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... 1

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_699-7232...

Si dH - Lots of good sessions there.  Glad to hear the niggles are ok

mattrm - Good job on the walk and other bits.

AlanLittle - Nice one on the skiing. 

AJM - Ohhh, DWS again, you lucky thing you. 

Somerset swede basher - What a great week.  Lots of amazing ticks, nice running and scrambling along with a lovely sounding bike ride.

Tom Green - I love that Cairngorm classic rock routes in a day.  That's an immense effort to have attempted that.  Might be better off in the middle of summer, when you've got more light?

the sheep - Great mix of running and swimming as well.

Tyler - Welcome back.  So what are the new goals then?  Good job on the weight loss.  Hope the hip is now all ok?

Thanks Matt. Got out for a good session getting a bit of a pump on on some classic routes at Lulworth on Tuesday, did some actual training on Saturday.....

Key uncertainty this week over September holiday with the threatened reciprocal quarantine on incoming visitors to France scuppering a Font trip. However today we discussed and I think we’re heading in entirely the opposite direction and going to Northumberland instead, which I’ve always wanted to visit.

Weather looking very changeable this week so not really sure where we’ll end up. Hoped to DWS Tuesday and the weekend but who on earth knows if any of that will pan out. If not, training for holiday I guess.

Monday - rest

Tuesday - Lulworth morning. Super hot and a bit greasy to start. Soaped my way round the Maypole and up Captain Bastard. Then got on Laws Traverse because it was in the sun and looked cleaner. That was good, and as ever good for raising a bit of a pump. Then we went round and got on Animal Magnetism, which was in decent condition (the grease concentrates on the Horny wall and in the back of the caves). However, it has to be said I found it a lot harder than usual as I was sweating in the heat and ran out of chalk which led to a bit of a moment at the top! Also good for pump raising as a result. Good training morning on classic routes. Then I went swimming, because it was so hot. It was lovely.

Wednesday-Friday - nothing. Busy at work and parents visiting. Also having to spend some of my spare time catching up on CPD for work which I have left well beyond the 11th hour!

Saturday - with Sunday’s forecast looking so uncertain I thought I should probably train regardless as otherwise there’d be the risk of saving myself for nothing. With a bouldering trip now about a month away I thought getting back into some high intensity stuff would probably be good. Got back on the campus board for the first time in a while. Felt hard warming up. But on both sides I did:

- 3-4-5-6 and 3-5-6; 

- 3-4-6 I did fine one side and overshot and clouted the top of the board the other

- trying to bump 3-4-5-6 with each arm at a time I could get to the top but not really make any headway on coming down.

- 2.5-5-6 I hit one side but not the other.

A decent enough first session back - certainly better than I had feared - but decided to keep it reasonably short as a compromise over the possibility of climbing Sunday.

Sunday - more CPD plus plotting to fix the September holiday. Beach with miniAJM in the afternoon once the rain finally stopped. 

Cheers Matt.  Another similar week in some ways.

M: rest

T: board session in the evening.  Felt pretty strong and finally did my remaining project, which was a 7A+ish thing on pinches.  Also set two new 7A/+ish problems to try next time.

W: rest

T: evening board session again.  Another good session - I managed to do both of the problems I had set on Tuesday.  The fan I bought last weekend was a godsend - without it, both of these board sessions would have basically been write-offs, but with it, the conditions were good.

F: rest

S: family stuff

S: I had my first trip to a wall since lockdown.  I went to the new 'Matchworks' Climbing Hangar in Liverpool.  Had quite a good session and did a good range of stuff from V4-V6.  Felt like I was moving well on a variety of steep and vertical ground (incl some heel/toe hooks and strange body positions) despite having mostly climbed on a board for months.  Unsurprisingly I was terrible on slabs!  It's a good wall and the covid measures seemed pretty sensible - limited numbers and a one-way system (so it was possible to keep distanced from people if careful even though the wall wasn't far off capacity by the time I left.)  Lots of hand sanitizer stations and everyone using liquid chalk instead of normal powder chalk (with this last point in mind, it was also amazing how clean the matting looked!).   I probably won't go very often given I have my own board and because its a bigger drive than getting to the original Climbing Hangar site in Sandhills, which I understand will reopen in a few weeks, but I wanted to try it out.

