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_700-7235...

AJM - Northumberland is great.  Never really climbed there, but been on a few family holidays, you'll love it.  Sounds like a good Lulworth session.  Nice bit of training as well.

Si dH - Good training and a nice wall session.  Goosd job.  Did you get outside?

Somerset swede basher - Excellent flashes there.  Well done on the 7c+.

Ally Smith - Lots of ace training there.  Glad you enjoyed the bike ride.

AlanLittle - Wooo for normal service.  Great number of sessions.  Plenty of decent ticks there.  Great job.

Tom Green - I look forward to you doing that Cairngorm day.  Nice training week.

Cyan - Awww thanks.  Solid boulder sessions.  Well done on keeping the weight going down.  Deffo drop afternoon coffee.

miso - Welcome to fit club.  Three good runs, especially the amount of descent on the last one.  Glad you enjoyed the bouldering.

the sheep - Yup, good mix.  Loving the scuba in there as well.  I randomly started learning last year, but wimped out.  Keep up the mix for next week.

Bones - No worries.  Great job on the runs.  Glad to hear that you've been able to get the indoor sessions working for you.

700 Goals, I had remembered, but was struggling to get the time to do the stats, so thought I'd just post up separately on the thread later on in the week.  Totally forgot to do that, so feel free to talk about your 700 goals if you are still tracking them.  If I remember I'll try and collate them later on in the week.

Hi Matt. Thanks for keeping this going. I have been reading each week but I just seemed to drift out of the habit of posting during lockdown. 
 

Brief update: trained over lockdown. Lots of nutrition experimenting, which has continued since. I’ve learnt a lot about where my macros and calories need to be depending one what I am doing and how to drop weight prior to a trip/goal. My diet overall is much better with a lot of bad habits weeded out.

 I came out of lockdown strong (for me) and got into outdoor bouldering as that felt the thing to be doing and got up to 7B. Discohesion SDS (f7B)

We’ve pretty much managed to climb (Sport) outdoors 3 times a week. It turns out I can’t climb hard that often and train. It took me a while to realise what was going wrong. So pretty much just enjoying climbing for now. 

I haven’t found myself being psyched for a project. Just going to lots of crags trying ‘in a day’ goals. I was wanting to get stuck into Chapel Head but the weather hasn’t been kind. 

The plan going ahead is to continue with climbing outside as much as possible and then mid Sept/October time train for a Xmas sport trip with a goal of 7c in a day.

This week:

M -  Stony Bank (Stoney Bank) low end. Did Cliptomania (7b) quickly. Nice route. Stuck on holds in the top 3rd but climbs very well.

T - shoulders and elbows

W - rest 

T -  Stony Bank (Stoney Bank) again. High end this time. 
Flash go on Burlesque (7a) to warm up. Didn’t want to get flash pumped so left it until later when it got hard.

Quite a few goes sorting beta for Jocasta (7b) then snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and was too powered out to go again. Never a 3 star climb. Ok climbing to an unusual, strong,  move. 9m long. 

Oedipus (7a) was next and a flash go was progressing well. Initial crux done, second crux done, one move from the juggy finishing section and I pulled a hold off and had a right whipper. Back up to get the draws. 

Burlesque again - too tired and slumped on the rope and dogged up to get the draws back. 

F to Sun - family stuff, no climbing. 

Next week should be getting out wherever is dry on Thursday and the weekend. 

Cheers Matt, not as much exercise this week but hit a big long term goal and a major event for the family!

Monday, rest day.

Tuesday, 12km morning run bringing the year total to 1000km. First time i have hit the total and with 4 months left the challenge has been revised. The goal now is to cover the Lands Eng John O Groats distance so 1407KM  2km open water swim in the evening

Wednesday, cold and wet weather zapped any motivation so rest day

Thursday, the big one, GCSE results day for the eldest. Very nervous after all the chaos that led up to it. In the end however she smashed it with 6A* 2A's and 2B's so is on her A levels of choice 

Friday, rest

Saturday, 10km trail run

Sunday 13km trail run

Hi all. Welcome to the club Miso -the Sanctuary 50k sounds awesome!

Thanks for keeping us going with the stats, Matt.

