UKB Power Club week 279 15th to 21st June 2015

[nik at work]

STG - Trad projects, silly link up Batcave projects
MTG - 8c (and 8A)
LTG - 9a
BHAG - Bruderliebe

M - nothing
T - BM session, not bad but not amazing
W - BM session, much better
T - nothing
F - Evening in the Batcave doing housekeeping type bolting stuff, horrible conditions so no climbing.
S - Frustrating session at the Batcave, arrived just as the sun came round on to the crag to start de-clagging it, then cloud moved in. Tried some climbing but it was bolt to bolt wet sliding nonsense, the worst conditions I've climbed in there, awful. Managed to sort of piece together a sequence for a link up project but conditions meant no chance of actually climbing it. Then Doug had to go early so I did a bit more hanging around housekeeping stuff, and five minutes after he'd gone the conditions were minty, gahhh. Had a play on another link up, started bolting a new line and then headed home tired...
S - was going to have a BM session but instead got a motorbike. Mid life crisis in full effect yields a 125 rice pudding skin puller...

Frustrating sort of week but not awful, no real injuries and still getting a reasonable amount of activity in. All academic as surely a couple of days after my CBT i'll be in a full body cast but tiddley-pom.

 

[shurt]

STG: more 7b's if poss
MTG: finish Bullworker at Brean Down after falling off top move 3 times in December
LTG: E6, 8a route, surpass previous best of V7/7a+ bouldering

m: work
t: more work
w:even more work
t: rested as was tired from work
f: partners bday
s: can't remember
s: couple of sets on fingerboard, ran to shop for beer

pretty low key week. been very tired mainly due to three day flooring job working till late every night. knees hurt etc. not going to beat myself up about it. heading out climbing this Sunday so looking forwards to that. still surfing the good vibes from last week to be honest!!

 

[cha1n]

Thanks everyone for the comments regarding suitable 8a's. I'll definintely take the comments on board. Haven't managed to get a partner for tonight so might check out the boulder starts to rattle & hump (I've tried this before whilst a bit tired) and hot fun closing.

Alex, whilst you're helping everyone out with theory. You mention in your ebook that you cycle phases of endurance training but you mentioned that you continue strength training throughout all cycles. Does strength training not also need to be cycled to prevent injury? I'm curious because I've just started a Randall training plan and whilst we identified that I'm very weak for the grade, he's not given me any finger strength activities to do. Granted, he's aware that i'm recovering from a pulley niggle but if what you're saying is true then I see no reason why I couldn't be working my open-hand strength. Just curious of your opinion if you wouldn't mind, of course I can ask Tom too. Cheers.

 

[a dense loner]

If you have two masters you have to lie to one.

Zen shit that

 

[abarro81]

Alex, whilst you're helping everyone out with theory. You mention in your ebook that you cycle phases of endurance training but you mentioned that you continue strength training throughout all cycles. Does strength training not also need to be cycled to prevent injury? I'm curious because I've just started a Randall training plan and whilst we identified that I'm very weak for the grade, he's not given me any finger strength activities to do. Granted, he's aware that i'm recovering from a pulley niggle but if what you're saying is true then I see no reason why I couldn't be working my open-hand strength. Just curious of your opinion if you wouldn't mind, of course I can ask Tom too. Cheers.

Maybe that's why I spend so much time injured? :lol:
The only time I'm not doing some sort of strength training (bouldering/fingerboarding/whatever) is when I'm on a trip or resting from a trip. Bear in mind that strength is almost invariably the weak link in the chain for me; given that - from what I've read - you're basically a boulderer this is probably not the case for you. Forget about arbitrary strength tests and just think about outdoor stuff - are you better at short hard move things or fitness orientated things (PE/stam routes)? Given the style of 8a you're asking for I presume it's the former, hence why Tom will probably have you doing lots of stuff to level that out somewhat. If it's not the former, then sack off HFC and R&H and just go do crucifixion or something as it's likely to feel about 30 grades easier than the short ones if you're an enduro climber.

Anyway, Tom will no doubt have his reasons for what he's given you, whether it's what I would get you to do or not is another matter; I suspect that if Tom and I both made plans for me to do then mine would err more towards strength work and away from energy systems work compared to what he'd write for me. Just because we agree on a lot of training stuff doesn't mean we'd agree on everything... [Not that I've got him to write me a plan, so I may be presuming wrongly there]

 

[Three Nine]

Chain - if you're paying a coach then just trust them and get on with what they've told you to do. If you start doing a Simon Lee you're wasting your money.

 

[abarro81]

:agree: If you don't like something about the plan then probably better to ask Tom why it's like that than to ask me, then he can either set your mind at ease or you can negotiate a change in the plan or something.

 

[french erick]

STG- O/S F7a, O/S Brit6a
MTG- become a real E4 climber anywhere any rock
LTG- Astroman and Romantic warrior

Not posted for ages.
Continuing to try to become someone that trains, let alone train well.
Despite work really stopping any form of climbing I have O/S my first E4 6a pitch! P4 of Voyage of the Beagle on Creag an dubh loch and I'm :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

 

[cha1n]

Thanks for the reply Alex.

