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.

Link to last week’s thread:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/walls+training/ukc_fit_club_week_811-7525... 

A couple of lurgies, but on the whole some very solid training weeks on show here. Hope this continues going well for everyone!

Derek Furze: A pub where people just hand you puppies to cuddle? Sounds great! Hope this week has been more generous to you in terms of getting out.

Randy: Nice busy week, good stuff. How was the weather this week?

AlanLittle: Solid training week! Guessing you're now in Kalymnos - have a wicked time!

SteveJC94: Wahey, finally out on the rock! Fantastic. Best of luck in the comp.

Somerset swede basher: Sorry to hear about the lurgy, but the start of the week sounded rather great. Heard good things about Backstreet Mime Artist, all the moves being nice and accessible from the ground should make it quite pleasant to project and make links.

Tyler: Bad luck! Hope it's a better story for you this week with regards to getting out and getting stuck in with a bit of rehab.

Liam P: Sorry to hear nobody fancies Font. I'd totally be up for it if I had enough annual leave and disposable cash! Decent week making a start on the stamina training.

Steve Claw: Always fun exploring something new, and good to hear the beta is coming together on the project.

Tom Green: Good unplanned deload before the big trip. Saw a post from Karl on FB as well, didn't realise you were there with him! Hope the rest of the trip has been great.

Ally Smith: Sounds like a nice sunny holiday. Exciting burns on the big project, hopefully there's another dry spell this autumn to really bring the venue into prime conditions. Condolences about the illness!

AJM: Positive outlook on the future, nice! I see in the logbook you've managed to get a late-season DWS sesh in, hope you made a bit of progress or at least had some great fun.

biscuit: A strong testing week, good stuff. Weather seemed a little better than expected this week around me, hopefully the same for you?

Thanks Ross, yes, I think it's going to be fun.  Not really anything to report this week. My lurgy turned out to be covid which a test confirmed on Monday. I've not been to work this week, not really left the house until the wkend actually. Tried to do a bit of climbing on Saturday but after two tie ins I was exhausted so sacked it off. My best effort this week was possibly the slowest ever recorded ascent of Coombs Clough (Grade-1). Hopefully strength will start to return this week and I'll stop feeling tired all the time. Anyone else had this recent strain? Id be keen to know how long it took to get back to normal.

Indeed. Looking good so far, thanks

STG: Kalymnos trip with my son
MTG: Winter 22/23 - do an actual off piste ski tour
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber. For measurable definition see Fit Club 658

M:    Bike 2½ hours in the woods. Need to be fit in case we decide to to the big hike into Lambda on Telendos next week.
T:    
W:    Bike 1½ hours to & from ski club biergarten meetup. Winter is, after all, coming.
T:    
F:    Travel to Kalymnos
S:  Kalymnos: Griffig. New sector only bolted this spring, this year's In place. So very busy, but still good - shady, cool, good rock. According to logbooks, both here and on 8a.nu, there appear to be some old school Kalymnian joke grades about - but sadly not on the routes we did. Which meant that the steep, juggy 6c I did second go, Sauna am See (6c), was a nice confidence booster in terms of figuring out where I stand after having climbed so little this year. Might go back some time later in the week.
S:    Kalymnos: Palionisos. Despite getting absolutely baked here last year my son wanted to go back, so back we went. His aim was to redpoint Iltis (6b), which he toproped last year and which would have been his first 6b on real rock. Top effort by him, close but not quite. I onsighted 67 (6b+) - another good confidence booster. 6c is the hardest I've ever onsighted, so to be only one grade off my all time peak, straight off the ski/bike/shoulder couch, feels quite ok. Moves felt physically not too desperate, but pretty much at my mental lmit for this trip I think.

Good second half of the week for me. First half was occupied by life. Finger is improving session by session to the point where I'm rarely feeling inhibited at all.

Last Week:

M - Rest.

T - Rest.

W - Rest.

T - Weigh-in at 77.9kg. Epic Moonboard session powered by a big curry! A couple of 7A+ benchies, and my first 7B: "To Warmer Waters". Finger feeling almost back to full health.

F - Rest.

S - Scrambled around Milestone Buttress Boulders to look at a few hard things but ultimately there were a few seepy holds and not much psyche. Mainly  The Decoy Ploy (f7C+) and The Vault of Glass (f7A).Bailed to Gallt yr Ogof Boulder to try a couple of nice new lines put up earlier this year by strong locals. No finger qualms!

S - Rest.

Next Week:

M - Rest.

T - Rigpa. Time for another season of moaning about conditions, poor tactics and tweakier fingers!

W - Rest.

T - Moonboard.

F - Rest.

S, S - Bouldering.

Goals:

Rehab right-middle tweak. Almost back to normal now!