Poor finish to the week from me. Currently tucked up on the sofa with the lurgy -feeling sorry for myself.

Week 34:

M: Max Hangs and Board Sesh. Limit bouldering -felt week after two weeks of low intensity climbing.

T: Road Run. 67mins Z1. 12.3km, flat, 5:25/km.

W: Rest. Unplanned -the day just got away from me.

T: Muscular Endurance -felt hard. Pulled a muscle down the back of my neck right at the end of the second set.

F: Max Hangs -gritted teeth through the neck pain! 

S: Rest -Onset of lurgy.

S: Rest -Full Blown Lurgy.

Week 35:

Assuming I recover from the lurgy...

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:

Still TBC

Thanks Matt, yes, back outside today. It wasn't exactly brilliant connies but it was nice to touch rock again after a few weeks without.

M: rest

T: nothing - planned board session but ran out of time/energy after work.

W: board session in the evening. Tried to do the mirror images of some of the problems I've set previously.

T: too tired for the board but did a short fingerboard session in the evening. Did some one arm max hangs on the Beastmaker 20mm edge. Had to take 9kg off, which meant I was hanging about 67kg. I was happy with this as I haven't fingerboarded properly for a long time. I also tried out my new micro (10/8/6mm) edges... I couldn't even hang bodyweight off the 10mm one though! (Need a laughing face emoji here)

F: rest

S: short board session in the morning. Set and finished a new 6c+ ish thing. Also, managed to hang bodyweight off the 10mm edge for a few seconds. Felt hard though.

S: Morning trip to Woodwell. Dodged the showers, but the air was a bit damp and the rock didn't feel very grippy. I went to try The Cad (ss) AKA: Not Bad Dave (ss) (f7C) to see if it would be a good project. I managed to do all but one of the moves (in isolation) on what should be the hard climbing, but somehow failed to do the top, which the guidebook gives 6b as a stand-up. It's desperate! I think to do the last hard move of the hard section I need to strengthen my hamstrings, I didn't feel like I could pull hard enough on a heel hook - possibly not surprising given I haven't done much heel hooking since the winter. Conclusion - one to go back to, but probably not immediately.

Work was tough this week and Sol slept v badly. So overall I'm reasonably pleased with what I got done.

I think it's now time to think about goals again. I didn't set any week 700 goals but I think it's time I looked back at what I said at the start of this year:

- Visit lots of new crags (South Lakes lime, West Yorkshire grit, Bowland, Lancs quarries, Cheshire sandstone, N Wales lime, Snowdonia)

I've been to Trowbarrow, Woodwell, Parbold, Gouther and Lees Bottom all for the first time so far. So pretty good. I've not been to Wales since Parisellas pre-lockdown and not climbed at Longridge yet either, so there are definitely lots more opportunities here.

- Keep up a reasonable rate of progress with Ft 7A/Bs outside (unless I find a harder project that I want to focus on) 

Progress ok on this one. Would like to do a few more 7Bs but I've done a few 7A/+s quickly since lockdown.

- Do a long-ish Ft 7B+

Not started on this yet at all. Need to find a candidate.

- Lose 5 kg (starting point ~78 kg) 

I'm about 76kg at the moment having probably been 79 at the start of lockdown, so progress, but more to do.

- Do some power endurance training - maybe aim to complete one of the crimpd ancap fingerboard sessions at the correct weight (80/70% of max) as this is currently way beyond me

Nothing done really. The steepness of my board doesn't really allow for power endurance and since building it I haven't really done any fingerboarding. I'm tempted to sort of sack this off until/unless I find a traverse I'm psyched for.

- Go on a week's bouldering trip abroad (probably Font with the family in autumn) 

Replanned to Northumberland due to quarantine. Hope we get some nice weather!

- Build a woodie? 

Yes! It has cost me a lot but it's turned out really well

Will keep all these goals in play for the end of the year I think.

Si

Welcome back biscuit!

A difficult week to time - plenty of windows in the weather for those flexible enough to be able to grab them at short notice, but definitely some challenges when things have to be fitted around the real world demands of work, family etc. I’m basically done with CPD for the year now (due 31st Aug) which is good, shouldn’t have left it so late really. 

