UKC

Due to unforeseen circs this will be brief.

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_660-7125...

AJM - Congratulations, some commitment shown there to continue to get some sessions in, I imagine that might have faded in a favour of sleep this week?

AlanLittle - Have you ditched the idea of a specific route as part of your LTG? Did you stick to the plan last time and if so did it work?

ad111 - A plan to increase the additional weight for your 2RM by 33%in the short term is a good stretch target.

Tom Green - Good to have you back. What did you try in the alps (or is it too raw to talk about in which case tell us about White Goods crag!)?

Somerset Swede Basher - Wise move staying off the 6mm edges, I wonder if anyone uses them to actually train on?

Ally Smith - Back to normality this week? I saw an Insta of you in the Cave (in shorts??!!!) so I guess so.

Paul16 - These long circuit sessions can be brutal on the skin, another reason why I'm not keen but I guess if you tape up well its tolerable.

ianstevens - Will be very interesting to see how your assessment compares pre and post training plan, added motivation to stick with it.

guy127917 - any plans to return to FC?

planetmarshall - Not sure how much of my advice you should include in a training plan but, that aside, did you manage to get something down you are happy with? What are these implants you mention? Sorry as this has obvs been discussed previously.

the sheep - What caused the hernia? Good news its gonna get fixed

biscuit - Kendal is probably the best place to train for Euro sport routes, you're lucky, hope you manage to get there enough. 

mattrm - You've dropped the run this week, that's a shame, you should keep that up unless it was causing injury.

Steve Jones - Do you know anyone with a copy of Dave McLeod's injury book (or the Volker Schoeffl - One Move Too Many) these might give you a hand to diagnose and treat your wrist injury and tell you at what point you should start using it again.

SFrancis - The Mistral is very welcome in the spring for keeping the heat off crags in Provence, I imagine its less welcome high up at this time of year! Never heard of Cap Canaille, is it good? What were the routes like?

Powderpuff - I think 29 pull-ups is very impressive, I'd be interested to know if the Fit Club strong boys (SSB and Ally et al) can match that.

Bones - Has note for this week! Hope you're having fun in Morocco

annak - I think weighted pull ups, even on a bar, can still stress fingers so go careful. Hope you found some warmth in Monsterrat.

Ardo - I spelt it wrong last week so maybe you have been to Mount Rebei? I was thinking more for gorge walking although there is climbing being developed (not sure if there are any older, easier routes):

youtube.com/watch?v=f2wI6A3pZGQ&

youtube.com/watch?v=u_27fXro6VU&

Thanks Tyler - hope alls well with you - managed to continue fairly strong this week. Whilst I haven’t been getting bumper loads of sleep, I’m still off on paternity leave so squeezing an hour of the daytime out for training a couple of times a week hasn’t been too bad. Back to work on Wednesday, that will be a test!

Monday - short session, weighted pull-ups, 3x5 at about 86 and 3x3 at 91kg

Tuesday - didn’t do anything but cant remember why...!

Wednesday - weighted pull-ups, 3x3 at 91, 3 sets of pushups with feet on a table (sets of 5-6 hard ones), plus fingerboard on pockets. According to the data this was a massive p.b.- 86kg for 10s both front 2 and middle 2 on the bm2k middle row pockets (the normal ones, not the asymmetric depth back 2 ones), although I suspect this is incomplete historic records rather than a real breakthrough. But not to be sniffed at regardless.

Thursday - short wall session at lunchtime. Got some reasonable volume in plus 1-2 harder problems too, not a long session but good. Looking forward to the new 40 degree woodie being open for business!

Friday - slight grumbling of the shoulders (I think the smaller stabilising muscles versus the sort of odd shoulder tension that seems to be required to hold the child’s head up in whatever wonky position they’re sleeping in) meant I thought I should take a rest, probably not a bad idea since by the end of the day I had a sore lower back from wrangling miniAJM too.

