This week has been the first that I really started seeing payoff. Am doing v7-8 pretty consistently at all the gyms, and it is nice to be able to hang with the cockroaches that are half my age, heh. I've started gradually moving into some PE, too; the new mega-gym (Cliffs at LIC, have you been there yet, Lena?) has really nice rope routes. The other day Karen and I were in there in early afternoon, it was pretty empty, and we got some great volume in; I think I did 15 pitches back to back, all of 11s and 12s.

More training tawk:

I'm actually skinning the bored hanging this time around. My finger strength is fine for the goals I have this season (actually am able to do seven second hangs on the Beastmaker monos!) , but my bouldering power is definitely not. I figured since I have access to three excellent gyms this month in NYC, I should just jump right into power in order to be best prepared for the March/April season. Mostly been doing just bouldering at my max, with one day a week of campusing.

This week has been the first that I really started seeing payoff. Am doing v7-8 pretty consistently at all the gyms, and it is nice to be able to hang with the cockroaches that are half my age, heh. I've started gradually moving into some PE, too; the new mega-gym (Cliffs at LIC, have you been there yet, Lena?) has really nice rope routes. The other day Karen and I were in there in early afternoon, it was pretty empty, and we got some great volume in; I think I did 15 pitches back to back, all of 11s and 12s.

Okey, end of spraydown.

For me, taking 3.5-4 weeks to do dedicated hangboard, instead of fitting hangboard with climbing is SOOOO worth it. I think you should do that, instead of hangboard once or twice a week between climbing. I had started on january 13th, and the only climbing I had done in the past 4 weeks was just a little bit of easy stuff to warmup, with the emphasis on not getting pumped.

Not looking forward to campusing, because I don't have a training buddy for that part... Ed can't really campus, so he is focusing on bouldering for the power stage. And I am hoping to do a combination of bouldering and campusing for the next 3 weeks at least, switching to mostly bouldering and 4x4s for the PE phase. And I am hoping to have an extended PE phase... we'll see.

What alternatives are there for a power phase if you don't have access to a campus board (I'm not sure if I'm even capable of campusing either)? I'm also realizing I need to get more explosive power from my legs for doing steinpull moves.

Bouldering. It is harder to isolate muscles while bouldering, but the bottom line is that
power = (force x distance) / time.

So power moves are dynamic (traveling over large distance in short period of time) or applying maximal force. You don't want a boulder problem with 20 moves in it, you want a boulder problem with just a few moves, and every one of them maximal-effort. You actually want stuff that you would be failing on, instead of sending, and you would be measuring improvement in how much closer you got to a hold, and maybe never even send. Though I think it is better to pick something that you would eventually send, but in 40 goes over couple weeks, not in 3 goes over one session (nothing wrong with those, but they would be more for PE).

I think a setup like Kris suggests would be great if you have a small woody, instead of the bouldering gym.

http://www.powercompanyclimbing.com/...t-1-why-and-how.html

The idea is that you have a bunch of holds, and they are positioned symmetrical, from the center. And you can fine-tune your moves on left and right , doing exactly the same type of move, to the same type of hold. And you can easily change things up-- so let's say you are going to a hold that is a jug 3 feet to the right and 2 feet up. Or 3 feet to the left and 2 feet up. And that's easy. Then you switch it to smaller hold. Or put the hold farther apart. or both. And you use different feet to do it... It would be sort of like making one-move boulder problem for yourself.

that is pathetic. what's up with that!

no snow anywhere out west. we've had rain for the past week. it's craptastic

do we haz any to zend ewe?

I feel your pain. I do.

Although, the backcountry has been real good if one is willing to get up high enough...

oh, and I forgot. Manderson book does go over how you can do power training on hangboard, if you can't have campusing or bouldering. it is not optimal, but...

Another question - how strict are you guys on your training? During a training cycle do you still get out climbing much, or is it only during certain phases on stuff that compliments that phase?

Hangboreding is the only part of training that really interferes with climbing, just because it wrecks you so much and the recovery is so long. However, even with hangboarding, I'm still able to get out and climb easy face, or easy to moderate cracks.

I'd also be interested to see how hangboarding relates to pegboarding. I've not done any mixed or ice that's even close to hard, but when I've gotten pumped on that kind of climbing, it's felt very different than the forearm pump and finger stress that I've gotten on a hangbored. It might be worth trying to do both at the same time, especially if your general core and lockoff are in good shape.

As for climbing through the power and PE stages, that's always been fairly easy for me at the NRG, as long as the weather is cooperating, and I don't really distinguish between training and outside climbing. There is a boulder near my place with four quality, dynamic problems that are perfect for 4x4s. And for PE, I just take burns on steep routes.

Hangboreding is the only part of training that really interferes with climbing, just because it wrecks you so much and the recovery is so long. However, even with hangboarding, I'm still able to get out and climb easy face, or easy to moderate cracks.

It is pretty easy for me to take 3.5-4 weeks off in the dead of winter since the closest outside bouldering is ~8-9 hours drive away, and not feasible for anything other than a 3-day weekend.

Paul, what kind of tools have you been using when you go out ice climbing with the gf? You should do some drytooling sometime, much more physical (and interesting IMO) than just ice climbing.

I've just been using her tools, Nomics. Borrowed a friend's Vipers, too, which I liked but not sure which I prefer. I do really like the Nepals for boots, though.

Sunny and 60. I'm wearing shorts and chacos.

Fuck you, February.

Sunny and 60. I'm wearing shorts and chacos.

Fuck you, February.