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

Last weeks post - https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/walls+training/ukc_fit_club_week_720-7295...

Leicestershire Psyche Vid. This one's so esoteric I'd never even heard of it when I still lived in Leicester (best watchewd with the sound off imo, but de gustibus non est disputandum): vimeo.com/55525352

AJM - so, weaknesses worked? Planche progressing?

alexm198 - 2 hour half marathon in Z1? Something is clearly working. And a nice little last chance tick - from Monday onwards entering the Berchtesgaden plague zone is just as banned as leaving it.

Ally Smith - a lot of hard work there - maybe a bit too much in the circumstances?

biscuit - considering they're in a quarry it's surprising how awesome some of those Trowbarrow problems look (or can be made to look by careful choice of camera angle?). Certainly doesn't sound like pysche to make the most of lockdown is lacking.

Cyan - sounds like taking is steady & being kind to yourself as much as possible is the way forward

Liam P - so, the first one of us hits their lockdown esoterica tolerance limit! You're unlikely to be the last. To add to the helpful comments you already got last week: I'm inclined to think adding weight to two armed hangs is safer than jumping to one-armed, unless you have *very* healthy shoulders.

Ross Barker - I suspect you won't be alone in the Great Local Esoterica Renaissance. Any Shropshire psyche vids?

Si dH - I've been doing shoulder shrugs aka scap pull-ups on BM 1000 jugs as the start of my warm up for ages. They allow me to at least believe I'm doing something beneficial for my shoulders

Somerset swede basher - people who think preparing and delivering remote learning is less work than doing live sessions are for sure very, very mistaken. I've reached the point of journal addiction where I feel agitated if I don't log my sessions as soon as I've done them

the sheep - good festive running efforts. Is there a plan for the ultra?

Tom Green - Shropshire skiing? Now that's properly esoteric

Tyler - liked the description of your Sunday - let's face it, aid climbing basically is extreme DIY. You're not the only one wondering when/how to ditch the built-in weight belt.

AlanLittle - where were you?

Absent - Neil Kazimierz Sheridan, planetmarshall. And me! Shit. Looks like I completely forgot to post my own entry.

And, since I completely forgot to post my own entry last week, a bumper two week edition this week:

STG: Weight back below 85kg. Start Couch To 5k.
MTG: Go climbing after lockdown? Get vaccinated before I get infected. 
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber by 2021. For measurable definition see Fit Club 658

M: Bike one hour. Perfect connies for singletracking in the woods: the advertised snow has yet to arrive (fake forecast!) but the mud is nicely frozen. I wish I hadn't lost my warm overshoes though.
T: 
W: Beastmaker plus 40 minutes stretching, shoulder prehab & calf raises
T: Bike 1½ hours, closing out the year's Z1/Z2 account at 150 hours in total.

F: Bike one hour. No snow lying to speak of as yet, but starting to get unpleasantly icy for the bike. Feels like we're heading into a typical Munich cold but dry January. Will need to step up the running prehab, because otherwise it'll have to be back to the step-up box. And I don't want that.
S: Beastmaker, calf raises, pistol squat progressions
S: Hike in the woods 1½ hours

... and this week

M: Weak attempt at a max hangs session. As we move into month three of lockdown, it may be time to think about switching routines. But repeaters? We hates 'em, precious, we hates 'em.

T: 40 minutes running prehab, shoulders, wrist extensors

W: 2 hours hiking in the woods in (finally!) snow. Lovely

T: Beastmaker - reluctant switch to repeaters. I'm starting off at 10/5 because I find 7/3 simply too hectic. Also because I'm more convinced by the potential hypertrophy benefits of higher volume at slightly lower load, than I am by the idea of actually effectively working anaerobic endurance on a fingerboard. Plus running prehab

F: 

S: Decided to do a max hangs benchmark before pressing on with a cycle of repeaters (in the hope that they don't work so I never have to do them again?) The good news: I'm hanging 2kgs more in total than my previous peak at the end of the first lockdown. The bad news: that 2kgs consists entirely of xmas/lockdown internal weight belt.
    Plus running prehab exercises, shoulder presses

S: Hillwalking, Hochplatte in the Chiemgau Alps with my son - possibly the last chance before lockdown travel radius restrictions kick in tomorrow. The plan was a snowshoe tour, but it turns out there's no more snow in the mountains than there is in town and the snowshoes were just training weight. In fact, full on crampons would have been overkill but I regretted not bringing kahtoolas. Also: my son has clearly been making good use of his birthday roadbike - I could only just keep up on the uphills.