Saturday - short fingerboard session, assisted one arm on the 15mm, some progress, up to 66kg pulled (75kg minus 9 on the counterweight). Pleased to have moved on from flatlining a few weeks back.

Sunday - rest. The last day of a 2.5 day block when miniAJM hasn’t been at nursery, which is challenging, his energy levels and ours are quite mismatched! Took him swimming this morning.

Hoping to train Monday/Tuesday before return to work, staged at first so off Thurs and Fri pms. Fingers crossed I will keep momentum going, but take it day by day I guess.

Yes. I decided (a) 8a was unrealistic for me in the available time and (b) if I could walk up to pretty much any 7a or 7b in a wide variety of styles, and feel confident of having a good chance in not too many goes, then I would never run out of amazing lines in fantastic places to enjoy myself on. But that involves raising my general level of all round competence & fitness a notch or two.

I have stuck roughly to broad outline training plans in the past, with the result that I felt stronger on the things I was training, while I was training, but without that then resulting in any breakthroughs on the actual rock. Hmm.

The last time I had a breakthrough on actual rock was when I learned and started to apply some systematic projecting tactics. This got me from the mid 6's into the low 7's without any actual need to get much stronger or fitter. And there I have stuck for several years now.

Reini's plan is much more detailed and specific than anything I have tried in the past, and I intend to follow it as rigorously as I can. Let's see what comes of it.

STG: Get partners to commit to dates for spring Kaly trip. Negotiations in progress.
MTG: Actually get up something in what remains of the autumn season. Looking unlikely.
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber by 2021, starting with getting up something big, steep & classic on Kalymnos in the spring. For measurable definition see Fit Club 658

M: Stretched while watching the Alex Megos movie.
T: Wall, Thalkirchen. Start of the base phase of the Reini Scherer intermediate programme. Reini says as a 7a/+ redpointer I should be doing seven to ten 6c's in a session. Bloody hell. I don't think I've ever done more than two or three, and short ones at that. Given my current state of fitness I decided around 6a+ would be more realistic, of which I did eight with a couple of 6b's in the mix for good measure. The wall was packed, so route choice was whatever's free. Next time will try to do the same on steeper and/or taller sections of wall.
W: 
T: Max hangs benchmarking check. Didn't quite make 7 seconds for +22kgs, which would have been 2kgs up from my last benchmark at the end of September.
F: 
S: Wall, Boulderwelt. Was tempted by a new set on the circuit wall, but mostly managed to stick to The Plan and do actual bouldering, with the main focus on a couple of roof projects to get past my fear of the upside down.
S: Wall, Freimann. Was supposed to be another round of base mileage, but was climbing as a three so unable to get enough mileage in. Went fewer but a little harder instead - half a dozen 6b / 6b+. Endurance seems to be pretty much back to pre-illness level, so that's nice
 

Is that 7-10 new 6cs so an onsight challenge, or known 6cs so a density sort of session? They'll be quite different level - I assume the latter given the former feels quite mismatched Vs 7a/+ redpoint...?

Good point, which I had thought about. The plan doesn't specify but I suspect it's supposed to be volume on known routes - but since my wall has recently re-set I don't have any

7 to 10 6c onsights does indeed feel way too hard. Other recommendations that I've seen for aerobic volume sessions seem to recommend a grade or so below one's consistent onsight level, so in my case around 6a+/b. Which does feel about right: doable but starting to get hard by the 6th or 7th route.

Morning Tyler - how's the hip? Still trippin' on the meds?

Normal service resumed - cave session in shorts and kneepads, but promises of 30min daily exercise have been scuppered by the dreaded lurgy...

Week 47

M – Knackered from overnight travel. Home briefly, then travel to London. Nuthin’

T – Work, then social. Also nuthin’

W – Work volunteering – clearing a pond on Clapham Common – then travel home, so really also nuthin’

T – Very brief Chapel session. Repeats up to 7A+ and a few goes on the 7B+ project from last time. Felt surprisingly sprightly, but stopped early to avoid fatigue.

F – 45min lunchtime physio session, with 10min walking each way.

