UKC

A new thread is posted each week on Sunday for anyone to jot down their previous week's activity. UKC fitclub 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.

For those wanting to find out more about training for climbing a number of physical training articles are linked here: http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=274502 

The following training article by Alex Barrows gives an excellent breakdown on training the four main "energy systems" specific to climbing: http://alexbarrowsclimbing.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/training-for-sport-climbi...

Last week’s thread can be found here: 

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/walls+training/fit_club_week_601-693307?v...

You can look back at your previous posts here (to some extent… it’s still a work in progress, this now goes back to FC500): http://ukc-fitclub-user-posts.s3-website.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/users.html

Posters:

AJM

AlanLittle - good pulley nerding! Your Kaly training looks pretty solid to me, push through the sore skin for a bit but make sure it’s rested before you go!

Tyler - is the inefficiency just social chat and the like?

Pineappledog - 2 hours is a long way for a local crag! Did you get any good weather to get back there this week...?

Ally Smith - sounds like a great holiday

Planetmarshall - nice job on Browns Eliminate!

hms - another big week. Tapering soon! Re bouldering, maybe something to think over more to try to work it out, if strength is a long term limitation...

The sheep -hope you’re feeling better

Somerset swede basher - sounds like the project is coming together. Bad news about the bugs though!

Tom Green - what did you make of redpointing then? The Spook is a good one isn’t it...

Alexm198 - Tronchey is a big but slightly obscure tick! Nice job. What gave you the idea for that one?

mattrm - good plan to reset a bit of routine training I reckon. Hope the move goes well!

biscuit - top effort on Fiesta! Sounds like an epic day out

Richard Popp - you can never get too much time on real rock can you - indoor training is all well and good, but relevance is key...

Powderpuff - how’s that finger. Keep being careful!

Si dH - catch you soon...

Rebecca Ting - welcome back! Looking forwards to the next adventures any 666 thoughts?

-#-#-#-#

Fit Club 666 goals:

I’m loving them so far team. Lots of devilish fun to be had with these. Keep ‘em coming! Have I missed any?

AJM - Mark of the Beast (or Blue Planet/Privateer); E5 (or equivalent); sport onsight/“quick tick” & some from Colors/Tennessee/Paradise Lost/Bird of Paradise/Return of the Gunfighter

Ally Smith - Devils Gorge newbies; Rock Atrocity; press a sport climber; 8c+

Tom Green - Satanic Verses

Dandan82 - Horny Lil' Devil/Mark of the Beast/Camino a la Perdicion; +66kg weighted pullup; 666 one-arm pullups; 666 30 second+ handstands; 66 routes at 7a and above including 6 routes at 7c+ and above.

Got out twice this week.

- Tuesday afternoon, went to Dancing Ledge. 6b+ onsight, we both struggled with a comically bunched/awkward start to a traversing 6c (Lucretia, My Reflection (6c), Ed cracked it first so I followed it - a traverse between routes so not really one you can strip any other way. Recommended, nice positions. We couldn’t quite muster the psyche for Mariner's Graveyard (7a+) (lots of chance of dangling in free space if you fall off) so went up to the main quarry. Tried Fat Chance Hotel (7b+) which essentially boils down to a hard/awkward move to get a knee bar in at hand level, which was quite unreliable due to a polished and slopey foothold, and then once you’ve moved the right hand up there’s then another hard move, it felt, to get the left hand up. Not one I’m that fussed about returning to, hurts the knee and I also managed to pop off the foothold a few times and clatter my shin.

- glorious day out Saturday. Playing rope gun for MrsAJM and a friend I hadn’t seen in ages. 6a to start. Got confused about lines so accidentally tried to onsight Last Rose of Summer (7a), fell off the last hard move after a good effort. Unchalked Portland 7a has never been a regular thing so fairly pleased with a good go. Then Driven Like the Snow (6b+), Burning Skies (6c), and Gaze of the Gorgon (6a+) which were all really good, really blind (the former two, at least) and rather hot. 6a to wind down. Cracking day out.

Got crack gloves, tried out the new shoes, going to try to do some holiday admin today, everything’s coming together. Super excited

Mon: still recovering from germs. 

Tues: Tor session, back on cave pervert stand start. Linked from 5 moves in to the end. Not too boxed, bodes well.

