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.

Back to training

Well its certainly been a while since i had a proper indoor bouldering training session just because of the amount of injuries i keep getting.

So thought last night ill have a session as the fingers are starting to feel much better, turns out it was the right choice as the session went really well. Started a warm up on the stepped wall which didnt go to bad then thought ill test out some Cassidy's legendary problems in the crypt, at first i was gettin shut down on th v4-5's which didnt go to well as i was getting massively psyched out.

After getting frustrated i needed to go else were so headed upto the new woody.....only to get uo there to realised there was 10 people there!!!! first time ive had to queue to get on the woody haha did i few easy warm up problems and then got fed up waiting to climb.

Back down to the crypt i went and turns out all i need to do was have five minutes to let the muscles warm up properly as i tried the problems i was getting shut down on previously and crushed it first try! then went on to flash the other v5-6's.

only a short session but i felt cut it short before i push it and get injured again. i think taking advice from other people is a massive help ive noticed Rich drink plenty of water while training and i think i need to do the same so i drank like 1l of water in 2 hrs.

Now time to keep on top of conditioning, weights, core, genreal training, diet and hydration in order to start pushing the grade again and stay injury free!