Overall a good week - I felt like I was climbing well and had no injury flare-ups.  I really want to get outside against next weekend, I haven't been out for 3-4 weeks now.  Tempted to go back to Woodwell and look for a project.

Unfortunately I've been tempted by a beer in this hot weather a few too many times this week so dieting hasn't gone so well...

Thanks Matt, yeah, I think the run was still the highlight of last week. This week we've still been away visiting family. We figured if we were going to see our parents this year we should do it before school starts back up and we all get exposed to a load of germs again. I feel like I've done a lot of flogging it down the road on the mountain bike trying to keep up with Mrs Swede cruising along on the road bike this week too!

Mon. Rest. 

Tues. Early morning Brean session. Flashed Only bones left (7a+) and Only bones right (7a+) which are mentioned in the guidebook and there is often chalk on them so they clearly get done but they weren't in the database so I gave them a name and a grade. Maybe someone will disagree and edit them but they are about right. Also did all the moves on Despair. 13km bike ride in the eve. 

Wed. 22km bike ride.

Thurs. Back to Brean early doors on a dodgy weather forecast but it was OK and I managed to do Despair (7c+) after a few beta tweaks. Ally and I had discussed where this finished earlier in the week but I managed to fight my way all the way to the high jugs so definitely got the tick, possibly doing a few moves more than I needed to. Took a look at Cycle of Despair afterwards but couldn't see a way to do the crux. Drove to Shropshire afterwards to visit Mrs Swede's family. 

Fri. 25km ride. 

Sat. Went to two crags looking for new routes but the first  Rock Lane Quarry was too soft/loose to climb and the second needed more gardening than I was willing to put into somewhere not local to me. It also needed me to put some stakes in to ab down it and I'd nothing with me. Maybe I'll put some time in next visit as it looked quite solid. I headed back and found a low beam in the barn to do some training on. 3x10 shoulder shrugs, 5x5 on the min pull ups, 3x10 press ups and 3x1min planks. 

Sun. 9km run at 4.45/km. Flat and fast with only 115m ascent.

Thanks for stat'ing efforts again

Week 32: 

M – Rest. Felt shafted after a night of disturbed sleep compounded fatigue from 2days climbing. COMPEX core only.

T – Moonboard Original yellow holds arrived in the post. Fitted and had a quick play on things. Way to bloody hot though. Stopped before all my skin ablated and did some deadlifts instead. 8x 65kg then singles; 95, 105, 115, 120, 125 (all fat gripz), 129 (bar – felt pretty close to max) then back down again on fat gripz. 3x10 flys. 3x4 hard reverse flys.

W – Stinking hot – rest. Bum, groin and hamstring DOMS.

T – 8am Moonboard session to avoid the worst of the heat. 14 new problems on the fresh holds, including a benchmark 7C (Salathe) 2nd go! (I almost bloody flashed it :-o ). However, as it heated up and my skin thinned on the new holds, I couldn’t match that level. I did find a couple of other 7Cs that felt viable and even a 7C+ that might go; exciting stuff! Much later, 26km @ 29.5kph; flat n’ fast. Arrived home to a stream of psyche from fellow Moonboarder – briefly pulled back on and smashed 2x 7B+ in quick order (Sensei variations). Pink tips!

F – Tendon density (3x 30s @BW+18kg) & aero-cap (10x 7/3/6/1 @BW-20kg) hangs.

S – 25km MTB. Reasonably hilly (380m ascent) but very steady pace as my wife kept it slow n’ steady on the hills. Awesome we’re still out biking together though. It stayed sunny so we hit the coast for a fish supper before heading home.

S – Cheedale Cornice; humid but not completely terrible conditions. Good enough that 2 dogs of K5 I could do all the moves, inc linking crux both goes, but it was never a RP’ing day. Dogged Ouijaboard; twanged left middle finger in the pocket (then found a nice 4 finger crimp instead). Waiting to see if it’s going to cause me issues...

