UKC

Hey Team,

Hope this week has been a productive one despite being summer holidays and slightly crazy weather.

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.

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     

Last week’s thread can be found here: https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/walls+training/ukc_fit_club_week_645-7080...  

Posters:

AJM -the dark is pretty scary! Hope that little piece of parenting joy has resolved! Did the stars align to for a productive Fri-Sat?

Powderpuff -I know what you mean… all of those things aren’t an excuse for not making time for training, BUT they sure as hell don’t help! Maybe the change of scene to a new wall would help -as long as the extra distance doesn’t mean less visits? Will you still be able to bike to the further wall?

AlanLittle -Good work not rushing back in to things after the lurgy. And congrats on the fingerboarding PBs. Did you get out on the real thing this week to feed the rat properly?!

Somerset swede basher -Good mileage on the bike this week. And sounds like a good day out at Pleasley Vale. More climbing this week?

the sheep -Short but sweet! The numbers are good though -well done for maintaining consistency whilst on hols. 

Ardo -Your canoe day sounds awesome! Was that river, canal, lake, sea? Seems like a solid week in terms of mileage and indoor sessions. Have the diet and training gone according to plan this week?

Niall_li -Glad the intense resting went well! Hope the foot is fully mended -although being forced in to hangs and campussing is a good silver lining! Did you get back on track with the weighted one-arm hangs this week or has it been more than just a blip?

Tom Green -Happy with the climbing progress -the mixture of training and mileage seems to be paying off. Just need to keep the discipline for hill running -a few good runs will rekindle the love for uphill suffering!

Ally Smith -Managed to get an appointment with the Groinologist? It doesn’t sound like the groin held you back too much anyway -productive afternoon at Kilnsey. Intrigued by the Mecca replica… Insta a pic for us!

Steve Jones -welcome to Fit Club! Already a big fan of your work… the chips and beer that is! The Crack at Bowderstone is a worthy target… what problems have you got your eye on as stepping stones to get there?

Tyler -Upping the weight again? -Beast! Annoying that skin stopped play on Sunday. Did you get back to Kilnsey this week?  

Outdoors.nick -Yeah, it’s weird… North Wales seems to be the driest part of the UK at the moment (must be the first time ever!) -let me know if you fancy a day over there. Well done keeping the faith despite that Peak rain. Did you get out this week? 

Dandan -Kind of annoying that it’s more than one finger… as I guess you can’t just climb round it like with a single finger? The weight loss is bound to help though. Are you still on target for 0.5kg per week? What did you get done outside on Friday?

Biscuit -Some nice trad sessions there. I’ve not climbed at Anglezarke for ages so you’ve inspired me to get back there. Hope the hols are good. Did you manage to keep on the straight and narrow with conditioning and diet?

Bones -Good musings on process/goals -that journal format sounds really useful. Good work with the muscle-ups and front levers. How was the Welsh walking?

MIA: planetmarshall, Ianstevens, Jackob,  guy127917, David Staples, SFrancis, cyan, Rebecca Ting, mattrm, lornajkelly

Sadly not - it's better, in that reducing naps and doing a slightly later bedtime has taken some of the sting out of it, but it's not really resolved as such...

Not my finest hour this week. The partners and the plans were there, but my A, B and possibly even C games decided to skip it and stay at home.

Basically failed to get up anything on a hot day at Swanage on Friday, which was very disappointing. A return to reality with somewhat of a bump from the highs of Amanita. Having been staring at E3/4s in guidebooks and dreaming high, failing to get anywhere on E2s, even with a plethora of excuses, some half reasonable, was still incredible dispiriting.

After a midway plan of Portland we eventually ended up at a greasy Lulworth with the family on Saturday, which was a nice relaxing day but with nothing really significant to note.

Feeling a bit stressed at the minute, combination of work, child faff, and stuff. Not got long left in the grand scheme of things before a climbing hiatus once microAJM arrives, so I'd been hoping to make the best use of that time....

