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.

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...

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 weeks post - https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/walls+training/ukc_fit_club_week_683-7183...

Psyche video - youtube.com/watch?v=S6floyyDP-w&

AJM - Sorry to hear about the back.  Lots of good training there.

Si dH - Great to hear about the board!  Lots of amazing sessions there.  Lovely to see.

Tom Green - DIY Club 4tw!  Lots of good training there.

Rebecca Ting - Yoga 4tw!  Love the running.  How's the home board?  Get a wobble board for the ankle.

Bones - No worries.  Hope you're well.  Looks like a good plan for the future.

the sheep - Love the 5 minute plank challenge.  Lots of nice runs.  Sorry to hear about your mums partner.

Ally Smith - I personally love the detail!  It is super interesting.  Lots of great sessions there.  Looking forward to the garage board!

AlanLittle - 1 meellion years!  75 minutes of step ups?  Impressive.com.  Link to Steve soloing K7?  Netflix binge away!

Somerset swede basher - Lots of nice sessions and running there.  Glad to hear the kids like the jugs.

Powderpuff - You're on the Joe Wicks bandwagon?  It works for him.  Plywood arrived yet?

Cyan - It'll come.  Make your own structure!  Great job on the runs.

Steve Jones - Maybe the swinging when fingerboarding helps with some core or something?  Lovely runs and walks again there.  Plenty of good strength work as well.  Excellent job!  It is easier being isolated in a national park I've found.  

mattrm - No runs

Cheers Matt, again, much of the same this week but without the core work as definately tweaked some stomach muscles last Saturday so giving it time to recover. 

Mon. 10 sets of repeaters, on the minute pull ups and press ups. 

Tues. Mostly rest, 7km kiddy mtb ride. 

Wed. Mostly rest, 12km kiddy mtb ride. 

Thurs. Attic session. Got stuck into the new holds I bolted on the other day. Turns out the holds I thought would be too small are actually OK once warmed up as long as you use the big feet. 

Fri. 51km with 900m ascent on the road bike.

Sat. Max hangs (+29kg), weighted pull ups (back up to +10kg with no elbow pain, winner!) but did fail last rep of last set. Press ups. 

Sun. 13km run. 

Steve House (spoiler alert!) not soloing K7:

youtube.com/watch?v=2oSYC60n5b0&

... and actually soloing K7:

youtube.com/watch?v=hFyivVv-Kh4&

Thanks Matt. Must be tricky to make meaningful comments when all we can do is fingerboard, so thanks for still going through and putting together useful stats each week!

Monday - my wife was feeling a bit unwell so what gaps I had were based around occupying and distracting children rather than training. In the evening I allowed myself to be distracted by trying a new online version of one of the board games we have at home.

Tuesday - better. Managed to squeeze some pull-ups into gaps in morning update calls - 5x5 @87kg, so 2kg up on last time. Tried pinch block at lunch, a bit inconsistent but given the feedback on FC I decided to maybe try again later in the week. Squeezed 3x10 each side bicep curls @13kg into another gap.

Wednesday - a busy day. Between a full day at work, contributing to parenting, trying to tidy the house a bit and sorting out what we needed from the shops I ran out of time to do anything. Rest.

Thursday - shops early doors again whilst they’re quiet. Then got on assisted one arm hangs. Equalled prior p.b.s on the 15mm edge - bw@75.1kg -8.5kg assist so 66.6kg ignoring pulley friction. I seem to run out of juice on this session fairly quickly because it’s so high intensity, but in the interests of getting more volume of hangs in I switched to the bigger 20mm edge at the same weight and did a few more sets of hangs. I tried to drop the assist on the 20mm edge but too late in the session for that. This 20mm edge used to be my old “lattice” benchmarking edge from when I used to do their plans, although it’s got a far better edge than the actual lattice edge that exists these days does. It would be interesting to re-benchmark myself on this - the 66.6 I was using today equals my p.b.s that I recorded back in the day, but on the other hand since I can do the same on the actual lattice edge and a smaller 15mm edge it feels like there might be potential to push on further if I prioritise it when fresh. Then got sucked into work, and in the evening I sorted out spending a birthday rockandrun voucher rather than training, but gear shopping is good for the soul, right?

