I’ll try to figure something out, feel like both purple problems above have moments where I cut feet that aren’t necessary.

10/29 - 2,515 calories

Climbing Gym - 3 hours

Main thing to report is I definitely have tons of work to do on feeling the half crimp position while hangboarding. So today I did 6x12s on 20mm edge with a foot on the ground to guarantee I wasn’t open handed. Amazing how strenuous that felt to hold the finger position.

Had a good chat with a 5.12d sport climber. He suggested I try to hang earlier in my session as if I wait until the end I’ll have varying degrees of finger freshness. Seems like good advice but might need to move hangboarding to Tues/Thurs to accommodate that strategy.

Skipped abs because I suck and don’t want to get better apparently.

Totally agree about the feet cutting. This is just a general lack of tension at then end of moves. Climbing on steeper walls with bad foothold holds is a great way to work on this skill, find the best body positions and build strength in your core. Pick some good hand holds and use bad feet. Work super hard to keep your feet on. Doing this consistently has really helped my overall body tension.

Every time I am done with a session on steep board, my lower back and midsection are generally trashed.

I get warmed up and then do my max hangs like your friend mentioned. After that I do some on the wall drills and then on to limit or hard bouldering. If you have a hangboard at home doing hangs in the AM before work and climbing in the evenings is also effective.

Doing some hanging work for your abs certainly won't hurt, but the hip sag is likely due to just not pulling hard enough with your feet or properly engaging them on the steep stuff. Try and rip those footholds off the wall!

Hey Cottonseed,

OT but could I get your opinion on targeted anaerobic alactic system training for someone nowhere near ready to campus yet? I was wondering if you think it’s better to get this training on the hangboard exclusively, or to do really short limit boulders, or even if training like this is necessary for a low level intermediate? At this point I’m doing one aerobic session and one power training session where I get pumped, both roped, but have temporarily moved away from limit bouldering

There is no substitute for climbing a ton, especially outside. This is never the answer people want to hear (I certainly didn't when I had only been climbing a year or two), but I wouldn't even worry too much about hangboarding or true limit bouldering. If you want to do a little bit of both that is fine. However, the number one priority should be leveling up technical skills and climbing specific strength via on the wall practice. Focus on working climbs that attack your weaknesses. Climb on as many angles as possible and really pay attention to how you are moving. Repeat climbs and try to perfect them etc etc.

The Crimpd app has a couple of good workouts such as pyramids and strength intervals that won't be quite limit level bouldering. Those workouts should be hard enough that your strength progresses nicely while still getting in a good volume of climbing.

I think you could add 1 or maybe 2 climbing strength sessions from the app in a week depending on how hard/long your other days are.

Ok TY. Increasing volume is definitely my top priority besides getting 100% healthy

Had a super fun experience earlier. Managed to have a couple hours of free time so decided to squeeze my leg workout in midday. Walking into men’s lockerroom and slipped and fell and banged the **** out of my knee. They had just mopped but didn’t put up any signs.

Scrapped leg day and did a quick upper workout after icing my knee for 15min. It’s pretty painful but I can walk ok(ish). Imagine it will swell up nicely. Supposed to go climb then play company kickball. Should scrap all that I guess.

Upper Day B
Hammer row 3x8x180
Bench up to 7x145
Lat Pulldowns 3x10
Seated DB press up to 5x50s
1arm DB row 3 sets
Side raises 6 sets

10/30 - 2,786 calories

Well the knee is super stiff and swollen. Still went to climbing gym to do abs and hangboard.

Bumped into same coach again and he spent ~15min with me discussing both the half crimp position and also watched me climb on the circuit board a bit. Super helpful and I’ll probably do some private lessons with him. For one he seems to know his ****, secondly I appreciate trying to make a living teaching lessons so I have a soft spot for coaches.

We talked a lot about pulling with your feet/toes/hips and he set a few moves for me to try which of course my feet cut immediately on lol. But we worked through a few different positions and I was able to use my legs more and keep the tension and not cut loose.

Overall one of my more productive sessions just due to what I learned. Hopefully the knee isn’t ****ed. Wouldn’t hurt climbing, just mainly get in the way of my leg days and the fact that I probably average 15,000 steps a day.

That sounds like a very productive session! Climbing with a higher level of tension really helped me out a ton. Hopefully, it will do the same for you.

10/31 - 2,599 calories

Knee is better today. Still tender and a little swollen but improved for sure.

Still not good enough to squat, although I did a few sets of air squats where I had some discomfort but no range of motion issues. Led to a random workout overall:

ATK rack pulls up to 6x345
TBar Rows up to 6x110
Hanging knee raises 3x12
Rear delt cable flys 4 sets
Kneeling cable crunch 4 sets
Calf raises 4 sets
Face pulls 4 sets
EZbar curls 4 sets

Whatever, playing golf tomorrow as long as my knee lets me. Luckily it’s the right knee so I won’t torque on it too much.

11/1 - 2,843 calories

Had to attend a company golf tournament. First time playing since Father’s Day. 4 man scramble we might have used a handful of my teams shots that weren’t mine so I imagine I shot ~73 on my own ball.

Decided to go climb after. Plan was to not do anything too tough. Did some circuit training. Actually finished a 20-move “yellow” circuit which is the middle of the 3 circuit levels my gym sets. Only maybe done one before and I got this in about 10min.

Sent the purple problem I posted earlier that I couldn’t finish. Managed to keep my feet on during the move they cut last time. Still had to cut loose on the finish but I think I could figure out a better beta and keep my feet on the whole way. Gonna downgrade the problem to like V4+ lol it’s a lot easier than I thought originally with the right footwork.

From there screwed around on some new sets a bit, walked up a pair of new V3/V4 problems. Campused some V1’s and called it a night.

