UKC

A new thread is posted each week on Sunday for anyone to jot down their previous week's activity. UKC fit club is a rich community with posters sharing their goals, noting successes and failures and offering support to those struggling to maintain motivation. Anyone interested in starting is very welcome to join, but to get the most of UKC fit club you should aim to post each week, every week, however little or much you have done. By making such a regular public record of your activities and by restating your goals every week this new habit will hopefully improve your training habits and drive you towards achieving your goals whatever the level of your chosen activity.

Hi All, I don’t know about other parts of the country but its been condensation central over here in the Peak.  Typically, conditions look good for a few hours in the middle of the day with condensation slow to leave and quick to arrive back at the other ends of the day.  With this in mind hopefully the uninjured amongst us have managed to fit in some good training and maybe the less time constrained have managed to make use of the middle of the day.

AJM – good work with the woodie session and for identifying weaknesses.  Got a push plan for addressing them?

Liam P – some big training numbers going down there, impressive.  One arm scap pull ups with added weight – beast!  Impressed with the +40kg pull ups too, I think I can only do about +20kg but that makes me 130% so maybe its not a disaster.

Si dH – looks like a fun high mileage week.  Do you find the density hangs are helping?  Given my present hurty elbow I’m considering incorporating some myself.

Ross Barker – I’d take the muscle growth as a blessing, at least you’ll look good even if you don’t tick! Try stretching your hamstrings after you warm up at the wall rather than the end of the session, it makes the high step ups much much easier.  I hope north wales paid off for you this wkend.

Steve Claw – four solid sessions there – remember to rest and have a deload week now and again.  Get on that 8a!

Alan Little – looks like you are making the most of the walls still being open.  Is it busy there?  I went to the foundry yesterday and was surprised how quiet it was?

SteveJC94 – bet Fuselage gully was great, proper classic and something I’d like to do in the future too.  Well done for exploring further north despite poor conditions, Beinn Eighe is a long drive.

Biscuit – solid sessions at the wall.  I presume Ned’s won’t seep if its on that free standing boulder in the base of the quarry, you should be good to go all winter (so that you can start ticking the rest of the boulder – I’m sure Neds will go down fast).

The sheep – ever consistent with the swimming and 3 run sessions too.  Does the bike need dusting off to complete the trio?

Ally Smith – Chunky training sessions in the week, well done.  Would the applied for job give you more time for fun stuff?  Thanks for the podcast recommendations – im hopong to find time for a look once school finishes.

Derek Furze – hope you managed to get something in this week.

Mattrm – sorry to hear about the attendance at lurgy club, hopefully its not anything too long lasting.

Sorry!  I responded to last week's thread with comments early on, but got distracted by work commitments and failed to post any details later.

I've had two pretty bad weeks - a combination of travelling with work, extra things coming in, sorting Christmas plans, partying and getting the booster have all interfered with training.  Basically off the pace as a consequence!

M Max hangs on smallest slots on my fingerboard 4 sets at plus 13.6kg.  I'm also a kilo heavier as a result of the partying, so work to do.  50 push ups and stretching.

W Did 76 pull ups (4 sets of 3,4,5,4,3) at one minute intervals.  Normally this would feel an easy routine that I could maintain for ever, but the lack of recent time made it feel pretty hard and I had some muscle soreness the day following.  Not shocked by this as pull ups tail off quickly. 

Thursday 6 k run - the first for ages and mainly did it to give me some clear thinking time about a work challenge.  It worked, but my legs are still sore on Sunday morning!  

As I work supporting general practice on behalf of NHS England, it is quite likely that things will quieten down for a while - I have had deferrals this week because of the pressures delivering covid boosters.  I've got new practices starting in January, but everything might change soon anyway!

I am planning to try weighted pull ups and must get back to a much more consistent routine after several weeks of dabbling!

Thanks SSB

Christmas week is a natural stop for me anyway, however due to the elbow tendonitis that's been getting worse I've decided to stop the training early, and had a climbing only week.  With good weather forecast it will probably be the same next week.

Its the same here late in the day. Its actually been a cracking December, but the moment the temperature drops slightly towards the end of the day, everything greases up.