Bulletproof fingers.

Thank you Ross.

Just a couple of sessions actually climbing, but if you include the work that goes on behind the scenes, then a busy week.

Tues - Local sport - New routes 6a, 7a, 7a, 7a+, 6c+

Fri - More local sport - New routes 6b+, 6c+, 6c+ 6a, 6a, 6a

Sat - Took my 2 boys into Avon for an adventure and found a way up the Sea Walls via the terraces all the way to the top. VDiff for the first 15m, then all scrambling with short 3m aided step in the middle. Ice Cream finish.

Cheers Ross. Cold & damp November sandstone didn’t sell very well. Still, El Chorro should be nice!

Busy work week and family visiting this weekend so I didn’t get much training done. More a maintenance week than anything. Should hopefully get more time for OAPU Club and Stamina training this week.

Tue

• Pinch Block 5x 7s LH(17kg) RH(18.5kg)
• 6x 7:3 Repeaters- 3x 20mm4FD, 3x 20mmHC

Thu

• Pinch Block 5x 7s LH(17.5kg) RH(18.5kg).
• Couple hours at the wall. Bouldering up to V5 then a few routes up to 6c.

Have a good week!

Weather was much better, though after the heavy rain on the weekend after an already quite rainy september the conditions definately were not perfect this week.

Recap last week:

Mon: Got back to the 7b+ project Lutscher (IX-), as it was one of the few dry places. Unfortunately no real progress. Somehow my heel hook did not stick on the first boulder problem, so i need to get back to this one.

Tues: Had a really sore harmstring in my left leg from the heel hooking yesterday, so at least it looks like i was applying some force on the heel . Went to  Weissenstein. My original plan was to try to onsight Dampfhammer (7a). Instead my 6c+ warmup Wilde 13 (VII) turned into my project of the day and i could not even send that one. Pretty disappointing day, somehow i never felt really confident on a lot of the moves and always forgot my beta on the redpoint attemps. Apart from that i also had the feeling that my endurance was not good enough for this pumy route

Wed: Rest 

Thurs: Checked out Chasin' the Trane (Helmut Albrecht Gedenkweg) (7c). Had trouble with a move before the crux that i could not link and with the crux. Then got completely shut down on the upper technical part which is definately not harder than 7a but somehow i could not find a decent solution for the moves. No idea why i got shut down, i've been on the route before 5 years ago when i was much weaker and did not had a real issue with the upper part as far i can remember.

Went to  Weissenstein afterwards and at least finished my unfinished business with Wilde 13 (VII). Climbed better and faster but still got quite pumped on the upper section and was close to falling. Finished the day with Trepperl (VII-).

Fri:  Heldwand. Did Nicht ohne Bürste (6a+) as a warmup then tried to flashHeldbräu (7a). Got to the upper part of the route, but was too pumped to clip the quickdraw and decided to jump off, fearing that the fall might me dangerous if try to move up to a better clipping position. Of course at it turned out in the end a fall would probably have been fine and i was two moves away from a good rest and probably would have sent the route if i had the committed to the move. Gave the route another couple of tries of somehow lacked the motivation after the failed flash attempt to really try hard which would have been necessary to send it.

Sat: Started the day at  Kalte Wand. Tried two routes for warmups which both turned out to be too moist to climb them. Switched to  Megalumania and did Bonnie & Clyde (VII-) for warmup. Then tried to onsightClimbing.de (VII) but again got too pumped after a couple of mistakes and a failed resting attemp on two mediocre crimped. Decided to call it a day afterwards as i was really lacking motivation on that day to try hard.

Sun: Gym climbing: Did a bunch of easy boulders in the 4a-5b range with basically no rest for 40 minutes to work on my endurance. Finished the session with weighted pullups + 28 kg with 4 min rest: 4x6 and 8 bodyweight reps as a drop set immediately after the last set.

Review last weeks goals: 

• Onsight at least one 7a  - Epic fail, did not even tried or manage to onsight harder than 6a+
• Climb at least one 7b+ or harder - Fail

Pretty disappointing trip from a performance point of view. Conditions were definately not amazing, but also not that bad either. But somehow i felt like i was not moving good on the rock and could not really transfer my gym strength. I checked my logbook for this year and noticed due to all the travel and bad weather in september i did not even had 20 outdoor session this year. And out of these 20 sessions more than half were spent on projecting harder stuff, so i did not really have that much experience with onsighting and quickly sending routes in a couple of tries.

Apart from that my endurance also did felt up to mark. In hindsight more endurance training would have been necessary for the more pumpy routes that i have tried.

Thanks for the stats Ross. I managed to have a decent week, despite getting spanked in the comp! 

