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_fitclub_week_780-74471...

Hi All,

HOUSEKEEPING: Thank you for the various stats offers.  To summarise, we’ve got Derek Furze who’s happy to do a stint but can’t do this month, Liam P who’s keen and ready to go and Ross Barker who thinks he might be keen but is worried he’s too lazy 😉.  Everyone seems keen to cap statting at 3-4 months each in order to make it seem like a manageable stint with a clear end point so you don’t feel obliged to go on forever.  It might also be good to change every 3 months to help with new ideas.  So… I’m proposing, Liam P takes over from next week and does March, April and May.  Derek takes over for June, July and August and we see where we are from there with a possible Ross pencilled in for Sept. Oct and Nov.  How does this sound?

Stats:

Derek Furze – where are the new guidebooks for?  I can lose hours beta loading with a new guidebook.  Weather looking better for at least a week now so hopefully you’ll be able to make use of them.

Randy – another week of great consistency, you’ll be rivalling The Sheep for that soon!

SidH – sorry you are testing positive (again?).  Hopefully it’ll pass quickly and the training energy will return.

Biscuit – 1000m of ascent round Fairfield doesn’t sound like a rest day!  You’ve trained really hard recently, you are definitely due your deload week and may sure you do take it as you must be injury red zone by now.

Ger the gog – sounds like a good set of goals.  No reason why you couldn't get back to E1 at all, if you said you wanted to to 6a+ sport it would sound totally reasonable, so why not E1?  You just need loads of VS and HVS mileage then find some well protected E1s and off you go.

Steve Claw – hope you enjoyed a sunny week in Cornwall.  I seem to remember you were recovering from grumbly elbows so the lighter week is well timed.

Ross Barker – most people have posted their stats by Tuesday so you don’t have to write them on a Sunday, just post them then.  I tend to write the stats into a word doc during the week and paste them into ukc on a Sunday.  The Staffordshire highballing looks fun, I'm potentially interested.  I thought Solitaire was E6 or has it been downgraded now?  I think I'd want to drop a rope down first!

AJM – is there the opportunity to look pro and wear a different show on each foot!? Its all the rage now! All your training is bigger muscle groups and Bez is small crimps.  Are you doing the right training to make progress on this particular problem?

Alan Little – is it worth putting together a new training plan?  You sound pretty down about your climbing at the moment, maybe it needs a change to reinvigorate things?  Or maybe just some sunshine and a great day out to get psyched again.

Ally Smith – good week of training and 36 chambers is sounding really close now.  Conditions didn’t sound great so hopefully that should go down quickly on a better day.

Tom Green – looks like the leg is gaining strength all the time now.  Things are starting to look almost back to normal.

The sheep – sorry to hear you are ill, you’ve been hit by it a lot recently but you must have so much residual fitness by now that I don’t think it’ll take long to get back up to full power.

JCK – looks like you managed to follow your plan with 2 good sessions.  Squeezing it all in and getting enough sleep is always the crunch point on busy weeks, good luck!

Liam P – hope the fingers are starting to feel ready for loading again, great week of cross training.

SteveJC94 – trips to Scotland are always great no matter how much you get done, NE Buttress and Dorsal arete are super classic too.  I thought Taxus didn’t really live up to the hype so worth waiting until the icefall finish is there anyway.

Tyler – welcome back, again.  Dragging your way up a 7a isn’t a bad place to start from.  Enjoy the new wall psych.

Good questions SSB, thanks!

Unfortunately both the little pocket and the small edge are right footholds, so that's not going to work sadly.

I could I guess buy a new pair of the smaller toe-box shoes to try to get the best of both worlds, but having bought a new pair fairly recently I'm not quite at the point of buying another new pair of shoes just for this problem yet!

A fair challenge!

No, probably not, is the short answer. Two main reasons:

- my right middle finger has been grumbling for some time. It's not quite clear what aggravates it, but certain types of crimp position seem to sometimes. At the moment, a session on Bez per week plus some time at the wall trying to stay using reasonably open grips seems to be pretty okay for it and it feels like it's gradually becoming a bit less troublesome. I don't think upping the crimp volume would be a terribly good idea quite yet. I could, to be fair, maybe do some one arm pickups or something on the left hand, so I might try that.