Wed: short cycle 20mins

Thurs: 7km pram run with the little swede bashers. 

Fri: Tor session, 2 good links from the start up to 3 moves from the end. Had a play and worked some new foot beta for the end bit. Psyched for a rematch on Monday!

Sat: 40km mountain bike round the Peak 

Sun: resting. General home and work admin day. 

Good evening AJM,

Careful indeed...i really worried I'd pushed the finger too hard last week but it appears I got away with it!

Monday: @ the wall, climbed 10 problems , hardest being v4. Shoulder exercises.

Thursday: Sit ups, 3 sets of 20. Press ups, 3 sets of 20. Leg raises, 3 sets of 20.

Friday: @ the wall, climbed 10 problems including a v5 which represents the hardest problem I've climbed since pranging the digit.

Finger is definitely getting stronger which has given me a lift in motivation

Thanks for the stats. This was a less hard week and the taper now starts in earnest.

M - cycle commute.Yoga in evening.
T - cycle commute. UCR in evening: 14 routes in pairs. Several 7as. Got really cross at a new 7a which hadn't been forerun at all and is no such thing.
W - cycle commute. Cycle home via UCR. Hour of power using chunks of the 2 hard circuits. The first 2x15 min sets were ok. Stopped for a cup of tea and then had to share the board so the remainder was a bit more amorphous. Final thing that stopped me was sore skin.
T - cycle commute. Annoying day at work.
F - TCA for an early session as I had to collect D2 from the station at lunchtime - I was leaning on the door to be let in as they open later than I had thought. Boulder 4x4s, then ticked a problem I'd been trying for ages in the nick of time as they were resetting that colour. Rest then lattice lactate curve to 8 iterations (41%). Possibly should have continued for a couple more iterations but time was getting tight anyway which seemed a reasonable excuse to stop!
S - core. 2 miles urban walking.
S - nice little hard sandstone quarry with D1. Got a 7a second go - needed to work out a height appropriate way of getting between the spaced breaks, but once sussed the lead felt steady. 

Three weeks to Kaly. 

STG (29th September): Flash my mates's project in the Frankenjura. Ahem. I have a new project, see below.
MTG (2018): Onsight 7a; redpoint 7b multiple times on routes that aren't pure boulder problems
LTG (2021): Redpoint 8a before I hit 60 

M: Rest
T: Wall, Thalkirchen. Tuesday instead of Wednesday this week and if anything (disappointingly) even more crowded. So emphasis on fewer but harder routes.
W:
T: Max hangs: strength maintenance.
F: 
S: Frankenjura: morning: Röthenbacher Wand. Had a go on a 7a+ that I tried a couple of times a while back; concluded that is desperate & not all that good. Struck from the list of potential projects.
    Afternoon: my mate's project. I have a new favourite crag, the Schmidtstadter Wand. Only half a dozen routes, but they are the most immaculate Frankenjura pocket pulling I've ever seen. Did I flash Batman, my mate's project? I very much did not. It has a powerful & non-obvious crux, and it's north facing & I had numb fingers after belaying him on it for half an hour. But a stunning route: definitely one to come back to in the spring. Or if there's an unseasonal autumn heatwave.
S: Frankenjura: Schöne Aussicht. Had hopes of a decent onsight attempt on Schöner Leben (6c+) - borderline 6c+/7a - but quickly discovered that, although I'm well capable of doing the moves, I lack the confidence to push onward into the unknown when it's anywhere near my limit. Something to work on. Couple of good consolation prizes though: second go redpoint on Schöne Platte (6c+), and finally managed to tick Schöne Absicht (6b), which for some reason has been a multi-year nemesis for me.

Shoulders & elbows getting a little tweaky as I step up the pre-Kaly climbing-specific endurance work and step down everything else. Will have to watch this carefully.

Thanks for continuing to do the stats AJM!

Got back from a bit of a road trip on Friday, did a mixture of stuff. I'm a bit out of whack with the weeks but I suppose it doesnt really matter.

