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...     also this - https://www.instagram.com/p/CEGfCg7DbkK/?igshid=4a1o55jwpus2

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

I suppose I have to interrupt the Bouldering Mecca Leicestershire series to bring you this week's pysche vid: Aidan Roberts, the future of British bouldering (apparently, and if Dan Varian thinks so who are we to argue?) youtube.com/watch?v=ATE-tZo12mg&

Last weeks post - https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/walls+training/ukc_fit_club_week_718-7291...

Hope everybody had as good a time as possible this weird locked down Christmas. Still no visible flattening of the curve over here, although vaccination has started.

AJM - good season-defying outdoor tick. WIll be interested to hear about paralette progress.

alexm198 - it's not strictly speaking against lockdown rules to drive to Garmisch to do your solo outdoor exercise. Although frowned upon, and probably the right call not to. There's lots of nice local mud down around Grünwald/Baierbrunn at the moment.

Ally Smith - I never got that much done as a new father. Impressed.

biscuit - "even the below par session would have been a good session 3 months ago" sounds encouraging. Kleptomania looks quite macho.

Cyan - two consecutive days fingerboard may not have been the best idea anyway. Going for a walk ounds like a better idea.

Liam P - solid pre-lockdown training week.

Neil Kazimierz Sheridan - that's a highly respectable number of one-legged squats. And daily meditation is never a bad idea.

planetmarshall - I'm sure I won't be the only one interested to hear how the lattice plan goes.

Ross Barker - you will bounce back stronger from the not entirely voluntary deload weeks (if also perhaps a little heavier)

Si dH - at least you tried to get out. And some food for thought with the "don't train twice as much as Molly" plan. Considering who she's been spending time with, Molly probably knows a thing or two about developing phenomenal power by now.

Somerset swede basher - congratulations on the pull-up PB. PB's are always good. As is determination to do something despite wet rock & general dismalness.

Steve Jones - 4 weights sessions, 3 wall visits and a run? That's some run-up to Christmas

the sheep - hope the week was less frantic, and the running continued to go well

Tom Green - shame about the ankle, but good hanging & prehab diligence

Tyler - at least you managed to get out a couple of times despite the exam pressure

AlanLittle -  Good start on the running prehab. Keep it up.

Absent: mattrm

Thanks Alan. As planned I had an almost complete rest this week. I did a short board session on Christmas morning in between bouts of cooking and present-giving, which was fun and helped burn off some goose in advance. Early in the week I was ill and more recently I've just spent it being lazy and eating chocolate/biscuits/leftovers. Hope everyone else has had a good Christmas in the circumstances!

Thanks once again Alan, hope you had a good Christmas

W: Exam, hardest one I’ve done surprised to pass (quite convincingly in the end)

T: Had planned a long run but too much Christmas prep (needed to cut and move a lot of insulated plasterboard from the hall to the attic!) meant I got out at dusk so just did more benchmarking by staggering up the hill opposite my house three times. 56 minutes door to door, hope to add on laps as I get fitter. 
F: Christmas, lots of Instagram photos of people eating turkey whilst holding a one arm lock off or wild swimming with a Christmas pudding on their head etc but it’s not for me. Ate a fair amount instead

S: Set out on my, much anticipated, long run into the valley beyond! 7miles in I was feeling fine with no more up hill to go when my hip started hurting. I’d been anticipating/dreading this happening ever since I got my last one done. Had to walk the last three miles whilst I tried to decide whether to have this one replaced ASAP. I’ll do a bit more running to get a better picture but I’m erring towards ringing the consultant. 
S: Sulked 

Cheers Alan,

Much the same as Si dH. The only training positive was I stuck to the programme and did absolutely nothing. Couple of walks to break up the eating and drinking but, all in all, a Merry Christmas. Hope everyone had a good one.

The Mrs got me a copy of Ian Parnell’s Hard Rock which has me psyched to get back on the wagon next week! 