- last week was a bit unusual due to being away, but some of this is a short term Vs long term thing. I'm not quite sure what "my style" is, but having come into climbing through trad I'm probably still more of a "wall climber" (many of my hardest sport routes have been slightly leaning walls, so it still climbs a bit like a vert wall but with slightly larger handholds) - something like Bez is far more likely to be "my style" than some sort of powerful board style problem. Plus in general I think my shoulders are probably more of a weak point than my fingers, and I never really did enough antagonist training. 

Cheers SSB. Happy to take over from this week until June.

Mon

• Heel rehab: Romanian Deadlift 3x12 (40kg), Calf Raises 3x12, Glute Bridges 3x12

Tue

• Scap Pull-ups 3x 8 (BW)
• Weighted Pull-ups 3x 9 (+15kg)
• Lattice Pinch Block 6x7s (13.5kg)
• Lattice crimp Block 6x20s (30kg)

Sat

• Scap Pull-ups 3x 8 (BW)
• Weighted Pull-ups 3x 10 (+15kg)

Sun

• 2 hours at the wall. First indoor climb since tweaking my fingers 7 weeks ago. Felt surprisingly good but still not 100%. Worked my way up to 6b+ before the holds started feeling a bit too risky. Good start point though.

I’ve got a trip to the Ben planned next weekend. Looks like it’s shaping up nicely but a bit unsettled. Hopefully it all blows through.

Have a good week.

Thanks SSB.

I would be happy to join the role doing the stats once others have had a go later in the year.

The elbows are much better, and numbness in the pinky is gone since I dialed back on the bending elbow training. Its still not all normal though.

Lighter week again due to being busy workwise and away this weekend with family.

M - Indoors. Autobelays had been reset and they are setting some really tricky ones now  so spent the session playing with those.

W - Indoor training. Short session due to time. 6*10s hangs +17.5kg. And more play on autobelays. Weighted upped from 15kg to 17.5kg and most to 9s so progressing and still holding a strict half crimp.

T - Was doing a teaching session with local club, but did a quick half hour autobelay and boulder session afterwards with routes/problems done in quick succession to get a workout in.

F-S away with family.

Thanks SSB. I should have done something on Thursday really, but otherwise it was a fairly decent week - got something done in each of the wall sessions. My outdoor day was productive - I’ve significantly improved my consistency on the first move of the “go then go-again” crux sequence on Bez. I’ve got one thing to try to nail down but otherwise I think I should be basically into just going from the bottom soon. Slowly grinding it down!

Monday - day off, inset day for miniAJM. Obviously I had visions of sunny weather cranking, but grey ming was what was on offer. So we did about 5.5km walk, went out for lunch, then went to the wall. A pretty solid session, finished off a few things I had attempted before, and made some progress on another project at the end - I fell off with the finishing hold in one hand, and then had a few goes failing to get back to that point. One to try again next time.

Tuesday - rest

Wednesday - wall. Finished off the project from Monday and got a couple of other new problems done

Thursday - unplanned rest. Should have done something, just too tired by evening

Friday - planned rest before outdoors Sat

Saturday - back to Bez. Managed to work out some new beta that meant that whilst I was fresh I was able to get the intermediate crux hold fairly in control and therefore get reasonable consistency on it whilst pulling in from mid way. Tickled the go again hold too. My friend pathed it via some slightly different beta, which I probably ought to try, but otherwise I think there’s only really one bit to sort out which is to work out whether the go again comes from just rocking across onto my right foot or whether to more consciously place the left foot a bit up and right.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CauhtOel8go/?utm_medium=copy_link

Sunday - wall with the family. Not a bad session - it’s late in the set (reset starts in a weeks time), so I’ve done or written off a lot of things by now - so I was quite pleased to get a new problem done, definitely not my style, a big rockover/mantle over the lip of a roof onto a flat topout. Also did the crux move and linked the remainder of another problem at the end which gives me another thing to work on next week - a long lurch/cut loose on pockets in the cave, leads to a slightly easier but still steep/powerful top section.