Friday: L'ete Idiene, 7 pitches up to 6a at Vallorcine. Cruiser but enjoyable

Saturday: Bega at Corma di Machaby, 8ish pitches up to 6b, great fun

Sunday: Vampiro Di Rossi - 6 pitches of 6b, found it pretty nails! Dogged a few pitches so it was hard work. Super techy/vertical climbing with minimal features. Found it quite hard to read. Definitely a good pace to brush up on good foot work, and not a place to be scared (the bolting is good, but I constantly felt like I was going to fall off due to the lack of positive edges)

Monday: Rest Day

Tuesday: 7 trad pitches up to 6a+ at Cadarese (granite cracks) Super fun place to climb!

Wednesday: 2 sport pitches at Cadarese 6b and 6b+, and 2 trade pitches at 5c. 30 minute threshold run.

Thursday: Did Alpendurst, 14 pitches at 4c to the top of Jagihorn in Saas Grund. Very enjoyable but too easy really.

Friday: Fly home

Saturday: 45 minute run in the z2/3 'pointless' zone

This week I am going to go climbing a couple of times, run daily (from Tuesday) and make some plans for the near future. My schedule is very empty for the next couple of months so if anyone fancies going on a little trip it may well be possible!

@AJM - Yeah it is a bit of a pain to get outdoors because of locality, somewhat discounts evening sessions on real rock for us but I prefer to look at the positive that within 3 hours there is a great range of climbing for full days from being so central!

STG:  ?

MTG: ?

LTG: See how far into the f8s I can get

This week

M: Bouldered - to fit my some sort of endurance I split the V2-4 routes in half back to back so roughly 2 sets of 12-14 problems, had a coffee then worked some hard routes, probably did this backwards but got one I had been working on a little.

T: rest

W: Local wall, were some new routes up, so did a proper warm up on existing routes(learnt from my mistake last time of jumping straight on new routes!) then jumped on some hard new stuff 6c/7a

T: Bouldered - Did a bit on fingerboard with a friend, nothing too structured just trying to get form right for hangs and work out a rough base level to work from, not really used much before so it was a bit of an experimental try out before any proper training on it. Did some boulders afterwards, tried to do lots of problems with pinches as I have been struggling with them lately.

F: rest

S: Was meant to go work on the project route but had been chatting to friend I bouldered with on M about our week in the wye valley earlier in the summer and apparently I sold him on ban-y-gor so we decided on that last minute. 300+ miles round trip for me so we only got a few hours in there before we were losing sunlight but did a couple of warm up routes then sent Lotus Wing (6b) that the crux got me on the onsight when we were there in the summer, not sure if that's a retroflash or a repeat. Possibly my favourite crag just a shame its such a journey but will definitely be trying to fit it in where ever possible!

S: rest

Need to have a re-think of the goals now, the backwall where Exo6 (7a+) is at  Masson Lees Quarry seeps pretty badly so is likely already not an option until late spring when it has dried out now. I have a routine set subject to some adjustments as necessary for training so I am struggling to come up with some short/mid term goals now we are hitting the winter.  

this reminds me actually - after next week (so starting Sunday 14th) I need to find a replacement, at a minimum for 3 threads, or more permanently, since I’ll be away.....

any takers?

Cheers Andy - good holiday indeed - amazed i didn't come home fatter based on my diet over the week!

Week 38

M – Tor bouldering. After a week off, it was unsurprising to feel sluggish warming up, but eventually found some power and ticked Cave Slave (f7C+) on 4th RP.

T – Fingerboarding. “Margalef” pocket routine. 7/3/6/3 BW+5kg double rotation of all pocket grip combos plus 15mm rounded edge. Dug deep and finished the lot. Time to add some extra weight!?!

6 sets 6rep 85kg deadlift in-between FB sets. Finished with 2 sets of rushed rings. Need to get more consistent with the rings

W – Early start to be in London for 9am meeting. Nothing to raise my pulse bar caffeine induced palpitations! Hamstring DOMS – stretch more.

T – Arch. Got schooled on their new slab and failed on a weird blob & pressing groove that some flexible girls were doing much better on. Obvious that my shoulder & groin flexibility is lacking for this style, so more stretching needed! Moonboard – a dozen problems - mostly flashing 6C/+ stuff after a few 6A/B warm-ups. Hamstring DOMS still present.

F – Rest. DOMS just about receding.

S – Unexpectedly ended up at Devil’s Gorge after a late start. Back on the headwall project. 4 tie-ins. Dog; links; RP’d start (Devil's Haircut (7c)) and held crimp on headwall; RP’d 7c start more smoothly, held crimp and one more move (only got through this move once before, so coming together quickly – keen to get back here ASAP). Ten Year Banana (7b+) flash wasn’t really a “warm-down” – had to dig deep and slap a couple of moves.

