UKC

Another early one as I’m flying to Morocco on Sunday and I can’t get a roaming bolt on for my phone. Thanks for all the good wishes to my parents, I actually got a bit emotional at dinner with them.

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_883-7682...

Derek Furze - Sorry to hear the illness dragged on, hopefully you’re over it now as you didn’t even manage a night out last week! You must be Jonesing like a MF to get back on the dance floor!

Mattrm - I was wondering what had happened with your running club but it looks like your Wednesday runs are with them? Certainly seems to be pushing you along! Good luck with the skateboarding, I can’t see anything going wrong with that!

Ally Smith - I’m not commenting on your efforts until you’ve ticked “Shoulder Move”

Tom Green - I thought the bottom of the barrel had been reached with dry tooling but kayaking?! Weather appropriate I guess. Is it Tamworth where you’re dong the skiing?

Ian Parnell - After last week’s celebratory lists of Cornish classics maybe we need a list of grit E2 nemeses. On my list are Billy Whiz, The Rasp, Zeus, Soyez, Insanity. None of these were quick slumps on the rope but full on trousers down canings.

SBB - If ever you wanted an illustration of the arbitrariness of climbing then the videos of Twister and Twister Direct provide it, big grades for bad beta!

Randy - Another one with a lingering illness, fingers crossed that’s no longer the case!

Steve Claw - I watched another well explained and reasoned YouTube video (this one youtube.com/watch?v=Fuf-AQqutGI&) which highlighted that what you did on the auto belays is exactly what we route climbers should be doing. With the boulder sessions added in looks like you are doing all the right things.

Alan Little - Your autobelay pyramids look a step up from what you used to do aren’t they? Good effort either way. Careful with that board Eugene!

Ross Baker - Thank you for the Retro Party beta. As you say a very good training week, I was confused whether you thought ending your sessions fresh was good or bad. Surely the Malcom mantra of ‘stop strong’ still has some currency (although the video I link to above has something to say on the aerobic energy system helping the alactic one so maybe a few laps of the board to finish….).

SteveJC94 - Lots of food for thought on Cornwall routes and that’s without anyone mentioning Lower Sharpnose…. Do you go to blochaus, if not I highly recommend it. I’m just back from there (been several times before) and I really like it and a totally different vibe to the Depot, at first glance the problems look pretty basic but they really aren’t.

Tigh - Sounds like you learnt plenty last week which is good. There are definitely more spectacular places in Scotland for scrambling but probably nothing like the concentration you get on Tryfan and the Ogwen valley more generally. Are you going on your own and where are you staying? I’m sure there’ll be plenty of info coming your way once we know a bit more.

dave frost - You prompted me to look at what else was at Dyer’s Lookout, it really does seem limited, what with the best routes having fallen down already! DIY does leave you battered, it’s amazing how specific climbing strength seem to be. I remember the first time I did yoga being appalled at how difficult I found a downdog despite having strong shoulders in other respects. That said I think a few minutes yoga a day is the kindest thing you can do to yourself.

Small Step - “the magnanimity of the serial winner” is a lovely turn of phrase, really made me smile! Your 7a+ looks like a classic one for top down working. If your climbing partner’s drugs do turn out to be beneficial do let us know what they are!

AJM - Sounds like you have something planned for Easter but I can’t remember what?

biscuit - Looking at what you managed on the Sunday suggests you weren’t in too much need of a deload week. It seems one might have been forced on you this week anyway so possibly a good thing you did something.

Poor week really:

W: Beacon auto belay and boulder, managed a couple more V5s

S: blochaus bouldering (love this place). Managed 4 V5s but there were about 3 V4s I couldn’t touch as well as the rest of the V5s

I'm going sport climbing very exciting, first Easter trip in years that isn't bouldering. One week in orpierre with friends & their kids (same ages as ours), one week just the four of us near Buoux. Still going to have a lot of family faff involved but I'd like to have a bit of fitness there so I can make the most of the opportunities that arise.