Thanks SSB. This is the first time I've tested positive myself although I'm pretty sure I also had it in summer 2020 (my son had it then, I had some very mild symptoms but I didn't get tested at the time as it wouldn't have lengthened the isolation I was in for him anyway.) It has taken a while to kick this time but I think I'm there now, fingers crossed.

Goals:

- Maintain my physio rehab on finger/shoulder every week and aim to stay uninjured

- Subject to above, maintain a consistent pattern of 2 fingerboard sessions per week until at least the end of March (starting with 3/6/9 protocol but I plan to move to one arm max hangs at some point)

- Go climbing once a week, have fun, try hard and maintain movement skills

- 3 Font 7s in Font at Easter, assuming we go

- 2 Font 7Bs across the year

These goals feel fairly modest but let's see how it goes... I will plan to review them post Font.

M: rest. Felt quite a lot better but LFT suggested I still had a strong infection in me (the line turned basically black inside a couple of minutes), which I thought was a good signal I should keep resting!

T: same.

W: same.

T: evening - decided to experiment and see if I could cope with some fingerboarding. It seemed to go ok, I didn't feel very strong but didn't keel over either. 3*30 second density hangs, 3 sets of 5/6/9 with+25kg, then 3 one arm hangs on the bm2000 bottom central rung (bodyweight -20 kg then -15kg.) Then shoulder/bicep rehab. I'd like to switch to doing some one arm max hangs for a few weeks now before Font and touch-wood they didn't seem to aggravate my right shoulder so that's good.

F: rest

S: finally tested negative but didn't feel too great so avoided the wall and just went for a long walk with son No.2.

S: finally feeling fully better. Took son No.1 out to go bouldering but he was in a funny mood and we got nothing done. We both did a few problems in the garage when we got home.

I'm away with work this week and it's my wife's 40th next weekend so realistically I'll be lucky to get much climbing or training done in the next 7 days. Hopefully I'll be able to just fit in a couple of short sessions.

Si

Thanks SSB and contributors for your continued dedication, support and motivation.

Here's the record of my activity over the past week:

Mon: 6.5km cross country walk, 22lb pack. Weather: snorkel. Ground: "waterskis". 58:20, 6.7kph average speed.

Tues: Introduced upper-body & core basic bodyweight exercise training. Plank, press-ups, sit-ups. Low reps & sets. Concentrating on form.

Weds: 10km cross country walk, 22lb pack. Weather: dry. Ground: "wellies". Twisted ankle part way around. 1hr 35, 6.3kph average speed. Weighed myself: 15st 8. Lost 13lb since Boxing Day. Very pleased.

Thurs: upper-body & core basic bodyweight exercise training. Plank, press-ups, sit-ups. Low reps & sets. Concentrating on form.

Fri: rest.

Sat: with someone for 8hrs in ambulance outside a&e + 4hrs in a&e majors ward. Home at 12:30 am (Sun).

Sun: 5km cross country part walk, part almost jogging, no pack (ankle still not 100% after wednesday). Weather: dry. Ground: soft. 38:37, 8kph average speed. Fastest yet (adrenaline?) and marks 100 miles done since Boxing Day.

Cheers.

Goals:

STG:

To keep walking as often as I can to gain fitness and lose weight.

To keep pushing my speed and pack weight as much as I can to make the most of my 2hr sessions.

To start easy bouldering again.

To enjoy the process.

MTG:

To venture back into the mountains.

To climb easy routes again.

LTG:

E1? (Slightly tongue in cheek but who knows, I'm not really looking that far ahead yet).

Thanks as always SSB. I hope i can break up the fingerboard monotony next week and finally kick off the frankenjura season as spring seems to arrive in germany.