I've been climbing 5.5 years and all my indoor climbing has been bouldering (with the odd bit of PE on the circuit board during route season) and I've route climbed on short vert/slightly off vert limestone for routes (Cheddar gorge, ban-y-gor) during the summer except last year where I skipped routes, hence my endurance is "bad for a boudlerer". I have no idea if I'm naturally good at shorter routes or if that's what I prefer as that's what I've always done. I'm definitely not strong in my fingers. I somehow find bouldering up to 7C ok but I don't know how I put it out of the bag, technique or something?! Tom said my shoulders are strong and I've climbed a lot of compression/sloper problems I suppose.

In all sports I've done over the years I've always been more into more short/powerful roles than endurance (100m sprint, long jump, high jump, striker in football, etc). I used to play football on wing initially (fast runner) and I'd have no endurance until the end of the season!

I'm up for training other energy systems though, perhaps I'll be ok at endurance stuff but I have a goal of climbing 8a before my 30th (mid-August) and I'm just trying to pick one that I'll realistically be able to climb by then, I haven't really got much time to get my endurance on par. Tom's trying to sort that out but looking at the plan I'm not going to be in shape until the start of August and that doesn't give me long to try and RP a more endurancy 8a

 

[cha1n]

Chain - if you're paying a coach then just trust them and get on with what they've told you to do. If you start doing a Simon Lee you're wasting your money.

Shark has paid for a coach and then not followed the plan?

I'm definitely following the plan at the moment, i'm just not very good at following orders without knowing the reason why. I might get in touch with Tom and ask for a summary of what the plan is doing just to put my mind at ease. I think with a history of pulley injuries, he's trying to get me doing high volume of lower intensity stuff I suspect.

 

[Three Nine]

If you find 7C ok then your fingers are more than strong enough to climb 8as.

 

[AlistairB]

I'm curious because I've just started a Randall training plan and whilst we identified that I'm very weak for the grade, he's not given me any finger strength activities to do.

If you have anaerobic stuff bear in mind you'll probably get pretty good strength gains for that too, particularly if you've not done much of that kind of thing before. In my first year with Tom I had loads of anaerobic work with fairly minimal fingerboarding and went from 1 sieged 7B+ to having done 7 7Cs plus plenty of 7B/+ including a couple of 7Cs in a session (on grit though!) within a year.

Regarding the 8a thing, unless you're super-strong you are a lot more likely to succeed by focusing on a longer one. There's basically three flavours of route in the peak, short power tests (e.g. Tor RHS), medium power endurance tests (cornices) or a limited number of aerobic stamina routes (Prow etc.). I often fail to do the moves anywhere near my RP grade in cat. 1 despite getting on fine with the other 2 types. I'm not even a plodder! If you're training with Tom you'll be training energy systems pretty hard anyway so a PE or enduro route will be a good way to see your progression.

One last possible 8a that doesn't fit into any of my nice categories, The Spider. Long but with a very distinct bouldery crux. I've not been on it but a mate did it in a session this year having only really bouldered all winter and said it all came down to the crux rather than stamina. Take this with a pinch of salt but it may be an option and is generally dry.

 

[cha1n]

If you find 7C ok then your fingers are more than strong enough to climb 8as.

That's the weird thing though, my fingers are really weak. I don't know how I get up hard boulders, I've climbed lots since I've started, so technique is decent but that's about it. I find it easy to try hard too, just refuse to give up type of thing.

If you have anaerobic stuff bear in mind you'll probably get pretty good strength gains for that too, particularly if you've not done much of that kind of thing before. In my first year with Tom I had loads of anaerobic work with fairly minimal fingerboarding and went from 1 sieged 7B+ to having done 7 7Cs plus plenty of 7B/+ including a couple of 7Cs in a session (on grit though!) within a year.

Thanks for the reply Alister, it's good to get some good feedback regarding Tom's training as I've heard one story of it not working recently and someone else not sounding overly positive.

There's not an awful lot of anaerobic stuff in my 12 week plan, only 3 weeks of it prior to my birthday and only 1 training unit per week. Lots of AeroCap and AeroPow though.

I've sent Tom and email with lots of questions though, so hopefully he can clear things up. I'm struggling a bit at the moment as I'm used to trying hard all the time and at the moment most of the week is high volume but mid-low intensity. Don't get me wrong, I'm knackered after a week of training but I'm not doing much climbing, lots of dangling from fingers with stop watches!

 

[Simon Lee]

Chain - if you're paying a coach then just trust them and get on with what they've told you to do. If you start doing a Simon Lee you're wasting your money.

Shark has paid for a coach and then not followed the plan?

:shrug:

Tom Randall did set me a plan which I followed a few winters ago but it didn't yield the results I was after.