The weekend has rather been overtaken by my son being ill and the potential for disruption it’s caused us. Whilst the test says he doesn’t have Covid, the uncertainty it’s caused has meant the replastering scheduled for this week has had to be pushed back and I’m not sure what it means for my wife’s plans to visit her parents whilst it was going on nor my plans for the bank holiday, which previously had been a free window to do something child free in.

Monday - nothing

Tuesday - got up really early in the hope of catching the early high tide. Partner had to cancel so went back to bed. It then rained, so at least all I lost was a bit of sleep. More CPD.

Wednesday - my sister visiting. Pub for lunch - dishy Rishi or bumbling boris or the magic money tree or someone helped cover it. Tried 5x5 wide pull-ups @91.5kg in the evening - 5, 5, 5, 4, 3. Similar to (slightly below) when I was training more back at the end of May so positive in that the last few months of reduced training whilst climbing more haven’t led to a significant drop off. 

Thursday - long day at work

Friday - after a long time spent weather watching we ultimately decided we would cancel our planned camping weekend in favour of day trips. Windy Friday and we weren’t really on top of things, feeling pretty weary, and the faff:fun ratio felt diminished if we only went for a night. Try again for the first weekend in September... anyway, decided I should probably train, rather than again risking getting nothing done. Short campus session - warm up then 3-5-6 and 2.5-5-6 and 2.5-4-6 (held but couldn’t match one side on this one). Campusing seems to mess my skin up, and I had some faff with children to deal with, so that was about it apart from a few knee to bar pulls. Went to the beach to watch the waves!

Saturday - miniAJM in a funny mood, didn’t want to go out, didn’t want to do anything, made things a bit difficult. Managed to put together a bouldering brush and an old mop handle to create a long brush for brushing high holds. By the end of the day it became clear he wasn’t very well

Sunday - odd day. MiniAJM still unwell, so felt like I should keep him company, but he didn’t seem to actually want anything which meant I slipped into junk hours quite quickly. Did some more CPD. Planned out making a small portable fingerboard which I might do some point next week. Otherwise rather distracted and not really in the mood for training.

edit: goals for 2020...

- 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.

Hi Matt, thanks for your epic stats run. A week of highs and lows for me. 

Mon. 54km mtb ride, quiet lanes and easy tracks with Mrs. Swede. Shropshire is a lot flatter than Devon! Drive back to Sheffield afterwards. 

Tues. Sometimes you manage something hard when you least expect it. My fingers were pretty fresh after a few days of rest but my legs needed 20mins with the foam roller before they were much use. Headed down to cemetery park to find some damp holds and some wet holds. After a towel and a brush the damp ones became dry and the wet ones only damp! Managed a new high point first go then 2nd go managed to do The Concrete King (f8A). Yay! The product of many sessions, more than I'd care to work out.

Wed. 8km run. 

Thurs. Rest

Fri. Went down to rubicon to tie in and tried Salar. I've been on it before a few years ago but never managed it. Did all the moves expect the big one first tie in, second tie in I did the crux then 3rd tie in done in 2 sections. Too tired for another go.

Sat. Rest

Sun. This was my stupid day. I identified I was still tired and definitely at high injury risk. At this point I should have sacked off any ideas of doing something but instead decided to go out in the evening so I'd longer to rest and I'd just do some stamina work on the Heeley Boulder so as not to pull on anything too hard. I've been trying to maintain 3 sessions a week which didn't really seem too much to ask of my body. Nice long slow warm up. Did the 7b traverse after doing it in sections to warm up. Almost flashed the 7b+ but got lost at the end and had to drop off as I couldn't remember which holds weren't in. Had a rest, had another go and twang, something unhappy happened to my right ring finger. It's always this one that goes. I'm not sure how bad it is, it may not be a disaster but I'm definately feeling sorry for myself now! Had to close the car boot with two fingers as it hurt. I'll give it a few days then try pulling on some jugs and see how it goes. 

Thanks Matt, and welcome or welcome back to this week & last week's returners & newcomers.

