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Sidehaas said:
Hi guys, bit of an extension to this topic.
I've just built my first woodie and been climbing on it for a couple of weeks. It's 45 degrees, just under 3 panels long with a mixture of HWH and Crusher holds. Some of the feet are ok and some are the wooden domes. It's mostly very core and shoulder intensive, at least for me.

In the past when going through periods of home training I've always combined fingerboarding with TRX work and some other core stuff. Now though, I've stopped doing any TRX or core work because I don't want either shoulders or core to be tired before climbing on the board. However I'm not sure if there are aspects of those I should keep training alongside board climbing. Does anyone have an opinion on this?

Couple of thoughts:
- I used to do a lot of TRX work alongside board sessions. The perceived knowledge in terms of a hierarchy (as others have said) is something like max hangs > board > TRX > repeaters/anaerobic hangs > core > stretching and I basically stuck to this religiously, however I often found TRX sessions would have an effect on board sessions even a couple of days later.
- However in the last year and a bit I cut out the TRX and did more on the board, and have gotten noticeably better on the board as a result. I'm not sure whether I'm actually stronger/better or just more recovered and able to put in higher quality efforts but it's made a difference. Pretty sure it's helped with real climbing too :-\
- If you really want to include TRX, do it immediately after a short board session, before your core is fatigued. The principle still applies that strength work should be done when fresh.
- All that said, I've never really done any core (until recently) apart from on the TRX and it shows; can't keep my feet on when others can, can't do a front lever to save my life, etc. It's probably advisable not to neglect it like I have. I excused myself by reasoning that I do a lot of steep climbing anyway, so my core is probably okay, but it could always be better.


And some general musings:
- My personal idea of an ideal board set up is one that gives you lots of options. If you're finding it particularly hard work on your shoulders and core, then I would guess that you're mainly using fairly good holds with poor feet, and making it hard via big moves?
- Ideally have completely uniform footholds, i.e. you can't just sit on one really good one to do a problem, whilst ignoring all the shit ones. I have three different foot options on mine; decent flat edges, small incut edges and feet follow hands, and am adding slippery domes this week. Problems climb very differently by changing the feet, especially feet follow hands.
- Get a big variety of holds. Board climbing will always be it's own style but you can at least get a good variety of grips. Doing so will also vary how shoulder/core/finger intensive your problems are.
- Another way of mixing it up (and targeting the core on the board) is to use ankle weights. Definitely ups the ante.
- Contrary to all the above, if you've only had the board two weeks and presumably weren't climbing before that during lockdown then you might just be re-adapting to doing some climbing movement. Maybe give it a couple more weeks before adding anything in terms of either exercise or equipment.
 
I don`t have TRXs but have gym rings which I imagine are similar. It probably depends how intense what you are doing on them gets. I mainly use therabands and the rings for external rotator and push type exercises. I often do a light session of this before board session as part of warm up to get going (eg. several external rotator theraband exercises with some push ups and dips on the rings). I only really try a more intense session with the rings if my fingers are in need of a rest and I don`t plan a board session or I might do it after a board session if I planned to rest the following day. As others say I would prioritise board session - giving circumstances there will definitely be days where your fingers/ skin need a break and you can use the TRX.
 
Will Hunt said:
For those of us without TRXs, can we just do push ups?

I made my 'TRX' using an old piece of abseil rope and made handles using plastic bottles wrapped in climbing tape. Bowlines to adjust the height.

It's why I was asking about cutting rope in the DIY tread.

Does the job for now.
 

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