Friday - 4x6 dips. Busy day at work, poor meeting to finish a busy day meant a bit of a downer going into the weekend.

Saturday - act 1 scene 1 - the cutting of the wood for the first stage of the campus board build. Also 3x10 diamond pushups. Main training was an assisted one arm session on the 20mm edge after the musings earlier in the week. Got to just over 68kg. I also did some on the lattice jug and a bar to confirm another key finding, which is that actually by about 70kg at the end of the session I’m struggling to do a neat 5s hang from those too, which echoes earlier thoughts in that one arm assist hangs maybe need to be done with smaller holds and more counterweight to stop the shoulder being a contributor to failure. See question below.

Sunday - act 1 scene 2 - the building of the upright frame and moving of the fingerboard. Also made a good start on act 2 scene 1, which is making and fixing the frame to the ply. That’s more than I had expected to do today - I pushed on with building since it’s still dry for working outside and since my back muscles are a bit achey. I’ve not done any training yet but hoping to do some amidst TV time this evening.

All the materials and rungs arrived for the campus board over the week and have made a promising start. Hopefully get it finished this week/end. Looking forwards to it - the fingerboard should be more clear of the campus board ply than it currently is the foot on campus panel which should mean I can do pull-ups and one arm work on the Beastmaker, which I can’t do currently, and obviously the campus board itself will be a new thing to train.

Pleased with getting a reasonable amount done during the week - more day on day off than I had thought but on the other  climbing relevant training than the stretching that was all I thought I might manage.

Question for the masses - hanging comfortably at body weight with shoulder neatly engaged and arm only very slightly bent - the sort of thing I really should be able to do in order to be looking at 7A+-7B+? I am better at full lock, presumably due a stronger position, but maybe only marginally so at 90? 

Thanks Matt! Ironically within an hour or so of writing this last week..."The main challenge is going to be being sensible and not getting injured"...I felt the old shoulder impingement in my left shoulder while going to bed. This has been ok for about 4 years now but the feeling was instantly recognisable. I took a couple of days complete rest and immediately got back on with some of my old theraband rotator cuff exercises, which I've neglected for a couple of years. Since Wednesday I've been climbing again and doing the theraband exercises a little to warm up and hopefully activate the right smaller muscles before each session. Touch-wood the approach seems to be working and I've felt no recurrence of the pain so far.

Got a good amount done again this week.

M: rest, but the remainder of my holds arrived so I spent a while putting them up in the evening. Board now has a good density of holds on it that will last me a while (about 70.) Only downside is I don't have any pockets and could do with some really positive things to use as undercuts, but they can wait.

T: rest

W: board session first thing. Pretty good, managed to put up another problem I graded 6c+ and repeated the ones from last week.

T: evening board session. Pretty good, set another 6b/+ish warmup and worked some other things.

F: did a brief bit of TRX when messing around with Sol in the garage, but mostly rest.

S: board session in morning.  Was feeling a little tired for most of it but then managed to pull out a new problem that I'd tried previously but not been able to stick a sloper on. Pleased with that. I also moved a few holds to make a feasible circuit all the way around the board on big holds. Managed to get 3/4 of the way around but fingers, core and shoulders were all completely blasted. If I can ever do laps on it I should get fit for Parisellas or something...

S: evening session. I've done 5 sets of bodyweight repeaters on the lattice edge and I'm now trying a pinch-heavy problem on the board. Feels like a good project.

Definitely feeling like I'm getting back in to the swing of board climbing and it feels slightly  lessuphill than it did last week. I've started setting some moves that use some of the smaller holds so I think I've probably designed it about right.

On the downside my diet is really poor - evening eating habits have regressed to what they were ore lockdown and I'm combining that with the odd lockdown-excused beer...so 2020 weight loss plans haven't made any progress.