STG: Sport: 7a redpoint, hopefully reducing the large & growing collection of projects.
      Trad: I haven't completely abandoned hope of getting something done in the Dolomites this summer subject to there being a weekend of appropriate local conditions (thunderstorms, covid etc).
MTG: Autumn Kalymnos trip. 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

M: Rest day. Half an hour mobility & foam rolling.

T: Last week's discussion of whether to do two big endurance sessions during the week turned out to be moot because I worked late and didn't make it to the wall today anyway. Was also, to be honest, still feeling pretty tired too from six days on rock last week. Did a better-than-nothing session of max hangs before bed instead.

W: Bike one hour

T: Wall, Weyarn. Lattice 50-50's session #3

F: Wall, Innsbruck. Clearly not ideal to check out a new wall the day after a hard endurance session, but I was in Innsbruck anyway for other reasons and had a couple of hours free, would have been a shame not to have a look. It's certainly big & impressive, and I eventually managed to find the roof traverse area where I could do some body tension work without fingers knackered from yesterday's vertical autobelay crimping being a problem. 
    Also found the weights room - one of the best equipped I've seen at a wall. Where I found, as I usually do on my occasional ventures into deadlifting, that bodyweight is fairly easy but anything heavier starts to feel very intimidating very quickly. Would definitely be worth shelling out for some technique coaching if I ever decide to get into this on a regular basis.

S: Rest day. Half an hour stretching/mobility while watching Briançon (psyche video?). Definitely seeing some improvement in my lamentable shoulder mobility.

S: Sport climbing, Altmühltal. The area that even elsewhere in the Frankenjura has a reputation as the home of the old school barely bolted sandbag, which has kept me away until now. But this time I was with a local and the sectors we went to were well bolted, sensibly graded and generally rather good. Shocking conditions to start with though - damp, humid, loads of mosquitoes. 
    Improved dramatically in the afternoon, and the last try of the day was a play on a really nice bouldery 7b. Feels too far off realistic for a place on the short term projects list for now, but definitely one to come back to at some point. Plus I took actual falls on it rather than just lamely taking, so good for the head.

Thanks again for all your stats efforts :-D

Didn't get out this week; diligently worked way through finger rehab and was grateful that my twang at the Cornice wasn't a full-blown nasty. I hope Mr Swede has the same outcome.

Week 32: 

M – Evening weights.

Pull-ups: 5x5 @BW+25kg (steady away).

DL: 115kg triples x4 (Fat gripz; moderately difficult).

Bench: 4x 6rep 60kg (just plain HARD!)  

3x30s F2 lift @15kg for tendon density (p)rehab. Then forearm COMPEX in recovery mode; trying to stop left ring finger twitching, which it’s been doing on and off for nearly a week.

T – Less DOMS from weights than last week :-0 Warmed up slowly with gentle fingerboarding, then some easy Moonboard problems. Twanged finger felt sensitive to begin with; settled down quickly so did a volume session. 15 odd 6B+ to 6C+ benchmarks, with some up-down-ups thrown in for good measure. Stamina training on the Moonboard might just be possible…

W – Collagen loaded tendon density (p)rehab using Lattice block lifts: 4FSHC 3x30s. 35kg L/40kg R. Then F2 3x30s 16.25kg L/17.5kg R.

T – Lunchtime Moonboard “hour of power”. Finger coming along handsomely. Managed a 7B+ bench in a few goes and some 7A/+ flashes. Rushed things; didn’t rest properly and ultimately failed to complete another 7B+ that I was close to flashing.

F – Visiting parents in Sussex. Nothing.

S – Visiting parents in Sussex. Zilch.

S – Visiting parents in Sussex. Nada.

Cheers Matt. Many thanks, Tom, for the welcome. Sanctuary 50k is getting closer and I am nervously excited. Forecast has a lot of rain which I am happy about.

Very tired week due to the weekend's hill repeats in the glaring heat. Mainly active rest or an early taper. 

Monday - jog with the girlfriend, 8k. 

Tueday - rest.  

Wednesday - 3k jog, was supposed to be longer but I called it early. 

Thursday - 5k jog with some 500ft vert, feeling better. Slept a lot. 

Friday - rest. 

Saturday - 7k jog, feeling good. 

Sunday - sport climbing, top roping with the girlfriend. Just touching rock and moving vertically, good time out. No guide book, so no (easy) grades to report. Very inspiring to read all of your climbing training. 