Thanks Alan. I've done quite a few scapular pull-ups at various times and I also do something similar as part of my regular warm-up routine with a theraband. Plus, when I do weighted pull-ups I'm very conscious of keeping shoulders engaged. I've never been very systematic with the scapular pull-ups though, or tried to reach any sort of limit, and I've never consciously kept my triceps engaged while doing them before either, which did feel a bit weird to start with.

M: physio exercises, 3rd session. Going well so far. Decided to add 5kg to bodyweight for the final two of six sets (each set being a 30 second hang, crimping down on some good incut holds without my DIP joint extended, and engaging / disengaging my shoulders in an 8/2/8/2/8/2 second pattern with my triceps engaged throughout.)

T: rest

W: 4th session of physio exercises. All with bodyweight +5kg.

T: rest

F: did a short evening board session. Managed a 7A after the usual 6C ish warmups.

S: rest, although I pushed it too far going for a long walk in the cold around lunchtime without much food and was then a bit shaky in the afternoon, oops. (Lovely day on the beach though.)

S: another short board session this morning followed by some TRX and some 2 finger pocket training hangs (bodyweight, as per sessions in previous weeks, but just two sets of each type.) Then this afternoon I did some strenuous heavyweight light-fitting, which definitely worked the shoulders a bit!

The physio exercises seem to be going well so far. I'm hoping I can get some follow-up advice on next steps when the first four weeks is up. I haven't hit any left shoulder issues of the type he suspected I might, yet. In my two other sessions this week (Friday and Sunday), I felt heavy but more confident in my left ring finger than recently; so it's gradually on the mend and the exercises at least aren't doing it any harm. A long road still to go though of course, I want to make sure it gets properly better this time.

The first week of lockdown wasn't too bad on the whole, my son has started a slightly extended preschool week which meant it was a bit more relaxing working at home, and I got quite a few good evening walks in with a podcast. However... early yesterday afternoon we got a call to say one of the staff that looks after him has tested positive and he needs to isolate until a week tomorrow. Which won't be fun (It's now the third time this has happened, including the first when he had covid himself. Rates here have skyrocketed over New Year, we are on a par with much of London now, so we had been expecting it at some point.)

Si

Thanks Alan. Yes, been a pretty solid week for me. Stuck to the plan, just about managed all the sessions albeit could maybe have done a little more today. It’s creating some good shoulder aches so I’m hoping it’s doing something?! Pleased to see some of the snap coming back on the campus board too. Keeping it going through the whole of Jan will be hard work - maybe either during Jan or the first week in Feb some sort of deload week might be in order - but feeling psyched to give it a good go.

Monday - 5x5 pull-ups attempted at bw+10, which I’m going to guess is maybe 86/7kg combined versus my p.b. of about 91. 5,5,5,4,3. Definitely detrained on these a bit having not done them regularly, felt very hard - either that or my weight guesstimate is rather optimistic. Also did 2x10 hammer curls in the evening with 13kg dumbbell and two pretty feeble knee to bar sets.

Tuesday - 3 sets pike press-ups, about half a dozen static holds, and 3 sets planche-style pushups (still not quite getting the intensity for these, but I think I might have found something reasonable at the end).

Wednesday - 5-3-5–3-5 aerobic foot on campus. More feeble knee to bar sets.

Thursday - 2mile walk with TSMotP 

Friday - campus session. Much improved over last week already.

- 1-2-3-4

- 1-3-4

- 1-2-4 overshot x1 side hit the other side

- 1.5-4-5

- 1.5-3-5 making the distance but not landing the catch cleanly both times

- 1.5-3-5 hit once missed another

- pretty rubbish attempt at bumping one hand up and down again

Then push training. Warmup, then 3 sets pike pushups, 3 sets pseudo-planche pushups, static holds, messing about with L-sits

Saturday - just under 5 miles along the seafront with TSMotP. Sun never broke through; cold.

Sunday - 5x5 at bw+10 5,5,5,5,4,3 (a few extra at the end to go >25). About 1.5 miles with TSMotP. I’d hoped to do a bit more pulling this evening but I’m quite achey already!

