[36chambers]

S: Wet day in Wales, ultimately ended up at a dry Castle Hill.

That's some journey in the search for dry rock, could of just tried the Cave ;-)

had my girlfriend not been reading this over my shoulder I would have completely missed the joke...

*Castle Inn Quarry 

[the_dom]

Odd week. 3 days of hard training, book-ended by some kind of weird lurgy.

Mon: Moon board. Hard session.
Tues: Feeling really tired / broken / getting sick.
Wed: Hangboard (Maisch) and core.
Thurs: Moon board and hangboard (one arm max hangs).
Fri: Weights (deadlifts and kettlebell swinds) followed by hard treadmill session. Broken. Horrible nights sleep.
Sat: Wanted to go for a surf but was feeling awful. Spent whole day in bed.
Sun: Hangboard (Maisch) and core. PhD applications in progress (gulp!).

3 weeks until Cresciano. Not sure I'm where I want to be.

[petejh]

STG:
MTG: 8b+ (by next summer)
LTG: 8c (within 2 years)



M. TRX and kettlebell workout. Left forearm achey following a powerful steinpull move during Sunday's tooling sesh.
T.
W. White Goods drytooling. First time there in a couple of years I think. Flashed or retro-flashed M8, M6+, M8, M8+, M8+, M8.
T. Left forearm increasingly achey..
F. Core & mobility workout. Stretching and heat pack on forearm, feels like tight/achey brachioradialis.
S. Manod drytool crag. Bolt-to-bolted M9 to warm up, forearm not good. Halfway up next route, M8+, feet cut loose while on one arm and left forearm immediately tweaked. Let go and dropped off. Spent sesh belaying.
S. Walked up Glyders in a huff.

(edit days mixed up)

Outcome is an injured what feels like bracioradialis muscle. Painful to twist hand inwards without any weight/very painful with light weight. Feels like it's muscle rather than tendon so hopefully it'll heal in 2-4 weeks. Still in the 'absolutely fucked-off with everything' stage - 14 weeks of rehabbing my right bicep longhead tendon, and just as that's getting good enough to push harder I injure the other arm. I could probably sit it out and then resume training closer to xmas. But I'd planned to only winter climb Dec and Jan and then start training for rock starting in early Feb/actually have a boudlering season for first time in years.
Won't be winter climbing now, maybe a couple of classic VI's if I'm happy it won't make me want to try anything harder. Fucked off doesn't cover it, I'm gutted to be dropping my winter plans and fed up after having spent the second half of the year since August being injured.
Gonna log out of here, put my feet up for a week and then think about training for 8b+ in spring and strategies for ignoring anything to do with winter. Fucking harsh mistress is climbing. 

[Fiend]

Sorry to hear that Pete , coming after your bicep injury, that sucks

I hope you get over the obligatory pissed-off-ness soon and find something to keep you inspired. I've heard deadlifting is still cool.

BTW, plans are afoot for a Pedriza trip sometime around 7th - 19th February #justsayin #yolo etc

[webbo]

Mon. Nothing.
Tue. Board repeated most new problems from last week. Left forefinger tip split yet again.
Wed. Nothing.
Thu. Nothing.
Fri. Board did 3 new problems abit too cold in the garage need better heaters.
Sat. Turbo.
Sun. Board worked out some more new problems did a couple of them. Spent rest of day sawing up the tree that blew down on Friday night.
Another mediocre week, need to get back on track.

[duncan]

Outcome is an injured what feels like bracioradialis muscle.

Bad news. I hope your self-diagnosis is correct. I'd suggest you listen to your body a little more but, as you write your story, you've clearly recognised the need to do that. I'm terrible at this.