M - Rest

T - HB Minimum Edge Depth x 5. Half Crimp; 8mm edge; BW + 4kg. 7s hang. FOllowed this with 5 problems on the woody (7A; 7A; 7A+; 7A+; 7A+)

W - Redpointing routes at Parthian. Managed a 7b onsight and 7c+ on the fourth go.

T/F - Rest

S - BoB comp. Got fairly spanked and either flashed or failed on problems. Power pulling on crimps was great, but coordination dynos did not go well!

S - Headed to Stanage with what little skin I had left. Flashed Skimmington Ride (f6B), Germ (f6B) and Soft Top Beetle (f6C). Spent the rest of the day working Low Rider (f7C+). Fairly pleased with how I got on, managing to do all but the last 2 moves in isolation and then linking the start through to the penultimate move before my skin gave up. Also had a couple of attempts at Chip Shop Brawl (f7A+), making it as far as the mid-height slopey ledge. Even with lots of mats and spotters, it still felt fairly sketchy! Starting to get very psyched for grit bouldering season to kick off!

Plan for next week is more focus on strength and limit power. 

Hope you're on the mend soon SSB! I've not had the latest strain but it's been doing the rounds at work. The feedback I've heard is 5-7 days until general fatigue is gone, followed by another 3-5 days until sporting energy levels return to normal. Be sure not to overdo it an ease yourself back in gradually! 

Hi folks. Cheers for the write up Ross.

More good times in Slovenia, despite a partner injury!

Week 40:

M: Work.

T: Sport climbing at Misja Pec. A couple of 'easy' warm-ups then failed flash of Hrenovka (6b+) -felt like I'd only just missed getting this but see below...!

W: Slovenska smer (III) -absolutely brilliant route up the Triglav North Face. The world's gnarliest V Diff?! The climbing was pretty trivial, just a few tricky sections, but it was very insecure and the exposure was insane (if you slipped on the upper section you would go 400m before hitting anything, then another 400m of steep bouncing!). Simul-soloed in approach shoes, with some sketchy step-kicking in the upper snow fields. Pleased to knock half an hour off the best guidebook time.

T: Back to Misja Pec. Annoyed not to get Hrenovka finished. 

F: Disaster! Partner stubbed toe badly on a door frame, putting paid to planned climb of the German route on Triglav. Back to Misja Pec -got Hrenovka climbed first tie-in. The critical beta (which I'd sussed previously but been too wimpy to try) was to climb past the last bolt (a traverse) and then reach back to clip.

S: Chilled hill walking and recceing of some of the other stunning mountains in the Julian Alps. Need to come back for routes up Spik, Prisank, etc.

S: Rest day visiting the Slovenian Alpine Museum and the Alpine Dairy Museum. Banging!

Week 41:

M-W: Work

T: Travel home

F-S: Some combo of running and fingerboarding. (Depending how I feel -I think I'm on the front end of some lurgy).

STG -end Dec:

Triglav N Face -hopefully two routes (Tick. Although still need to come back for the German and Bavarian Routes).

Six of my local to-do list.

Three big mountain days (Triglav traverse has shown what sort of height gain and distance I can do off the couch, so no excuses!)

Ultra distance run.

Weighted Pull-up: 90kg. 

Max Hangs: 85kg. 

Weighted hill climb: 2 laps of RT in 30 mins with 15kg.

2022 Climbing goals:

7a (Possibly one of: Arc en Ciel, The Jim Grin, Rock & Roll, Clink) -TICK!

ALL of my local must-do list: 4/15

Visit at least five of my 'why haven't I climbed here' list: 3/5

Get at least one session at each of my 'I should climb more at this crag' list: 5/8

Start properly getting to know: Brimham 2/3, Almscliff 3/3, Caley 0/3, Slipstones 2/3.

(For lists see FitClub 772)

At least two big, classic alpine goals (Tick -perhaps not as hard as I had planned, but definitely big and classic!).

Morning Fitclub, 3rd week of on/off lurgy in the Smith household. Not sure if it's the same virus or a refreshed variant shared back from nursery on a weekly basis?  Pretty nauseous this morning but thankfully WFH means i can take it fairly steadily.

Week 40

M – After a fairly unbelievable amount of shitting yesterday, I weighed in at 75.4kg – lightest I’ve been for a whole year?!

T – Took advantage of being light. Lunchtime board session – 10x 6B+ to 7A+ flashes to warm up, then starting trying hard. Goes 1-3 were mildly atrocious. 30min break to teleconference with Houston, then back to the board; 4th go pretty good. 5th go – oooooush – Dank Energy, 8A benchmark, “SOFT!”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjS0URBDmB_/?hl=en  Pretty chuffed with that :-D

W – Squeezed in an extra session after dinner. Felt sluggish with belly full of food – certainly not Ross’s experience of being powered up by a big curry! Made some progress on a shouldery 7C+ BM.