Been a minute, but whatever I need to figure out something to do with this space other than log.

So last Sunday night being an idiot I thought I broke my right hand. Well index knuckle really. I was campusing and on a big move basically punched a volume with full force. What’s even dumber is after is stopped bleeding I went and did the route.

Woke up Monday to a painful and swollen hand. Luckily x-Rays were negative and it started improving.

Couple that with my knee issue and I took 3 full days off of exercising. Quite tough for me but felt it was necessary.

Jumped back into things Thursday and been going 100mph since. Climbed all 14 V3-V4 graded problems in the gym today in 15 attempts. Only miss was a dab on a new problem where I went for a similarly colored hold (purple vs blue).

Weight been steady at 145.x past week. Kicking up calories and starting a formal hangboard program tomorrow.

Nice man

Your hand is good to climb after 3 days off? Man, I punched the rail sending a boulder last year, kept climbing and sent the boulder on the next attempt, then thumb locked up and I couldn't climb safely for 2-3 months and regressed (no idea why I didn't hang board then)

Glad to hear yours is recovering so fast.

I love those power endurance sessions where you just run through problems. I can't do it above V2-3 but it's still a blast

Honestly the next day even though swollen and stiff I could hang with no pain but I couldn’t even pick up a coffee mug with a handle because anything touching the side of the knuckle was crazy painful. Still is tender but causing no issues in gym or climbing.

I’m sure it would have been prudent to take more time away but I just cannot, unhealthy obsession with being active and all.

11/12 - 2,900 calories

Climbing gym 2 hours

Hangboard
6x7sec on 20mm edge in half crimp

Circuits
4x20 easy movements

Limit bouldering
Sent 2 new high end V4’s first go after failing them previously. Maybe fingers were more recruited after hanging?

Fell off three low end V6’s but made progress on each. Two should go before they get reset.

Sick man.

Is your hangboard protocol 6 sets now? Twice a week? 53 second rest between sets? Perhaps I need something similar

Also you’ve sent V7 at this point right?

Impressive stuff.

I just wanted to get on the 20mm edge and get something going.

My thoughts are 2x hangboard a week, potentially one day on larger edge with added weight and longer rests and another day on smaller edge with no added weight.

Still don’t have a specific plan but I need to be able to track progress so I like standardizing the edge and time and slowly up the weight throughout the cycle. Main thing for me is just sticking to it.

I’ve climbes plenty of problems in the V5-V7 color grade and a handful in the V6-V8 color grade. A couple were marked V7 for a comp so I’ll say I have but I still can’t flash the majority of V5’s so I have lots of work to do.

Ah pretty cool

I feel the same way at a lower level. I’ve climbed several V5 at this point but many of them are at or above my limit, meanwhile I’m flashing 3’s and 4’s but still run into hard 3’s I can’t figure out. V6-7 seem possible but the route has to be perfect.

I’ve pretty clearly identified it’s a finger strength issue at this point.

There’s a V6 in the gym right now where its all crimps and people are walking up it and I cannot link more than 2 moves together without my hand being wide open and losing any ability to move. But you put me on a problem with big moves, shoulder-y stuff of bad pinches and I feel much better about my chances.

Interesting. Is your sloper strength deficient too or is that ok since open handed?

My finger strength is the worst lol

Slopers seem more technique driven than anything. My gym hardly sets with slopers on any overhanging section, mainly just the slab wall.

Your finger strength seems better than mine if you’re sending the crimp routes at those grades in your log. I cannot tell if mine is strength or proprioception. It legit is tough for me to even set my hand in a half crimp position when hangboarding. I have to set my fingers with feet on the ground then enter the hang. For some reason my hands just don’t understand that position.

Opposite it true with regards to body awareness and CoG, I have a really good feel for that.

Right, heavily overhanging slopers seem like they’ve be very very high level anyway

I doubt that re: finger strength. Maybe my half crimp is stronger but my grip limits me all the time, I’m certain your overall grip relative strength is far superior to mine. Very unlikely I could do a V6 crimp climb either right now, even if I’m flashing some crimp 4’s

I can barely do open handed hangs myself, feels unnatural. Only working with some pockets has started to make them feel ok but I’m still super weak

I do this as well. I am curious how else it would be done? Starting a hang open handed and rolling into a half crimp would be spicy.

Post a video of that crimp climb if you can.

I meant it takes a concerted effort to set the fingers, I just cannot naturally assume the proper position.

Today I did

One foot on ground - 6x10sec half crimp 20mm edge with 2min rest

Hanging - 6x10sec half crimp 20mm edge with 2min rest
—really focused on the index finger, these were tough

Then just did a bunch of limit bouldering. 4-5 move boulders on the 30deg board. Was pretty taxed at that point, tried a few actual boulders with virtually no success past V4. My fingers were done and my hand was wide open on anything remotely crimpy.

That's interesting. I have no problem with putting my hand in position, but half crimp is certainly my weakest grip. If you had to hang on a 20mm edge open handed for 10s what weight would you use?

A lot of folks say their open is roughly 10% stronger than their half crimp. Mine is likely a bit more than that. I tend to climb either open handed or full crimped. I've been trying to do all my warm-ups and anything that is sub-max half crimped to get more experience and volume in the position. I do all my hang board work half crimped as well.

I was pretty sure my half crimp was stronger than my open crimp but last time I ran out of power half crimping my hand slipped into open crimp and I could hang a bit longer... so idk. Maybe open crimp endurance was just better. I think I've been half crimping since I first started on crimps and also using pretty bad holds due to the gym I started in

I think I'm gonna warm up with some light hang boarding after reading this discussion. Seems like a better way to prepare the fingers for hard bouldering then just walking up easy V1/2 and then suddenly run into crimp problems at higher grades