S – Cave. Ranging from dry through sticky damp to plain old wet depending on how deep you were in the cave! No new ticks, but surprising links of a bunch of stuff, e.g. Rocka in 2. Cave Life and Broken Heart off the bat. Wire from floor to Broken Heart start. Halfway House – start to TC start.

S – Feeling shit – sore throat and snot. Gentle day making chutney and clearing leaves. Bit of core and groin physio (45s isometrics)

Woken up with a fever this morning; taking it easy and going back to bed. 

Cheers Tyler, that's worth bearing in mind. I'm pretty happy with finger progress at this point - having had a number of pulley injuries now (maybe 5 in 5 years) I feel like I'm getting better at rehab. I used to be in the take-total-rest camp, now I feel like I get much better results with a short rest then increasing load to stimulate repair. The trick is not to overdo it obviously! Which means I end up doing a lot of gentle sessions and gentle fingerboarding.

M: Barcelona tourist day, omg the food is amazing

Tu: rest 

W: training session down the bouldering wall, mostly antagonist and core, plus fingerboarding. 

Th: rest

F: training at bouldering wall, antagonist, core, fingerboard. Discovered I can hang from the 40mm pocket from just my left hand. Bad finger can now tolerate two arm hang on deep pocket.

Sa: 4x10min easy climbing on autobelay

Su: easy lead climbing session. Managed a bunch of 6a and 6a+s without ever really pulling hard, which I actually think is quite a useful training technique in itself for me. Concentrate more on footwork and body position to offload fingers.

This coming week I have a minor keyhole surgery procedure on Tuesday so doubt there will be any climbing for a bit. 

STG: rehab stupid finger and get back to previous high point

MTG: Outside: 7b lead, 7A boulder. 

PS did we lose fitclub #661 ?

No idea, just woke up one morning and there it was. Had a different instructor for stretch the day before and did things slightly differently but nothing major. Anyway surgery this Thursday so hopefully on the mend and posting here again soon.  Glad to be getting it out of the way well before Christmas so im fully up and about for the kids 

Indeed, looking forward to it! Hoping to get outside as much as possible this week as I'm not at work* and my plan has a lighter week, but we shall see what the weather has to offer. It feels like its working - I'm feeling more powerful and am doing better on steeper problems that I used to really struggle on. Bit of a tangent - but have a functional commuting bike again!

Been sleeping pretty poorly lately - I suspect due to a tendency to overeat sugary shite late in the day. So going to aim to sort this next week. Plan is to eat more non-crappy food in the day so I don't crave junk in the evening. A week without work is probably. good time to play with this. 

Last week (2019.47/L1.7)

M: 1) Yoga; 2) Valley - terrible session! Felt tired and performed poorly. Quit about 1/3 of the way through.

T: 1) Yoga; 2) 90% hangs (6 x 10 sec) @ 90.2kg.

W: Yoga; 2) Valley. Easy warm up, campus board (123, 134 and 145); linked boulders (12 moves on 7b circuit); ARC on 6a circuit. 3) Pull ups 3 x 5 @ 79.6kg; compression. 4) Bike commute: 10.1km

T: 1) Yoga; 2) Valley inc. beast maker warm up; strength intervals @ 6C; 3) BC: 10.2km

F: 1) Yoga

S: 1) Yoga; 2) Stabiliser conditioning; 5x5 pull ups @ 79kg; press and row (16.5/31.5 kg); floor core; static holds

S: 1) Yoga (7 from 7!); 2) 90% hangs (6x10 sec) @ 90kg; 2) Valley - general mess around doing stuff up to 7A. Managed a 6C short-term project on the 25 degree moonbaord - pretty chuffed as its my anti-style. 3) BC 9.1km.

*this is clearly a non-political thread, but important to clarify - I'm off work because of strike action, not because I picked a week of in the depths of a wet November!