If it is Brachioradialis, as you probably know, it's an elbow flexor but only when the hand is in the 'thumbs up'  position. So a key muscle when pulling up on hooked axes, making stein-pull moves, jumaring, crack-climbing, using vertical pinches (Gogarth), or fridge-hugging. You've been training/rehabbing with biceps curls and kettle balls. If you've been mainly doing palms-up curls you've been strengthening biceps but inadvertently neglecting brachioradialis which might predispose to this injury. Winter climbers should do most of their 'biceps' exercises in the 'thumbs-up' position for this reason. Similarly, do your pull-ups on axes or dummy axes. Same applies to crack climbers and fridge huggers. Specificity rules.

I fell into this trap on The Nose last year, getting brachioradialis cramps jumaring or hand-jamming high on the route despite biceps feeling fine, I'd been doing my biceps curls conventionally palms-up and pull-ups palms-away.

[SA Chris]

My brachioradialis give me loads of grief (see earlier on the the page) I have to do loads of stretches and massage to stop them hurting.

Outside chance it may be  not as bad as initial thought, but either way RICE it and see an expert, rather than rely on self diagnosis,

Good luck dude.

[ashtond6]

Sorry to hear that Pete, really hard luck

M - Jetlagged wall session, climbed well and focused on problems that work my weaknesses
T - Rest
W - 6c os, then tweaked something in my hand (thought i'd done my flexor tendon again)
T - mad ice and massage of hand
F - more ice and massage! moved into new place
S - too cold and too much snow, went to Plantation, didn't really do much as was concerned with the hand
S - Curbar - spent a few hours at trackside, did a few V4's & got ridiculously close to trackside. Quite fun for me, as I've never enjoyed bouldering, but getting closer and closer to Trackside inspired me to carry on

Goals are all over the place at the moment, since completing my LTG they've been changing almost daily.
Just enjoying climbing at the moment and will work on my power, as this is definitely my weak point


*edit, turns out its not the flexor tendon as it was almost perfect again after 3 days

[shark]

Outcome is an injured what feels like bracioradialis muscle. Painful to twist hand inwards without any weight/very painful with light weight. Feels like it's muscle rather than tendon so hopefully it'll heal in 2-4 weeks. Still in the 'absolutely fucked-off with everything' stage

 

The only thing that shifted it for me was freezing water in a yoghurt pot and using it to press into the source of pain for a couple of miutes every night before bed for a couple of weeks. Worth trying

[JohnM]

Mine improved a lot by doing negative curls starting with a dumbbell of around 5kg but with the palm facing in down.  Do 8-10 reps an use the other hand to assist raising the weight back up to the shoulder.  However, I still seem to have some aggravation in there and this seems to be highlighted by doing negative hammer curls (thumb facing up).  However, this exercise just seems to aggravate it more.

[rginns]

STG: any indoor V7, if I can get outside: 7B
MTG: indoor V8, outdoor 7B+
LTG: outdoor 7C

Life doesn't get any less busy. Working in Poland from Monday to Thursday so it was a disappointing training week...

M - Flew to Berlin, managed to get a couple of hours in at Ost-bloc bouldering wall. good problems and a variety of angles and styles. I'd recommend it.
T - Working in Poland - vodka.
W - Working in Poland - vodka.
T - Working in Poland - vodka. Flew back to UK
F - Good board session - 1 hr
S - Nowt, spent time with the family
S - quick 1.5 hr session at Wilton 4 with R-Man, TomTom, Tim and a few others, but I felt pretty shit, couldn't warm up and when I did I felt crap. The only positive being that I definitely feel stronger. Pretty demoralised, but should be fixed with a new psyche list. It was the first really cold session of the year, so cold weather tactics need improving!
Pretty disappointing wk really, not helped by being away for most of it. Only 4.5 hrs of climbing, nex wk should be better, but then away for another wk.

[Ti_pin_man]

It seems the last couple of months including fast twitch muscle fibre recruitment has begun to pay.  Back on a couple of F7a's and even one of my best, a plastic mid grade at my local wall, making it either a F7a / F7a+ or hey maybe a F7b.  I never get too hung up on the number as long as the underlying water level of grades moves upwards.  So I am happy. 