S – Pinkie and thoracic spine grumbling. Wedmin.

Cheers Andy, probably about time I gave something back to FC again, I can do the roundup from the 14th October until the 2nd of December, how's that?

Kalymnos trip report:

This was our first time doing a full two weeks on the island (15 days including travelling in fact), and it made such a difference to our attitude towards how and when to climb. Planning a second visit to a crag became perfectly reasonable instead of feeling that you were sacrificing visiting some other crag for it, taking a rest day became a genuinely restful activity instead of fretting about it being time wasted. 
The upshot of this was more relaxed days on rock, less stress about it being the 'last chance' to get a tick, and it probably resulted in more, higher quality climbing.

We only visited two new (for us) crags this year which was secret garden and ghost kitchen, we had grand plans of venturing all over the place but ended up spending fair chunk of time at the main honeypots delving into some of the B list routes, having ticked a lot of the most well known routes, we found some real gems that we had never heard of.
Secret garden was a real disappointment for me, it was the day I tried to do 6 x fr7's in a day and I failed at 4, finding the routes really stiff and not all that enjoyable. To add insult to injury, UKC have downgraded 2 of the 7a's I did to 6c+! I thought they were both solid at the grade!
All the clues point towards me having an off day rather than the whole crag being crap, but what was undeniable was the level of polish, which for a crag that is barely 6 years old, was really worrying.
Ghost kitchen seemed good though, it was a pseudo rest day for me so I only did a 6c and 6c+ to put the rope up for Mrs Dandan, I thought they were good routes and Mrs D claimed them to be some of her favourite at the grade. The routes only go up to 7b+ here so it's definitely a rest day or mileage crag for me, but I wouldn't rule out another visit.

A big surprise for me was that we spent 3 days at Odyssey, it may be old and a bit shiny but the quality of routes really is undeniable. I put a day into Sardonique (8a) and made good progress despite the relatively high humidity meaning I had to squeeze extra hard on the open holds on the crux. I managed to get to within 1 move of the end of the crux, but a mistake with my feet saw me off. I then climbed clean through the whole crux to the top so did the route in two very overlapping halves. Slightly better conditions would see a tick I reckon, however after giving up on the route for the day I had a quick play on a route next door as the draws were in, and my focus was immediately shifted.  Boom Boom (7c+) is a fantastic route, a little more sustained than sardonique but less cruxy. Gently overhanging all the way with really interesting, distinct moves, it was my ideal route. Who can say no to a crux sequence that starts with a yard off a mono undercut?!
This route encouraged us to make a 3rd visit to the crag so I could get the tick, it also helped me get into the mindset of climbing the routes that attract me, not the routes that have the highest grade. To be distracted from an 8a by a 7c+ purely on the basis of quality of climbing is a real step for me, a very positive step in my opinion.

I also had another realisation when I had a second crack at Daniboy (8a) at Spartacus which went better than 2 years ago but again no tick. I had real trouble climbing efficiently through the roof section and having enough left to get through the relatively easier moves than transition out onto the headwall. It started to make me think that perhaps cave climbing was not really my forte, I love overhanging but perhaps a steep face with actual holds is more my thing than incredibly overhanging, 3d climbing and the kneebars that come with it. This was further reinforced on the last day when I onsighted Aegialis (7c) in the Grotta, it was a great achievement for me, first 7c onsight, (made more impressive when I lowered off and a guy told me I missed about 5 kneebars!) but the climbing was not super imaginative, it felt like a training route, just jug - jug- shake - repeat. I got more joy from Boom boom with it's neat sequences. There is certainly scope for improving my roof climbing technique and kneebars in general, but also I think I can now appreciate a route for it's moves more than just thinking steeper = betterer.

I had a pretty decent flash go at Orion (7c+) after watching 2 guys work through it, but again it came down to footwork, I watched the hand moves but I should have paid more attention to the feet! Lesson learned there and I'm confident that will be an easy tick next time we are in the area. I didn't have another go that day as the sun made it's daily appearance in the cave.
Angelika (8a) remains on my to-do list, again I made good progress and got one move from glory, but couldn't quite get the tick. Sun stopped play and it's on the list of (hopefully) quick ticks for the next holiday.