M - Rest

T - Worked on a new route I'm putting together in Avon area. Details to follow, Prob 7b/7b+

W - TRS session on Defining Limits (E6 6c), very hard bouldery moves on small crimps, it will go once elbow settles down.  Forearms (and finger tips) absolutely wrecked, more so than a normal training session.

T - Rest

F - Another new route 6a+ A good lesson in bolting around suspect rock.

Weekend - Christmas celebrations, alcohol, sore head. 

Cheers SSB. A very frustrating week. I was going well until I had my booster on Wednesday and it’s wiped me out. I was planning to make my first post-fracture trip outside to try some of the problems AJM suggested but I’ve felt rotten. The only silver lining is I’ve dropped 6lb on the Pfizer Rapid Weight-loss Programme, and I’m sure Andrex Shareholders are happy.

Yeah I’m feeling strong at the minute but I haven’t seen any carryover to grades (not indoors anyway). I think the stopper is a lack of confidence making hard moves high up as I’m still wary of falling on the heel. I had my first physio call this week and she said no impact for another 6months! I’d be going crazy long before then so I just need to take it easy and find something very lowball. Finger strength is also miles below pull strength so still got stuff to work on.

Two decent sessions this week:

Mon

• Scap Pulls 3x 8 BW
• Weighted Pull-ups 3x3 (+35kg)
• Campus Offset pull-ups 4x 2 (1-4)
• Campus Longmove 4x 1-4.5
• Campus Pull throughs 4x 1-4-5.5.
• Campus Bumps 4x 1-2-3-4-4.5
• Few pulls on to a fingery 6c+ on the Woody. Can do in 2 halves but no link.
• Hour on the V4 circuit 

Wed

• Scap Pulls 3x 8 BW, 3x 8 One Arm (+10kg)
• Max Hangs 5x 10s 20mm (+17.5kg)
• Weighted Pull-up 4x 4 (+30kg)
• Rings Turned Out Dips 3x 5
• Campus Go-agains 2x 1-4.5/5 (fail)
• Campus Ladders 1to9, 1-3-5-7, 1-4-7 (fail), 1-4-6 (fail)
• Few pulls on the 6c+ Woody. One move better.
• Hour on the V4 circuit

Have a good week.

Tried the weighted pull ups today.  Wow!  Of course, some of this is that I haven't trained much lately and pull ups do weaken quickly, but I managed 3*3 @ plus 11.3kg only, so an interesting thing to include.  Your plus 35kg is seriously impressive.

Personally, I don't think that training strength does show itself in grades in a simple, linear way.  I'm a slow starter each season and will take a while to get back to moving smoothly and that makes most difference to my standard.  I think of strength as a factor that makes a contribution somewhere that I can at least work at more systematically (and at home) than movement, head game and so on.  

Cheers SSB. Off to a good start this week but tapered off after being wiped out by a booster jab on Friday

M - Rest

T - Hangboard repeaters (6 reps, 6 sets @80% of max 3 finger drag) & bouldering

W - Core exercises & knee rehab

T - Campus board wideboy ladders & MoonBoard problems

F - Rest - wiped out by the booster jab

S - More rest - still knackered after the booster

S - Rest

Plan for next week:

M - Max hangs and MoonBoard problems

T - Core exercises 

W - Rest

T - Power Session (Campusing & limit boulder problems)

F - Rest

S - Rest (lots of wine and food) 

S - A long walk to burn off all the hangover and all the Christmas food! 

Have a great Christmas week all! 

Good effort Derek! If you haven’t done them in a while, then it’s worth adding a little weight consistently and milking as much gains as possible.

Thanks SSB!

In the short term, we're hopefully away for a chunk of time over Christmas seeing family (circuit breakers/lockdowns/etc permitting!), so I'll be packing the mini paralettes and the portable fingerboard with the aim of just being as active as possible - give the excess calories something to do. Knocking out a decent volume of push exercises is the easiest part of that since it doesn't even need an attachment point. My wrist was grumbling a lot over the last few months but seems a little better now which should make it a bit easier to get stuck in.