Monday - no training, but sourced some dip bars which I've been thinking about doing for ages

Tuesday - set a harder circuit and played on it for a bit

Wednesday - wall. I had an actual hard boulder session and my shoulder didn't hurt. More progress!

Thursday - rest

Friday - some dips and pullups. I've not done much basic training stuff like this for ages given my shoulder woes so best to say these were pathetic and I was very achey yesterday and today but Ive got to start back somewhere.

Saturday - aero session on the board.

Sunday - tbc, will update later

Thanks Tyler and enjoy Morocco - fantastic place!

Not yet fully recovered as my homage to Alan continues.  However, I have reintroduced training and (just as importantly) managed six hours on the dance floor last night, which my legs are acknowledging today!  They had professionals filming and taking photos, so there will be evidence available on the web at some point.

As excitedly trailed early in the week, I made a low-key start back to training.  I've had to adjust things as I can't get out of breath yet, but so good to get some king of routine going again!

Sun - 12 sets of block lift repeaters at a lighter weight than normal of 18.2 kg.  Did the last four sets on 16mm!

Mon - 12 sets of block lift repeaters at 20.5kg.  weighted  pull-ups at 4.5kg to 11.3 kg.  Four sets of stretching and core.

Tues - Thurs work

Fri - BW pull ups (the first for three weeks).  2, 4, 6, 8 pattern x 2 for forty.  Same pattern push ups and eight sets of stretching and core.  A bit breathless, but okay.  I like this pattern as it means I include plenty of stretching and core, so I'm going to do more of this.  Likely to include 10s when I recover, so two pyramids to 10 will be a regular 100.

Sat - block lift repeaters to 22.8kg on 20mm.  Left hand beginning to be at the limit, whereas right still has more to go.  Six hours dancing.  Photo of the Judge included.

Unfortunately, not . It was kind of weird, i was feeling better end of last week and thought 2-3 more days and i will be back at normal. Instead it completely knocked me out on wednesday and i stayed two days basically in the bed. At least i am feeling better now and i hope i can get some easy training in next week.

Weight - 14st 7lbs

STG - 10km fell loop in 1h 45m

MTG - 30 mile ultra (July 24)

LTG? keep on trucking?  stay fit? ummm

BHAG - F7A boulder somewhere....

M - Rest

T - 30m skateboarding

W - F - Rest

S - 30m skateboarding

S - Rest

Weekly kms - zilch

Diet status - Average

I was going to head out with the fell running club on Wednesday, but my wife was ill and I took my son swimming instead.  There's two clubs btw, one fell and one road.  As I don't have any functional road shoes at the moment, I'm not running with the road club at the moment.  I mostly run on my own on Wednesdays, only been out with the fell club once.  I much prefer running during the day, so that's why I normally don't run with them loads.  Also I'm a bit slow compared to most of them.

So no running this week.  It's a planned de-load week.  Honest guv.  Well I will have road shoes again next week, hopefully I'll have enough time on Weds to get a decent run in.  Then I'll have to start on getting some canal miles in.  Looking forward to the light coming back, that'll make the motivation for running go up. 

I also caught my wife's cold so that didn't help either.  I didn't have it anywhere near as bad as she did tho.

Bit more skating this week.  Honestly, I think it's about as risky as fell running really.  I slip and end on my arse while doing that a fair bit.  I'm just rolling around the local park and doing the odd ollie.  It's all coming back fairly quickly which is nice.  Anyway, my year goal is to learn to kickflip and Tom said I win fitclub if I do that.  I never ever win anything, so I'm keen to learn the kickflip.

Got a pinch block, so need to start on that.  Also really need to get down the wall a bit more often.

Just done 1 on 1 off on the board. Tried to mix in the harder circuit on alternating reps (so easy-hard-easy etc), all on big feet. Managed two good reps on it, 2 gradually deteriorating reps on it. Pumped.

This is an obvious thing to try to progress, together with doing linkup red points like 2x hard circuit with a bridge rest in between, easy-hard-easy link, etc etc.