The stats for the trip were:

50 ticks, 22 at 7a or harder.

11 x 7a (all onsight)

5 x 7a+ (4 x onsight, 1 second go)

2 x 7b (1 x onsight, 1 x link up so sort of onsight)

2 x 7b+ (1 x onsight, 1 x first go this year, tried 2 years ago but there was a bat in the top crack...)

1 x 7c (Onsight, yeah!)

1 x 7c+ (First redpoint)

All in all the trip sits in the top 3 of trips abroad, the climbing was of course fantastic and all other aspects were great, weather, food, accommodation (Sdregas apartments, very good), people, all brilliant.
Most of all, I think I learned a great deal about my climbing and my motivations for climbing. Hopefully  I can let go a bit of the grade chasing and do a bit more enjoyment chasing in future!

Hi Ally, nice work on Cave Slave.  It's probably a bit late now but I'll be around at the Tor this afternoon if you need a spot or an extra pad on anything. I'll be gone by 5pm though. 

Thanks Dan.

Sounds like a great trip, and well done on Aegialis in particular, classic of a first at the grade!

Yep - off to the tor this evening, but won't get there before 6:30pm - it's lantern season!

Cheers Andy. It was a brilliant weekend and I don't regret a minute, though I was a bit tired this week.....

I landed on Monday afternoon and promptly spent until the early hours with my Dad in A&E. All ok in the end but it didn't help how tired I was. Ate crap.

Back to uni on Tuesday (too tired to bike commute) and got loaded up with enough work for the next academic year, to be done by Xmas, whilst on placement. Yay! It's great to be back. Still very tired. Ate crap.

Wed - 3 jobs day. Coached in the eve but too tired to do anything myself. Just wanted to go home. Ate crap.

Thurs - bike commute to uni. Got knocked off on my way in whilst in a bus/bike lane. A frikking bus lane FFS! Bike and me OK but I left a big dint in the car door. Very nervous ride home. Ate well. Drank too much.

Fri - went for a run with a bit of a hangover.

Sat - leg physio, stretching etc

Sun - coaching at Sheffield. Did the Dave Mac 10 min workout and then got carried away and jumped on the lattice board. 73 moves but fell off because I got my sequence wrong. I only had a few moves left in me at most though.

I finally felt like I was getting on top of things by Friday. Bit of a write off of a week. But I've made a proper checklist/plan for each week so I can clearly see what I've got to do and when. I'm also back on top of eating well again.

Another busy week at uni/work this week and i'm going to have to wait and see how busy my placement is before I can plan any goas for the next month or two. I do need to learn to ski though asap.

This week:

Leg physio x6

Shoulder physio x2

Core x3

Stretch x6

Dave Mac 10 min workout x3.

Uni commute Thurs

Climb Fri

Bike ride Sat 

Effort. On a normal angle (27) one? 8b or something? Way better than I can do.

Let's Fit Club!  I was a regular for a few months a couple of years back, but had some long-term injuries that stopped me doing anything for ages, and fell off various wagons.

Goals:
ST: at least one of climbing/running/yoga/slackline/hiking 5 days weekly in October
MT: learn to highline, fall off more sport climbs with more different belayers (Christmas)
LT: one arm pull up, 8a redpoint (2019)

Last week:
Mon: -
Tue: golf
Wed: -
Thu: AM run to the wall & climb; PM slackline: learnt a couple of static tricks, tried rodeo line
Fri: -
Sat: a couple of long friendly multipitch
Sun: -

Calf muscles are aching fiercely, either from epic slackline session on Thursday or from hanging belays and endless slab climbing on Saturday.

Thanks AJM. To be honest I have always had a bit of a penchant for less well-trodden, more adventurous routes, so the Tronchey was an obvious choice -- a long, fairly technical and very adventurous route to a major summit I hadn't been to before. 

Sadly I had a partner bail (for entirely legitimate reasons) so my weekend plans fell through again. Means I'll miss my STG of 2x alpine routes but I'm happy with 1 tick and 1 good attempt.

Last Week (Transition Wk.6):

M: 55 min stairmaster Z1.

T: General strength w/core routine warmup.

W: 45min Z2 treadmill.

T: General strength w/core routine warmup.

F: 65min Z1 treadmill.