On the subject of excess calories I weighed myself for the first time in a while and I'm heavy - taking the pluses from this in that it doesn't seem to be impacting my climbing too much and it gives me something to target after new year. Probably do Sharkathon if it's happening on UKB again to try to have an active January.

Started off well this week - I ticked the board project on Monday, and then and on Wednesday had a good time doing some of the problems from the new set at the wall.

It went a bit downhill from there - I hurt my toe so couldn't go again Friday, had a kids birthday party occupying much of Saturday and then today it's been foggy all day. I've generally been feeling pretty wiped out this weekend, couple of bad night's sleep has taken it out of me a bit so not really had the energy to do much.

Hopefully away all this next week, and due to be boosted tomorrow, so unsure what the week's report will look like. Might get to  Fairlop Boulders mid week. Then if we end up in Birmingham from boxing day I'm holding out vague hope of a day raid to real rock if the weather is good, but that might be hopelessly optimistic!

Thanks SSB. Yes, although I'm doing them for a finger issue rather than elbow. The finger problem I was using them to help heal has now almost resolved. I'm not sure whether they would help with an elbow problem. I've always had best success with the old dumbbell wrist rotation/lowers for (golfers) elbows but I expect you are well experienced with those...

M: 3*30 second density hangs. I appear to have picked up another new finger niggle, so didn't do any more. It's my right index finger, either the DIP joint or A4 pulley. Physio appointment booked for next week.

T: rest (and booster).

W: rest.

T: morning session at the Hangar. Felt fairly good and did a couple of new whites in short order, but was protecting my right index finger a bit.

F: rest

S: hour at the Hangar while son No.1 was at mini rock club in the morning. Did a V6 that I had tried briefly the other day and got close to another one. Finger seemed fine!?!

S: left the family with my mum and met up with Ross and friends at Crafnant. I did Riley's Arete sds (f7A) second go (it seemed pretty friendly for the guidebook grade of 6C+ so is definitely not 7A!) and then spent a couple of hours trying Grasswind, but didn't make much meaningful progress. The crux was one of those moves you have to snatch really quickly before your feet hit the floor and I didn't quite manage it. Only really started to 'beleve' right at the end of the session. No injury issues today, the problems I was on didn't really test them at all. Nice to visit a new crag and meet Ross et al.

So another potential injury setback but, touch wood, it seems to have been better this weekend. I've got a physio appointment booked to discuss both the finger and my bothersome right bicep/shoulder.

Si

Evening all, thanks once again for the stats SSB!

I'll have a toy with this next time I'm in the gym, cheers!

Bloody well has! Lovely day at the crag, nice to meet with Si dH and touch rocks again. Despite that, a relatively quiet week for me, due to Christmas prep and whatnot.

I've also rejigged my goals, as where I climb is dependent on conditions, I guess it makes sense to assign a goal to the common destinations. Ideally need something safe solo with two or three pads so I'm not reliant on partners.

Picking goals is hard, as there's loads I want to do but there's nothing I'm keen on having multi-session sieges (unless it's reasonably close to home). Maybe picking a route is too specific, and I should come up with a general thing, e.g. "climb something hard and crimpy", "visit a new crag"? Don't get me wrong, I still want to do Suavito, Tierdrop and so on, but I think I'm just happy to get outside and have a good climb wherever I go. I'll always be able to find something I want to do on the day.

Last Week:

M - Rest.

T - Rest.

W - Short gym session. Did a few fingery bits and am generally pleased with recovery thus far, it seems like I can crank hard after a thorough warmup without any ill effects.

T - Rest.

F - Rest.

S - Rest.

S - Crafnant bouldering. Nice to meet Si dH, and get a couple hours outdoor climbing in. Gorgeous blue skies, dare I say a bit too warm with such still air? Pulled hard on a couple of 7Bish things but no big ticks, though a flash of Riley's Arete sds (f7A) is much welcomed.

Next Week:

M - Rest.

T - Gym.

W - Rest.

T - Rest.

F - Quick hour or two at local crag.

S, S - Consumption!

Goals:

Rehab finger tweak.

Rigpa.