Aspirational lockdown gainz goals for Jan:

- complete Sharkathon

- climbing maintenance, ideally 1 aero and 1 fingerboard/campus per week

- 2 pull sessions per week - weighted pull-ups, offsets/one arm eccentrics, archer rows or front lever progressions

- 2 push sessions per week - planche progression stuff, pushups and static

2021 Arbitrary training goals:

- 1.5-x-5 solidly on the campus board, then 1-x-5

- L sit to Tuck Planche on the paralettes as a marker point for having worked on a weakness

- 5x5 @95kg, and actually do some stuff on offsets

- some progress on a front lever

2021 Climbing goals:

- make use of continued working from home and hopefully greater tolerance of more remote working in future to do some longer hybrid climb/work trips (not ridiculously long, but extending beyond the usual 2 week mark)

- make the June-June 12 months my best period of bouldering yet (current score 6700, score to beat c7200)

- climb 7c/+ again

- work on my “why haven’t I already” and “harder local things to try” ticklist (start position 0% & 13% respectively)

- nail at least one of my Portland dws projects, try mark of the beast, and do some more stuff at Swanage and in south Devon.

Ah man! Good luck.

I'm hoping against hope that we can dodge that one, the next month or so at work is really busy for me and double-timing that with them being at home from nursery would be something of a nightmare...

Thanks Alan, I'm pleasantly shocked by the running progress in a comparatively short time. Historically my running has always been a part of a wider training plan, with more dedicated strength work and climbing-specific training (and actual climbing, which is rather a foreign concept these days!) so I credit some of the improvement to being so singularly focused on running at the moment. I think I need to take injury avoidance very seriously in the coming months to sustain the level of effort I'm currently putting in and have a hope at performing decently come June.

Thanks also for the shoe recommendation last week. I was set on a pair of Hokas, which unfortunately weren't stocked at the shop you suggested, but I'll bear them in mind for the future.

Week 6:

Great first week of the RFP training plan. Moving to 5 on, 2 off felt like a nice change. And what a joy to take some gucci new shoes out for a spin.

M Rest. Core routine in the evening. Shin prehab.

T 10.1km Z1 round the neighbourhood in the new Hokas. Yes they're hideous. Yes I probably look like bigfoot out for a few easy miles. But the miles do seem to zip by in them. Need to play around with the laces a bit to get that right but first impressions are promising. Cool to see the Allianz arena lit up red by night. Shin prehab.

W 8.3km Z1. Felt a bit flat. Shin prehab in the evening.

T 10.0km Z1. Shin prehab.

F Rest. Core routine plus shin prehab.

S 19.2km Z1 through the Englischergarten and along the Isar up to Garching. Now, I don't want to get too sentimental, but this was a profoundly enjoyable trip. Running through the snow in the Englischergarten in the blinding sunshine, and then along the wonderful tree-lined riverside path up to Garching felt like something out of a Caspar David Friedrich painting. What a breathtakingly beautiful part of the world this is; how fortunate I am to live here. Slightly sore toes and arches on the last few kilometres (was wearing a new and very minimal pair of trail shoes, might be best to reserve these for shorter efforts or trail-based speedwork in future). Evening shin prehab.

S Cruisy 6.6km Z1 round the neighbourhood. Shin prehab. 

Last week's goals:

• 55km running [Tick - strictly 54.2km but this is closer to prescribed mileage anyway]
• 2x core routine [Tick]
• Daily shin prehab [Tick]

Goals:

STG (This Week)

• 58km running
• 2x core routine
• Daily shin prehab

MTG (End of June 2021)

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

LTG (End of 2021)

• Himalaya Expedition (or plan B)

Thanks Alan. By Wednesday lunchtime I'd got everything to a manageable state so the back end of the week was far more similar to normal. Having said that I need to get a week ahead with recording as it's my turn to do keyworker school again in a couple of weeks so won't get much else done for my classes that week. 

Mon. Working. 

Tues. Long work day. Tried to do max hangs at +25kg (a weight I managed last week) but could only hold each hang for 8 or 9 seconds. 5x5 on the min pull ups - even this felt hard tonight! 3x10 press ups.

Wed. Pulled into a layby on my commute home from work and went for a run/walk up onto kinder (felt like this was in the spirit of lockdown given there was no addition journey, not near anyone else and didn't touch anything). Did a couple of grade I routes I'd not done before. Good conditions.

Thurs. Same as yesterday but a different route and two different climbs I'd not done before.