STG: Get through Lockdown 2.0 with sanity intact. Ideally also with some fingerboard gainz. Couch To 5k.
MTG: Go climbing after lockdown?
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber by 2021. For measurable definition see Fit Club 658

M: 
T: 
W: Another hike in the newly discovered (by me) woodland paradise. Looking forward to being able to go for runs here one day too. Therefore ...
    Max hang & calf raises supersets
T: Another hour in the woods, as a last act of defiance before settling down to Ardbeg and goose roasting.
F: 
S: Made an attempt to go bouldering at Buchenhain. Buchenhain is Munich's local bouldering spot - an odd little bit of conglomerate in the woods, pretty uninspiring, mostly traverses. Has been trained on by the great & good of the local climbing scene from Hans Dülfer to Toni Lamprecht, and is polished accordingly. I've never bothered before but am getting sufficiently desperate now to give it a go. But ... way too damp & cold today. Did a couple of easy warm-up traverses in the hope that I might start to feel my fingers. Didn't. Retreated back to the warmth & comfort of my beastmaker.
S: An hour mobility, shoulders, running prehab programme

Thanks Alan, i think it's good for the head to get out even if you don't get anything done. 

Mon. Rest 

Tues. Keen to actually do something I turned to the dark side and went dry tooling (with Tom Green of this parish). It was really good actually. I've been tooling half a dozen or so times before but not for at least 5 years and it's probably been 7 since I last went to masson lees. 5 tie ins and 5 routes done. Clearly, not going dry tooling is the best training for it! Highlights were a proper onsight of Chelly Express (D7) and a fully betaed up flash of CHOOSE LIFE (D8). Great to meet up with another fit club member too. Great banter and a great session.

Wed. Took me ages to warm up, must have been more tired than I thought after yesterday. Max hangs, kept it at BW+24kg. 5x5 on the min BW pull ups. 3x10 press ups.

Thurs. An hr with the bike on the rollers, nominally 30km. Didn't fancy the ice roads. 

Fri. 10km run with 150m ascent at 4.40/km followed by spending the rest of the day working on my organic weight vest (yummy yummy). 

Sat. 6 sets of repeaters BW+4kg. This seemed really hard today although I just managed to complete all reps. 5x5 weighted pull ups. Tried +11kgs again but was down to 4 reps for the penultimate set and 3 for the last set. 3x10 press ups. 

Sun. Rest. Took the kids for a snowy walk over Mam Tor from the end of the broken road. Very impressed with the 2 Yr old, not her longest walk but definitely the hilliest and no tears til right at the end. 

Cheers again, just realised I have missed all the Leicestershire bouldering videos you posted. Some of my favourite local stomping grounds. Just a shame that when I was most into climbing I was loving playing rugby too so was an 18 stone second row. 
Anyway Christmas week has been great, eaten loads, drank loads and made it out for a few runs. Today’s was my favourite, 10km trail run over flood plains, knee deep in flood water at times

cracking fun 

Thanks Alan. We are blessed with a lot of fast drying rock down here and it’s rarely that cold, which means as long as you can get out of the wind (especially if it’s sunny) there’s usually something to be done. If anything, the summer is a bit more of a pain for me - in general Dorset lacks a north facing crag and I don’t take hot weather well, but more specifically several of the child accessible bouldering spots face SE so bake in the sun for a lot of the day.

Got out again this week, made some small progress on Christmas Eve and added the sitter to Petes Rib today. Looking back to goals from earlier in the year, the extra grade for that takes this to being my third best bouldering year ever according to 8a.nu points, and not a million miles from second (another 6C+ would make the gap only fractional, anything more would overtake). Which is a definite positive to take from 2020, especially with a few work-free days left to go.

The paralettes are fun. I think I probably tend towards training my relative strengths - I fingerboard most, and mainly half crimp, then I do pull-ups, but rarely offsets, then I do some push training, but never very much or very systematically, and then I never really do traditional “core” training and I never stretch. And if I were to self diagnose I’m not very good at steep outdoor terrain when it requires keeping tension through the body on poor feet and I have never felt over endowed with grunt for power moves or big lock offs. If I can find something which interests me further down that spectrum it’s probably further away from the diminishing returns end and even if not wholly climbing specific (sadly I’m not blessed with a board!) a bit more shoulder heft might be good for me. Am thinking about doing a fairly non finger focused couple of months - maintenance levels of fingerboarding and aero fitness - to try to see if I can actually work on any of this.