Afternoon everyone, nice one on the stats as always Tyler. Morocco sounds nice, I'd love to visit some day (among many others on the list!).

Yeah I was suggesting it to be a good thing! The stimulus has already been made quite soon into intense training, so the gains VS injury risk ratio is skewed the wrong way if you go too long.

I'll have to give it a watch. As much as I loathe many forms of training, the wall is usually quiet near the end of the evening so a pinch of aerocap might not be too troublesome to include.

A decent week from me. Reeling off more benchmarks, finger still steadily improving, yadda yadda. Managed to get out on Saturday to a sweaty Roaches, but was thwarted by my fearful brain. Probably not a bad thing to be particularly risk-averse with my wedding a couple weeks away, but it wasn't a conscious decision.

Last Week:

Avg weight 78kg

M - Very light density pick-ups. Ice baths before bed.

T - Moonboard. Saw off 4 more benchmarks, including "Cross Through Hard" where of course the hard part isn't even crossing through! Took quite a few goes to suss the body position but got it eventually. Ended up being a longer session than planned as I didn't keep track of when I started, and was coaxed into trying "Stick Insect" set by the local prodigy. Ice baths before bed.

W - Very light density pick-ups. Ice baths before bed.

T - Moonboard. More cognisant of the time, got it right for once! Three benchmarks, two quickly, the third is "Salad Nights" and took a fair few attempts, but really satisfying to get it done.

F - Rest.

S - The Roaches. Okay day but slightly flat. Bailed on the topout of Hard Arête (f7A+), had an idea of how to do it (really high left smear) but couldn't actually commit to give it a really good try. It's not even that tall but I just wasn't that confident on it. Couple of easy highballs but always in control. Some pebble pinching playing around on slabs but more just a bit of fun than anything.

S - Very light density pick-ups. Did these in a full crimp instead of the usual half crimp. Any benefit? Any downsides? It felt more aggressive on my DIP joints but not sure how it affects everything else. Thoughts welcome!

Next Week:

M - Rest.

T - Climbing.

W - Rest.

T - Climbing.

F - Rest.

S, S - More climbing!

Goals:

Rehab left middle finger.

Manage session load and build better habits.

Improve ability on tiny edges.

Louisville Lip.

Rigpa.

Hey. Yes I'm going it solo and I've booked 6 nights at Ogwen Valley Bunkhouse. I want to do some scrambling but I also don't want to do anything stupid and end up on a route I've no right to be on! I may look in to doing a 1 day scrambling type course or something but at same time would rather save the money. Option two is just to clock up loads of Kms and elevation and treat it as a fitness training week with nice views and prob lots of rain! 

Decent session this week for fitness 

M - strength session

W - 9km run easy pace 

T - strength session

F - 7km run easy pace

Su - strength session and 6km run easy pace 

Plan this week is similar Mon-Fri but with a longer run or hike next weekend. 

Have a great week all

Thank you Tyler.

Although I am aware of the training types in the video and do somewhat use them to train, the main reasons I choose certain activities is to emulate the real climbing that I want to improve.  I find that the majority of hard routes contain hard and easy sections and the key is often to be able to recover on either a rest jug or the easier sections, therefore the the autobelay sessions work well for this.

Due to a high workload, I have had a quieter climbing week:

M - Nothing

T - Found and cleaned a new 15m 7b+?  Shunted the line and it felt hard, but it was really dusty, so hopefully with some more cleaning it should feel better.

W - Nothing

T - 3 x 15 Press ups and 3 x 10 dips

F - Nothing - Tried some press ups, but was way too tired.

S - Nothing

S - 3 x 15 Press ups and 3 x 10 dips

Thanks Tyler for the stats, looking forward to hearing what you get up to in Morocco - exciting!