Mon: Rest

Tues: Fingerboard max hangs 4x 10s with 3-4 min rest:

• 20mm egde:  65,0 % of BW average with right hand, 64,9% of BW with left hand
• Pinch Block with 17kg for the right hand, 16kg for the left
• Assisted one-arm-lockoff, 90%-95% of BW, 4 sets of 10-15s at different angles (170° -45°)

Wed: L-Sit (floor) 2x20s, Handstands against the wall, 2x10 pike push-ups,  2x8-10 fingertips push ups, 15 Lunges, 4 pistol squats on each side, 30 normal pushups, 45s V-Sit-Ups

Thurs: Fingerboard max hangs 4x 10s with 3-4 min rest:

• 20mm egde:  69,4 % of BW average with right hand, 67,5% of BW with left hand
• Pinch Block with 17kg for the right hand, 16kg for the left
• Assisted one-arm-lockoff, 90%-95% of BW, 4 sets of 10-15s at different angles (170° -45°)

Fri: Rest

Sat: Fingerboard max hangs 4x 10s with 3-4 min rest:

• 20mm egde:  70,4 % of BW average with right hand, 66,2% of BW with left hand
• Pinch Block with 17kg for the right hand, 16kg for the left
• Assisted one-arm-lockoff, 90%-95% of BW, 4 sets of 10-15s at different angles (170° -45°)

Sun: L-Sit (floor) 2x20s, Handstands against the wall, 2x12 pike push-ups,  2x8-10 fingertips push ups, 15 Lunges,4 pistol squats on each side, 30 normal pushups, 60s V-Sit-Ups

All in all, i am not really happy with this week. Some progress is visible but i am still noticeable weaker than last autumn despite training consistently and hard over the winter. 

 Report Save Reply

Bonjour all, et merci pour la stats, SSB!

A rollercoaster of a week for me, but ended on a massive high and now I've got a week in the bouldering paradise of Fontainebleau.

Yeah, absolutely. From what I gather, Ally is keen too, plus the odd other person I've been chatting to. Not sure about grade, not only is it a hard thing to assign on bolder routes, when they're unprotected and highballable it only confuses things more. Font 7A has been thrown around a bit I think?

Last Week:

M - Rest.

T - Rest.

W - Rest.

T - Gym. As soon as I started warming up I noticed there's some soreness in my left middle A2 pulley region. Once again, nothing I can trace back to a particular point in time, no definitive cause. Sigh... No pain while actually crimping, only when pressing, but still not what I want on my mind when I'm leaving for Font in less than 48 hours!

F - Rest.

S - Big ol' drive!

S - Amazing first day in the forest. Techniqued/lanked my way up Le Flipper (assis) (f7A), did a bunch of easy bits and bobs. Tried Le Toit du Cul du Chien (f7A) but no cigar, and wasn't so keen on spending all my energy on it. Finished off with a few bits at Rocher Guichot and earned a surprise flash of La Rombière Assis (f6C+)! Finger still a wee bit grumbly but it's not really causing too much grief.

Next Week:

M to S - More Font!

S - Big drive.

Goals:

Have a great time in Font.

Rehab finger tweak.

A Mon With A Spade.

Rigpa.

Brass Monkeys.

Thanks SSB, that was possibly a high point! 

I had three more days of climbing, low point was falling off a 6b, high point was falling off a 7a but it was great to be back. There was point where I was hanging on some decent holds, pumped out of my gourd and thinking “If I can keep it together I can make it to the lower off”, the sun was at my back, the rock was immaculate and momentarily all the anxieties and worries were replaced by good memories of being in this position hundreds of times before. I love continental sport climbing trips.

S: Woke up knackered after a long journey home (13hrs door to door!) but went for a walk  up Y Garn then across y Glyderau to Tryfan for another brilliant, cathartic day. 1300+ meters of ascent and I felt every one of them - so unfit - but the good news was my hips felt fine (toes were agony after anti-inflammatoires had worn off)

S: Back to DIY 

This Friday I’m going for some scans.

Thanks SSB. Last week was definitely a motivational low point climbing-wise, looking up slightly this week. Although I did also spend a bit of time yesterday reading up on ski touring bindings.