Fri. 6 sets of repeaters +4kgs (felt OK this week). 5x5 on the min pull ups. 3x10 press ups. 

Sat. 3 x 10mins on 10mins off in the attic. 

Sun. I'm about to get on the static bike for a nominal 20km in the porch. 

Cheers Alan,

You weren’t wrong about muting the psych video. Although the tree downclimb was V impressive!

Took the sage advice from Si dH & AJM, and dialled back my hangboard sessions to max 3x week. I was definitely sleepwalking in to a lockdown overuse injury due to the frustration of needing to do something.

Mon: Rest Day

Tue: Rest Day

Wed: Minimum edge hangs 3x4(7/30) 15mm

Thu: Rest Day

Fri: Minimum edge hangs 4x4(7/30) 15mm

3x3 Offset pull-ups on 40mm jug and 18mm edge (4fingers)

Sat: Rest Day

Sun: Minimum edge hangs 5x4(7/30) 15mm

A light week which was spent ruminating on training strategies for the next 2/3 months without climbing. I settled on a mix of hangboarding for finger/forearm strength & endurance, calisthenics for general conditioning, and weighted hikes to get alps fit for when we’re let loose.

Lockdown Goals

Hangboard gains: A cycle of max strength hangs on the 15mm edge with BW+25%.

10on 10off endurance hangs with feet on a stool.

Quite enjoyed the offset pull-ups so will look to progress these as far as possible.

A clean handstand pushup: never managed one - now is as good a time as ever.

A clean back bridge: ditto above.

L Sits: unfortunately I don’t have parallettes so will have to dig out some Argos catalogues (or use the floor).

Push-ups: no hard goal but the more the merrier!

Loaded carries: previous average was 60lbs over 7.5km in 90mins. Will look to up this to 70lbs for 3 hours and see what distance I can reach.

Frustrating to curtail the climbing but should hopefully see some benefit in other areas.

Somebody actually watched one?! Yay!

It has to be the floor for the L-sits. Completely nails. My experience with them was floundering for weeks and then suddenly, inexplicably being able to do it. Amazing test of compressive strength.

Nothing much, walk on Wednesday hip was fine, run on Saturday hip was painful after about three miles. 

Will hang fingerboard in office this week although the person is low so most hands will be with feet on the floor but given current weight and fitness that’s for the best!

A younger, fitter version of myself managed it but I haven’t tried in years. I found pushing up on my fingers was easier than flat hands due to the added clearance and my quads cramping was always the mitigating factor. Interested to see what I can get this time around!

I'm loving the Leicestershire theme. I went to university there but had only just started climbing so didn't explore anywhere near as much as I would now. We did some bouldering at Bradgate park, a bit of top roping at Craig buddon and Slawston Bridge and I think that was about it. An opportunity missed looking back.

This week has been a struggle to be honest and I'm not expecting the next few to be any better. Hoping for some more cheerful posts at some point, sorry!!

Mon: Rest.
Tues: Rest.
Wedns: Long walk. Took some time back but too tired to do much with it.
Thurs: Rest. Covid vaccination, wooo! 
Fri: 40 min walk. Stayed on for an evening shift which was probably a mistake.
Sat: Unable to get out of bed. Exhausted. Most likely vaccine related? 
Sun: Better. Long walk but then slept most of the afternoon. 

Not any big ones I know of. Plenty of clips and short things put out by the Booths and the OpenCrag lot though. I did think about starting a little video project to showcase some of the gems, though. I'll have to make the psyche vid myself so that when Covid-39 happens the next generation will have something to stay psyched

Last Week:

M - Rest

T - Rigpa session. Didn't make any more moves than before, but it is feeling much closer!

W - Rest

T - Quick session between work and dinner, bar core and density hangs. Didn't use a pulley so just had feet on the floor far away. Was intending on max hangs but when warming up I just didn't really feel like my muscles were firing. Box split stretches before bed, not up to the usual standard but better to half-ass it than do nothing at all.

F - Rest

S - Rigpa session. Not as good as Tuesday, holds all felt worse, felt like I was moving a bit rubbish too. Lesson learned: two days rest needed before cranking so hard.

S - Rest

Even if no physical progress is made on the project, at least I'm learning things and progressing in other ways.

Next Week:

M - Rest

T - Rigpa? Might find another local thing around 6C-7A to do in a session to keep things fresh. Perhaps The Highwayman's Escape (V5)?