This week I've followed the plan of resting the elbow and doing some cardio instead. It's feeling fine now so plan to get back to normal next week but with added prehab to keep it that way.

Mon. Rest

Tues. 40mins on the static bike, nominally 20km.

Wed. Tried to go climbing, everywhere was condensed so no ticks, did pull on and hold some positions but couldn't really do much. Couldn't even repeat some steady 7As I'd done loads of times so but it down to poor conditions.

Thurs. Another 40mins on that static bike (20km).

Fri. Rest. 

Sat. Cycled down to the foundry for a rope session. Casual session with lots of natter, highlight was doing a 7b+ first go then falling off the top of the 6c next to it. Got to love foundry grades! Cycle home (10km round trip)

Sun. 10km run in the mist, didn't fall in the reservoirs, hurah!

At the start of the year I set myself a vague cardio maintenance goal of 500km running and 1000km cycling. I need to do another 20km running by the end of the month (very do able) and 180km on the bike (hugely ambitious). Seeing as we're visiting family over Christmas to New year with climbing probably only on the 27th I'm going to chuck my bike in the car and deploy it against the Somerset levels where mileage is a lot more easily won than in the Peak! 

Yes, I have used the dumbbell rotation method after years of low level elbow pain and it fixed it surprisingly quickly- a few weeks 

Thanks for the stats SSB.

The Smith family isn't in the best of health right now: My wife has caught D&V from Squiggle, but I've managed to dodge that (so far).  However, I've still got a lingering virus which I was almost rid of when I got boostered on Thurs (I had a -ve PCR on result come through on Tuesday). 

Week 50

M – Long day of work. Getting over lurgy.

T – Rest. Shoulder ROM exercises.

W – 25min board warm-up, then 1-arm max-hangs @BW-12.5kg. Felt easier at the end of the session.

T – A day of highs and lows. I got boosted 😊 ; Squiggle had D&V and couldn’t go to nursery ☹.  Managed to complete my planned an-cap session when she’d gone to bed. Re-visited an old session combining hangs and Moonboard problem to get into the 12-15 move range for an-cap. Worked a treat and the powered-out feeling was very much present with limited pump by the conclusion.

F – Overnight booster-shivers and feeling of lurgy, combined with sore arm at site of jab.

S – More overnight shivers and general lurginess. Shoulder ROM exercises.  

S – Felt a bit better. 2x 45min gardening sessions before and after lunch. 90min moonboard session. Semi-structured; longer warm-up flashing a bunch of 6C+ to 7A+ then “Board 10” but with extra goes on hard stuff (7C-8A’s).

Sorry for wimping out on Sunday - I really wasn't feeling up to it Saturday evening.

Probably a wise choice given my wife came down with the $hits and I had to do some extra Squiggle wrangling. 

No worries, things get in the way, I'm sure there'll be another one. At least you didn't get wet shoes and socks!

Thanks SSB

I've mostly being going at quiet times anyway - early afternoon, late evening - partly to keep contacts down, but mainly in order to be able to reliably do timed benchmarks. But yesterday afternoon/early evening was unusually quiet too. Don't know if it's because people are becoming warier about contacts again, or just busy with Christmas stuff. Or are going skiing - we've had an unusually snowy December.

STG: see where I stand on jwi's sport climbing fitness benchmarks, scaled from 8a down to 7a by the simple expedient of subtracting one number grade across the board.
MTG: 1H 2022: onsight 6c+
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber. For measurable definition see Fit Club 658

M:    45 minutes step-ups & jogging
T: 
W:    Wall, Weyarn. STG aerocap / lactate threshold benchmark, see below
T:    One hour step-ups & jogging
F: 
S: One hour step-ups & jogging
S: Awoke to sunshine streaming through the window and a forecast of zero to four degrees. Hmm. Way too cold to stand around belaying,  maybe coulda/shoulda gone bouldering. But had already arranged to meet a buddy at the wall in the afternoon, so: Freimann. Following on from my post-Leonidio thoughts about spending too much of my wall time doing mileage in my consistent onsight comfort zone (6b), and not enough time trying harder, I upped my game slightly by onsighting two 6b+'s. Good.