I've stopped doing any TRX or core work because don't want to either shoulders or core to be tired before climbing. However I'm not sure if there are aspects of those I should keep training alongside board climbing. Does anyone have an opinion on this?

Si

PS. I can see lots of others are making boards, if anyone wants help/advice with anything let me know. I might not be able to but I'll try.

Hi all, 

Fingerboard purchasing advice needed if anyone fancies parting some wisdom... 

1.Please does anyone on fit club own a beast maker 1000 they could measure for me? I'm going to buy a second fingerboard as the smallest hold on my wood grips one is 28mm. Are the medium 4 finger pockets 20mm deep on the beastmaker? It says on their website that the small ones are 10mm but doesn't give depths for the mediums.

2. The other option is a lattice edge but I couldn't see the advantage of this over a beastmaker 1000 if that has a 20mm edge on it anyway? Other than £30 difference am I missing something here? I think I'd find working through the workouts on the beastmaker website really motivating too make it preferable to the latice edge. 

3. Anyone bought a beastmaker 1000 and wished they'd got the 2000? It says the 1000 is for people who climb up to 7C. I only occasionally dabble above this and I'm pretty sure it is not going to hold me back in the slightest, you just add more weight right? 

4. I could just try and shove some 8mm off cuts into the back of my 28mm edges and not bother buying another board at all. Anyone tried making a hold smaller? Recipe for disaster? 

Cheers in advance. 

I can’t measure a 1k myself, but I can offer you this which might help:

https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/cek236/beastmaker_1000_and_20...

I own a bm2k and a lattice edge and I’m not sure there’s anything on the 2k that’s enormously similar, but if there is on a 1k then I’m not sure a lattice edge would be essential - at the end of the day its great if you want the comparability to others, but it’s not got any magic beyond that.

shoving an AA battery into the bm2k slots to make them smaller is a time honoured way to generate a different option hold on a 2k, - I can’t see why a similar trick wouldn’t work on other fingerboards given a suitable size start hold.....

Don't have a bm1000 to measure but have used them at walls. I often use the middle edge (ie  at the bottom corners) for warming up hangs, it is similar ish to a lattice edge. I would say slightly smaller (maybe 18mm or something) but a bit less rounded.

Personally I would get a bm2000. It gives more options at your level and there isn't much downside. Except...it doesn't have a 20mm edge you can hang off 2 handed! Re: your last question, I have happily turned the big slots on a 2000 to 18mm ish with AA batteries for years. Have also used cardboard but it got gradually squashed so didn't work so well. Batteries work great. I'm sure wood would as long as it isn't rough on your tips.

Hope this is some help although I appreciate it may confuse matters.

What did you buy with the voucher?

I put it towards some 30cm 8mm slings ( to rehabilitate mechanically sound Friends with aged fuzzy tapes) and a shiny red Dragonfly to give me more microgear options above which I can get inadvisably committed once lockdown ends!

STG - 14st / 30 minute 5k

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

LTG - ???

Weight - 14st 8lbs

M - Rest
T - Rest
W - 2k run
T - Rest
F - Rest
S - 2k run
S - 30 push ups

Slightly improved week.  Pretty close to two months of isolation for us now, so it's all feeling very normal now.  Food is well sorted and we're both enjoying the lack of commute.  Obviously there's a bit of missing family going on and I'm worried about what effect it's having on my son.  Managed two 2k trogs up the hill towards the nearest mountain to my house, tho I'd like to stress, I don't leave town limits, it's just that the road is a nice steady uphill.  I have done quite a lot of gardening and general DIY stuff.  A few evenings have been clobbered by having to strip, fill and sand the dining room and hallway.  Numbers are ticking up and I'm hoping to get closer to 50% next month!

AJM - It's not much different really.  I often don't know much about the training stuff, so I just try to be motivational in general.  I hope people are happy with the stats, as I'm enjoying doing them.