Now I have a minor lower back muscle pull to get over (I was picking up one of my toddler daughters out the bath, rock n roll), 5 days of rest/stretching and its getting there, should be good for the weekend, huzzah.

Onwards.

[Will Hunt]

Didn't do anything all week from Monday - Friday. Too much non-climbing extra-curricular to be done.

Felt some slight lower back pain throughout the week which I haven't had before.

Saturday: Went climbing at Whitehouses, then onto Brimham. Very cross that I've gone through two tips on my left hand, despite trying to be careful, and didn't come home with any significant ticks.

Sunday: Had every intention of doing some core stuff on the pull up bar but woke up with a very stiff lower left back. Perhaps aggravated by the roof climbing the day before? I have no idea where this has come from.

So overall - crap week climbing-wise.

[k2ted]

Stg - keep building up 4th week back after 2  1/2 years off... Weigh in tomorrow but look to have lost a pound or two. Hopefully 14stone 10lbs. Fingers feel ok so will start pushing it to 3 times a week soon.

Ltg - 7a sport & V6 (pigswill ideally by winter 2016)

Monday -  Boulderuk upto v4
Tues - run, 2 miles in 20 mins
Weds - rest
Thurs - boulderuk. Did problems upto V4 tried a few v5's, improving week in week but not there yet!
Fri - rest
Sat & sun rest family etc

[nik at work]

Forgive me father for I have sinned, it's been four(?) weeks since my last confession....

I'll not bore you with a day by day of the last four weeks.
Suffice it to say I went to Margalef and didn't climb 8c.
I then got ill and have barely climbed since returning home.
Crushing will start manyana, manyana...

Happy birthday Rodma

[rodma]

Thanks for all the happies.

I'm keen to climb a few things this coming year and thought it'd be age that might get in the way, but if anything the hard part appears to be that my immune system is worse than my son's :D

Roll on 50, hopefully he'll be past the worst of it by then

[JackAus]

STG: More V8s. Consistent sub 75kg.
MTG: V9.
LTG: V11. Fear Factory List. 7/10 done.

M: Rest.
T: St Leonards. Usual Tuesday. 15 new problems every week (piss easy to hard), try and do all of them. Did all bar the 2nd hardest. Did all the moves and was falling off the top just didn't have the gas to do it. No campussing/shoulder work.
W: Rest.
T: St Leonards. Tiny short session, boiling hot. Didn't do much.
F: Rest. 40+ degrees today... Fuck. That.
S: Frontline. Went to a sector off on its own with a handful of problems. Warmed up then flashed a V5 and then doing the right exit 2nd go (also V5). Had a quick play on Hollow Mountain Dreaming V7 but quickly moved on because I found it really unpleasant. So moved the next problem over for 7th Day Ascentist (soft as V9). Worked out all the moves but its quite slopey and tough on the skin and right shoulder, so couldn't quite get it. Will be back though. More importantly though, I did manage to do Diplomatic Immunity V4 which as a massive sandbag and its such a great technical little slopey seam. So so so good. Prob try it every time I go to Frontline........ Went 2nd go too. haha
S: The Villas. First time here, only climbed in the cave not at the cliffs, need more pads and spotter for some of those I think... Did the crag classic Burgers V5, tough little thing. Then jumped onto Savage V8. Burly thing. Eventually got all moves and managed it in 2 overlapping sections. Tough on the skin and very tiring. Can do this when fresher.

Crimpy finish to Savage.

[SA Chris]

Roll on 50

What about 45, you can start winning the veterans' comps?

[Nibile]

I thought Veterans' were just over 40.

[rodma]

Roll on 50

What about 45, you can start winning the veterans' comps?

Not if I keep getting ill.

45 for some comps nibs, I'm happy to remain a senior :D

[SA Chris]

I thought Veterans' were just over 40.

In Scotland they seem to have put it back to 45 again.

http://www.mcofs.org.uk/snbl.asp

Works for me, I don't have to lose out to whippersnappers like rodma