[Wellsy]

Ave Ceasar

Heavy training week for me this week

Monday - Big board session, shallow and steep. Felt strong and powerful, nice big moves. Bench afterwards, sets building up to 75kgs for 5, OHP sets building to 42.5kgs for 5.

Tuesday - went to look at Nazgul 7B again. Session goal was do one more move, which I did, before promptly discarding it as the wrong beta anyway. Still not done the crux move but least I've now decided how I'm going to do it.

Wednesday - Very light session of climbing, essentially an attempt to slowly get comfortable psychologically post knee injury. Deadlifted afterwards, did up to 135kgs but let's pretend I stopped at 130kgs as that's where my form remained passable, at 135 it was... well. Rounded back to say the least.

Edit: oh and 4 sets of 5 weighted pullups with 25kgs added, interspersed with three sets of 8 V-pullups. Whatever.

Thursday - rest day. Rubbish.

Friday - Bicepy focused work, 20kg 3 x 5 curls and hammer curls. Short board session focusing on pinches, fingerboarding up to 35kgs on the 20mm edge. Did 10 seconds three times then 8, 8 and 7. I feel like my fingers are sort of a bit static at the moment, not really getting stronger? Maybe even a little weaker? But I shall stick to my plan.

Saturday - rest, went for a walk up a big hill in Hope, ate a pie afterwards, was great

Sunday - board session, felt good and strong, fingers were solid, went on the steep and shallow ones at the works. Afterwards benched (a bit of a fuck around really) and squatted for kneehab, did 90kgs for 1 (awful) and 70kgs 5 x 5, also awful.

Basically not much climbing but lots of training. I still don't really like climbing indoors on circuits much as they make me feel so vulnerable, but I'm slowly getting better I guess. Boards just feel so much better is all, and more focused on improving my strength. Not like indoor plastic circuit climbing makes you any fucking better at gritstone faffing or limestone crimp yarding anyway so I dunno why I fucking bother

[Wellsy]

Maybe what I should do is every week have a dedicated session where I only do indoor circuits so I can gently get more used to it. It's so weird I feel way more secure on a lot of rock than I do on those slippy plastic footholds! I think the positions are more vulnerable too? At the works especially.

[Duma]

Saturday - rest, went for a walk up a big hill in Hope, ate a pie afterwards, was great

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Mega week Wellsy, nice one.

[Aussiegav]

Nice to see the intensity ramping up for you Wellsy.

Rehab Club

Monday -
Rehab sessions continue daily from last week for knee & finger.


Tuesday

One week post op. Knee is coming on well. Doing knee rehab exercises twice a day. Finger rehab 5 times a day.

Back to the School today for conditioning.

Australian Pull Ups on n the rings
3×8

Bench Press
1set of 8 (50kg)
3sets of 8(60kg)

Pull ups
6 body weight
Pyramids pull ups. BW plus 8kg 3min rest. 6,4,2,1,2,4,6.
these felt tough today. Finger felt a bit tender doing pull ups today, however it was not taped up.


Wednesday -
Finger feeling ready for density hangs.
3x 45s hangs in half crimp.
3x 45s hangs in open hand.
4min rests between hangs.
Body weight less 27.5kg.

Left side feels weak 

Thursday -
Day two of density hangs. Following a 2on 1 off schedule. Same as yesterday.

3x 45s hangs in half crimp.
3x 45s hangs in open hand.
4min rests between hangs.
Body weight less 27.5kg.

Knee rehab twice a day. Moved on to next level of rehab exercises.

Friday -
rehab for knee, two sessions per day.
Rest day for fingers.

Saturday -
Dawn session at the School

hanging from various holds with feet on the ground

Feet on Campus board pulls 2-5- match ,4 each side. Finger felt fine after the first initial pull.

Feet on Campusing
10x 1min on 1min off
Was hard for the last 3 sets.

Conditioning
Australian pull up 3×8

Bench Press
1×8 (50kg)
2×8 bar (60kg)
1×8 bar (70kg) increase to this weight next session for the 3 sets.

Overhead Press
1×8 20kg
3×8 30kg

Pull-up 4min rests
3×8 BW Very hard!!!