Rest of the week will just be a balance of weather windows and resting.

Aiming for 3 sessions climbing or hanging, 2 sessions stretching and antagonists. I've noticed that when I climb outside I slack off on stretching and antags, might have to be a bit more diligent about that.

Goals:

Don't get injured

Suavito (on hold)

Tierdrop (on hold)

Rigpa

Not sure if you meant circumstance of young sproggle, or the sleep deprivation, or headcahes, or something else?

Anyhow, I had the week off work and squiggle wasn't too much bother, so can't see the harm in getting some training in? It's not like I'm accumulating fatigue from doing any stamina training volume. Every session i'm stopping when still feeling strong, but I don't know if i'm doing enough to make some gains or if I'm just at a maintenance dose...?

Week 1

M – Tension block density lifts: F3SC 34kg 30s x3. M2 drag 24kg 40s. 3x 90s plank. 3x 20 narrow press-ups.

T – 30min static and dynamic stretching.

W – Day off work (cheers for that tip AJM!) Moonboard. Flashed a bunch of “7A”’s that are popular but not benchmarks i.e. most of them were 6C. Worked some harder problems, B to C+ and flashed a B benchmark 😊 

T – 1-arm hangs; BW-10kg. Felt good. 2-arm sloper hangs; felt very good and kept increasing weight with each hang. Ended up at 41kg for 10s on 6th hang and probably had spare capacity. COMPEX core.

F – Nowt.

S – 90min walk in the snow with squiglet. “Hour of power” board session. Managed a 7A+ and “7C” benchmark. The former was certainly harder than the latter!

S – 35min FB session. Warm-up with progressive hangs, then Crimpd 6x 10s 1-arm @BW-9kg. RH smashed it, LH struggled – probably due to taped up pinky split. 3x rolling thunder 10s lifts; 45, 55, 55kg. Also considerably harder with L than R. Later, reverse wrist curls and external rotator cuff 3x 10 6kg.

Hi everyone. Thanks Alan for the continued statathon.

Yep -Shropshire skiing makes Scottish skiing look good! But, with no winter alpine climbing, it's probably the only skiing I'll be doing this year so it's good to keep my eye in (a.k.a. remind myself how shit I am!)

Week 1:

Dropped one climbing sesh, but ticked everything else.

M: Max Hangs.

T: Rest.

W: Max Hangs. Strength Sesh.

T: Board Sesh -double AnCap: 6 in 6 on the board, 6 in 6 on the tools. And then... DRUMROLL... a Trail Run!!! Yes, I only went and did my first run since ankle-gate five weeks ago. Spectacular it was not (3km flat trail shuffle) but it felt like a big milestone. My achilles was screaming for the first half km, to the extent I nearly turned back, but miraculously seemed to stretch in to an easily ignorable ache after that. Banging!

F: Prehab.

S: Max hangs. Strength Sesh.

S: Trail Run. 7km, 105m vert, 5:50/km. Again, ankle hurt for first half km or so, but then eased up. Feels amazing to be out again! Hopefully I'm doing the right thing by carefully getting back in to it, despite the initial pain.

Week 2:

Fingerboard sesh x 3

Strength sesh x 2

Climbing x 2

Run x 2

STG (End Q1):

Max Hang total 79kg

Weighted Pull-up total 83kg

Jug circuit 5-on, 3-off

Board Problem 'GTH'

Curfew (6b+)

Run average 25km/week and Edale Skyline

MTG (End Q2):

Max Hang total 84kg

Weighted Pull-up total 88kg

Jug circuit 10-on, 10-off

Board Problem 'Le Grimpeur'

Eliminator (V4)

Grid Iron (6c)

Black Wall (E1 5b)

Run average 35km/week and Cheshire Gritstone Trail

LTG (End Q3):

Max Hang total 88kg

Weighted Pull-up total 92

Mug circuit 10-on, 10-off

Board Problem 'Mission Improbable'

Yates' Layaway (f6B+) 

Jack the Smuggler (7a)

Black Wall Direct (E2 5c)

Run average 40km/week, Cairngorm Classic Rock IAD and Welsh 3000s

2020 Goals:

35 E-points

Run 30km vertical (and >1000km)

El Cap nose-day (880m climbing)

I remember, one typically cold but dry & icy Bavarian January, enviously reading reports of several feet of lovely powder in Scotland. But note the ONE January in that sentence, of the 20 that I've lived here.