On holiday on Wednesday for a week. Hoping to get a bit of climbing in whilst I'm there, and also to chill out and come back recharged and rested.

Shit training week, went to Depot after physio on Monday. Skin was screaming so gave up after a couple of laps of the circuit board but then returned to do a few more. All I did rest of week was some weights on Wednesday, saw some improvement.

Overnighted in the van for the first time since it's been done out, enjoyed it

Thanks for the welcome. No problems as yet as stepping stones, but will just try and find a problem or two at Kong to work on during the week. Hopefully get out to Carrick and/or Honister boulders and find something to project once I've got a bit of confidence. Also just get out and do some trad too.

I've 3 big fell/mountain races lined up for September, culminating with one in Italy (right on south coast) I'm now looking at having something of an adventure after that on the way back (see my other post in the beginners bit re courses), preferably involving climbing of some sort.

This week:

M: Easy flat 7.5k run in morn, 45 mins bouldering on lunch break, 13k (c.400m) easy run in eve'

T: 5.5k (c.300m) run in eve' - not much energy

W: 45 mins lunch bouldering, 25 mins upper-body strength/core work in evening -then ate junk food

T: 9.5k (c.400m) run after work - not feeling great either. Carb' loaded for the w/e, then had a few pints (i'm in the 'house band' at a local pubs open mic night so Thursdays usually involve beer and a late night)

F: 90 mins at Kong, an hour or so on ropes with a friend, top and tailed with bouldering (ticked of a V3 prob the stumped me on W)

S: Borrowdale fell race (27k, C.2000m). 3hr 46, 21st and 3rd vet. V happy with that.

S: Recovery ride - 36km (c.500m) in the morn' the 30 mins strength stuff in the eve'

Next week: more of the same - lunch session at Kong on M/W/F, club training on Tues, Steel Fell race on Wed and Lowther fell race on Sunday (club champs). Other stuff fitted in between - hopefully an outdoor climb on the Saturday. Going to get back on intermittent fasting to get weight down (under 70kg, currently 71.5kg-ish) as I don't think I can do high mileage for the next couple of weeks - especially if now adding climbing!

Hello!

It's been a tough week and there's not much to report, basically 1x wall session on Friday. It was at least a fairly decent session: the intention and hope is for this week to be better!

Thanks Tom. Yes, much success in my summer mission of visiting new and increasing odd places this week. Though unfortunately not much actual pulling hard.

Mon. Went to  Gnosall Quarry which was one of my bizarre climbing experiences. The quarry is in someone's garden (it's a massive garden). I knocked on the cottage door to get permission to climb and a little old lady came and unlocked the gate to the quarry for me. It's currently being used as a natural chicken keep. I was pretty sure I was going to get locked in and fattened up like the chickens but all was good. There is so much unclimbed rock there. Its a shame the owners want the place rarely used. I just climbed the 3 documented lines as it was a bit damp and I didn't want to break any holds so kept it to a short visit.

Tues. 40km on the road bike

Wed. Back in Sheffield for some horrible weather. Good session at the foundry. Off peak entry price and the wave to myself, winner!

Thurs. Crimpd extended core. Sacked off a fingerboard session as fingers tired from yesterday.

Fri. Hilly 25km on the road bike

Sat. Went to the end of  Bell Hagg that isn't in the guide. Did about 20 easy problems or short routes. A couple of gems but mostly a bit scrappy. Good fun exploring though. Bell Hagg Tricks (f6A+) was the best of the bunch. 

Sun. Alpine start due to access issues. Went to  Boozer's Buttress this is the place I tried to go to a few weeks ago but there were too many people around. A couple of false starts to get to the crag then soloed most of the documented lines. There is so much undocumented rock here. 50 lines? And the right hand end is way less chossy than suggested in the guide. If exploratory trad in the sub E1 range is your bag then head down here. I soloed a few of the easier ones but it's nice to leave some rock undocumented for future explorers so I've not recorded anything. Wear trousers and a long sleave top though as it's a nettle and bramble bush whack to get in. The further right you go the more hidden you are from the houses. Home before 7.30am and had a nap later when the kids did! 

