[blur]

I've noticed how in the winter months my training, goes a bit off. So can anyone tell me what an average week is like for them, training wise? Do you follow a certain pattern or cut out certain foods to help?

[The Sausage]

Training logs? all my logs are the real thing...

[Tim Broughtonshaw]

Hi,
   im currently trying

mon rest
Tue bouldering
wed bouldering power endurance
thur routes
Fri rest
sat outdoor projecting/wet option indoor bouldering
Sun outdoor projecting/wet option indoor bouldering/fingerboard

Cheers
Tim

[Houdini]

Mon - Bouldering
Tues - Bouldering plus one hour of skipping
Wed - Bouldering
Thu - Bouldering plus one hour of skipping
Fri - Bouldering plus 5 hours of drinking
Sat - Bouldering plus drug-taking and 6 hours of twitching like a spastic to grinding beats
Sun - Bouldering plus one hour of skipping

Hope this helps.

[Tim Broughtonshaw]

Presume some jesting there mate? 
My tendons currently feel like they will explode if i do any more than 4 days hard bouldering a week.

Cheers
Tim

[r-man]

Starting next week, my plan is...

Mond-Frid - Lunchtime session at Climbingworks
Sat & Sun - Hit the grit. Try not to break knuckles.
Day 8 - Rest

Not many people know about the eighth day. It pops up once a week, hidden between the normal days. I call it Octoday.





Eighth - what a strange word. Just look at it. Only the last two letters make any sense.

[Houdini]

Jesting?  Indeed, I lied about the drinking. And I like to leave at least one day free to formulate strategies on the destruction of Homo rapiens.

Currently doing the indoor bouldering thing quite a lot, but then, never routes (haven't tied on for 7 years).  Shamra was right, just a little every day.  Long warm ups/downs.  Good rest between problems.  Lots of water.  A bit of arnika on the biceps afterwards.  But the dancing is crucial.

Try glucosamine sulphate for those tendons.

[webbo]

Mon - Bouldering
Tues - Bouldering plus one hour of skipping
Wed - Bouldering
Thu - Bouldering plus one hour of skipping
Fri - Bouldering plus 5 hours of drinking
Sat - Bouldering plus drug-taking and 6 hours of twitching like a spastic to grinding beats
Sun - Bouldering plus one hour of skipping

Hope this helps.

i suggest you need to do more twitching else you're likely to end up muscular inbalances.

[r-man]

Presume some jesting there mate? 
My tendons currently feel like they will explode if i do any more than 4 days hard bouldering a week.

Cheers
Tim

The more you climb, the fitter you will get, and the less broken you will feel on consecutive days. Your body just adapts. Like Houdini said, the key is quality not quantity - do an hour or so, then stop before you start feeling tired, and you'll be able to climb ache-free the next day. After a while you'll be able to do longer and longer sessions for 5 or 6 days in a row.

[Houdini]

i suggest you need to do more twitching else you're likely to end up muscular inbalances.

I do plenty of stretching and general floor gym exercises.  My posture is pretty good at time of writing.

Trigger points?  I get a heavier man to break those down with his thumbs.

But you're right about the twitching.  Once I'm on a roll, I find even two days off sends me backwards.

[Tim Broughtonshaw]

Presume some jesting there mate? 
My tendons currently feel like they will explode if i do any more than 4 days hard bouldering a week.

Cheers
Tim

The more you climb, the fitter you will get, and the less broken you will feel on consecutive days. Your body just adapts. Like Houdini said, the key is quality not quantity - do an hour or so, then stop before you start feeling tired, and you'll be able to climb ache-free the next day. After a while you'll be able to do longer and longer sessions for 5 or 6 days in a row.

aye already climb a lot but i mean bouldering that many days. Its more intense. If you add a day routing here and there it is less intense on your tendons i feel. Like the idea a bout a little each day but every day. May give that a try.

Cheers
Tim

[Rice Boy]

 ???

Outside at the weekend weather permitting. 

Dicking around in the office coffee room on lintels and trimmings during the week.

Looking to cut down.

[r-man]

aye already climb a lot but i mean bouldering that many days.

So do I. When you first start doing it, you will ache, but stick with it and your body will soon adapt. Be sensible though - stick to short sessions or you risk injuring something.

[Paul B]

hmmm I'm dubious, you simply cant be training as effectively after an extended period as you were at the start, imo its necessary to rest much more than your post suggests. Sometimes I can still feel tues's session on a thursday!

[r-man]

hmmm I'm dubious, you simply cant be training as effectively after an extended period as you were at the start, imo its necessary to rest much more than your post suggests.

Well, quite possibly. I'm not just going on my own instinct though, I'm copying others who climb much harder than me. My training this summer consisted mostly of the cemetery park boulder, which is perhaps not the same as cranking on a 45 deg. woody. But still, after several days on I found I was still improving, and managing problems that I previously found impossible. Perhaps this is also a lot to do with refining the engrams, and just getting things more wired, but it seemed to work.