Warm and rainy this week. I'll probably concentrate on some weights and finger (p)rehab until the weather sorts itself out.

Thanks Matt. Normal service resumed with some sport climbing this week.

Old STG: Summer climbing trip; hopefully tick something decent between the thunderstorms. Ticked
New STG: grow some new fingertips.
MTG: Autumn Kalymnos trip. Looking more uncertain given rising Greek case numbers with the summer tourism, but still proceeding on the assumption.
    Do a beginner ski tour in spring 2021
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber by 2021. For measurable definition see Fit Club 658

This was the week I was planning to go to the Dolomites, but unsettled weather and an injured partner turned it into a sport climbing trip to Ötztal instead. Which was also fine: got somewhat comfortable for the first time with how to read & move on gneiss, resulting in the beginning of a return to something like sport climbing form.

As it turned out there were only two days when we actually had a big thunderstorm, but also only one day where the forecast in the morning didn't say at least 40-50% risk from early afternoon. So we wouldn't have launched up any big routes in the Dolomites anyway.

Weight is back down to pre-lockdown level, which I declared as an STG a few weeks back. Still a couple of kilos to go to target fighting weight for Kaly in October(?).

M: Ötztal, Rammelstein. Nice little north facing crag in pretty woodland for some gneiss acclimatisation on a hot day.

T: Ötztal, Oberried. More fairly easy getting-acquainted gneiss mileage, plus possibly world's most sandbagged 6b. Can a route have a Font 6B crux and still be 6b?

W: Ötztal, Engelswand. This is the only major crag in Ötztal I haven't been to before, which turns out to have been quite the mistake because it is *superb*. Definitely one of the best low-to-mid grade sport crags I've ever seen. And some glimmers of sport mojo returning - bolt-to-bolted an utterly beautiful 6c+, did the moves but was struggling with humidity and the sun came on it before I was ready to consider a redpoint attempt. One for the autumn. The crux of the route is moving out of the top of a widening finger crack into a couple of face moves; at the end of the crack I successfully employed my first ever ring lock. Proud of my new-found wideboyz credentials.

T: Ötztal, Engelswand. Fourth day on: thought better of making a serious try on the new proj, did a few desultory easier routes - two of which were really excellent though, confirming my high opinion of the crag - and bailed early by mutual consent.

F: Rest day. Half an hour mobility, mostly focused on shoulders.

S: Ötztal, Engelswand. Perfect connies, unlike the pre-thunderstorm heat & humidity of the rest of the week - moderate temperature, clouds, breeze. So no need to wait until the autumn after all the tick the lovely Boys Don't Cry (6c+). First decent sport tick this year, back in the game. Hurrah.

S: Ötztal, Rammelstein. Back to thundery humidity, and not much by way of fingertip skin left on my sixth day of the week on gneiss. Did some warm-up routes, had desultory goes on a a couple of 7a's, one of which I definitely want to come back for. But not today.
 

Hi everyone -nice work last week -some cracking weeks there. Welcome back Tyler!

Thanks for the stats, Matt, the Cairngorm day was a blast. Really enjoyable despite being unsuccessful. Not sure that an extra hour of daylight would have helped -we lost much too much time to non-moving. I'd be reasonably confident it would go if I tried it next summer, having had a bit of a sighting shot at it now.

Last week was pretty slothful, pretty fatigued in the first half from the previous weekend, then pretty demotivated in the second half from cancelling an autumn alps trip.

Week 33:

M: Rest.

T: Rest.

W: Rest. Tried a run but soles of my feet still too bruised so ended up tiptoeing home after a mile.

T: Max hangs and prehab.  

F: Swimtervals. My new invention of swimming against the river current until I slow down sufficiently to get swept downstream... rest and repeat! It's like a water treadmill! 

S: Max Strength sesh. Max hangs, weighted pull-ups (first time since starting elbow prehab programme) and TRX.

S: Rest.