Monday - can’t remember. Nothing, I think.

Tuesday - microAJM up in the night, too tired to make the wall.

Wednesday - can’t remember. Nothing, I think.

Christmas Eve - bouldering with miniAJM. 

- Went to the boulderfield to start, slithered down to look at Hope Slide, which is a *** 7A dyno. Couldn’t touch it. The first move is fairly hard out through the steepness but I could do, the second move is matching the crimp rail which I couldn’t do, the third move is laying one on for the top which I couldn’t do. Was gratified to see the votes are that it’s quite hard. 

- Then went back to Firestarter - I made some small progress, but it still feels desperate and even with preventative taping it hurts my fingers - no flapper this time but still sore on the sides of my fingers. Not sure I’m going to put much more time into this, at least in the short term.

- The most positive part of the session was actually at the end, a group had turned up with some big pads under Sub Youth, so I had a few goes at that and actually made some progress on rocking up on the heel as well as confirming that it’s not actually too bad falling off mid move (I thought I’d need spotters, but I’m not sure I do now). Keen to try this again.

Christmas Day - drove up to the countryside near Newbury to meet my inlaws half way. About an hour walk in the cold which included quite a lot of child carrying. Then a decent session on the paralettes in the late afternoon. Pseudo planche push-ups and some l-sit stuff and normal pushups and so on.

Boxing Day - this was our main Christmas Day really given the travelling the previous day. All the present opening, all the food. No training, but aching from previous day. But I got to teach miniAJM to ride a pedal bike, and I got some guidebooks to keep the psyche topped up.

Sunday - woken in the night by Storm Bella, all very wet in the morning. Forecast clearer after lunch so miniAJM and I headed out. Got there and it started raining, to compound that the ground was even wetter than before and the walls more soaked with runoff than I’ve seen them before. But there were still things dry. MiniAJM then went through a full on three-nager sulk for a bit, but at last I got to pull on. Did a few easier things, tried the sit to stand move on Petes Rib, then started from the bottom and ticked it. Great to get something out of a session that so many times looked like it might be wasted effort. Then this evening some paralettes based pushing.

Good evening and happy holidays!

Good statting again, can't confirm if I've gained any weight as I don't actually have a set of scales, but I certainly feel a bit heavier!

Last Week:

M - Hanging knee raises and front lever progressions to start. While warming up both ring finger A2s felt a bit tender, so opted for density hangs instead as I still wanted to give them a good work out but didn't fancy injuring myself before Christmas. Quite enjoyed them, didn't expect to. 30s x3, -9kg. First set was only -7kg but didn't quite finish it so took off an extra 2kg. No pulley, just slings over a bar, so actual assistance is greater, but for consistency I'll just take the face value of the weights!

T - Box split progression

W - Rest

T - Box split progression

F - Mass consumption

S - Epic day out. Drove to a million crags in the Peak and they were all a bit wet. Eventually ended up at Churnet, heard that the Spellbound buttress was a good permadry spot. Ended up on the wrong side of the stream, topped one dry problem, looked at another but after two pitiful goes I decided that cranking on monos with extra weight in my belly probably isn't wise. Next I did a bit of walking, mud-trudging and slop-sliding to eventually find another supposedly dry block. Only one problem was dry, but by that point we were running out of light, so didn't finish it. Got home absolutely wrecked!

S - Roughly 3 mile walk

Next Week:

M - Most likely a local cave or fingerboard, but if Peak conditions seem amazing I might make the trip.

T - Rest

The rest of the week will be trying to chase grit conditions and resting in between, quite flexible!

Goals:

Don't get injured

Suavito (REALLY want to get this done this week if weather allows!)

Tierdrop

Rigpa

... will resume next week (sort of)

Thanks Alan. Yeah, I have been grappling with driving to Garmisch. On the one hand I think it would be fine, and certainly in keeping with the letter of the law, if not the spirit. But I am more paranoid than others might be as I'm driving a GB-plated car in deepest Bavaria. Will continue the internal debate!