S: Rest

S: Rest

This Week:

45min Z2

2 general strength sessions w/core routine warmup

120min Z1

Get out on rock again if the weather is good. If not, go for a long run somewhere. 

Goals: (will add more/refine as they become clearer)

STG (end of October)

• 2x long alpine routes, TD or above, 800m+
• 3x E2 O/S

MTG (~end of January, maybe a little later)

• 2x Scottish VII O/S
• 3x WI6 O/S
• 1x M8 O/S

LTG (~end of 2019)

• New route in the Cordillera Blanca
• Bugaboos trip
• Caucasus trip

I've also been having a think about 666 goals. Two things spring to mind -- the first is a bundle of pure evil that I've been wanting/meaning to do for the last few years, but never had conditions/partner/time off line up. The second is something that's a little less dependent on external factors but will nevertheless be a good challenge!

• The 1938 Route (ED2)
• Versant Satanique (ED1 6b+) (O/S!)

WHAT!!! That sounds very wrong. I wish. LOL! 

It's the one at Sheffield Awesome Walls. About 20 degrees overhanging? I also wasn't counting, one of the kids was. He reckoned I went round 5 times plus 3. 14 moves in a circuit so 73. If 4 times round (59) puts me in the 7b range I'd believe that.

The Awesome Walls board is 15deg, aimed at people RPing French 6b upwards.  The "standard" lattice board, e.g. that at the Foundry, is 27.5deg, for 7b+ sport RPers upwards.

https://latticetraining.com/partners/walls/

Cheers for that. Though I am now slightly disappointed that I hadn’t accidentally stumbled upon a new training regime of not doing very much and smashing out 8b. 

I see we both had a successful evening

Cave Pervert (Stand start) (f7C+)

Yes indeed! Well done (and for cave slave the other day). I thought conditions were amazing last night. Almost did cave into BLH too. Hopefully it will go on Wednesday. 

What did you think grade wise? The only other 2 7C+s I've done both get 7C now so I've not really got anything to compare it against. I wasn't sure it was really that much harder than other 7Cs but it's hard to grade linkups where you are familiar with the moves anyway so they often go quickly. 

Cheers, the week started out much better. Swam most days, got a couple of 7 k runs in early in the week, nice stretch session on Thursday and a nice ride as well. Had a lovely 17km trail run in the sun on Saturday morning and felt good. Sunday I had lined up to lay some flags which i did and promptly put my back out. Bloody painful, but having done it before I know the recovery route. However im not going to be able to run the half marathon which is disappointing

Hi All. Thanks AJM for the stats.

Redpointing is interesting! It turns out when you actually practice the moves you can climb quite hard routes! And if you deliberately refrain from tiring yourself out by always going straight for the onsight then you can go harder still! Who knew?! Definitely a place for it in my climbing/training.

Last Week:

An absolute shambles from a training point of view. A dip in motivation and some work/life demands were compounded by deciding not to go for the Schmid route in November (various logistical reasons) -which had been the big motivation to keep me at the coalface. The only saving grace was an excellent day on the slate -I think I've found my new favourite rock type (excluding Lancashire quarried grit of course!).

M: Nowt

T: Training the Alpine start with a work day 4am-11pm.

W: Nowt

T: Shoulder prehab

F: Nowt

S: Climbing on the slate, highlights including leading Bela Lugosi is Dead (E1 5b) and seconding Comes the Dervish (E3 5c) -great route but I'm a long way off leading it!

S: Shoulder prehab

Next Week:

Try and get the psych back and get back on the training wagon...

150 mins Z1

2 Core sessions

2 general strength sessions

1 Trad session

1 bouldering session

STGs/Q4:

Jaz (D8)

Need another big goal -Alpine based...

MTGs/Q1:

The Ginat (ED1 5)

Scottish 7

Improve off piste-skiing (need to work out some specific goals!)

LTG/Q2:

TBC!

666 Goals:

Satanic Verses (VI 5) -although Alex's French version of Satanic Verses looks cooler!

Also DanDan's list has shamed me in to thinking I need to be more ambitious (though not to the point of 666 one-armers!)

Hmm, not sure Cave Pervert (Stand start) (f7C+) is a hard 7C+, especially with my beta on Perverse Reverse.