Week 34:

250 min Z1 

2 Core session

2 Strength session

2 Climbing sessions 

3 Prehab sessions

New STGs (End Sept):

Max Hangs: 82kg total 

4 sets of my muscular endurance circuit.

3 sets of my core circuit. 

Cheshire Cat, Harmers Arete, Eliminator, Yates Layaway.

Curfew, Grid Iron, The Deep.

Black Wall Direct, Red Square, Digitron.

Cheshire Gritstone Trail

MTGs:

TBC

Hope the finger twang is only short term. 

Managing to climb regularly again so signing back up. Appreciate your work in keeping this going - I've been reading every week even though not posting. Thank you.

4x 2hr boulder sessions at the wall last week. Skin coming off in absolute sheets but starting to remember how to climb again.

This week:

Keep weight slowly tracking back down. Lost about 3kg but still about 8kg heavier than start of 2019 - some health problems last year followed by 4 months of bad eating and no exercise.

3 or 4 decent wall sessions working through the circuits (aiming for 5x V2-4, 3x V3-5, 1x V4-6).

More sleep/less stress. Might mean picking the meditation app I was using at the start of lockdown back up. Will definitely be more careful about afternoon coffee.

Welcome back

Dear Fit Club: tell me what to do next. Specifically on Thursday.

I have my regular weekday evening routes session at the wall today (Tuesday). Assuming I'm climbing at the weekend, weather permitting, I'll also get another session in on Thursday. But to do what?

Normally I'd think it was important to do at least one bouldering session a week for strength maintenance, movement repertoire etc. But I'm going to Kaly (hopefully, subject to no second lockdown etc) in October, and I'm wondering if it might be more effective in the short term to let strength slide until after the trip, and instead hammer the aerocap for another couple of weeks before shifting to power endurance in September.

So: bouldering on Thursday or another round of lattice 50/50 aerocap?

I don't think it's necessary to always do a bouldering session every week. You don't want to completely drop strength work for too long but the odd week isn't a problem if you are focusing on other things. The answer really depends on your weaknesses and goals. If you have been really lacking aerobic endurance since lockdown and Kaly is your big focus then maybe do some aerocap. If you think your strength is what you have lost most and you want to climb well in Kaly but also have an eye on short fingery limestone routes in Germany then I'd probably do more bouldering for longer and just make sure you leave a few weeks for the power endurance phase.

Etc.

Long time lurker, first time poster. Reading trainings logs has been inspiring to me, so I thought I join in. 

STG: finish 50km mountain ultra in the Bavarian pre-alps next week (29th). A lot of "running". 

LTG: become a better climber and swimmer, even though I still have to define what that means. Do fun, technical "running" routes without overreaching. 

M: resting up from Sunday's heatstroke 

T: rest

W: 10km easy forest run 

T: 14km run, going up and down a tiny hill (64m) which gives 12 vertical meters in one go. 500m d+

F: rest 

S: first time bouldering (2h) in a while, was fun but oh so weak. Something to work on. Afternoon 13km run, 1020m d+, hill repeats.

S: run, 10km, 1000m d+, same hill. 

Cheers!

That sounds like so much fun 

Cheers Matt, Mixed things up nicely again this week.

Monday, 43km ride on the bike

Tuesday, 8km trail run at lunchtime and 2km open water swim in the evening

Wednesday, 6.5km trail run

Thursday, 2km open water swim

Fridy, rest day

Saturday, scuba diving. Doing a survey of a disused gravel pit for a local parish council who had acquired the land as a nature reserve. Challenging diving in very low visibility conditions. Thankfully not deep, however on the whole a grand day out

Sunday, 8 km trail run

Thought it might be up your street!
You and the family would love it! 

Are you doing any max-hangs in addition to the climbing sessions? I find that, whilst big muscle strength hangs around quite well, finger strength drops off much quicker... so my worry would be that focussing on ancap and aero pow style stuff would leave me lacking in crimp strength on arrival in Kaly. 

This probably reflects my specific situation though, as I have less of a long term base for finger strength. For you it may deteriorate less quickly. 
 