Bit like Si,  I've a fair bit of general woodworking experience, so feel free to ask for advice.  I'm planning on making a small freestanding wall which I can move around as the need strikes.  

Alan - Thanks for the links.  I loved Beyond the Mountain, so I'll give them a view.

Steve - I was interested how the locals are reacting to 2nd home people and the like.  A lot of the locals here are militantly against anyone coming from 'outside' at the moment.  However I know that a lot of holiday homes have been opened up for NHS workers as we've got a hospital in town.  There's a lot of upset farmers cause of people going walking.  I've deffo seen some folk who fell run a lot going off for the odd quiet fell run.  They're all very competent and I'm sure they wouldn't be daft at all.  The Welsh Government advice is certainly a lot stricter than Englands.

April - 30%
YTD - 38%

18mm

They most certainly are not. Just re-measured mine & confirmed that they are still 14mm. My experience is that they are actually fractionally harder than the equivalent edges on the BM2000 - same depth but a bit more radiused. This is consistent in my experience over multiple boards, not just mine.

Ok, let's try somewhere in between on the detail stakes:

Week 17

M – Alderley Edge cobbles on road-bike. Felt strong and smashed a double lap of cobbled hills (AJM will remember these!) 1-arm shrugs 6x4 reps with -6.25kg assist. Bench press: Volume.

T –Tendon Density session:

Fingers: 3x30s@23.5kg F4SHC (quite hard) then 3x30s F3SHC at -15kg.

Shoulders: 40s on/2min20s off compression isometrics x6 with 7kg vest (core was getting worked too)

Aero-cap: 7/3/6/1 @ ~40% (-20kg; maintained F4SHC) x10

W – Collected timber for the board, but one of the plywood sheets was knackered and they didn’t have additional stock. Hmmmm, might be able to do a work around with recycled campus board wood…

Rest: 30 min yoga only.

T – Good strength session; Crimpd 2-arm max-hangs:

BW+51kg on Lattice edge.

35 degree sloper; tried consolidating at 23kg. Barely got to 8s on each of 6 sets. Warm & humid conditions no doubt to blame.

“Dead-pinch”: @17kg. 

Bench press: Capacity. 

5x5 pull-ups @25kg.

Brief core session. 

F – Rest! Brief bit of gardening. Dismantled campus board.

S – Morning Vale Royal ride. Mixed sloper and wide-arm pull ups. 

S – Mammoth shopping trip (food, pet and DIY supplies) then afternoon repeater session: Double round of 7/3/6/3 at BW+5kg on all holds, including 8mm edge. Drilling and cutting boards for home set-up.

You're doing a great job of keeping the momentum going Matt.

When Routine Bites Hard And Ambitions Are Low, Week Six.

STG: Survive the pandemic; still be on speaking terms with my family at the end of it. Vary my quarantine training to include more general strength & mobility.
MTG: Re-plan Kalymnos trip to the Autumn - but of what year? Do a beginner ski tour in spring 2021
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber by 2021, assuming I get to go climbing at some point in 2020. For measurable definition see Fit Club 658

M: Beastmaker: learning to crimp & back 3, session #2
T: DIY Club - need more shelves for all the pasta & loo roll. So now I have lots of wood offcuts, but no board to attach them to.
W: Ditto
T: Beastmaker: learning to crimp & back 3, session #3
    One hour box step-ups.
F: 
S: Beastmaker: learning to crimp & back 3, session #4
S: Two hours out on the bike in the woods.
    Watched the Tom & Ollie Show on training for the older climber. Generally quite encouraging, confirming my cunning strategy of progress still being possible over 60 if starting from a position of sufficient mediocrity. Vindicated my current strategy of going right back to basics to learn to half crimp instead of open handing too, but also confirmed what was already obvious, that due to lockdown boredom I am probably fingerboarding too much and not recovering enough.
 

It was a great day out

Cheers Matt, hope everyone here is doing as well as can be expected.

Worked from home last week having had the previous week as leave to cover the Easter hols. Not ideal but glad to still be able to do something. Did go into work mid week to coordinate a further donation of PPE from the uni to the hospitals so was nice to get out.