T – 30min circuit of bench-press/Saxon bar/assisted 1-armer in lunchbreak, then drive to Bedfordshire.

F – Site meeting & travel home.

S – Squiggle shoe shopping

S – Attempts at outdoor link-up project after drying holds. 1st go went well (minor faff with t-shirt blocking chalk bag while inverted in a kneebar) and fell 1.5 moves from end jugs.  2nd go not so good – fell on wet hold in the 2nd of 3 problems. Sacked it off and played on another problem (8A) and found some good beta.

Thanks Ross. Weather hasn’t coincided with days off and not being hungover so no outdoors done this week. I feel like the gym is coming together now and am psyched to get stuck into training but I need to keep half an eye on outdoors. I have a terrible tendency to just stay indoors over Winter.

M – Planned rest. Stretch

T – Lancaster Wall. Try hard on the V6-8 mints. These feel at a really good level for me to try hard (and fail) on with outdoor style.

Gym – 30 sets – shoulders and arms

W – Rest. Stretch

T – Kendal wall. First indoor routes this year. Auto-belay warm up, 6b on 15m wall then 6b, 6c and a 7a on the big wall. Please to onsight that level indoors at this time of year. 6c and 6b back-to-back on the 15m wall to finish.

F – Gym – shortened session – 17 sets - chest and back

S – Hungover. Back at Kendal wall after going out for lunch. Managed up to 6c on the main wall (felt a bit vomity). Fell off a 6c+ on the 15 m wall. Bailed early feeling sorry for ourselves.

S – Gym – 19 sets - legs

Ah that's rubbish. I had it about 8 weeks ago. It was a quick recovery to 80% (within a few days) but took a few weeks before I felt like I had any top end effort.  

Regards your terrible tendency to stay indoors, I think I can help!  I'm the opposite - a terrible tendency to go outdoors, when indoors might have been more productive!  All those south facing escarpments in Yorkshire are perfect for winter sun, so shout if you fancy a clip up campaign.

Thanks Ross!

Yes, I got 2 days of climbing in which was great. Otherwise I did a couple of days of rehab and a quick hit at the wall during the week but nothing else. Need to try to fit in some other training weekdays as well in future.

Saturday I went to Lulworth. Perfect mid season conditions with sun on the wall. Cold in the shade though. Usual set of warmups, then binned it once off Adrenochrome trying some different beta, and had two goes on Mark of the Beast.

- felt smoother on the moves from the horny break to the first jug.

- managed the looong throw from the jug to the slot, it's ok once you properly commit to it. This is the move in the photos here https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjisqq4Deem/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY= which hopefully give a good idea of angle and distance. Above that there's a rollover move to the next jug

- from here, you can either go fully into the infamous move out right which appears to leave you close to/above the ledge ( youtube.com/watch?v=fwk9wRXO7kc& the cut loose at 2.01) but is apparently on big jugs, or you can go a bit further to the hold Louis crosses back to with his right at 2.04 and then bust up leftwards from there. I tickled the hold the latter way but it's a long way and I wasn't quite feeling the commitment so jumped from the jug both times.

If I could get the right hand properly then the moves out left take you to a big hold and out above water, and from there it doesn't usually seem to take people too long before they are getting up into the final crux. I couldn't do the right heel hook at the moment anyway but if I get another burn this season it would be great to give it some beans and try to get to the heel at least. We shall see!

On Sunday, I did some trad! Bunch of VSs and an HVS, lovely day out, great to be doing trad again, it's a faff to organise but such a great experience.

Cheers Ross.  Slightly more generous in that I actually got out on Monday.  It was the first climbing for just short of five weeks, so it all felt a bit ungainly, but it was nice to get some movement going again.  Conditions were against us really in that it was fairly cold and grey, but I battled up seven routes at Harpur Hill - none of which were anything special in terms of quality or grade.  That said, despite the sense of going rapidly backwards, it was a relief to get out and do anything!

Press ups at hotel while away (5x10).

Still slightly under the weather at the beginning of the week, which probably impacted performance.  I certainly felt strangely exhausted by a relatively short day on the rocks and fell asleep when I got back home!

Went to London with wife and various daughters, step-daughters and daughter-in-law to see Abba Voyage.  Wasn't particularly looking forward to the event itself as I am not a fan (other than some of the house remixes), but it was totally brilliant and I would go again in a heartbeat.

Got out again, but it is for next week's report, by when I hope to have done some training!

There’s an offer I can’t refuse. 
I’ll take you up on that 👍🏻

Excellent.  I need some coaching!