Week 3:

Built the mileage up again a bit this week. Christmas did its best to ruin the rhythm, but all things considered I think this week went well. I think my current road shoes are well overdue their retirement so I'm going to treat myself to a cushy new pair once I get paid. Why get fitter when you can just throw money at expensive gear? 

M 6.5km Z1

T 10.6km Z1

W Core routine

T 6.5km Z1-3 speedwork. Slow 1.2km warmup followed by some stretching and then 4x800m intervals at 4:00/km pace, with a 200m cooldown in between. Felt tough but nice to drop the hammer a bit. Slow 1.3km cooldown.

F Festive 6.7km Z1 *something something Daley Thompson* Promptly negated any training effect by eating and drinking myself into a stupor.

S  Core routine

S 16.5km Z1(?) started too fast and felt pretty shitty for the first few kilometres, then found a good rhythm, albeit at a faster pace than I'd have liked. Realistically this right at the upper limit of Z1, maybe pushing into Z2 or 3 at times. But anyway, I was psyched about the consistency of my splits and glad to salvage what I thought was going to be a total grind. 

Last week's goals:

• 40km running [Tick - got 47]
• 2x core routine [Tick]
• Daily foam-roll [Nope, think I did 2. Biscuit put me off with his science! Think I'll just reserve this for the bigger efforts in the future.]

Goals:

STG (This Week)

• 50km running 
• 2x core routine
• ZUT segment recce if I'm feeling deviant

MTG (End of June 2021)

• Finish the Zugspitz Ultratrail
• 3 x big winter alpine routes

LTG (End of 2021)

• Himalaya Expedition (or plan B)

Suspect your GB plate might be less unwelcome in Garmisch than my M plate.

I got my (not yet used) new road running shoes from Sport Ruscher on Fürstenriederstr. Was v pleased with the service & can happily recommend them in the spirit of "support your small local specialist retailer"

Thanks for the stats Alan. Not much happening this week - managed to fit in a couple of quick sessions around Christmas.

Week 52:

M – 1-arm max-hangs. A bit rushed before dinner but smashed the Crimpd session @BW-9kg.

T – Nada

W – Nowt

T – Zilch

F – Eff all

S – 41km road bike

S – Another big fat zero

Pretty wiped out this week. Have tried to listen to my body with it so lots of sleep. Last week full on at work so appreciating a few days off more than anything else. Did eventually cave in and put a Christmas tree up though.

Monday: Rest.
Tuesday: Rest.
Wednesday: Rest.
Thursday: 40 min walk. Fingerboard.
Friday: Rest.
Saturday: Three hour walk. Too much to drink.
Sunday: Rest. Slept most of the day.

Happy Christmas everyone! Hope you all had a good one.

Thanks Alan for the festive statting. The ankle is getting a bit boring now... I'm going to start running this week and see what happens.

Week 52:

M: Max hangs. Shoulder prehab.

T: Tooling at Masson. Highlights were working out a rest (elbow hanging a stein) which will hopefully be the key to unlocking Heavens Above (D7+) and watching SSB rest his way up territory that most people find strenuous with cunning bridging on fairly shit footholds.

W: Long work day.

T: Max hangs. Strength sesh. Core sesh.

F: Prehab.

S: Max hangs. Strength sesh.

S: Rest.  

Week 53:

2 Strength

2 Core

2 Climbing

Work out new S/M/LTGs

On Christmas day? Takes some discipline, that! Got any spare I can have?

Haha! I was pretty smug about it too! It was a bit of a weird Christmas so it just kind of fitted in. 

That’s annoying about the hip... is it definitely the same as hip number one or could it just be a bit of the ‘normal’ hip issues that are common when you’re upping the mileage etc? Hope it turns out not to be the full doom and gloom!

Another good man corrupted  

Thanks for the interest Tom and more importantly thanks for giving me the opportunity to crap on about my injuries! As an ageing climber I like nothing better!