 

[abarro81]

Do you do hard fingery boulders or just grit thugging? I could do a number of grit 7Cs when I could barely climb 7A+ at places like Rubicon. The latter is what's relevant when it comes to sport climbing.

it's good to get some good feedback regarding Tom's training as I've heard one story of it not working recently and someone else not sounding overly positive.

Without Tom's knowledge & advice I wouldn't have climbed Era Vella. How's that for feedback I'm intrigued now - who said it "didn't work" and how long did they work with him for? Finding out what works for you isn't an overnight thing, it's a never ending process, whether it's you experimenting on and analysing yourself, or a coach doing it on/for you.

If you're dangling and not climbing I suspect that that's to get your finger fixed, though again I'm reverse engineering logic from a position of having about 2% of the info.

Tom Randall did set me a plan which I followed a few winters ago but it didn't yield the results I was after.

Just out of interest, would you say that you followed the plan that we made up over this winter?

 

[a dense loner]

Fuck me I'm glad I'm not tom, within 5 posts that kind of talk could cost someone their chosen career! If you're unhappy with what you're getting, yet have no idea why you're getting it, you'd do well to speak to your coach first without spraying nonsense all over the net.
And ffs stop saying the problems you're doing at the works are 7b and 7b+ when they're about 6c maybe + and 7a respectively, I've done them in trainers, no I haven't Brian. This may be where you're going wrong grade wise.

 

[Simon Lee]

Tom Randall did set me a plan which I followed a few winters ago but it didn't yield the results I was after.

Just out of interest, would you say that you followed the plan that we made up over this winter?

You know the answer to that

I did follow Tom's programme closely. I didn't peak when I was meant to and although I climbed well on long routes at the Tor later in the year I didn't get the early season strength gains I needed for the Oak which was the goal.

 

[AlistairB]

Yeah, for me I think being coached by Tom has worked out really well. Summer of 2013 before starting training with Tom I was trying Powerplant. Probably had about 7 sessions, got very close but always feeling super powered out and basically like it was the living end. Went back as soon as it was dry in 2014 after about 8 months of following Tom's plan, put the clips in, it felt steady and then just redpointed it first go without ever feeling like I was going to fall off. Went on to tick more or less everything I wanted to that summer and often quicker than I'd expected. Seemed to have continued on a more or less linear upwards trajectory since, nothing ground-shattering but then I'm a distinctly average climber. Oh also I can finally recover on jugs on properly steep stuff now, makes you feel like a real sport climber when you go to Europe!

I would say this though, be very careful with your total load. I assume you're on 3 weeks on 1 week off like I am. Generally week 1 feels pretty piss and there's often the temptation to try and sneak more volume in (cheeky extra bouldering pre-training at the wall etc.) This is the path to ruin. I will always find by week 3 I'm feeling pretty beat up without doing any extra stuff (this years base over winter/spring was 4 training sessions, 1 climbing) and really need the rest. The point is that the training load has to be sustainable, as opposed to what most of us do in our earlier self-coached years whereby we thrash ourselves and then end up in a massive over-training hole of poor recovery and performance.

A bit of discipline goes a long way and make sure that your training to climbing ratio is enough to actually keep you happy (no good being fit but unmotivated), for this reason we cut my training to 2/3 sessions over the summer each year so I can actually put the training into practice!

 

[abarro81]

You know the answer to that

Just wanted to check we were on the same wavelength.
I think I usually manage to peak right for about 75% of my trips. I then have slightly inexplicable peaks and dips around other times too - you can try to get your body to do what you want, but it doesn't always obey.

 

[cha1n]

I don't think the fingerboarding is because of my finger, I assume it's his preferred method to train AeroCap. My finger has been a bit tweaky lately but it's not that bad. One of the A2 injuries is 5 months old and the other A2 was a bit tweaky whilst I was compensating for the other A2 but has been fine for 3 weeks now.

My 7C's are a mixture I suppose, some crimpy stuff on granite (magic wood, la pedriza, Ailefroide), some slopey stuff (Font, Targasonne). I've only done one peak 7C actually and I've technically not done it because I didn't top out (brass monkeys).

I've not tried much peak lime yet but have done zippy's trav at crag x, a bigger tail, a bigger splash direct, would have done the press if it wasn't for splitting a tip (fell off 3 times trying to match the jug), weedkiller trav, some of the other low 7's at tor. I definitely feel closer to my limit on fingery limestone than I do on other rocktypes when I can abuse my arm/shoulder strength more.

Gareth (peak info) apparently didn't get the results he would have liked from his plan, Andy Morris without saying the words didn't seem too positive about how his training went but appreciate he's had finger issues. I'm not judging Tom on that though, there's also lots of high profile cases (like yourself) where he's done a great job. I'm just trying to make sure that if i'm sacrificing all this time and effort (and not climbing) that I'm on the right path as I'm very aware that my fingers are extremely weak for the grade and when I've read some of your stuff (Alex) and seen the volume of finger strength work you've been doing along-side the endurance stuff, I want to make sure that I shouldn't be doing the same sort of thing.