Have done some exercise every day, run wise its been the usual 10k ish trail runs with a 5k scamper over the fields with the youngest when i needed a rest day.

Legs were starting to get a bit knackered from constant running so dusted off the bike. Started out with a gentle 20k route early in the week then a 30 and finished with a lovely 50k ride out at the end of the week. Country lanes are pretty much devoid of cars, however loads of folk out on bikes or walking which was nice

So you're putting your hand up for some culm trad then?

Culm is always good.....

Repeat posting, in the right week this time:

Thanks Matt. What are you calling a proper run? You can definitely do it!

Good call on adding the wobble board. I'll dig it out.

This week: Yoga of some level every day, 4 x run (total 19 miles), 1 x core, 1 x fingerboard, 1 x bar and rings. 

STG

• Made the 100k AG goal by Wednesday and already at 100k for April. TICK
• Wood has been cut and just waiting for a drill guide thing (technical term) to drill for the t nuts. Then need to clear spare room (gear storage room). The magic of going from a 3-bed house to a 1 bed, 1 office, 1 wall house...
• Ankle was fine on the longer runs (that only means 5miles, don't get excited!) this week as long as I go every other day. Back-to-back days not so good eg. "had to" do a short one on Wednesday to meet the 100k AG goal, so that was okay but noticeably there/slightly swollen. Taking a small (200) Ibuprofen before run to make sure it doesn't swell so fast. Without swell (which can be from anything including heat, humidity, life) can keep a flowing stable run and it's fine after. With ankle support it supports but swells. With swell it just gets exponentially worse during the run.

Thanks all for the fingerboard advice. I'm going to start with experimenting with batteries on my wood grips board and make a decision from there. 

I'm basically starting from nothing really.  I've put on about 5 lbs in weight, so I'm just doing 2k runs, really fat basically.  I hope to round that up in to a 5k run this week.  Then I'll tack 2k on to that to build up to 10k.  Then it's just getting back to two 5ks a week and sticking with it for a couple of months to get back to 30 minutes 5ks.  I'm probably around 45-50 minutes if I'm honest with myself at the moment.

I don't remember it being reported exactly that way at the time 🤣

Ally definitely came very close to having a sense of humour failure!

I had a fun day out on this one, it was several of the others that were more challenging - I blame it on trying to keep up with Nick!!!

Thanks Matt, great psyche video this week, made my fingers sweat.

Mon: Strength session with resistance bands and made-up names. 10 reps of each. Seated band rows, push-ups on knees (to avoid coning), standing arm curls, twist lunges, slow squats (10 seconds lower into squat), raising back leg to 90 degrees with an arm row, behind the head arm pull, supermans, 12kg squats, tricep dips, weighted arm raises to shoulder (in front), 15-second hold headstands - all x 2, then followed by lattice finger curls workout with 12kg dumbbell. The finger curls still felt pretty easy with this weight.

Tues: rest

Weds: run, 50:52 min, 6.70km/ 4.16 miles, (7:36min/km)

Thurs: rest

Fri: run, 27:08 min, 3.62km/2.25 miles, (7:29min/km)

Sat: rest - so tired, lay on the sofa the entire day

Sun: walk/run (jogged first 3 miles and walked the last one, very slow due to baby pains from weird position - I didn't think it was the sort of pain where I needed to stop but just fairly uncomfortable), 52:47 min, 6.44km/4.00 miles, (8:12min/km).

Then I did one of the Catalyst climbing free training sessions (https://goteamup.com/p/1214617-catalyst-climbing-limited/) which happened to be leg day: sumo squats, cat pounces, pistol squats (using low sofa to sit on), cossack squats, tip-toe holds, light bounce squat, around the world cossack squats, hold wall squats. First round: 20 seconds exercise, 10 secs rest,  20 seconds exercise. The second round was 40 seconds of each exercise.

Week 700 goal: 50 finger strength sessions - 18/50 completed.

