form to compare as my back is just too crooked to make a meaningful comparison to online resources.

[Murph]

That's quite good that though Mike. Effort. Thinking how far you've come that sounds like a good lift to me. You've given me an idea and I just did some kettlebell squats entirely inspired by your efforts.

Nibs - love the rip got his book where he says "A strong man is more useful than a weak man. And harder to kill."

[teestub]

Squats is the other (possibly even better) but without a rack in my flat I can’t do them on lockdown.

I think we may have discussed previously, but assisted one leg squats should be doable on lockdown (to some extent?) and may be more transferable to rock climbing than barbell squats anyway.

[spidermonkey09]

Good work all, particularly TT and Cheque! Sounds like a particularly involved week Harry, have a drink!

M- Anderson hangs. Added 5kg as a base weight on the edges. Successful on all apart from the slopers which remain nails. Just about got to the end of the set with some nestling. Some assisted one armers and TRX afterwards.

T- Core on the bar. Still hard but not as bad as last time. Started experimenting with a front lever.

W - Max hangs. 31.25kg. Completed the set again with same issues on half crimp form. Could definitely do with a vest to distribute the weight a bit better. Some TRX after.

T - Anderson hangs. Added 6.5kg on the edges, 1.1 kg on the 10mm micro and a depressing nothing on the slopers. Seem to have hit the ceiling here now as was failing on the last few reps. Later that evening checked to see if fingerboard was plumb. It was not, 5 degrees overhanging when you actually pull onto it. At least it explains why the slopers remain so difficult. TRX and one armers.

F - rest.

S - Max Hangs. A bizarre session; new PB at 32.5kg with great form and plenty left in the tank. No reason why so will just have to try and add a bit more now.

S - Repeaters. Consistently difficult again. Felt wasted afterwards but hopefully it is doing something...

Another riveting week. Laying off the cycling as it seems to aggravate something in my groin so walking instead. Will change things up at the end of the month, probably go back to 1 arm hangs.