Another thought occurs to me: I'm supposed to do this twice a week for at least four weeks. There are half a dozen lead walls in the Greater Munich area and they probably don't have eighty 6c's between them - and the programme was originally written for the old Tivoli wall in Innsbruck, which was quite small. So it can't possibly be intended to be onsight.

Is Chapel bouldering fairly reliable in poor weather?

I experimented with Trowbarrow on Sunday but it was a wasted trip. 

It is a big target but I've never trained pullups before and am hopeful for quick gains!

Thought about going outdoor bouldering over the weekend but it is really cold here (Finland) and the outdoor season is probably over for me now.

My week didn't seem particularly big but I felt physically exhausted for the last few days so I am going to take Sunday and Monday off completely and perhaps do some max tests on Tuesday.

• Monday: Konala - Max hangs and pulls & projecting
• Tuesday: Espoo - Projecting, pullups and core
• Thursday: Konala - New routes, core, shoulders
• Saturday: Trip to Redi (wall i dont have a membership for) - attempt to climb all 7A & 7B

Progression: Felt strong but physically tired. Considering less climbing and doing some campusing at the start of my thursday session.

Goals:

STG: Increase Pullup 2RM from 22.5kg to 30kg

MTG: Maintain good form with max hang on lattic edge +35kg. +review pullup progress.

LTG: 3* 7C next year

Afternoon Tyler. Nothing spectacular to report but missed an ARC session on Sunday due to a lurgy, for which my skin is happy.

M - Rest, shoulder mobility and foam roller

T - Strength session at the Chapel + core

W - Long lead session at Rope Race. 12 routes, no harder than 6a+

T - Rest. Shoulder mobility

F - AW, auto-belay, shorter session focussing on harder routes as set. 6b+ was fine, 6c stumped me but down to route reading rather than pump.

S - Core, shoulder care and a massage

S - Yet another cold lurking so day of rest

STG (Early Dec 2019): Build a base of endurance and good movement habits. Improve shoulder mobility and awareness of tension.

MTG (Spain, Early Feb 2020): Booking a trip to Costa Blanca for early Feb so eyeing up some goals for that trip. There's a 6c+ at Sella I didn't finish last time so that's one. Otherwise I'll be looking to redpoint some 6c+/7a's and see where I get to on those.

MTG (UK, March 2020): Redpoint Rubicon 7a & Kiss Me Hardy 7a+, head point San Melas E3 5c. On-sight of Wings of Unreason E4 5c/6a/6b

LTG (Sept 2020): Redpoint Brachiation Dance or Garderobe, both 7b+

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 3lbs (STS)

M - 3 mile walk

T - 3 mile walk

W - Rest

T - Rest

F - Push ups

S - Push ups

S - 3 mile run

Thanks for the stats and the encouragement Tyler.  It did definitely help push me out into the cold and rain on Sunday evening.  Normally it's just life/slobbing/work/family getting in the way.

I was sure I went for a run on Wednesday, but I didn't write it down, so it must not have happened.  Odd.  Been a tough week, my son has been rather ill, so Weds and Thurs were spent at home looking after him.  No time to do anything.  I managed to sneak in a run on Sunday.  Actually resembled a run in parts as well, which was nice.  Less shambling and more running.  Sadly my regular partner was still unavailable, so no climbing.  I'll really have to just man up and go bouldering.  The year average has gone up.  The month is doing well, even tho I didn't get to where I wanted to be.  It's still just about doable to reach 85 days.  But barely.  I can only afford to miss two days now.  

Nov - 68%

YTD - 46%

Hi Tyler,

I doubt many train off the 6mm edges - I think they'd ruin skin pretty quickly.

This week I have been mostly spanked by gritstone.  I've come to realise that so much of my training has been on jugs or fitness stuff while recovering from injury I think my bouldering finger strength has gone down loads.  On the plus side I think my finger is healed now (no grumbles for 2 weeks) so ready to get back up to strength again.  Might need to leave my ego at home and get on some easier problems For the last 4 weeks I've tried upping training to 4 session a week rather than 3.  Not sure if I'm seeing any gains other than a niggly left elbow!