Knee Rehab to finish



Sunday.
Following the 2days on, 1day off schedule. Feet on Campusing yesterday, density hangs today.
Warmed up with the farmer crimp rehab, 12kg with left hand, 20kg with the right. Then did 17kg with left again before moving on to Density Hangs
3x 45s hangs in half crimp.
3x 45s hangs in open hand.
4min rests between hangs.
Body weight less 27.5kg. These felt quite max effort for my left hand. The last open hand hangs I went for 30kg assistance. Fingers didn’t feel strong on the left side today.

Did 20min cryotherapy on my left hand after. Water & ice in a bucket. First 5mins was so painful.


Will return to very easy climbing next week. See how the finger & knee go. I feel the finger is giving me more concern than the knee as it currently stands. (No pun intended)

[Duma]

What's an Australian pull up Gav? Impressive rehab dedication, well done.

M - Knee rehab. 2 min plank with variations and press ups. 1 hr TCA bouldering, blues (7A-7C). Managed a couple but mostly just a few tries on things. 12 hr night shift.
T - knee rehab. 2 min plank with variations and press ups. 12 hr night shift.
W - knee rehab. 2 min plank with variations and press ups. 12 hr night shift.
T - 2 min plank with variations and press ups. 12 hr night shift.
F - sleep off nights. Drive to Cornwall in eve.
S - am work on boat, pm beach
S - am work on boat, pm drive home. 2 min plank with variations and press ups. Knee rehab.

72 kg (ish - not weighed in for a couple of days)
2022 plank total 165 min

Fuck all climbing this week, but nights and seeing my folks took precedence, so ok with it.

[Aussiegav]

Also referred to as body weight row.
I put my feet on the bench, or bend my knees to 90degrees so the body is horizontal

[Aussiegav]

Also referred to as body weight row.
I put my feet on the bench, or bend my knees to 90degrees so the body is horizontal

[Wellsy]

Thanks guys, I'm really enjoying the hard training at the moment and on a roll with it, so just going to focus with that all June and see where I land!

[Aussiegav]

.

[James Malloch]

M. Having left Ceuse we went to Briancon for a few days. Met up with an old friend for coffee and ended up climbing at their local Crag - Rocher de l’ombre. Such close bolting compared to Ceuse! Did a 6b+ and 7a onsight. Then tried a 7b+ which my friend had draws in. Think if I had the energy for a redpoint it would have gone as I missed lots of holds on the face when on sighting (it climbed a crack). Very powerful though.

T. Walked up to an alpine lake and got a free fish foot spa thing from all the trout/char fry. About 8 miles of walking and 700m ascent. Felt so easy compared to Ceuse - no packs makes a passive difference!

W. Woke up and realised we were at the parking for another crag. La Rocher qui repond. Some folk bolting/cleaning so we went to an area where rocks weren’t flying. Did a nice 6b+ and fucked up the onsight of a 7a. Was looking for footholds and couldn’t find any to exit the crux. Turns out there were loads cemented on, but in places you wouldn’t expect given the features of the rock. Hence I just didn’t spot them! Green paint all over loads of holds too so I think it was maybe used for competition climbing at some point. Wasn’t worth a redpoint so we left and drove to Turin (Tourino). We gorged on lots of amazing food - moving from place to place on a mini tapas crawl.

T. Went into Torino centre and gorged on lots more food. Drove most of the way to Daone and slept by a beautiful lake after eating some mediocre pizza.

F. Morning swim and stock up on food and then onto Daone. Climbed at sector Dos Dei Aser. Didn’t do much. Some 5’s, 6A and 6B but got shut down on some 7A’s. Sport climbing has sapped my strength/power!

S. Climbing at La Plana sector. Really cool and would be awesome with kids (it’s been made into a Boulder park with flattened landings, easy bolted stuff on some boulders etc.). Did a bunch of great crimpy 5’s to warm up and then a bunch of stuff in the 6B-7A range.

Took 25 ticks off the dog. Becoming an expert!

S. La Plana again. Did a fingerboard warm up today as was feeling tired so wanted to be properly warm. Then did a bunch of stuff in the 6A to 6C+ range. All really nice boulders. Met a nice Catalan/German guy who we will hopefully see in Berlin (he works at a Boulder wall there). 3 days on didn’t agree with my wrist so we’re going to amble to the Frankenjura over the next 2-3 days. Maybe visit Arco and Brixen on the way.