Mon – Nothing

Tues – Returned to Roche Abbey for a few hours at Gypsy Buttress. Described as Rotherham’s answer to Minus Ten at Stoney! Luckily it’s much better than that. Hardest thing I got up was Lanky (f6B), but most of the time was spent on Flautist (f6B+) and Strict Fore (f6B+). With at least a dozen attempts on each, slapping the top hold on one and an inch from the finish on the other. Strangely it still feels like they will probably take quite a few more visits. But a good session of try hard.

Wed – Nothing

Thursday – Finger block lifts 20mm edge 10 secs half crimp. 5kg, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. Lattice block wide pinch 10 secs, 5kg 10kg x 3

Fri – Llandudno – I’d hoped to do some trad bits but lots of heavy showers and nice rainbows (see pic) so ended up with 5 sport routes; Mumbo Jumbo (6a+), three 6bs with The Wild Blue Yonder (6b) the best, and followed (with several rests) a new 6c/6c+ of Zippy’s. Tiring day after a poor night’s sleep but good to get on a rope again. I need lots more of this.   

Sat – Felt exhausted, so binned planned long run and had an afternoon nap!

Sunday – Stanage; Quick couple of routes in the morning Heather Wall (VS 4c) and Rugosity Crack (HVS 5b). Had hoped to get on harder but my mate had to get back. Had planned on some S & C in the afternoon but got a text from Swede which lured me into the night… Stanage lamp light bouldering session on The Cornflake (f6C+). Discovered I was using the wrong starting holds so started from scratch. Progress was measured in millimeters but there was some progress, sort of!

Reflection - Not much ‘training’ this week. Felt de-motivated and tired but did have four climbing sessions. Again no noteworthy successes but hoping that if I can keep putting in the effort now it’ll pay off later in the year.

About back to my pre-illness level from last summer at any rate, which is encouraging

STG: Regain full health and resume normal training - kinda sorta but not completely, see below
STG: Kilterboard 5C @ 45°
STG: Thalkirchen 5.9 "easy" crack
MTG: Rough Bounds Scottish backpacking trip in May
MTG. DAV Lofoten meet in July
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber. For measurable definition see Fit Club 823
LTG: Winter '25 - do an actual off piste ski tour.

M:     Rest day. Half an hour stretching.

T:    Wall, Thalkirchen. Carefully back on the kilterboard, elbow held up ok. And the crack machine. Today's lesson learned: it is difficult to imagine a worse shoe for crack machine practice than Pythons.

W:    
T:     Pullups, ring supports & false grip hangs, shoulder & elbow stuff, half an hour stretching

F:    Had planned to go to the wall, but a poor night's sleep followed by an intense day at work put paid to that idea.

S:    Admin day. Scotland & Norway are now both flights booked & dates definite. Yay.
    Pullups, ring supports, shoulders, tindeq peak load pulls

S:    morning: 3 hours mtb in the woods
    evening: Wall, Thalkirchen, kilterboard & crack machine
    Clearly not the best way to structure the day training wise, and the kilterboard session was - no surprise - weak & desultory. Originally planned the day the other way round, but then over breakfast decided being outside in the sunshine was a higher priority than scientific training principles.
    Crack machine exercises were decent though, helped by a better choice of shoe than last time.

Regarding my "regain full health and resume normal training" STG: I have pretty much resumed normal training, but something still isn't quite right with my respiratory tract. Long slow cardio efforts on the bike are fine, but I'm quickly and acutely out of breath on any short, sharp efforts. My GP was talking in December about sending me to a lung specialist; I might have another chat with him about that.
 

Hi Alan, what is the crack machine? Do you have any photos?

Seems to be an American term - basically a bouldering wall for crack climbers. Planks fixed edge-on to a ~10° overhanging wall, with various widths of gap between them than one can (or can't, in my case) jam. 

The thing to the right of the campus boards in this photo: 

https://www.kbthalkirchen.de/trainingsbereich/#iLightbox%5Bgallery_image_4%...