I thought this would be easy. It wasn't. I fell off midway through the fifth lap, took a slightly longer rest, then just barely scraped another four laps at 5c. Have rarely felt so trashed in an endurance session. Looks like aerobic base work is going to be part of my winter training programme then.
 

Hi All. Thanks for statting SSB.

Apologies for being AWOL over the last couple of weeks. Bit of an enforced change of circumstances... managed to break my leg the weekend before last. Cue 6-8 weeks in a cast.

I've taken the last two weeks as pretty much complete rest, whilst trying to work out what a realistic short-medium term future will look like. Basically stuck between optimistically thinking that there could still be a bit of winter climbing potential, versus pessimistically thinking that I should write off (a second consecutive) winter season and just start working towards summer goals now. Thoughts welcome...

To be honest, however it pans out, the next few weeks will probably look similar. Now the leg is more stable/less painful I'll be back on pull-ups/fingerboarding (I was already determined to try not to let finger strength disappear this winter). As I gain a bit more confidence in the leg I'll throw TRX back in to the mix too. 

I need to work out how to stop cardio going backwards too much -thinking of one legged cycling on my wife's turbo -low intensity to avoid screwing my good leg over, with increasing duration. Or is this a terrible idea?!

I need to go back over Liam's posts, to pick up tips on both one legged training and also staying as philosophical about it all as him (especially as I've got off much easier!)

STG -end Jan:

Stay sane despite not being able to get outdoors as much as usual.

Max Hangs: 75kg total.

Pull-ups: 77kg total.

Walk my usual running loop (14km, 450m vert) with a climbing weight rucksack.

MTG -end March:

Run my usual running loop.

Max Hangs: 80kg total.

Pull-ups: 83kg total.

Some Scottish winter routes -no longer fussy what... just anything white on tools!

Oh no, that's awful news! Hope it heals well and quickly for you. I wouldn't be so quick to write off winter so soon, there's still a few months to go yet. Best of luck!

Yeah, I was a bit bemused earlier this year to be able to do some dry-tooling routes that I couldn't do ten months earlier, despite being measurably weaker than when I'd previously tried them. Especially weird as previously I would have said that I was failing due to lack of power endurance, and yet I got up them with substantially less power endurance!

And in summer, I climbed my hardest ever sport route, which is all on crimps, despite my finger-strength being at an all time low (again proven by the numbers in my training log!).

It does make me wonder whether the time I spend training is good value?! The main difference at the time of getting these routes done was I'd been climbing quite a lot prior to getting on them, so felt quite comfy committing to moves above gear/clips and was much more 'a muerte' with my effort. 

Equally, structured training has given me some big jumps forward in the past (both in cardio and climbing) although with the climbing I sometimes wonder if it's as much a head thing -feeling confident that I have enough physically makes me climb better?!

Anyway, I don't really have a point -just thinking out loud!

Cheers SSB, I have to confess to being bit of a shandy pants when it comes to cold weather cycling. I would much rather be out running instead. Thankfully though the running keeps my legs in good shape for cycling so can jump on the bike any time without too much lack of conditioning.

Last week at work for the year so made the most of the pool time available 

Monday, 1km lunchtime swim and 5k evening run

Tuesday, 1km lunchtime swim, knocked of work early and got home in the light with time for a 7km trail run

Wednesday, 2km lunchtime swim and 5k evening run

Thursday, 2km lunchtime swim and stretch class. Different teacher who was more of a yoga inclination, my god I’m so inflexible!! 5k evening run.

Friday, 1km lunchtime swim and 5k evening run

Saturday, 5k run, cooked up a big lasagna and watched rugby, shame the game was pants!

Sunday, Nice chilled out rest day, took middle daughter to the cinema whilst wife and the other two were at a swim gala. Both daughters getting county times for the events they want to race so good weekend all round

Just started reading The Villain -it's all about training heavy and climbing light! If you're going well at the moment, you'll be unstoppable when you hit spring after a post Christmas cut-back!

Yep! I feel like the last year or so, I have been pretty bad at ticking off goals. I can't make my mind up whether it's because I've been crap at making life happen, or whether it's because I've been picking the wrong goals! 