Would be interested to hear what people do on longer trips for keeping strength up. I’m thinking that maybe a session of my max hangs (well 85%) ones a week might be beneficial. Perhaps at the end of a sport climbing day when I’m already warmed but had a bit of a rest walking back to the van. I’ve really felt a lot weaker than 7 weeks ago having done a lot of onsight sport climbing. Can still get up things but climbing is sloppier.

[spidermonkey09]

Would be interested to hear what people do on longer trips for keeping strength up. I’m thinking that maybe a session of my max hangs (well 85%) ones a week might be beneficial. Perhaps at the end of a sport climbing day when I’m already warmed but had a bit of a rest walking back to the van. I’ve really felt a lot weaker than 7 weeks ago having done a lot of onsight sport climbing. Can still get up things but climbing is sloppier.

Doesn't directly answer your question but I think you'd be swimming against the tide trying to stay both boulder strong and route fit out of a van over a long trip. Its hard enough with access to a wall; I personally find it nigh on impossible. If it were me I just wouldn't bother going bouldering and accept youre going to get incredibly fit but also a bit weaker  That said a bit of fingerboarding probabably wouldn't go amiss so you retain the ability to pull hard when needed.

[James Malloch]

Would be interested to hear what people do on longer trips for keeping strength up. I’m thinking that maybe a session of my max hangs (well 85%) ones a week might be beneficial. Perhaps at the end of a sport climbing day when I’m already warmed but had a bit of a rest walking back to the van. I’ve really felt a lot weaker than 7 weeks ago having done a lot of onsight sport climbing. Can still get up things but climbing is sloppier.

Doesn't directly answer your question but I think you'd be swimming against the tide trying to stay both boulder strong and route fit out of a van over a long trip. Its hard enough with access to a wall; I personally find it nigh on impossible. If it were me I just wouldn't bother going bouldering and accept youre going to get incredibly fit but also a bit weaker  That said a bit of fingerboarding probabably wouldn't go amiss so you retain the ability to pull hard when needed.

Yeah I definitely don’t think I’ll keep full strength up. More just wondering if something like 1-2 sessions of max hangs would do anything to have some kind of maintenance. Or if it’s just a losing battle 

[jwi]

Fingerboarding after a climbing day before a rest day can help. Also, try routes that are way too hard for you once a week or at least every ten days. If your max RP level is 8a or whatever, why not try an 8b or an 8c? They have parts that are at least as hard as you max bouldering grade.

[Duncan Disorderly]

Cold club...

Was wondering why I couldn't be arsed last week then the snot came....

M-F: Nowt
S: Snotted and coughed over some routes up to F6b @ Horseshit with Jus and our girls....
S: Snot

Shit week. On a positive note though, I found a few sheckles behind the sofa so decided to try Lettuce's 12 week plan to get me some structure and psyche for Kaly in later Sept/Oct... Will do the assessment this week once the snot subsides and see what gives.

[tommytwotone]

Goal: full complement of functioning limbs


Actually did some stuff!


M: Work "wellness day" off - took myself to LSD.

Did some fingerboarding (deadhangs 5 sec on/off, 3 sets), BM2000 top big slots, then same again on BM1000 bottom small slots. Had a potter round the V0 / V1 stuff being VERY careful of knee, so terminating anything that twinged it, and reversing all the way back down.

T: Nowt

W: Got to new local municipal gym (very swish) on lunch. Upper body weights session, just really finding where to set baseline of weights for various exercises. Also weighed myself and immediately wished I hadn't!

Appointment with knee specialist after work - he reckoned I've got a meniscus tear, and booked me in for MRI to confirm / assess scale of damage.

T: Nowt
F: LSD after work for the Jamcrack thing. As Monday - did deadhang session and some easy-grade pottering.
S: Post Jamcrack Night recovery, but went off to the gym for an hour or so in the afternoon, same upper body weights stuff
S: Nowt. Drove over to Preston to look at a car that I couldn't afford, and in any case turned out to be a bit of a nail!

Nice to be back doing stuff, and to feel like at least I'm on a road to knowing what the knee problem is, and getting it fixed.

[mr chaz]

What's an Australian pull up Gav?

A squat

Power Club.

Not the best week, fitted in one midweek evening board session on Wednesday with very little else. Was a bit low on motivation, probably owing to uncertainty as to next real climbing opportunity, but pressed on without much warmup and did some decent pulling. Ended on a couple of sets of pullups.