Also demonstrated by Alex Megos & buddies in this video:

https://youtu.be/_ynfZgkklBI?si=pQb_XAamZGylrIfo&t=383

They now also have some of those wideboyz volumes on the wall to the right of the wooden cracks. I do rather better on those - not sure if it's because of the comfy rubber lining, or if they just happen to be at a better width for my hand size

And, for orientation so you can visualise both of us flailing about, Paul's favourite 15° spray wall is just off screen to the right

I’m here on holiday, if anything exciting happens something’s gone wrong!

Thanks Tyler, who doesn't love an eliminate!?

Mon. Drove over to Wales and soloed a wet Overlapping Ridge Route (First Pinnacle Rib) (D). Went to take the yellow slab bypass due to the water running down it, didn't traverse far enough right before going up and ended up on something far harder than anything else on the route, doh! Descended The North Ridge (Summer) (Grade-1). Lunch in the car by which time the rain had stopped so I walked up into Idwal and did The Arete (VD). Managed to leave my phone on the hill (bollocks!). Chatted with Ash and Fi all evening which was very pleasant.

Tues. Headed to Mannod with Tom. Managed to redpoint Gurning Grooves (D7). One flash attempt of Hidden Dragon then bailed which was a bit lame really but it was cold and wet and I wasn't psyched for questing on with tired arms. The highlight was walking back into Idwal in the storm and finding my phone!

Wed. Dugout session with all the beta going from Ally and Ross. Highlights were Spade Face (f7A), Shropshire Lass (f7A+) and A Shropshire Mon (f7A+). Got close to Digging a Lass which I'll go back for another go at when I get the chance.

Thurs-sat. Various family stuff, lots of short hill walks but no dedicated training.

Sun. Lamp session at Stanage with Ian. Got a sequence on A Case of Mistaken Identity 7B. It's 15moves and I managed the first 14 3 times but couldn't quite finish it off. Frustrating but keen to get back as it's such a great problem.

Back on it again, missed a week, pesky kids and school holidays! Had a steady week again.

Monday, 1km swim

Tuesday, 16kn cycle,

Wednesday, 1km swim

Thursday, had planned a swim and stretch class but sadly work had other ideas.

Friday, 1km swim

Saturday, 3km run, wife is on the couch to 5k plan so keeping her company

Sunday, 15k trail run, very muddy!!

Week 8

M – Nothing

T – Just some evening stretches

W – Shaky start to the session, fighting fatigue and stress of recent health worries. 11x 6B+ to 7A, including 2x newbies to try and get some power flowing:

Mississippi Queen, 7C BM. Sacked it off after 5min, as my shoulders felt bolx’d even trying the crux in isolation.

Shoulder Move, bugbear 7C BM. 5 goes, gradually getting a little closer, until suddenly it clicked and latched the jug.

T – I was left Squiggle wrangling as my wife had a same-day referral for ultrasound scan. $hit went South very quickly and she ended up having emergency surgery to remove her appendix.

F – More child wrangling; collected my wife and started the process of cancelling everything and claiming on insurance for our holiday that was due to start on Sunday.

S – 17km ride to collect my wife’s abandoned car from Wythenshawe hospital. Knackered.

S – More wrangling; more knackered. Needless to say, my evening decompression board session was a masterclass in how allostatic stress affects performance. 6x 6B+ to 6C+ warm up flashes. 7A+ flash, then playing on various 7C+ BMs. Wiped out after 20min and went inside and poured myself a not so wee dram.

Yikes, that's scary! All happens so quickly. Hope she is recovering well.

How your wife is recovering well Ally.

Might not seem important at the moment but well done on Shoulder Move as I know it was a bit of a nemesis.

That crack machine does look good. Nice also to see world class climbers struggling on it

Good to see steady progress.

Worryingly, I have remarkably similar symptoms!  I've taken this homage too far!  Steady improvement though...

That sounds like a scary Thursday, I hope Mrs. Smith is recovering.  I think Rob Greenwood had his appendix out in a hurry a couple of years ago.  I'm sure he'd be open to being contacted and asked about advice for recovering if she wants any.

