UKC

Neil Gresham reflects on training throughout lockdown and what the climbing community learnt from embracing new training ideas.

Great write up Neil! With your help through lockdown I carried on training. Post lockdown, a couple of weeks ago, I redpointed the hardest graded route I've ever done!! Structured training obviously pays dividends, whatever grade you climb, or however old you are   

This was the big eye opener for me, thanks to lockdown. I'd always read that at my middle grade actual climbing/bouldering was more important for improvement than hangboarding and other excercises, since it involves, in addition to pure strength, the whole range of necessary skills - footwork, body positioning, route reading and tactics etc. Not having any other options when lockdown started, I designed and made my own hangboard (great fun in itself), read and watched a load on the Internet (including Neil Gresham - thanks Neil!) and started structured training, I was really concerned about overdoing it (I'm 61) and had to force myself to get through the rest days, also taking it much easier every 4th week. After three months I got back on the rock, and bingo! Finger strength, arm strength and core are all way better, and the result was that I got my coveted onsight of what had been my main project for this year. So I'm continuing to train in between the climbing sessions, and looking for a big project for the Autumn ... 

Hmmm, what I learned from lockdown is that doing no training or climbing at all for 10 weeks (preceded by several months of hardly going to the wall due to focusing on winter Alpine climbing and skiing), followed by another two months of the walls being closed, has made very little difference to my climbing level, at least as far as sport and headpoint trad is concerned.

I've been able to onsight / redpoint at the same level in sport. I've never tried headpointing trad before the lockdown. Being (or thinking I was) a bit rusty, I gave it a go at Nesscliffe, with some good results. To be fair, I've not really done any trad at my top grade since the lockdown - partly due to circumstances / weather and partly due to being a bit reticent (so there's been a psychological effect perhaps). The stamina is still there. The strength / power endurance isn't as good perhaps but I don't need much of that at my climbing level. The bigger issue is that I feel pretty knackered after trying hard on a sport route, so it's hard to do two redpoints in a day. Then again, I've always struggled with that.

However I'm an E5 / low 7s punter who never really trains properly and has a lot of climbing stamina in the bank. I imagine a top level climber like Neil would lose a lot from not doing anything for 10 weeks.