When I got my X-rays last time the left looked nearly as bad as the right but not giving me symptoms. If I didn’t know this already I definitely wouldn’t be considering a replacement as the pain ain’t all that but it is definitely redolent of my first hip. If I leave it I will have declining capability for about three years and then have to get it fixed when I’m about 54 so it makes sense to get it done soon (COVID permitting) whilst I’m already unfit, have media insurance through work, have nothing planned and unlikely to go anywhere for a few months. That said I’m not fully decided as it is quite a big step and seems a bit self indulgent 

Second week in. I'm definitely finding that having a bit of instruction (even if it's only a 'bucket' of sessions I have to complete in the week) is good for motivation. It's slightly different than a plan I would have worked out for myself, and includes some things (like flexibility) I would probably never have included.

Tuesday

Strength Intervals at Depot Manchester. Went at 7am to avoid peak time, mostly red problems and made some progress on a purple. I'm supposed to have these problems already dialled for this session, but it's difficult finding time to actually practice them so treated it more as a 'projecting' session.

Thursday

Trail run up on Kinder. 13.5km/584m. Way more than I should really be doing but it was a good day (and a bit of a blizzard heading up William Clough).

The trail run isn't part of the Lattice plan but I'm trying to improve my aerobic fitness.

Hip and Leg flexibility

Saturday

Shoulder Press and Pressups

Wrist Curls

Max Hangs

Sunday

Pullups on the minute

Core

Linked Boulders at Substation. 3 Pink problems, added in a couple of moves to extend them out to about 12 moves.

Continuity 5x3. 3x5 minutes boulder traverses at Substation.

Next week

Same again, but try to spread things out a bit more so things aren't compressed at the end of the week. 2x trail runs.

Goals for next year

Trad

• The Rasp (E2 5b)
• Regent Street (E2 5c)
• Steeple (E2 5c)
• Voyage of Faith (E3 5c)
• The Beast from the Undergrowth (E2 5b)
• The Pillar (E2 5b)

Boulders

• Melvyn Bragg (f7B)
• Conan the Librarian (f6B+)

Sport

• A suitable 7a sport climb. Probably somewhere warm and sunny.

That's a great list of trad goals - can confirm that the two I've done are superb. There's plenty more to go at in that grade range at Diabaig too - for its size it's hard to imagine a better trad crag. Or a more beautiful location.

Cheers Alan.

Late post sorry.

It looks like an 8a that doesn't need much fitness (perfect for that time of year) is pretty good conditions wise and i've got the beta for it. So i'm either strong enough or not come the Spring. 

I got my 3 sessions done this week. The strength session is suitably hard, the power session wrecked my hamstrings for 3 days and the endurance had me wasted. All good i guess. 

I had a go on Ned's and managed to drop the final (proper) move once but then never got back there again. It feels like it'll go though. It was all a bit new and intimidating to be horizontal hanging on by my toes.

Routes at Kendal was OK but i was tired from training/climbing and my elbow/shoulder was sore from Ned's. Did  about 8 routes up to 6c looking at different drills.

I went back to Sun of Krypton but had nothing to give. My arm was really quite sore by now, especially after dry firing off a problem after i'd given up on Sun of Krypton.

I managed to fit a session at BUK in as well. Volume only up to V4 to avoid annoying the elbow even more.

Quite a lot there when i look back on it. No wonder i was tired.....

STG: 5 weeks

1) 1 arm shrug x 6 on left arm.

2) Max hangs with wide fingers half crimp (6x10seconds) @ + 15kg. Currently +10kgs

MTG: 11 weeks

Pistol squat x2 both sides

Kleptomania (8a)

Sun of Krypton (f7B)

Voodoo People SS (f7B)

Ned's Problem (f7B)

The Crushinator Low Start (f7B+)

Texas Hold Em' (f7B+)

Wild Rose (f7B+)

Ash Tree Wall (f7C)

LTG: 1 year

??

M: crunches 2x12, lunges 2x12, one-legged squats 2x12,  pressups 4x8, calf raises 30, plank 40s,

T: None (just walk)

W: crunches 2x12, lunges 2x12, one-legged squats 2x12, pressups 4x8

T: None 

F: None

S: None

S: None

Managed daily meditation of 10-15 mins!