I'm headed to the Lakes at the end of June with the family and will be taking a pad. Fisherground is down the road from our campsite, never been but it sounds like it would be a decent spot with partner and a baby?

[duncan]

M - Rest day.
T - Céüse, Demi Lune. Just under an hour on the walk-in! Warmed-up on Petit Monstre and Tête d'Ampoule. Moved over to Un pont sur l'infini in search of a suitable 7a. The eponymous route has an awkward fall as previously demonstrated by one of the team, La Reine des Pommes is 6c+ in the current guide, so La Galère it was. Managed to sketch through the start then worked up the upper slab on the hard-to-spot footholds. Very satisfying to onsight this on my birthday.
W - Natilik. I’d wanted to do this trad. route on previous visits and this time persuaded Wil to add a couple of cams to his luggage to augment my light rack. Martin joined us to make three. It’s got two pitches of wide cracks (5c, 6b+ - perhaps generous) and one of face (6a) before the belly crawl roof. Our old guide gave this 5c+ which is very harsh given the pulling needed to reach the belay, 6b in the current edition is more realistic. A 5c runnel to finish caps a splendid adventure. Jogged down as it was getting dark.
T - Battered, rest.
F - Céüse. Warmed up on L'esbroum and the huge jugs of Les Fils de Gauche. Had a half-hearted attempt at 100% Collègue which looks excellent and a good onsight candidate.  Put slightly more effort into Un Éléphant ça Trompe Énormément but I was still feeling a bit battered and think I had mentally checked-out by this point.
S - Travel to Edinburgh. Family reunion.
S - More family stuff which somehow involved walking 12km.

Excellent two weeks in Céüse. Great company and the gite was an ideal base. Not the projecting trip I originally envisaged but very happy with what I did considering where I was a month ago. I’ve collected a couple of new tweaks and I’m still running out of puff much too easily if I do anything strenuous. Planning a trad. day with Wil tomorrow (weather seems to be ruling out anything very ambitious) then I’ll have a couple of easy weeks to let the tweaks settle. Have a GP appointment on Thursday to start to find out what’s up with my breathing.

Onwards and outwards!

[spidermonkey09]

Fisherground is good but your skin will be in ribbons if the sun is out. Strongly recommend an early start. Lovely spot though. Some of the 4s and 5s are quite high and felt spooky to me as a warm up when I wasn't used to the rock.

Duncan - how light a rack can I get away with for Natilik? Good effort making the most of the trip!

[Duma]

W - Natilik. I’d wanted to do this trad. route on previous visits and this time persuaded Wil to add a couple of cams to his luggage to augment my light rack. Martin joined us to make three. It’s got two pitches of wide cracks (5c, 6b+ - perhaps generous) and one of face (6a) before the belly crawl roof. Our old guide gave this 5c+ which is very harsh given the pulling needed to reach the belay, 6b in the current edition is more realistic. A 5c runnel to finish caps a splendid adventure. Jogged down as it was getting dark.

Nice one, this is on the life list

[duncan]

Duncan - how light a rack can I get away with for Natilik? Good effort making the most of the trip!

Thanks!

Depends how comfortable you are with wide cracks. We took 6 cams (small grey to big blue DMM/BD equivalents) and 6 wallnuts (2-7). Our confident E3/4 leader thought this was adequate but there was a certain amount of bumping up the larger cams on the third pitch. Doubles in gold and blue and/or some bigger nuts would be comforting.

[Nibile]

Power Club

Mon - bar work, core rotations.
Tue - garage session 3. New training 1RM for clean and for press.
Wed - half TBDL 5x8 100 kg. Better than with bar, more focused on lats and upper back. Lattice edge 85% in between sets.
Thu - boxing bag speed EMOM sets.
Fri - rest.
Sat - TBDL static holds, overhead static holds, hill sprint, all x7.
Sun - wheel, high pulls, overhead carry.

[Bradders]

Fingerboarding after a climbing day before a rest day can help. Also, try routes that are way too hard for you once a week or at least every ten days. If your max RP level is 8a or whatever, why not try an 8b or an 8c? They have parts that are at least as hard as you max bouldering grade.

Yeah, was going to say this as it's basically bouldering on a rope.

If you're going to do max hangs, do them as a part of your warm up before climbing, definitely not after and especially not after lots of onsighting. Could maybe get away with them after the above hard projecting session but still better to do before.