Thanks mate. I'm hoping for a long, late season!

Oh bugger….and welcome to Recovery Club!

If your cast is 6-8 weeks, then presumably you don’t need surgery so I wouldn’t write off Scottish Winter yet. Just aim your recovery timeline for some Spring Ice on the Ben.

It’s very annoying but setting short term goals helps. You have a rare opportunity to focus, without the distraction of climbing, so you’ll find you can smash a lot of upper-body PBs before your rehab starts. Sounds like you have some in mind but I went for Offset Pull-ups, Max Hangs, and Parallette Planche work which went through the roof. One thing I had to be careful with was diet as I didn’t want to pack it on whilst sedentary. I logged Cals on MyFitnessPal and tweaked them to keep myself in a 5lb range.

Other than crutching around, I didn’t do any CV and will probably pay for it on my first walk-in. A Turbo could work though, and apparently working the opposing limb slows atrophy in the injured one.

Checking in with FitClub will keep the motivation going!

Yes - I think the impact of strength training on confidence is significant.  Just knowing that strength is not likely to let me down is really helpful.  That said, I'm not often on routes that test strength much - perhaps that is something that I should address by getting on some sport routes that I won't be able to onsight.  I'd also reflect that flexibility is important and I have definitely lost this with age, so I trying to step up training this dimension of performance as well.  I failed on a boulder problem at the wall recently because I couldn't get my foot anywhere near the hold!

Thanks mate. Good tips. 
Pull-up variations sound like a good idea. And calorie counting is probably an even better idea, given the time of year!

What do any of the locals think about my odds for Tuesday, which currently looks the least grey day but still quite humid - somewhere in Shropshire, or Roaches area, or maybe RHS? Waste of time? Probably ok?

Not local any more (if I ever was) but I think Roaches upper tier / skyline would be a better bet than RHS if there is a bit of a breeze. If there is no wind it'll all be a bit of a gamble, probably worth checking the logbooks to see what gets done on boxing day.

Those bits of the peak also often get different weather, especially if there is a change coming from the west; it obviously hits the Roaches first. So well worth checking an accurate forecast on the day before you commit.

If there's wind and no active rain there should be a few dry bits on the exposed stuff.

In Shropshire,  The Dug Out is permadry, so unless the forecast changes to be decent I'll probably have a few hours there on Tuesday. Not world class routes but will scratch the itch of wanting to climb on rock!

Thanks SSB.

A quick update on Xmas from me.

It was going like a decent week. I fitted in my 2 gym sessions and lots of little extras.

My last two climbing sessions had been those where you don't feel like it, but you warm up and it goes well. My Friday session just crashed. I took that as a sign and I have done pretty nothing since. 

I've got my plan for the next 3 mths. I feel like i've made some strength gains in the last couple of months and i'm just going to bring extra sessions in gently and see how i go. Do what i can and not try to force it.

Happy Christmas to everyone!

Yeah at the moment it is looking indifferent at best, albeit less bad than the days around it!

I shall trial the idea with the family but could be interested in some permadry pratting about if you didn't mind company...

Happy Christmas all!

Be careful with this. Repairing broken bones requires an enormous number of calories - up to 3x normal according to research here (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-59259-740-6)

"While a normally active adult may require 2,500 calories a day, a bedridden, injured patient with multiple fractures may need 6,000 calories per day, if this demand is not met, the healing process is compromised"

Unless you've been advised otherwise by your doctor, I would forget about the diet and just consume what your body requires even if you feel your appetite has increased.

Yep, it’s a good point and one that I had factored in to my plans. I’m basically just trying not to let Christmas treats add too much extra to normal intakes and keep a casual eye on the scales to make sure energy intake is going mostly toward maintenance plus healing, rather than a just growing a paunch!

Is there any research of what nutrition the body needs specifically, rather than just more calories? I know bones are made of calcium, plus presumably some other stuff, but I'd have no idea what to eat to repair one.

Edit: just spotted the link you posted!

Edit again: just followed it and it's £170 :-0 

I’m smashing the milk and cheese. (Good for business too!)

LOL, I hope they are giving you a massive discount!