Cheers Alan,

I visited Morely Quarry a couple of times but there isnt that much at punter level 

Had a good week of running;

Tuesday, 17.5km trail run checking out local section of the Leicestershire round.

Thursday, 15km trail run, again checking out another section of the round

Saturday, gentle 8km run round the village with the wife

Sunday, 22km trail run. longest run for a while, however its worrying that is isnt even half of one of the ultra legs!!

Going to have to do some research into how to effectively train for the longer distances rather than my usual make it up as I go approach.

Cheers Alan.

The Shelterstone really is pretty good. Powerful, steep, seepage resistant and faces South. 

The quarry has been a nature reserve for a long while now and is a very pleasant place to be.

Some tweaking has been done after this week showed that when the weather craps out and work goes COVID busy then training is the only option. 

M - Strength

3 x 6 reps 1 arm shrugs, overhead press, pistol squats, hanging leg raises 

1 arm hangs - 6 x 10 secs with resistance band offset

T - Nothing - work 

W - Nothing - work 

T - Climb

Just nice to get out so as it wasn't too bad we went to woodwell and had a go on Angel Deelite. It was cold, some damp holds and we bailed after about an hour as it started raining. But all the moves felt better and i felt stronger

F - Nothing - work 

S - Strength and Power

3 x 6 reps 1 arm shrugs, overhead press, pistol squats, hanging leg raise

3 x 4 weighted jump squats - 10kgs

3x8 kneeling plyometric push ups

S - Endurance

3 x 30 (10kgs) seconds of

Deadlift

Bent Over Row

Front Squat

Push ups

Pull ups

Clean to press

Hollow hold

with 3 mins rest between sets

This week i am going to do 2 x strength 2 x power and 2 x endurance sessions along with max hangs and pinch. If there's a nice day i'll sacrifice the training to get out.

I hope everyone is coping OK. 

I did that in June. I found the best sequence for passing the lip and getting to the jug seemed to be unusually body size and flexibility dependent. Definitely worth experimenting with different methods. Good problem!

It's a great problem isn't it? Half the issue is that there are about 15 ways of doing it. By the time i figure out what works for me i'm too tired to do it!

I've got a slightly weird question for you all...

Yesterday, during my rests between circuits on the board, I was musing on HOW I actually climb during my circuits. I've got the moves so wired that I tend to be able to swing relatively smoothly through the moves, with maximum efficiency and minimum wasted energy. There are lots of momentum-based moves and types of moves that I would rarely deploy when doing 'real' climbing (particularly trad).

I remembered Tom Randell saying (maybe in one of those Lattice youtubes) that we often miss a trick with circuits by not climbing them as we would climb in real life! He made the case that swinging through the moves like a gibbon is nice and gratifying, but not very specific training for hanging around on a trad route fiddling in gear.

Then I got to thinking about what Biscuit and Alan were saying last week, about bouldering making you move better as a trad climber. My trad climbing is very clunky -slow, static movements; milking rests; etc -so I'd doubtless benefit from building a habit of better movement over rock.

So, back to my circuits...

Do I carry on climbing them like a boulderer, with all the little tricks that minimise effort, so that I'm in the habit of making bold, smooth moves? Or do I move like I'm trad climbing (although maybe with less shaking, swearing, crying and endless standing on ledges) to improve the specificity for spending a longer time on holds? Or mix it up with sessions of both?

Ideally, you probably need to do two things - flow more on trad and match your pacing better in training to how you would pace when outdoors performing.

The former is obviously difficult to train indoors - I'm not convinced that except in a fairly indirect way flowing smoothly on known and wired circuits will transfer to flowing on unknown ground with the uncertainty/fear/etc element.

But you can do the latter. I'd definitely have a go at slowing the pacing down a bit on the laps indoors so that the pattern mimics what a desirable outdoor pace might be (you're probably still faster indoors than even that), at least for some of the time.

Depends what you want to be able to do.  If you want to redpoint something where you climb moves you know smoothly then maybe crack on.  If you want to onsight stuff then slow down, pause before every hold to simulate finding the good bit.  In the past I've done circuits with my harness on and a short tail of rope so I can stop and simulate clipping every 5 moves. Hang a draw from the middle of the board for this.  Sounds silly but forces you to find stable positions to clip from. 

You could get really carried away and put a bucket of water under the wall so you can throw your belay plate/phone/ half you rack into it to simulate sea cliff trad!