STG last week:
    - 2 x boulder, 1 x routes. One of each, plus max hangs to compensate for the missed bouldering session
    - 1 x skiing. Another good one.
    - Sleep average >7½ hours, minimum 7 hours per night. One fail: 6 hours for an alpine start on skiing day brought the week's average down to 7.46 - still better than most of February

STG: same again. 2 x boulder, 1 x routes. 1 x skiing if somewhat ok conditions. Sleep average >7½ hours, minimum 7 hours per night
MTG: 1H 2022: onsight 6c+
LTG: Be a confident, well rounded low to mid 7's sport climber. For measurable definition see Fit Club 658

M:    Rest after Ski Sunday
T:    Wall, Weyarn autobelays. I seem to be at least maintaining my current level of endurance, so that's good.
W:    
T:    Intended to go to Boulderwelt but family stuff intervened
F:    Max hangs to (slightly) compensate for yesterday's missed session

S:    Skiing, Hochfügen again. Hasn't snowed all week but has stayed cold, so not quite last week's dream snow conditions but still good. My ski school's advanced course next weekend has been cancelled due to covid, and to tell the truth I'm disappointed but also actually slightly relieved. Now that I'm not intimidated at the prospect of having to keep up with a group on Kitzbühel's real black runs, I find I can actually relax and enjoy putting in laps on the more moderate ones here. Am actually starting to get some inklings of rhythm and flow in my turns on the steeper sections, not just skid-traverse-repeat. Noob gains, doncha just love 'em?

S:    Wall, Boulderwelt. An hour on the normal sets, forty minutes on the kilter board. Surprisingly decent session considering I was tired from skiing yesterday

Contemplated going bouldering instead of skiing at the weekend, but the forecast for the Frankenjura was low single figures and cloudy. Low single figures and sunny would have been ok, but for now ski season continues.

Hi Fit Club. Thanks for the stats, SSB, both this week and for the last few months. Really appreciate the combo of insight and psych!

Yep, leg seems to be making good progress -it still hurts, but not so much that I can't ignore it. This week was a week of leggy stuff -testing where it's up to and putting a plan in place for future superlegs!

Week 9:

Again, prioritised getting out over training. To a certain extent, 'sorry, not sorry' but I think there's definitely scope for me to keep training structure whilst getting out and about.

M: Leg testing to establish some strength benchmarks for my physio appointment with Process.

T: Sport climbing at Knipe Scar. Clip-sticked up Arc en Ciel (7a) then worked on Microtraxion. Good to open the account -I think this will be a good summer project. Fierce opening moves, then good section of jugs to recover on, then fierce looking top section (didn't actually try the last two clips as my rope was in the wrong place -clue's in the route name!) 

Back home for a physio appointment with Biscuit to plan getting strong legs back!

W: Rest. Unplanned -just felt wiped.

T: Trail run. 5.9km, 155m vert, 6:24/km. Felt good, tempting to go further, but trying to behave and build slowly.

Max hangs and Weighted Pull-ups. Shoulder prehab.

F: Shoulder and elbow prehab. Dropped planned core sesh as wanted to be fresh for...

S: Mountain day! Did a really fun solo enchainment up Grey Crag, linked Harrow Buttress (D) into Slabs Ordinary Route (VD) into Oxford and Cambridge Direct Route (S 4a). Finished the day with a trot around the buttermere fells. Stunning day out.

S: Max hangs. Weighted Pull-ups. Core sesh.

Week 10:

Get back to Prehab being a default. I'd got into a really good habit with this. Need to keep it up.

3 x either run or hill walk.

5 x Prehab.

2 x Core and Conditioning

2 x Max Hangs & Pull-ups

STG -end March:

Run my usual running loop.

Max Hangs: 90kg total.

Pull-ups: 95kg total.

Some Scottish winter routes -no longer fussy what... just anything white on tools!

MTG -end June:

Start endurance phase for arms.

Arc en ciel.

One of my big mountain day list.

2022 Arbitrary training goals:

Roll over of last year's running targets: 35km vert and 1000km.

Weighted Pull-up: 100kg.

Max Hangs: 95kg.

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)

ALL of my local must-do list: 0/15

Visit at least five of my 'why haven't I climbed here' list: 0/5

Get at least one session at each of my 'I should climb more at this crag' list: 0/8

Start properly getting to know: Brimham 0/3, Almscliff 0/3, Caley 0/3, Slipstones 1/3.