This week's provisional plan is 12 'workouts' in total:

3 x runs

3 x legs

3 x arms

3 x fingers

Mon: leg day; Tues: run, arms and fingers; Weds: legs day; Thurs: run, arms and fingers; Fri: leg day; Sat: run, arms and fingers; Sun: rest

Hi All -good work with the continued motivation! Thanks Matt for keeping us all on the straight and narrow!

Week 17:

M: Prehab. Elbows and shoulders. Ordered timber for home board.

T: Did the weighted pull-up 'test' on Crimpd. 3RM was +13.75kg -so not far off my target of 15kg. Hilariously, when working out 85% of this to set my training weight it takes me back to bodyweight! I guess I'll just keep on with BW 5x5s for now! Also Max Hang sesh and TRX -Crimpd Compression and Tension.

W: Deadlifts 78kg 4x4 (110% BW -think this is a PB). Normal Core sesh. Got a Jenga game to use as good footholds for the board and some wooden half spheres to use as shit footholds.

T: Max Hangs. Shoulder prehab. Took delivery of some (big juggy) holds from Rock City (excellent service by the way) -getting excited about creating my circuit board now!

F: Road run (man, I'm getting sick of running on tarmac!) Z1/2.

S: Pull-ups (BW 5x5 on the min), Max Hangs (+1.5kg), TRX (Crimpd Compression and Tension). 

S: Road Run: Z1. Deadlifts: 78kg, 4x4. Core. 

Week 18:

Start building home board (still waiting for wood). Bodge some sort of rack so I can do heavy squats.

2 Z1 sessions

2 Core sessions

2 General strength sessions

2 Prehab sessions

STG (End May):

Max Hangs 75kg total (currently 73.5)

Weighted Pull-Ups 85kg total 3RM (TICK! I'd better put this up to 90kg)

Squat 70kg 3RM (waiting on Rack -going to be built on to frame of home board)

Deadlift 85kg 3RM (currently 78kg)

3 sets of core circuit. (currently failing on some exercises on set 2).

MTG/LTG:

All hinge on how long restrictions last... put it this way, the home board will include homemade wooden holds for dry-tooling!

Hi Matt,

Still no plywood  

Hopefully it'll arrive this week.

Thursday: 3 sets of 20 press ups and sit ups. 3 sets of 10 leg raises and eccentric wrist curls. 6 max hangs on slopers. Lots of pull ups . Theraband for shoulders.

Sunday: 3 sets of 20 press ups and sit ups. 2 sets of 10 leg raises and eccentric wrist curls. 2 max hangs on slopers & 4 max hangs on 20mm crimp, lots of pull ups . 

Nooo   Lets hope it arrives this week.

Thanks matt....I've got everything crossed for this week too

Hi Si.....your going to regret offering help!

My main concern is drilling the holes for the t nuts straight and what size drill bit to use....any thoughts???

For the record I dont work a power drill for a living, I'm no joiner....decent DIYer is my level.

Thank you 

Don't worry, I am at a similar level of competence to you. I have a decent drill but no guide (did some googling but couldn't find anything I thought looked suitable as a cheap attachment.) I just held the drill with the bit as vertical as possible by eye, looked from both directions at 90 degrees before I started drilling, went halfway, stopped and re-sighted, then carried on through. I was doing 5 sheets together (3 for my wall and 2 for the boy's). It all worked out fine.

I used a 12mm spade bit. This was the first time I've used a spade bit, it seemed very good but I didn't try anything else. Seemed to be a bit of room to spare around the t-nuts so unless there is a lot of variability in t-nut wall thickness then I can't understand why you would need 13mm, certainly not with a spade.

To be honest despite reputation I found putting in the t-nuts to be one of the easiest parts of the whole job. It's just a pain after a while doing all the hammering if you have several sheets.