Good thing that after this week I am highly motivated to get out for the race (in contrast to last week). Sometimes a lack of motivation just means a need for rest, maybe. 

STG - 14st / 30 minute 5k

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

LTG - ???

Weight - 15st 4lbs

M - S - Rest

S - Y Fal

Felt pretty rotten on Sunday, but pushed myself to go out.  Hoped I'd be close to 2 hours, but it wasn't to be.  Still 2h 10m for 6 miles and 450m isn't bad.  Otherwise a normal week of the grind and stuff.  Some slightly bad news in that the local wall has shut down.  I'm not massively surprised but it was 10 miles away on a dual carriage way, so super convenient.  Apparently they're going to sell off holds, so I might see if I can buy a few.  It wasn't a super popular wall and I know the guy who ran it was basically doing it as a hobby in the evenings and weekends.

I have to say I do massively miss the The Rec.  It was a 10 minute walk from my house and the people there were great.  Doing all those laps was great fitness training.  I do probably like bouldering more, but for the fitness that was great.  I'm really going to have to see if I can sort out a small wall at home.  I'm also trying to arrange some actual climbing.  I'll really have to check out the local bouldering before the weather craps out.

Well done Matt! Getting stuff done when you don't feel great (but not getting injured) is half the battle. And if you keep doing that every week you'll definitely get yourself fit.

Shame to hear about your local wall closing. I have no knowledge of your area but I would say if you are currently feeling some psyche to do a bit of bouldering, definitely get out there and take advantage of the motivation while it lasts. It can be all too easy to slip in to the normal routine and lose the motivation after a difficult day with work / kids...

Si

Thanks Si.  Much appreciated.  I'm keen to keep on going, but as the evening fades, it's going to get harder and harder.  No idea if I'll be able to keep on going up there over the winter, but I'll give it a bash.

It's not quite as good as the stuff that you've got in your local area, but with in a 5-10 minute drive from my house there is Gilwern, The Lonely Shepherd Area (Llangattock) as well as the rest of Llangattock.  There's some nice stuff a little bit further away, eg West End Buttress, which is probably too hard for me at the moment.  There is another wall about 15 miles away, but that's down fairly poor roads, so it'll easily take me 30 minutes plus to drive to.  When the old wall was 10 miles on dual carriageway, so way quicker.

Failing to write but have a picture...latest developments...

Suggestions for fun campus sessions welcomed...

Thanks Matt, I assumed that I had missed the 700 goal chat or that it would appear later, knew you wouldn't have forgotten. Haven't been very good keeping up with UKC at all recently. This is my new goal! Definitely didn't do my week 700 goal, maybe I'll re-start it if there is another goal week set.

I went running on Wednesday last week, around 2.5 miles. Did very little else, a few walks. The longest of which was 5 miles.

Still need to sort out what the next training steps are and keep going with running so I can do 10 miles by 18th October when the Great South run would have been.

I'm back... but haven't done much in the way of climbing (or climbing specific training) for a while.

We did complete our Wainwright challange ticking off all 214 in 60 days in the end (the ones we did in April we re-did in a week at the end to bring the overall time down).

1366 miles travelled (487 walking, 879 cycling)

210,446 feet climbed (144,679 walking, 65,767 cycling).

As an example of some of the days: 100k on beat-up old mtn bikes to get to/from Keswick - Kentmere then 5 hr walking kentmere horseshoe. Or a short ride to Seathwaite before spending 14 hours around Langdale in the worst weather. Or Cycling over dunmail, red bank, wrynose, and hardnott just to bag 3 easy fells before cycling home.

It was hard - harder than my Bob Graham round at times. On the plus side I lost about 7kg.

Took it easy for a few weeks after that.

Then did some easy climbs (seconding) - Gillercombe Buttress (S 4a), The Wasdale Crack (HS 4c), Needle Ridge (VD) and started running training and did a few BG leg 1s. Aslo restarted the weight training but 4 weeks ago pulled a pec muscle and have not been able to do much since.

Big news is that I have now lead my first trad routes, but that's for next weeks update. Ohh, and I quit smoking, so that should help...