Thanks Tom - still muddling through with the groin strain - feels like a slight upward trajectory at the moment, but still obviously weak. Mecca replica is just the crux dropknee bit - still needs some tweaking I think.

Week 31

M – Continued the weekend DIY theme and spent 3hours dangling on a rope looking at new routes. In the end got one fully bolted with resins and another line equipped with shoddy working bolts.

T – Pre-work: “Margalef” FB pocket routine: Double round 7/3/6/3 @BW+8 to +10kg. Post work: Warmed back up, then Crimpd small hold (BW+5kg on 8mm edges), barbell press, light/deep DLs, 5x5 pull-ups (BW+7.5kg – concentrating on speed - no elbow grumbles) followed by FoC aero-cap; 10x 1on/1off.

W – Rest – heavy(!!) rainfall meant biking wasn’t an option either.

T – Max hangs 6x 10s @42.5kg – felt quite hard; lost some recruitment I think. Need to keep up the FB sessions. 5x5 pull-ups @BW+27.5kg. Brief rest, then 8mm edge session @BW+8kg split with rows/press session @36.5kg and 3x10 light/deep DL of same weight.

F – After work CX ride; gentle intro, then went hard for double lap of Tatton Mere/Dog Wood. KOM on 2 sections.

S – Kilnsey –  The Big C (E4 5c) as a warm up instead of Directissima. Pretty steady apart from some spooge when re-joining Directissima and having to ration quickdraws 'cos there was more gear than expected. Quite keen to do some of the E5s - Tyler? Did some trundling/dogging/bolting - not quite finished – need some dry conditions to stabilise the remaining holds. Sampled some of the Kilnsey bouldering in between roped climbs; did a couple of 7As. Think Launch Control (f7C) should be a goer too.

S – MTB ride at Cannock Chase. Blue was fine – red challenged wifey but she was improving on singletrack and drops throughout. 26km total. Snoozed in the car – felt terrible – smashed out 5x5 pull-ups at 30kg and 3x10 OHP at 36.5kg

I’ve been MIA the last few weeks (month?) as I’ve been up in Svalbard for work. Generally limited internet access, training equipment access and spare time - so very little actual training. However, lots of slogging across the tundra (read: bog-fest) with piles of heavy kit, so shall see how it pans out. Only real training was a singular run in which I managed to regain a Strava segment I had recently lost.

Now back in the UK with two weeks off. Packing the car and going climbing. Hopefully will manage a fitclub report next week, if not expect details in two weeks time!

OK week given work and life commitments. Certainly some good practice for alpine starts!

Week 31:

3/3 runs. 1/2 core sessions. 1/2 Climbing sessions.

M: 5am start for work. Long day -with training gap between jobs hijacked by flat tyre.

T: Alpine start. Shoulder prehab.

W: 3am start. Post-work hill run. 8.2km, 645m vert gain, 9:05/km avg. V techy terrain -lots of falling over.

T: Last alpine start of the week. Shoulder prehab on the beach between jobs.

F: Road run. 8.8km, flat. 5:19/km avg. Wedding avec food and booze.

S: Sunny morning sabotaged by hangover. Afternoon indoor climbing. Max hangs, 1 on:1 off on circuit board, killer core sesh.

S: Road run. 8.8km, flat. 5:25/km avg.

Week 32 Plan:

3 runs (preferably hilly), 2 Core sessions, 2 Climbing sessions.

STG (end of Aug):

Minimum three runs per week until alps trip.

Minimum two core sessions per week.

Start ticking 666 climbing goals.

MTG (end of Sept):

Four Alpine routes off tick-list.

Continue ticking 666 climbing goals.

