It's Board Time.

Ok so the past twelve months of my climbing have been riddled with injuries. A year ago we were preparing to go to Switzerland and my aim was to climb a 7c, but a few weeks before the trip i suffered from an A2 strain. So i went on yet another trip not being 100% fit and ready. I've realised from reading up and speaking to a lot of experienced people that the only way to avoid injury is to train the finger specifically, i.e fingerboard, campus etc. Where the fingers are loaded and strained in a controlled manor, so when on a route or boulder problem the fingers are conditioned if a foot should pop then the they are used to the stress. Each time i feel i have been getting back to health before starting to fingerboard i have always managed to go one session too many and get re-injured.
Last week seen me have my first session on the woody in well over a year. It was a mixed session as i didn't seem to have lost much strength, but i have trained around my injuries with running, core and weights so i feel my overall health and fitness is at the best it's ever been. The next day however my body could definitely tell i had hit it hard, so an easy route session was done to flush out the build up of toxins. After the double session i felt it was time to hit the fingerboard with a light session on the Thursday, this went well but i had a little ache in my middle finger where i felt a strain a few weeks back, the next day it was back to normal and it felt ok. With four days rest tomorrow is route session of mostly stamina training, followed by a board session either Thursday evening or Friday depending how i feel.

I have found it hard to fit running into my schedule as i have been working a lot lately, so i was keen to buy a road bike and start cycling to work. I cycled a few times last year but found it hard to get motivated, with the nice weather i managed to find myself a bargain Scott on Ebay and bought it!! Yes it was a bit of an impulse buy but hopefully i'll save a few pennies on fuel and shift the last few pounds i need to.

After a slight set back on the MIA front, this year is going to be a year of climbing multi discipline and getting down to the 7c front of bouldering. Getting the psyche back to go out and work a 7b in a session and get 7c's pretty quickly. So training will be getting hit hard soon.
Hopefully going to either try and get a deal on some Beastmaker holds or make some similar ones for the woody.