[Aussiegav]

Duncan - how light a rack can I get away with for Natilik? Good effort making the most of the trip!

This info is on UKC. (Posted this month)

Suggested rack: 1 set of nuts, 10 quickdraws including extendables, camelots 0.4 to 3, having an extra 2 and 3 wouldn't go amiss on pitch 2. A 4 isn't necessary, but you'd find placements if you took it. All belays bolted, some loose rock.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/ceuse-2054/natilik-498609

[User deactivated.]

Fingerboarding after a climbing day before a rest day can help. Also, try routes that are way too hard for you once a week or at least every ten days. If your max RP level is 8a or whatever, why not try an 8b or an 8c? They have parts that are at least as hard as you max bouldering grade.

Yeah, was going to say this as it's basically bouldering on a rope.

If you're going to do max hangs, do them as a part of your warm up before climbing, definitely not after and especially not after lots of onsighting. Could maybe get away with them after the above hard projecting session but still better to do before.

I recently saw something from Tyler Nelson (C4HP) on Instagram where he explained that high velocity training under lighter loads was better than max hangs for maintaining performance through a 'peak phase'. Think fast power pullups on an edge. I don't remember all the details but it might be worth digging through his recent posts. I'd assume it maintains power without being as fatiguing.

[JohnM]

Somehow I have missed 3 weeks of Power Club....

23 May - 29 May

M - Indoor bouldering. Trail running 18km +803m.

T - Trail running 12km +1327m.

W - Indoor bouldering.

T - Trail run 7.52km +252m. Climbing on the big boulders of Ewige Jaggrunde. Very cruxy routes but fun bouldery moves. 6b, 7a+, 7b and 7b+.

F - Indoor bouldering. Hike 4.84km +143m.

S - Stuiben trail marathon 44.9km +3051m. Didn't flow as well as I would have like but still pleased with my performance over all. 14th place.

S - Trail run 23.48km +1639m - trying to get used to multiple hard days in the hills again in advance of the Dragon's Back in September.

30 May - 5 June

M - Indoor bouldering.

T - rest

W - Trail run 7.14km +262m. Climbing at Goetterwandl. Tried an 8a+ that is very easy for the grade but somehow I always mess it up. This time was no different. Pretty low on confidence with climbing at the moment.

T - Trail run 13.38km +574m.

F - Driving back to the UK.

S - Fly fishing behind Skiddaw.

S - Felling running around Ennerdale 30km +1800m.

6 June - 12 June

M - A 24 hour stable weather window presented itself and I decided to make an attempt of the Bob Graham Round starting that day at 11pm. It was a tough decision as I didn't feel physically ready and I had already done a fairly big day in the hills the day before.

T - Leg 1 went to plan although I didn't manage to shave any time off the slow 23 hour schedule. Leg 2 was tough as I think my body was struggling to eat/digest though out my normal sleeping hours and I felt a bit sluggish and slow on what is the most runnable leg. I did manage to shave off 25 minutes from the 23 hour schedule though. Leg 3 to Wasdale is a beast and just breaks you down. It is hard to maintain any sort of pace over extremely rocky and technical ground. I lost the 25 minutes I had gained and probably 15 minutes more. I set off hard on leg 4 trying to make some time back. This was going well for the first 3 peaks and then I bonked hard and was swaying everywhere like a drunk. It seemed like it was all over for this attempt as time was slipping away and I was getting slower than normal hiking pace. Eventually, I had a stern word with myself and realised based on the weather, and the fact I couldn't indulge in a full 24 hours to myself (not including all the other prep) every summer holiday, that this attempt had to be it and I had to at least try to finish in under 24 hours. It is amazing what the body can do and once I had managed to hold a couple of gels down and I was moving fast again and arrived at the final road crossing with 4 and a quarter hours to spare to do a 3 hour leg. This took the pressure off the last leg back to Keswick and I just had to keep moving and not get injured. My girlfriend joined me and basically dragged me back to Keswick to finish in just over 23 hours. Really happy to finish the Bob Graham which is something I first conceived about 5 years ago when I started doing a bit of trail running in the Black Forest in Germany. Lots of it felt terrible at the time but already I only remember an epic day out in the fells! 107km +8,460m (you can do it in less than that but I guess some of my lines were not the best!).   

W - A bit of hiking.

T - Fishing.

F - Mountain biking 23.23km +633m.

S - Fly fishing.

S - Fishing.