At least two days from big mountain list: 0/2.

Late summer/autumn alpine trip.

Relatable! (The 'skid-traverse-repeat' bit, not the 'rhythm and flow' bit!)

Sounds like a good week (well, apart from DIY!)

Good work getting yourself out on Saturday... must have been hard to drag yourself out after the trip, but sounds like you got rewarded for the effort! I may be down in your neck of the woods over the next couple of weeks. I'll ping you a message -we could have a limping competition around the hills!

What was it like? I was interested in taking a look last year but couldn’t persuade anyone to join!

Strong start to the trip! (Toit du cul de chien always looks really intimidating -quite glad it's above my paygrade!)

Have a good week.

Really good. I mean, it looks like crap, but it's UK sport limestone so par for the course!! It's actually pretty idyllic, looking out over that stretch of river in the valley between kilnsey and kettlewell. Based on that one route, it climbs really nicely -the rock is pretty decent (solid and interesting holds). It's also mega quick drying -faces east and doesn't seem to take much seepage.

Downsides are it's fairly short -15m ish (actually an upside for my lack of stamina!) and a bit limited -only really a handful of routes although they all seem decent. And the sun goes off it early, so you need a good belay jacket!

Thanks for the runs of stats - very much appreciated.

A week of lurgy for me - thinking back it probably started the previous Sunday when I started feeling permanently cold. Not been eating properly because of nausea and GI symptoms. Still not quite right, but much improved on start of last week. I've lost 2kg which is a small bonus!

Week 9

M – Tired and shivering all day. Guts emptying themselves at unpredictable intervals. Fully lurgied

T – More of the same (Checked today and was covid -ve)

W – Ditto. Wife's car broke down.

T – Not much better.

F – Finally managed something approaching a full days worth of calories without feeling too nauseous! Wallet lighter by 800 sheets for car fix.

S – A morning of car shopping and annoying discovery that our pushchair doesn’t fit in the boot of a Mk7 Golf (but does in the old Mk6); stupid false floor design! Unstructured board session while Squigg slept. Worked 3x 7C+ and did one of them (probably 7C though).

S – Summitted Bosley Cloud, watched the Cloud9 fell race then beat a hasty retreat as Squiggle was crying with bright pink hands with the cold. Later, short board session. Split two pads after 20min and quit.

Cheers SSB, the pool has been my friend this week, letting me keep up a level of activity despite not being quite up to speed.

Monday, 1km swim

Tuesday, went to the pool but felt terrible, gae up after a few lengths

Wednesday, much better day. 1km swim at lunchtime and 2.5km in the evening whilst the eldest trained. Couple of pauses for a chat so not all in one go

Thursday, 1km swim and stretch class

Friday, 1km swim

Saturday, rest day, taxi service for kids 

Sunday, went for a run with the wife, her first run post covid, my first one since chest infection so only 3.5km. However both of us glad to be out again. 

Sounds like you (and Ally Smith above) have been through the mill over the past week. Well done for keeping your motivation up and doing what you could (be sure not to over-do it though, of course). Good stuff.

Thanks SSB for the helpful mix of tips and motivation.  New guides - one is 'Baggy and Culm' - a wonderful example of a guidebook and somewhere that I want to revisit.  Not done loads on Culm, but have enjoyed the things that I have done, some of which have fallen down since.  The other is the new Moelwyns one - also an area that I'm intrigued by and have only visited once to climb (Carreg Alltrem).  Loads to go at that is surprisingly accessible.  

Another quiet week training for me.  My running partner has twisted her ankle and I'm not that interested in running alone, so I haven't run for a couple of weeks.  I did get out twice for some soloing around on grit, so nice to get some movement going.  I would have gone a third time, but went away with my wife for the weekend, so recovery was needed instead.  I remain pretty busy, though it has eased off a bit.  All this probably helps as I still have bursitis on my left elbow anyway - it is painless, but I'd like it to disappear before I train with any loads.  Climbing properly with a rope tomorrow, so may end up reporting again if I get any reaction.

The statting plan is fine with me.  Happy to take on a three month stint from June.

