Rock Climbing Training

Season 01

Workout No. 021 ~~ JAN/28

Base Fitness Phase – Week 4

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Boy and girls, men and women, cats and dogs -- we've made it out of week #3 generally intact. I'm gonna test out a bit of a different format for these Crushening posts, for a couple reasons:

• Doing my climbing post each day is fun, but it's kind of time consuming, and there are other things that I feel I could share;
• Frankly -- gym climbing & training just isn't that interesting, and I don't want things here to get super stale;
• I feel like if I tried to get these posts out 1~3x/week instead of 7x/week, then I can probably make each one a bit more interesting and worthwhile.

I'd be keen to hear peoples thoughts. For now -- lets look at the calendar and talk about how the last couple days went!

January 2018 - Season 1

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As mentioned above, we're going into week #4 -- which is our final week of ARC training. I couldn't be much more excited, because rocking the auto belay is starting to get pretty repetitive, especially when it's busy and you're struggling to get your workout in without feeling like an asshole.

We weren't super perfect on our last couple days -- a bit more red and a little less green than we'd like to see. I'm still uncertain how I feel about the inclusion of beers. While I genuinely love beer -- it's hard to ignore that they are seriously counter-productive to my current fitness goals.

We bailed on Friday.

Big day at work on Friday, so the team at the office wanted to end the day with some social time. Hard to say no to some in-house bonding with the work mates, so things were looking bleak to start. Tried to keep my head on my shoulders and not get carried away, but trying to dodge a few wobbly pops and then head to the gym for an 8pm session after a mentally tiring week?

No dice -- but there was redemption on Saturday.

Managed to muster up some enthusiasm to get out and do some lead climbing on Saturday with @somebuttstuff. Rolled in a little bit early and got some bouldering in beforehand. Lead climbing went well. Successfully worked / hangdogged my first 5.11a lead climb route in the gym since returning from my thumb injury! It was actually a really fun route, with heaps of traversing and sequency sections, some fun moves on volumes with underclings, and a really exposed finish while you lean off to the side on a couple small side pulls. Didn't quite get 10 pitches in, but no matter -- we climbed hard, pushed ourselves, and felt good about it. We even got out for some squash and more beers with @caitycat afterwards.

Sunday has been a restorative day.

Today, for my OAE day, I may have gotten a little creative with what counts as "aerobic" exercise. I know that it's supposed to be something that gets my heart rate going -- but it was super rainy outside, and I left all my wet weather running gear at the office, despite my intentions to get out for a run today. So instead of running, we did some more yoga, like last weekend. I used to do a lot more yoga than I have been in the last couple years. It was probably almost a daily practice while I was in school, and I don't think it's a coincidence that I've been struggling with injuries, motivation, and mindfulness since I stopped. Along with a little bit of yoga, we paid a bit of attention to the important practice that is skin maintenance.

Take care of your skin before it tries to leave you behind on the wall. Plus, it's an opportunity for cool lifestyle #macrophotography photos that show off how cool you are.

With all this exposure to the super frictioney plastic holds on the wall, my hands have been taking a beating -- and the calluses on our fingers are starting to get dangerously large. You might think, "uhhh.. aren't big calluses kinda what we're going for here?". To which I'd reply:

"What are you... stupid?"

Large calluses might seem like a good thing -- but from my experience, these will continue to grow to a certain point until they're so large, they develop their own little hands. When this happens, your calluses will hold onto the wall much better than you, which effectively means that they're going to rip off of your fingers, leave you with a nasty flapper (warning, that shit's kinda gross!), and ruin the rest of your day/week of climbing.

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Today, In my space that I reserve down here for cool climbing stuff, I'm going to point you toward one of the resources that helped me understand the importance of skin-care. Welcome back, Climbing.com -- it's been a couple days since we've seen you!

Generally, this article from 2016 talks about the different kinds of superficial (not muscle / tendon / pulley type injuries) injuries that can happen to your skin when you're climbing or training hard. It can put a serious damper on your plans -- so do what you can to prevent it, but also know how to do a little bit of emergency field tape-work to get yourself back in one piece if you want to push through.

Check out Climbing.com's Ultimate Rock Climbing Skin Care Handbook. I myself practice a lot of this stuff -- especially practicing hygiene (climbing gyms are gross when you think about it), using some hand moisturizer / salve / balm to keep them healthy, sanding shit down, and using tape as a bit of armor if something is starting to get sore.

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Be well, stay safe, and I'll see you on the sharp side (once it dries out around here).

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Previous CRUSHENING posts:

• Day 21
• Day 17
• Day 16

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The Pitch!

If you've made it this far down the post, then I give you mad props. This shit was longer than just a photo.

After my first few weeks on Steemit, I spent some time thinking about how I can make this space a little sexier. And two things came to mind that could really enable some cool looks at some cool places:

• A drone;
• Trad gear;
• A van (and subsequently, gasoline -- Ideally, electricity).

Your votes and resteems will go towards making sure no rock goes uncrushed. Any funds withdrawn will exclusively go to climbing gear, climbing toys, climbing adventures, and some photography gear (drone) for climbing photography purposes. I have my own job for groceries.

When this post becomes roughly 24hrs old, I will use a portion of the liquid funds I have available and purchase some votes for this post. Get your votes in before that, and enjoy whatever curator rewards you can get!

Please vote and resteem generously. There's some amazing places on the island that I would like to share.

I try to respond to all questions and comments that I get, so make some noise! If you have any questions about some of the climbing jargon / lingo I used, just ask, and I'll break it down. I might even make it a feature in my next post, in which case I'll give you some credit, and maybe even some kind of reward... unknown at this time -- nobody has asked any questions... Yet!!