Wow Ally!  You guys don't do anything by half!  That's one stressful week gone through.  Best wishes for a calmer recovery.

Hi everyone. Another great write up, Tyler. Thanks.

Weird week. Some good days, a bit of lurgy, and a weird mystery injury. The skiing is at the Chill Factore in Manchester.

Week 8:

M: Trail run. 11.2km, 365m vert, 6:33/km. 

T: Dry tooling at Mannod. Enjoyable session getting the first five bolts of Stress Test (D9) wired. Still feels like too much route for me, but even if I don't have the endurance for it at the moment it's good training just being on it.

W: Bouldering. A breakthrough on Doug (f7A+) -both hands on the lip and slapping for the finishing hold. However, even if I latch that hold there is quite a lot of work to do, so it may still be miles off!

T: Skiing. Decided to ski despite a weird pain in my back and abdomen. Hopefully just a strained abdominal oblique or something. 

F: Nowt -long drive for work. A bit worried about the mystery injury. So will take the well-proven strategy of ignoring it.

S: Rest.

S: Skiing. 

Week 9:

Think I'm going to take an unusual tactic of almost complete rest this week. I'm currently nursing a cold, a sore hamstring and this weird muscle strain/hernia/broken rib/ruptured spleen injury, so any training is probably going to be unproductive at best and detrimental at worst.

STG (end March):

Maintain finger strength -average 2 sessions/week. (Done an ok job of this)

Consistent strength and conditioning -average 2 sessions/week. (Way off with this)

Get ski practice in: 5+ sessions Dec-Feb. (TICK)

2+ off Scottish VII list. 

1 off Slovenian Winter list. (FAIL)

1+ off Alpine Winter list.

Indeed. As Megos admits, he only got up the fist crack because his fists fit in it. It's way too wide for me, even though I thought I had fairly large mitts (glove size 9)

I maintain that Blochaus has the best boulder setting in the Manchester area.

Thanks, but I'm really hopeful my wife's appendsectomy has less complications than Rob's! 

Hi Tyler, thanks for the stats – hope things are going well for you in Morocco!
Suffered a bit of a setback last week, an old lumbar spine injury has flared up again; comical really – having a bit of a hard day at the wall with the inner stuff but I still pulled on four routes in the 6c+/7a range and all things considered was doing OK. Although we’d already climbed 8 routes, my partner for the day tied in to check the 7a+ project route. I bent down to pick up the grigri from the rope bag and couldn’t get up again…
Difficult to say how long I’ll be out for. Could be just another four / five days, or much longer. It flared up again in December but settled quickly, in fact so quickly I don’t think I even mentioned it here. Today is much, much better, but Friday – Tuesday was pretty horrible…a sobering reminder of how physical pain is physically / mentally draining, most of it coming seemingly from the very lopsided relieving posture my body slipped into. Trying to upright my posture with the aid of a waistbelt and taking pain relievers…

Speaking of drugs: If your climbing partner’s drugs do turn out to be beneficial do let us know what they are!

She’s on ketamine…at present heaven-sent, but long term…?

Wishing all a good week - recovery, gains, restored health, or just what’s needed for peace of mind…

Sorry to hear of Dr S’s operation, that she was out the next day suggests that everything else when smoothly

Thanks for the stats Tyler. Very late to the game this week after a rather hectic week at work. 

Believe it or not I've never been to Blochaus - I'm very Depot-centric having had a membership there for several years. I'll have to give it a try next time I'm at a loose end on a rainy day. 

M - 2.5hr board session, volume at 6C-7A

T - Rest

W - Zone 2 base run. 7.6km / 39mins / 5:09/km

T - Rest

F - Zone 2 base run. 6.75km / 35mins / 5:14/km

S - Zone 2 base ride with sprint intervals (50km Zone 2 into 2 sets of: 4x 15s sprint/1min45s Zone 2. 5 minutes rest between sets. Back into 30km Zone 2. 90km / 3hr34mins / 427m ascent / average power 144watts / normalised power 169watts

S - Rest