Mon. rest.

Tues.  Burbage North.  Great conditions but terrible me! Had (another) session on The Terrace.  Didn't go well as I didn't manage either of the 2 hard moves even in isolation.  Lots of people seem to find this problem pretty steady but I find it desperate.  Going to write this one on the 'one for another time' list for the time being as making no progress at all at the moment.  9km run later on late evening.

Wed.  Back to Burbage.  Had a play on Submergence and Blind Date.  Think these could go with a few sessions on them.  Manage all the moves expect the big one on Submergence.  I'm too short for the lanky method and too weak for the sloper match so will invest some time in the right heel roll over method next time.  Only a quick go at Blind Date but could do the first move which is always a good start.  Need to work out where to shove the left toe next!

Thurs. rest

Fri. Went down to the Climbing works and did some of the red 7A/7A+ problems.

Sat. 10km run

Sun. Depot Sheffield. Stayed away from the circuit board again and did a load of the purple V5-V7 circuit.  Really enjoy the problems here - much more so that at the Works where I feel like I'm going to fall on someone all the time.

Lets hope for some sunshine soon.

29 in one go!?  That's mega.  I'd be happy with half that!  I doubt I could do many more than 10 in one go to be honest but I reckon I could do almost as many off a small ish edge as I could off a jug/bar.

Cheers Ash. Hope you're making progress steadily.

It turns out you were wrong! Ratho is miles better for euro style training, but it's a bit of a journey....

STG -

Fix my finger

7b in a day and 4 x 7a or above onsights on post Xmas Costa Banca trip

MTG - 

Switch back to bouldering after routes trip

Ned's Problem 7B - Trowbarrow

LTG - 

7c in 2020. Route to be decided.

M - BUK - bouldering. Got a V6 on the new set and started to feel like the finger will let me do more now. 

T - Nothing that I can remember

W - circuits at Depot. 6a+. 6b+, 6c+, 6c+, 6b+, 6a+ all on different routes with 3 min rest between. Great pump but succeeded on them all so drop to 2m 30s next time. 7a's look a bit too fingery for me atm.

T - Meeting over ran so missed planned BUK session

F - Doing jobs i'd planned to do on Thursday so missed another potential session.

Xfit in the eve. Weak and feeble but worked hard.

S - Ratho - tried hard, got my arse kicked

S - Ratho - tried hard, got my arse kicked

A good week really. Could have been better but it was unavoidable that I missed a session.

Ratho was great. Such long and sustained routes. Bit intimidated on day one. Hardest I managed was 6c. I also rested about 4 times on another 6c!  Tried a 7a but fell off at the top and another that I couldn't do a few moves on. Nearly fell off a 6b+ jug fest due to wet holds. Didn't expect that indoors. Good that I manged to try hard two days consecutively and I feel i'm getting better at trying hard again. 

My finger is improving with every session but I still need to be careful of it. 

This week 

Keep getting pumped and look after my finger

Sorry Si -  The Chapel is a perma-dry bouldering co-op in Macclesfield, I've not been going to Chapel Head Scar...

29 is bloody impressive - I was doing some pull-ups in Tanzania - best effort was 21 on a wooden beam. Previous best (5 years ago?) was 25 on a 25mm campus rung

Oops...! 

Good job I asked

Hi All. Thanks Tyler.

A decidedly mediocre week -on the face of it, work and life got in the way of training but, if I'm honest with myself, a more disciplined/organised me could easily have worked around these excuses and fitted sessions in. Must try harder...

Week 46:

M: Rest

T: Bouldering/soloing at Burbage North. Some good crack mileage (pleased with jamming progress -I never used to be confident enough in my jams to solo cracks) and some nice problems. Highlight was Velvet Roof (f5+) -gorgeous hand jams with some committing horizontal roof climbing and nice 3D moves to turn the lip (first attempt had a comedy moment when a jam was 'too good' and I couldn't get my hand out to go forward or reverse and had to figure out how to extract myself without falling on my head from 2m up!)