Mon. 3x10 shrugs, 6x max hangs (+27kg), 5x5 on the min pull ups, 3x10 press ups. Had an experiment with isolating fingers after the max hangs.  I found that I can hang the 20mm edge I normally use with f3 or b3 but I’m much stronger b3.  I could potentially add weight to b3 but I’m maxed out at just BW f3. I have to move to the 35mm edge to be able to hang f2 or m2 and I need the 50mm edge to be able to hang b2.  I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve pinkies of steel but my ring fingers might as well not be there, which would fit with previous injury history.

Tues. I was a bit tired from yesterday but the weather for the rest of the week doesn’t look great so headed out to Froggatt anyway.  Warmed up doing Jetpack (f7A) then had a quick look at Pea Crab Shuffle 7C.  I didn’t try any of the moves other than the bit I’ve already done as part of other problems but I did suss out the rest positions and how to climb in and out of them.  Also did Marrowfat (f7A+) and Marrowfat Pea (f7A+) which I tried back in January but never finished off.

Wed. 11km hilly run.

Thurs.  Back on the finger board.  3x10 shrugs, 3x max hangs (+27kg) then 3x 10 sec hangs at body weight each of f3, b3, f2, m2, b2 on the edges tested out on Monday.  All at BW today.  The only failure was the b2 where I managed the first 10 sec, then only 3 sec for the second one and sacked it off after that.  Finished with 5x5 on the min pull ups, 3x10 press ups.

Fri. rest, 10km ish walk with Mrs. Swede.

Sat. 32kms on the road bikes with Mrs. Swede, hilly but super steady pace.

Sun. Lamp session at Froggatt after a day of children’s parties (my dad dancing was on form!).  Amazing conditions, two degrees C and dropping at the car park and really dry.  Managed to do Pea Crab Shuffle (f7C).  Really pleased with this.  As I said in the comments bit, a boulder grade for this is a bit silly as its four times as long as Powerband but its cool whatever you grade it as (maybe 7c+ route would be better? Maybe harder? There isn’t really anything like it to compare to).  It must be nails for 4 move boulderers but a bit of a gift for anyone who can recover at the rests as its never too hard.  I don’t think any individual section is harder than 7A+ but its bloody long!

Yeah, it might not be a bad idea. I have the feeling that since autumn last year my training load was always at the limit of what i could handle. Generally, i am the person who is problem is more doing to much than being lazy. I've already to reduce the volume a little bit in the last week and introduced an additional rest day. But maybe that is not enough and i need to dial it back down a little bit more.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by false floor but it might have been an optional extra that not all of them have? We have a false adjustable boot floor in our ID3 (shares some similarities with a Golf mk8), but only because we wanted some of the other stuff in the same option pack - the base models don't have it (I find it annoying but in the lower position we can still fit everything necessary.)

A lot of us are getting ill at the moment!

Ta - yes, it's the droppable boot floor. Great idea that means you have a flat floor when folding the back seats down, but severly let down by the lower setting resulting in a wedge profile by the seat. It's this wedge that stops you from pushing the pushchair chassis in far enough to close the boot.

It's not a total show stopper, as you can remove the wheels easy enough, but it's a ballache we weren't anticipating. T-Roc/Q2 shape is a possibility, but my wife is vehermently anti SUV so our search continues. 1-series and A-class are possibilities too.

I'd like to post "receipts" for each of my outings in my weekly logs if that's possible, SSB. Just a screenshot from the tracking app that I use.

As they're not climbing related I won't upload them to my forum galley but would it be ok to post links to an external image hosting site such as "postimage"?

Cheers.

I can't see why that would be a problem. Whatever keeps you motivated! 

Splendid. Pork scratchings and pale ale?

We used to have a Golf plus, which is slightly larger all round, but still looks and feels like a normal Golf, just better for push chairs and child seats in the back.

Unfortunately, 3rd child meant we needed a Touran to get 3 child seats in the back. Nothing like the refinement of a Golf.