Edit to add, the only thing I did which was a mistake was to start putting on my holds using my power drill. This was quicker but I got one bolt cross threaded to the nut and basically welded them together with the power of the drill.  The hold was hanging off the wall and the t-nut hanging off the back and I couldn't get them apart. I gave up after 20 minutes of trying to drill it out with a titanium bit and decided to screw the hold against the wall. I'll never be able to move that hold now but it's no big problem.

Lesson learned is just to use an allen key unless you have a fancy multi speed electric screwdriver that can apply a lot of torque (mine is rubbish.) Other lesson learned is not to use a TX bit - they fit an M10 bolt head pretty well but not quite well enough to avoid damaging the bolt if you overdo the power with a drill. I have quite a few bolt heads that are now partially stripped.

Thanks for the reply

Reassuring to hear your quite positive experience of building the wall.

Next job for me is to see if I've got a 12mm spade bit ???

I used a 12mm auger drill bit for mine, went through like butter. Some of the holes are straight, some aren't, but everything works fine. I did mine one sheet at a time though. 

On Monday night I drilled my board panels with a 12mm spade bit, going through 3 boards at once after clamping them together. 

It worked, but wasn't the tidiest of jobs and needed a fair bit of welly. The auger bit might be better suited if you need to buy one to do the job.

There's also the option of drilling screw holes in the holds and then putting them on the wall. No plywood to drill, no t nuts to fit and you can put your holds exactly where you want them.

My local wall (BoulderUK) does this and it's brill. 

My circular saw has emerged from the cellar for the first time in over five years (shelves not wall)

Dawn Wall here I come!

Buying and learning to use one of those was definitely the most intimidating part for me although not too difficult in practice.

I think the most crucial equipment for sawing, t-nuts and putting the plywood up was a set of decent clamps.

Having just put up a lot of holds, I can confirm that screwing holds on to overhanging plywood is harder than installing t-nuts to begin with, even if the holds are already pre drilled. (Edit to add a caveat that this might depend on the plywood grade. I've used marine ply and with cheap screws it is quite hard to get them to initially bite.)

I agree though that it's a good option. In practice I think a combination of the two is best. I have already moved quite a few holds after realising my initial placement was poor. With screwing I couldn't have done that. However adding screwons later means you can fill the gaps between screwons, and the holds are also slightly cheaper (from some suppliers.)

Footholds are usually screwons of course.

"> Steve Jones - Maybe the swinging when fingerboarding helps with some core or something?  Lovely runs and walks again there.  Plenty of good strength work as well.  Excellent job!  It is easier being isolated in a national park I've found." 

I thought that too. The other prob with my board is that there is no back to it so it's easy to cheat and stick fingers through to make the hold more positive. But I stil find it v hard to use. I need something better!

Being somewhere like Keswick is a blessing at times like these!

M - Run round the lake 16k 270m, 1hr25

T - Walk (Ard crag & Knott Rigg) 22k 800m, 4hrs 15

W - Run round lake 14k 225m, 1hr 15

T - Weights - Bench press 5x56kg, 5x56kg, 4x56kg/5x50kg, 3x56kg/5x50kg, 2x56kg/3x52.5kg, Pull ups 5x6
Core stuff. Evening walk - just a mooch around town, looking at the churches and exploring graveyards! 11.5k, 2.5hrs

F - Bike out to Litttletown (6.7k, 35mins), walk round newlands (Anni Waltz race route to Dale head tarn) 14k, 900m, 3.5hrs, then bike back (8k, 35 mins)

S - Bike out to Binsey (15k, 70mins, 280m) Walk up binsey 2.3k, 200m, 30 mins) and bike back (15k, 45 mins, 95m)

S - Bike to force crag mine (7.7k, 200m, 45 mins), walk round Whiteside, Hopegill, Grasmore, Whitless, Wandope (16k, 1100m, 4hrs), and bike back (7.7k, 25 mins)

So, lots of good walking, some runs, but not enough S&C - however my shoulder is playing up so need to be careful of that now...

Interesting to hear a few peoples experience of building their walls.

My plywood looks like its going to finally arrive on Monday/Tuesday