LTG (end of 2019):

Finish 666 goals.

Redpoint Jaz (M8)

Run Welsh 3000s in a day.

Two big Alpine routes off tick list.

666 Goals:

6 Crack routes of each size (Fingers 2/6; Hands 2/6; Fists 0/6; Offwidth 1/6)

6 Roof routes 

6 E-points in a day

STG - 14st

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

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

Weight - 14st 5lbs

M - Rest

T - 4 mile walk

W - 3 mile walk

T - S - Rest

July - 48%

2019 - 41%

Again rather tired.  I was supposed to be going climbing, but Joe had to bail due to work.  So we've rearranged for this week.  Stats are holding just about.  But what was looking like a great month has died on it's rear.  I guess at least it's close to 50%?  Oh well.  There's always next month.  But at this point the next few months need to be over 60% and I just don't think that's possible.  

I'm going to have a long hard think about the 'goals' and see what's actually doable over the next year and rejig them to something that's actually workable.

AJM - I feel your pain.  I'm just ratcheting down my goals (i.e. ignoring them) and getting my head down for now...

I feel your parenting pain. Two nights ago we read 'the crocodile under the bed' which, although it was a very friendly crocodile, was interpreted as a horror story by 3 year old Small Swede. Potty training is down to only one accident a day but the play room carpet still smells of piss in this heat. We also decided to take the stair gates down to decorate and Mini Swede hasn't totally mastered the stairs so we have an insitu pile of bouldering pads at the bottom to make a softer fall out zone!

Thanks Tom,

Yeah its one tendon on each hand and a knuckle on a different finger so very hard to avoid and still climb! The only answer is to drop the intensity which is frustrating but makes the transition back into training easier I suppose, less chance of (further) injury. I'm trying to seek out slopey problems and less crimpy stuff but it can be frustrating.
Technically i'm on target for the weight, although on average it was a drop of 1kg last week and 0kg this week! Same end result...
Friday was a bit conditions-y at Coastguard North until the sun came around, stayed sensible and only climbed up to 6c+, all of which was thoroughly enjoyable and the most finger friendly session I've had in weeks, I always find outdoor routes are kinder to poorly fingers than plastic pulling.

M: Flexibility - glutes, hams and hips

T: Indoor Boulder - 8on 5off on traverse wall, then 6 reps of medium problem with 2.5min rest, repeat on 2 other problems. Also snuck in the 5 weekly comp routes to play guinea pig for a mate who actually had a score card.
Forearm flexibility.

W: Fingerboard - 1 arm hangs, used the AA slot but without the AA battery in it! Was very much more of a rehab session than hard pulling.
Flexibility glutes and hams again

T: TRX - prone and supine IYT's

F: Portland - climbed up to 6c+ and did 4 reps of it as part of a session, ran out of time to do another set
Flexibility upper body

S: Skipped the planned fingerboard session, chopped logs and built a log store for them instead.

S: Indoor routes 4 reps of 14 move problem (I used half a route), 3 sets. Felt good, quite powerful but fingers were fine.
Flexibility hips and upper body.

Lots of flexibility work this week which I am quite enjoying, it's all active movement stuff so it's hard to benchmark how i'm doing, certainly isn't doing any harm though! The foam rolling before each session has definitely eased some muscles, lats and calves especially.

I was a bit surprised to discover that my score on the local weekly comp would have put me somewhere around 20th place, that was a bit of a kick to the ego, but after discussion with a mate I remembered that we just threw ourselves at the problems with no knowledge, and several people were actually following behind us to gather beta so I guess it's not too bad. Several people flashed the powerful, world cup style route though, which I couldn't touch, that's not all that encouraging!

Slightly lighter week coming up and possibly another day outside at the weekend, the current aim is just to be nice to my fingers.

Hey Tom, it was a cool day out on river and canal: out on the Trent and back to start on canal. Got some sport, training, attempted sport, flat DIY, trad and birthday beers in, only thing missing was some work on the van, so a good week all round.