Yeah, agree, depends a bit on the first priority - if long term then you can never have too much strength, if short term then head/tactics/fitness feel like the areas where most gains can be made for a specific short term trip...

Tricky. I don't see finger strength as a major short term weakness, and can probably coast for a while on the max hang gains I made during lockdown.

Otoh: there is no such thing as "strong enough", if you can't do the moves there is nothing to endure (etc). But if I'm in the fortunate position of climbing three-four days a week, as I am at the moment, then I see time spent moving on rock (or even plastic) as always more important than off-the-wall training, and I struggle to see where I would fit max hangs in without compromising the climbing time.

Welcome. What's the Bavarian Alps ultra?

A perennial problem for a many of us! What do people think of a v short boulder session, say 45-50 mins with enough time to warm up and pull hard a bit, followed by a decent aerocap bash. 
 

Alternatively, go the full Bill Ramsey, do your session on Wednesday and make it a massive one. A full boulder session and a full endurance session back to back, followed by two days rest. Probably only achievable if one has flexible working hours and few or no family responsibilities.

Hey, Welcome to Fit Club!

It's the Sanctuary 50km, down in Geitau https://statistik.d-u-v.org/eventdetail.php?event=35140 . Basically a long day out for me and exploring the area as I look to move to Munich in the next years.

Thanks Matt for the warm welcome!

Cheers, Chris 

Hey Matt,

I seem to have missed a couple of weeks. Time to get back on it! In the previous two weeks, I have been for 3 runs, each around 2.5 miles and I also walked 10 miles around London carrying the baby on one of the hottest days of the year. Never again! I haven't been running for any longer as the baby is feeding quite regularly and I am the sole feeder at the mo. We've also been indoor climbing at least once a week. The first session back was a killer on the skin on my hands. So sore after very few climbs but gradually improving. I have just been taking it easy but couldn't help going for it a bit on the overhangs. I am aware that I need to take it a bit slow even though I feel physically fine. My core won't be strong now so need to work on that.

Going to figure out a loose training plan this week for running and strength, including some light core. I plan to run at least 3 times a week but hopefully more. Just need to make sure I take advantage when Guy is about for runs.

Are people still doing the week 700 goals? I haven't been keeping up with messages.

This is a good shout. I can't remember what if anything I wrote for week 700 but I definitely set some goals when I last restarted posting. I think most of us have stopped tracking ourselves visibly since lockdown - I'm thinking it's time I dragged my goals out the cupboard again.

I did think about digging mine out, and I have done below - I'm actually surprised in that I think there's one on which I've made progress!

Covid

Not really, but I've only tried one of them

Covid

Made progress on the 8mm. Don't think I have on the others, not tried them in a while.

I had this in mind as a thing for my ShPL, but it's not been a terrible bouldering and dws year so far.

Some new ticks, but nothing properly classic yet. Still a few weeks left though.

I guess I probably should log some goals for the rest of the year. Throwing some thoughts out:

- either some classic ticks or finishing one of my projects in the last few weeks of my dws season

- solidify 1.5-x-5 on the campus board. 5x5 @95kg. Progress on some sort of deadhang

- do some classic boulders and trad in Northumberland

- Coronation St with Rebecca?

- make it one of my best bouldering years (by 8a.poo points)

- start using the wall again, probably mostly post Northumberland.

Looks like I never actually put up any Week 700 goals. Oops! 
 

I’m going to say that I’d have smashed them all out the park though!

COVID has put a stop to some goals this year. Nice progress on the 8mm though and good goals for the rest of the year.

No doubt.. goes without saying!

STG - 14st / 30 minute 5k

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

LTG - ???

Weight - 15st 4lbs

M - Rest

T - Y Fal

W - S - Rest

Quite chuffed with this week.  Another big chunk off the time, down to 2h 10m.  Had a couple of really good nights sleep as well.  Weight is pretty horrific.  However I'm at least ticking over and hopefully stopping things from getting worse.  Been sorting out lots of stuff around the house as well.  Also went out to visit the family for the first time since lockdown, so that took up some time.  But that was a lovely day out, so it's all good.