Cheers guys, sounds like I need to slow down my circuits a bit more. Maybe things like simulated clipping will help me to keep that disciplined slow pace. I like the idea of a bucket of water too -I might even get a seal to put in it!

I guess moving better on Trad probably comes back to just climbing as much as possible. Although since building the board and climbing regularly on the steeper angle I've found myself taking some of those 'board movements' on to the real thing... I don't think I'd ever used a drop-knee on a route before this year! But, thinking about it, that probably comes from climbing more hard problems, rather than the wired circuits.

You can gauge someone's sea cliff experience by whether they rack their wires big/small or odds/evens

@Liam take note when you get on Dream

A few things spring to mind. Some of this may not be right!

Firstly, what you describe as your way of climbing circuits does not sound to me like climbing like a boulderer. Yes, both involve more use of momentum than trad climbing. But bouldering more often involves bursts of powerful movement which are nothing like the smooth swinging style you describe (incidentally, I think a lot of good sport climbers are relatively poor boulderers because they struggle with this, as well as with the idea of being front-on a lot.)

Secondly, from what you describe, are your holds too big? Obviously it won't be great training for vertical routes if you are swinging about on jugs. Perhaps the point about relevance to trad is more that if you are trying to train aerocap, you should still do it on hold sizes that actually train your fingers and forearms appropriately rather than putting most of the training effort into your shoulders and biceps.

Thirdly, I didn't see the Randall video but I think you probably first need to be sure whether your training is aiming to develop skill or physical ability. If the latter, then what type (eg, aerobic, anaerobic etc) as this influences the best way of training. Personally, for physical training of endurance, if you are aiming to go to failure (eg. maximizing pump) then I have found it is best to avoid any individual hard moves because you end up fall off earlier than you should and hence not getting as pumped as you could.  I actually found training aeropow on a fingerboard more effective than circuits for this reason. If you aren't going to failure it will make less difference.

I definitely don't think you should trying to 'work things out' in training unless your aim is skill rather than physical development.  You could force yourself to simply climb slower on moves you know though.

Hope this is useful. I know it's not an answer! I might add more if something strikes me.

... I don't think I'd ever used a drop-knee on a route before this year!

:-0

Thanks Si, good points, especially about hold size. Most of the holds on the two circuits I've set are big. I tend to use the board in three ways: strength (limit bouldering on small holds), AnCap (flash grade problems on a mix of holds), AeroCap (circuits on big holds, set to be the same difficulty throughout). 

I've been thinking that progression on the circuits would be longer duration on the board, but thinking about it, maybe I'm better off making harder circuits (smaller holds) and keeping the rep duration the same.

My board sessions are pretty much all about physical training rather than skills training. I could probably get similar gains from doing repeaters -except I wouldn't because I'd never do them, so the board is more about motivating me to train through being more fun! 

Bigs and Little’s all the way!

Theres redundancy in the micros at the small end, the overlap at about size 5 between crabs and with the cams at the medium to large end.....

I actually (used to) go big/small and a spare backup set on a single krab

I go big/small too but I also take a set of WC superlights with me so I've got something handy for belays.

2 krabs of each (big / small) for me on a big sea cliff pitch, plus micros. I think on at least one route I've carried a third full set on it's own krab.

Been a long time since I was on a sea cliff :oS

I try to re-rack to odds/evens before sea cliffs but always forget! Although my closest call came when experimenting with racking nuts on ovals...

Tom, can’t add much more but I heard some good advice on an Andy Kirkpatrick podcast regarding onsight trad. Tim Emmett told him ‘don’t look for the gear, look for the rests’. This rang a bell with me as I have a bad habit of locking off in strenuous positions to fiddle gear in and get pumped in the process.....only to make a couple more moves to find a good rest and a bomber placement. Putting this into practice, I’ll break routes down in to a sequence of boulder problems interspersed with rests & gear. 
 

If you relate this to training; you could continue to make momentum-based, efficient moves then throw in a long lockoff to simulate a gear placement and repeat. 

The problem I've got is I'm running out of routes with a big enough number of rests and small enough pieces of climbing in between the rests! ;-p So I'm having to face up to actually doing more than a couple of moves at a time! 

As for oval karabiners, I assume that they are only made so that gear manufacturers sell more wires! It's literally impossible not to lose wires off ovals!

All of the above really. All presumably closely related?