Mo: General walking, 6.7 miles. 4 Sport routes.
Tu: General walking, 9.3 miles. 14 probs; MH: 4*12/150; IDH: 5*4*10:10/90, 4 lead routes.
We: General walking, 9.2 miles. Park walk and resting.
Th: General walking, 9.9 miles. Attempted climbing turned into a country walking day looking at dripping limestone walls.
Fr: General walking, 8.8 miles. Flat DIY club.
Sa: General walking, 6.1 miles. 12 trad routes @ Higgar Tor, including dogged attempt on the Rasp.
Su: General walking, 8.2 miles. Rest day
Weight: 10st 7lb/bf 16.2%

No plans or targets for the coming week, given the weather forecast.

Hey Tom, I hope you get some good hill running done this week. I am off out on my first run of the week today (Tues).

The journal is called self journal from BestSelf if anyone is interested. It's very expensive for a notebook but I only get them on offer (often on American holidays) and they work out a lot cheaper. Mainly got them for work as I am freelance working from home and needed as much help as possible to structure my day/week/life.

The Welsh walking was wonderful. Just over 45 miles in all kinds of weather and terrain. Weds was wet wet wet and we got utterly soaked. Bags roughly 15 kilos each. Seemed quite a lot but I was carrying 5 litres of water.

Mon: only 2 miles walking before dark, later start than planned! 

Tues: 19 miles, took a lot longer than expected due to terrain but was a beautiful day.

Weds: 16 miles in the rain, again a slower day than we thought it would be. Lots of off-road and hills with one mountain. Was a bit of a slog in the wind and rain and hard to stay on the route but we made it out alive.

Thurs: last 11 or so miles to Aberystwyth in blazing sunshine before sitting on a beach and eating a huge goats cheese, aioli and sundried tomato sandwich followed by a choc chip caramel slice and getting burned in the sun. Then a swim with a fair-sized jellyfish

Friday: rest day

Saturday: Summer party bouldering comp at Hackney Wick. I got into the finals!! It was so much fun. I flashed the first problem, fell off the very top of the second with adrenaline sweat-soaked hands and then didn't manage the third. Finished fourth place and won a beastmaker 2000 I loved it and now am very motivated to get amazing at bouldering so I can be in more finals!

Sunday: adrenaline hangover followed by a very hot and sweaty lead climb session at the Castle.

Plan for this week:

4 runs planned to train for the 10 mile race in October. Plan starts off pretty slow and steady so will see how that goes.

Stepping up my training for front lever as not long until the 666 goals are up. Working on a plan this week.

One fingerboard session and at least 3 climbing sessions.

Hi Tom, glad to hear your climbing is going well at the moment.

My own is a bit mixed. In the end i decided to still mix it up between the two walls when I feel the need. Partly because I can only realisticly bike to one and it's very convenient.

Busy week with work last week more of the same the next  couple of weeks. Good to be busy though.

Mon: biked to wall and climbed two v3's &  v4's , struggled AGAIN on stiff v5's . 3 sets of exercises and theraband.

Wed: new set at the local wall! Good session climbed two v4's, and first v5 in ages....get in! Also started to look at a v6 which may be too much of a challenge but that's what it's all about right.

Sunday: 5 easy hangs on fingerboard before realising my fingers were too tweaky to do max hangs. 3 sets of usual exercises except leg raises.

Shame I didn't have the juice for fingerboarding on Sunday but hey hoo. Good to be doing more exercises this week and a v5 and weight is pretty good at the moment also, 11st 10....seems to settling around this figure.

Have a great week everyone

One armed hangs seem to still be not performing, although think i'm a bit under the weather generally, sore throat, tired etc. So currently chalking it down to that. Weirdly doesn't seem to have impacted my other strength measures, unless i'm just not as close to my max on them, something to ponder!