Let's Get Ready To Rumbleweed (Standing Start) (f7C+) feels solid at 7C+ for me, though some of the difficulty is dependent on how well you get on with the pockets (harder for chubby digits).

Cave Slave (f7C+) also felt pretty solid at 7C+ - you have to keep you core really tight to avoid any dabs coming around the start of Ben's roof.

I thought the same with cave pervert stand start perhaps at 7C or at least an easier 7C+ than the other two. 

Nothing much to report apart from plenty of walking, sciatica stretches and a warm glow from prescription painkillers.

Question for the collective brain...

What exercises specifically strengthen the lumbar muscles?

My current core workout ( https://www.uphillathlete.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Scott’s-Killer-C... ) seems to be yielding good gains for flexors and rotators, but less so on my lower back extensors. This is most noticeable when I progress to higher decline press-ups -I consistently get a tweaky back until I go back to normal press-ups again. I guess it may highlight room for improvement in my press-up form, but I also think there is a lack of lumbar strength too. I’m keen to maintain progression with the press-ups as the basic ones feel pretty easy, but obviously don’t want to ruin my back.

Thoughts?!

The training area is pretty quiet so I waste time on my phone as I do with every other aspect of my life!

Even worse week than usual for me due to work, world all weekend. Managed one visit set of deadhung and one visit to house of pain which would still be low enough not to threaten my ankle even if I could get to the top

I'll go straight in with the big guns, squat and deadlift. Obviously there is an element of specialist equipment required but I hear so many endorsements of these exercises as being universally good for strong and healthy back and core, which is a good base from which to have a strong everything else.
I also heard anecdotally that Eric Horst doubled his deadlift max without gaining any weight, which isn't unbelievable if you start from a point of not having lifted before, but that means his back is essentially twice as strong as before without any downsides of extra weight, that can't be a bad thing right?

Cheers Dandan.

Sounds about right! And I reckon I’ll be starting from a very low baseline with the deadlifts!!

I guess I’ll have to invest in a bar. 

Around here Facebook marketplace and Gumtree etc are chock full of second hand weights and bars going cheap, especially if you're not bothered about an olympic setup (olympic has 2 inch holes in weight plates, standard is 1 inch) so it shouldn't be too expensive.

When I started lifting, a single bodyweight deadlift (75kg) took me 6 weeks to work up to. Now I can smash out a set of 10 reps at 85kg, and one rep max is ~135kg. Like Eric Horst, my bodyweight hasn't changed in that time

Look on eBay, gumtree, Facebook marketplace - ideally invest in an Olympic bar, but i've done okay with an old 1" bar and a motley collection of weights.

They don't seem to go for much under a Euro a kilo round my way, and for any kind of serious deadlifting setup I'd definitely want to go olympic. And I'd need somewhere to keep it all. And a floor I didn't mind dropping it on if necessary.

For all that I could get nearly a year at a cheap & basic gym.

Yeah it's just under £1 a kilo here but sometimes cheaper if you get lucky, or buy a lot at once. I imagine Olympic stuff is considerably more.
The problem with the cheaper gyms is that they probably don't have good deadlift equipment either, so you are kind of stuck either way, some amount of investment is going to be required.
If you are really determined it's always possible, essentially you just need some heavy stuff and a bar, you could probably make a ghetto deadlift system with building supplies for a few quid! (You'd probably want to keep that in your garden though, so a bit more of an issue if you are in a flat)

Thought this might be of interest - how well can Lattice grade predict without the steering information they typically get from the intro questionnaires that they do? And on a very unusually built test subject to boot

https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,29636.0/topicseen.html

Now the proud owner of a 6ft, 1” bar!

(If I’d have gone Olympic my existing weights wouldn’t have fitted and I’m too stingy to replace them all!)

why are my ears burning? [opens up UKC tab] Oh!

Hehe. An interesting writeup. 

STG - 14st

MTG - Goblin Girl (6b) 6c at Navigation, then WFD

LTG - Probably bouldering, bearing in mind Trad will be hard for the next few years...

Weight - 14st 8lbs

M - Indoor routes

T - T - Rest

F - 10 min workout

S - S - Rest

Got down the wall on Monday and did a few routes.  Managed one of the 10 min things on Thursday or Friday, I'm not 100% now.  Was intending to do another one on Sunday, but wasn't feeling great so decided to give it a miss.