W: Long work day

T: Nowt (calling it 'Rest' would be suggest it was intentional rather than just poor commitment!)

F: Trail Run. 42min Z1; 5.8km, 320m vert, 7:13/km, v techy (pretty paranoid I was going to break an ankle on the mud with buried rock in terrible visibility -great fun!)

S: Accidental excessive alcohol consumption.

S: Trail Run. 2h13m Z1; 22.3km, 486m vert, 5:57/km, moderately techy. Good hangover cure.

Week 47 Plan: 

90 min Z1 Run

2 x Core & Strength Sessions

3 x Shoulder Prehab

2 x Scottish Winter Days

STG (End Dec):

Front Squat 3RM: 60kg 

Deadlift 3RM: 80kg 

Tick off 666 goal routes. 

Redpoint Jaz

Welsh 3000s in a day.

MTG (End March 2020):

Scottish VII

Two winter alpine routes from my little black book!

SkiMo summit (TBC).

666 Goals (Basically STGs!):

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

6 Roof routes (2/6)

6 E-points in a day

Hi Tyler 

Well done for still managing to fit club in, thank you.

I wasnt aware until posting on fc this year that my pull up strength is particularly high.

Tuesday: local wall climbed problems as follows:
v3,two v4,v5
worked v6

Mrs powderpuff 's bday so no second wall session this week....trained alcohol & sugar tolerance instead

Sat: 3 sets of 20 sit ups, 3 sets of 10 eccentric wrist curls. 2 sets of 20 press ups. 3 sets of 20 leg raises. Theraband for shoulders

Have a great week everyone

It was by no means a disaster... no epics, no partner fights, no injuries. And, if I look hard enough for positives, there were some: rediscovered how beautiful the Swiss alps are, felt pretty fit, enjoyed moving over easy terrain (over recent years I'd got a bit impatient with easy alpine terrain, regarding it as an annoying delay to getting on the more technical ground!).

The annoying thing was that, as a partnership, we weren't strong enough to cope with the slightly less than perfect cons (nothing terrible, just a lot of powder coating everything) without slowing down dramatically. 

We did half a Breithorn Traverse (in brutally Scottish cons -including zero vis mega-whiteout on the walk out!) to acclimatise (3 x 4000m peaks that I hadn't done before, so that was nice). Then went and had a go at the S Ridge of the Dent Blanche but were moving much too slowly so I called it on top of the Grande Gendarme (it was already 8:30am by this point, with bad weather forecast at 3pm). The fact that we weren't a strong enough team for these easy routes made it very obvious that the main objective of the Schmid on the Matterhorn was going to have to wait for another trip!

First alps trip I've ever had where I came away without at least one significant (for me!) route. But off to Cham with AlexM in Feb, so we'll hope for better things! Also, I bought myself a link cam as a consolation!

Thanks for stats Tyler and hope all well with you. Missed Mount Rebei, so definitely one for the next visit.

Nowt last week, as driving back from Spain, un-packing the van and getting some washing done.

Need to get some training underway and probably need a plan to go with it, but struggling to get started as my get up and go has got up and gone, so let's see what the week brings.

I've asked a couple of folk, but to no avail. Sounds like the sort of books that would be a good purchase anyway so may invest in one or both. Wrist is feeling better - stick a bit 'clicky' but managed a few pull up with no pain this week. Will prob delay climbing a bit longer - as much due to life as injury.

M - Morining run up Latrigg - 5.6k, c.300m, 35 mins

T - Club session - intervals - 11.6k, c,90 mins with faffing.

W - rest

T - Club session - intervals - 11k, c.90 mins with faffing.

F - Rest

S - Wild Boar Fell Race - 9km, 500m, 52mins. Knocked 4 mins off my time from 2 years ago (my BGR year, so was quite fit) but only due to not getting lost.

S - Went to the Lee Mill relays but didn't race - Keswick were 1st and 2nd without my help . . . (and after some had been out drinking until 3am the night before as the w/e away was a stag do)