M - Climbfit, 5x3 weighted pullups 28.75kg, 3x5 weighted dips 12kg, 24kg get up sit ups and russian twists. hard session, the climbing bit has defos upped intensity!

T - Pilates, rest

W - Boulderworld, hard problems. +11.25kg on my lattice rung deadhangs and +2.5kg on the 2 finger pockets on the BM2000. All felt fine, will need to up the weight more!

T, F,S - Rest, sore throat, tired

Su - the call of Fairhead and the decent weather was too strong, climbed some good problems then finished off with a blast on Eat it. After the last 2 sessions on it being so poor was pleasantly surprised. Start felt easy (last time it felt impossible), was a foot pop away (on something my foot has never popped on before) I think from doing it.  I've now done it from first move to the last move and 2nd move to the finish

Has really upped the psyche, the rail I used to be just about holding now feels huge! I really should've got into this consistent Fingerboarding thing years ago

Lined up for a full BH weekend down there with a good crew at end of August so hopefully get that done and a few other projects i've had my eye on

STG: Get some climbing done on summer uk visit.
MTG (2019): Double digit 7's including Frankenjura 7b+ project. Currently: 2. Oops
LTG (2021): Redpoint 8a before I hit 60

Fit Club Dorset sampler.

M-W: Visiting family. A bit of stretching.
T:    Drive south for Fit Club Trad Club meet at scary Swanage
F: ... where Fisherman's Ledge proved way too scary for us, see AJM's report. Escaped via convenient new shiny tyrolean to the Promenade, then went over to Guillemot and did Tensor II as a token Swanage Trad Tick
S: Rebecca persuaded us to go to Lulworth for my first ever venture into DWS. Failed on a couple of attempts to make it all the way round a very wet & greasy Maypole, but enjoyed both the attempts and the resulting involuntary swims. Still not at all convinced DWS of the uphill variety would be for me.
S: Portland with seankenny. Another ass-kicking: this really is radically different from Frankenjura style "grab the next pocket & pull". Clearly if I lived in the south of England I'd have to spend some time adapting to the vertical, techy, footwork intensive style.

Rather short on glorious achievements - can scarcely remember my level of actual climbing performance & motivation ever being lower - but still a very pleasant weekend in a beautiful part of the world in excellent company.
 

Hols are going nicely thanks. Stayed on the straight and narrow with my diet. Hardly touched the booze. I'm liking the range of zero/low alcohol beers available now. Got my brother's wedding this weekend so i'm going to try and avoid gluttony there too.

I've managed my exercises every day apart from one for my arm and two for my legs as my back had an episode when I bent over the cooker. It was fine but I took it easy for a day or two until it settled. My arm is feeling a whole lot better but whilst I have this period of enforced non climbing i'll keep on with the rehab.

Nothing to really report other than that. No climbing and probably none next week either. The weather is pants though so not missing out on a great deal.

Does anyone have a pdf Topo for thor's Stone on the wirral that they could email me please? The download from the wiki site no longer works. 

Thanks 

I’ll email some photos over. 

Cheers, received fine. 

Amy idea how quickly it dries? Forecast to be wet tomorrow morning. Rock likely to be dry by the evening or best to wait til Monday which is supposed to be dry all day?

Completely forgot to respond this week at the start of the week! Busy one!

Last week was: 

M: Rest from weekend of heavy rain (drinking)

T: Gym 

W: Gym 

T:Rest

F:  Got out to Dovestones for a bash on my mates project ( Hanging Crack (E2 5b) ) He got up it first go this time and I got much further than expected passing the first crux but totally ran out of power for the final overhang. 

S: Bouldered indoors in the morning then far too much alcohol in the evening!

S: Helping the in-laws move house. Counts as a gym workout I reckon. 

No idea to be honest. At a guess I’d say it will hold the moisture a bit... probably more of a problem from small holds being a bit snappy than from being actually unclimbable.