[Tim Broughtonshaw]

Hi,
    well that's my intention this winter anyway to increase the power and strength training.  But i have found in the past that the more power based activities you do (rather than endurance) the more likely you are to injure yourself. Certainly appears to be the score in my own experience. Definately gonna keep one session as routes to keep the stamina going (im a sportclimber/boulderer rather than a boulderer/sportclimber so endurance is also important to me )

cheers
Tim

[(woz)]

Since the summer I've been training a lot more than previously: An average of 6 days (2-3hr sessions) per week rather than 4. It has definatly given me a kick up the jacksie and I've improved rapidly. Whether this is just through shock factor etc I'm not sure - but I'm sticking to it for now. I often find that my best session of the week is on day 3/4 etc.
Having said that Paul's training plan is obviously working for him!

[Serpico]

It depends what you mean by an extended period. If you mean one long session than I'd agree, but daily short sessions are the norm in other sports. I got good results a few years ago bouldering every day, but each session was really short: warm up, 30-40mins intense bouldering (with good rest between problems), warm down. I was stopping well short of fatigue, but when you add up the number of problems at my target grade it was higher than if i'd done fewer, but longer sessions.
In the summer I allways take July and August off, and I'll climb 3 days on 1 day off, then 2 days on 1 day on. On the last day on I train at home on my board, after I've been to the crag. Pretty well all of my hardest redpoints this year and last were done first day back on, even though I still felt sore from the training session, I also felt really strong.
It usally takes me about 3 weeks to adapt this amount of volume.

[Tim Broughtonshaw]

When you guys talk about adapting to a higher or more intense workload, are you saying getting less stiff or feeling less tired in a muscular manner? Presumably if the more intense training is making the fingers feel sore this is not something to work through?

I have no problems pushing myself in a muscular pain day after day type manner but feel i need to know if any finger tendon (tenderness) is part of the game or a sign to back off?

Cheers
tim

[(woz)]

My finger tendons ached like hell after the first few sessions on my new board, but after a week or so they got used to it.
When I say they ached - this was hard training ache as opposed to injury ache. Injury ache is a sign to back off. I had never really pulled on small holds before so it took a while to get used to it.

[Tim Broughtonshaw]

position you're thumb over the a2 area of a finger and press. I have one finger on my right hand which feels tender when i press it. the other fingers are ok but this one is ok to climb on but feels like this when i press it. It's been like this for a few weeks, but no worse. repetative training ache? or sign of a tear. i.e.back off a bit?

Cheers
Tim

[Serpico]

Re:Soreness. It depends where the soreness is: Soreness in the fingers (ie: the joints) is a sign that you've probably done too much crimping during the session. Soreness deep in the belly of the forearm muscles (not elbows/tendons) is an indication that you've got your training right.
Tim, have you had that finger looked at? Sounds like you might have torn the pulley.

[Bonjoy]

Hi,
    well that's my intention this winter anyway to increase the power and strength training.  But i have found in the past that the more power based activities you do (rather than endurance) the more likely you are to injure yourself. Certainly appears to be the score in my own experience. Definately gonna keep one session as routes to keep the stamina going (im a sportclimber/boulderer rather than a boulderer/sportclimber so endurance is also important to me )

cheers
Tim

I also sport climb in summer, but don't do any route training whatsoever in winter, nor for that matter any bouldering once the route season starts. I have a yearly cycle that seems to work fine. In winter I boulder (pretty much always twice indoors midweek and twice outdoor at the weekend). Toward the end of the bouldering season I'll work on longer problems to raise endurance a little, then switch to short power routes. Throughout the route season my power will naturally drop off as I do no bouldering, but this coincides with naturally increasing stamina from doing gradually more enduro routes. By the latter half of the season I can usually do stamina stuff at the top end of my grade.
 It never seems to take long to regain lost stamina / power levels from previous season so I see no point in doing boring maintenance training of either when my focus has switched over. For me indoor routeing in winter/bouldering in summer would seem like a waste of effort that was slowing my progress. It also means my body gets a rest of sorts from both types of climbing without ever having to take weeks/months off.

[(woz)]

position you're thumb over the a2 area of a finger and press. I have one finger on my right hand which feels tender when i press it. the other fingers are ok but this one is ok to climb on but feels like this when i press it. It's been like this for a few weeks, but no worse. repetative training ache? or sign of a tear. i.e.back off a bit?

Cheers
Tim

Tape will help i.e. no pain from pulley whilst crimping- but any doctor/sensible climber would probably tell you to have time off.

[Tim Broughtonshaw]

Hi,
   no mate i havn't. It's basically in the (A2) fattest belly of the finger i feel it. I routed last night...and if i push with the flat side of my thumb i  feel no pain. however if i probe with some pressure and the tip of my thumb it hurts. I normally (not sure if this is correct or not) do this massage on the A2 area of my fingers almost as a second nature thing after an A2 tear i had last year on the opposite hand. I found some scar tissue there and was doing the pressure to try and massage it out.

Not been to see anyone as didn't (still not sure) if it was an actual problem as it hasn't effected climbing at all sofar. I.e. no actual tweaking/pain whilst climbing.  I am however acutely aware that it is the main finger taking the load when i undercut the pocket on Raindogs (4th bolt). Especially when my sequence involves baring down with this hand whilst lifting my opposite foot to a higher foot position.

Cheers
Tim
p.s. so what rule of thumb would you use to determine whether or not to see a physio or not, for such (i currently believe) vague areas of injury verses overuse?