Thanks SSB, I did get enough sleep but between work and some travelling there wasn't much time left. I did have one good session on Tuesday though:

1 hour of endurance board up to 6b+. Pull-ups 5x5 @BW. Push-ups 3x15

Muscles felt quite sore the day after, maybe pushed a bit harder on the endurance board than the week before.

This week should be better, enough time and hopefully well rested. In general, the next three weeks should be quite good for time, so I'll try and get some regular training done. After that I'll start to incorporate some bouldering, 1. because I enjoy it and 2. to work a bit on maximum strength/power.

Have a good week!

Thanks for doing a great job these past few months SSB and thanks to Liam for taking the reins! 

Well last week was a but of a cracker with one of the best weekends I've ever had in Scotland:

M - Rest day

T - Strength & conditioning session (bench press 5 x 4 sets, press ups 10 x 4 sets, tricep dips 10 x 4 sets, plank 4 x 30s, twisting crunches 20 x 4 sets, russian twists 20 x 4 sets, squats 5 x 4 sets)

W - Boulder pyramid (10 X V2, 8 x V3, 6 x V4, 5 x V5, 3 x V6, 1 x V7)

T - Rest day

F - Drive up to Scotland 

S - A mega day out on Zero Gully (V 4). The Ben was the busiest I've ever seen it with multiple teams on all of the Minus Gullys, Orion, Slav Route, Zero, Hadrians, Point Five and Green Gully

S - Knackered after Saturday's efforts so an easier day was on the cards. We opted for a sunny solo of The Castle (III) with 250m of calf-burner neve. Tired legs from the day before and overdoing it on the walk in slowed us down but still managed to send it in 55 minutes 

Plan for next week:

M - Rest day

T - Zone 3 intervals on Zwift

W - Boulder Pyramid

T - Strength & conditioning

F - Rest Day

S - Sunny outdoor bike ride

S - A day on the grit

Concerted effort to post more regularly starts this week...

My quest to try every training plan going has resumed this year with a 16 week program from Neil Gresham which takes me up until a Harris & Lewis trip at the end of May. I have some ambitious goals so we'll see how it goes. Now 5 weeks in.

STG

• First week of 5 weeks of primarily strength training - so lots of bouldering. 
• Project bouldering lends itself to outside sessions quite well - try some V3-V5 problems in the Peak
• 2 (non-climbing) gym sessions
• 20km trail running

MTG

E2 classics in the Peak

• Regent Street (E2 5c)
• The Rasp (E2 5b)
• Fern Hill (E2 5c)
• Five Finger Exercise (E2 5c)

Bouldering

• Conan the Librarian (f6B+)
• Mark's Roof Left-hand (f6C+)

Stretch goals

• Gorilla Warfare (f7A)
• Wavelength (E3 5c)
• The Prozac Link (E4 5c) (I know...2 grades harder than I've ever climbed. But then I was only really an HVS climber when I did Prophecy of Drowning, so... )

Last week

Training derailed by a nasty bout of norovirus/food poisoning but had a good outing at  Over Owler Tor on Sunday. Ticked

• Roof 2 (f5+)
• The Eye Socket (f5+)
• Jawbone (f5+)
• Slopey Scrunch (f5+)

Keeping an eye out for traverses that could make good endurance training for Prozac.

If you're going to insist on using the term "send" with respect to Winter routes I'm afraid we won't be climbing together anymore.

Given your strengths I think you'll fine MRLH easier than CtL.  MRLH is steep on good holds, CtL is harder than it looks and that rail isn't great.

Gorilla Warefare is great and IMO very steady at 7A, get on it.  I think I managed to keep the left heel on for a move longer than most choose to which helps.

Thanks again SSB. Yes i feel like i've put the effort in and been consistent these last few weeks. A del load week was needed.

For no good reason my body rebelled slightly and i had a few nights of realy poor sleep. Very unusual for me and i finished the week feeling more trired than when i started.

I did the Plywood Masters at BUK. That was a tough day. Very good, but very fierce, setting. 4 th vet male and 99th overall, which wasn't bad.

Plan for the next couple of weeks is to get pumped frequently in the lead up to the trip.

Got a big pan of chickpea and megaveg curried stew on the hob. 

Chickpeas? FFS.