I did a row in the morning yesterday. I did 5k in 2.11 pace, a personal best.

I the evening, I did a max effort pull up session. I think I got 3 new PBs! Yeeeahhhh budddyyyy

It is odd, I felt terrible in the morning but things improved throughout the day.

The session was:
Dynamic stretches; band stuff; Burpees; max rep unweighted (14, a PB); Max weighted (5 reps @10kgs, a PB); 1 armed negatives with bands; 2 arm negatives; dead hangs (95 seconds, a PB); explosive pull ups; 90 degree lock with two hands; yoga.

It took just over 2 hours.

Today will be fingerboarding.

My weight has been volatile recently - the low point over the last fortnight has been 138 pounds and the high point 146 pounds. Lol water weight. I thing I may be around 142-144 (Libra trend claims that). I've been bulking, and it appears it may actually have succeeded to a minor extent.

Fingerboarding was good. I like newbie gains.

Yesterday was arms/chest day.

Dynamic stretches, 3x500m row sprints, band stuff, bench, OHP, rows, curls, dips, core gubbins, yoga. This took around 2 hours.

I may have today off, or I may do leg day. My scuba club has a Zoom lecture on, so if I work out I won't finish until something like 1 a.m.

I did take Wednesday off, and did leg day on Thursday. It is a high volume thing, with squsts, deadlifts, lunges, pistols, one leg deadlifts, core gubbins, yoga and a thorough warm up.

I finger boarded on Friday, followed by kettle bells (300 swings with a 16 kgs, and 50 goblet squats.), followed by yoga.

I did max pull ups on Saturday - 12 reps max, which disappointed me. I got 6 reps with 10 kgs added - I used scuba weights and couldn't work out how to add more. I got ,2 minutes dead hang, which was an improvement

Today, I had one hour yoga in the morning. In the afternoon, I used the rower - 5.5k in 2.14 pace.

Nothing wrong with 12 reps, for your sport weighted chins matter more. Once you get past ~6-8 you aren’t really training anything bouldering specific. You’re in hypertrophy and muscle endurance space above that. FWIW my 1 set max is like 14-15 right now and I can do BW+30kg for 4 reps and BW+45kg for a single because I train for strength.

Focus on intensity (weighted) and speed should benefit you. I’d even say if you are looking to build muscle in your back there are less overall fatiguing exercises that would be better (that is once gyms open up you may lack for equipment now) including pulldowns, cable rows, etc...

That makes sense.

The pull-up session included explosive pull-ups, which were way more fun than the endurance stuff.

I finally filmed a climb! It is around v2. I need to find a way of removing rubber from walls....



Yesterday was a decent amount of exercise. my Fitbit reckoned my calories out were 3,100 with 21,000 steps.
I did:
1 hour vinyasa yoga - my teacher now seems to offer online classes.
A walk.
Fingerboard training - 2 hour session. (Dynamic stretches; 60 burpees; band stuff; warm up finger board; main session; finger curls; max effort pull ups; yoga to finish.) This was a pretty good session.

Body weight update - I've been pretty stable at 142 pounds recently. I may be losing slightly, but it's at quite a low rate. My last bulk worked, so I'm reasonably confident I can get back in my target range (140-145-ish) if it falls too low.

21 April 2020
1 hour yoga in the morning.
4 sets of 750 metres row sprints, with 2 minutes rests. 2.03 pace.

20 April 2020
Day off, although I did manage 22,000 steps (mainly through gardening incompetently.)

19 April 2020
Yesterday's exercise:
45 minutes yoga over lunch
Hangboarding:
Dynamic stretches; band stuff; 60 burpees; warm up; weighted hangboard; 400 kettlebell swings and 50 goblet squats; yoga to warm down. It was over 2 hours.

The hangboarding was disappointing. My max weight added on the 21mm rung was 12.5 kgs - I was hoping for more.

18 April 2020
Leg day. Squat (70 kgs) and deadlift (100kgs) for 5 sets of 5 each were the main lifts. As usual, I did a bunch of extra stuff.

Way off my PBs, but good fun nonetheless.

I have some other workouts between the 14th and 18th, but can't recall what they are.

My logging has been weak. I have exercised daily, except for last Tuesday, which I took off.

My last 4 were:

• Yesterday, yoga for 1 hour. Then 6k row in 2.12 pace.
  
• 26 April Max effort pull ups. The best I achieved was 14 reps unweighted and one rep with +25 kgs. I also got 17,000 steps without leaving the house - I did the gardening and cleaned the house, which helped with this.
  
• 25 April 45 minutes yoga in the morning. The evening workout was hangboarding and kettle bells:
  Dynamic stretches; push ups and star jumps; band stuff; hang board warm up; hang board working sets (+15 kgs on 21mm rung,); finger curls; 400 kettle bell swings (16 kgs); 50 goblet squats (16 kgs); yoga to end. The session was around 2 hours 40 minutes.
  
• 24 April One hour's yoga so ridiculously early I didn't even have a coffee.
  Then we had a bridge tournament in the evening, so my workout didn't start until late. I finished at around 1 a.m.
  It was leg day:
  Dynamic stretches; "hill sprints" (using my stairs); band warm up; squat (5 sets of 5, 75kgs); deadlift (5 sets of 5, 110 kgs); lunges (32 kgs); pistols; 3 rounds of baby shark ab workout; yoga for warm down.

I have continued my daily workouts. They have gone well. For example, I deadlifted just under 2*bodyweight for 2 sets of 5 last night. Hook grip for the win.

I can hang off the 15mm ledge for 10 second repeaters. I couldn't hang off it at all at the start of lockdown.

I am getting a bunch of climbing holds delivered on Monday. I was talking to a carpenter about getting a wall built in my garden, but he's gone quiet recently. Hopefully I can sort something reasonably quickly.

I have continued with my daily workouts. They are going OK. If I slept badly, my grip strength seems to suffer a lot. So I sometimes defer the max effort finger stuff if it fells unwise.

I had one day with no strength work last week, on Saturday. But I went for a walk, and got 27 km in, so it wasn't too sedentary.

My plywood will be delivered on Thursday. So I will have a home wall soon - hopefully on Saturday.

My climbing wall exists!

That's an awesome looking woody. I'm jealous! How tall is that rig?

I don't know exactly. Maybe 3 metres? It's at about 35 degrees.

I'm well pleased with it. The cost was not too bad - around £1,500 total for parts including holds and nuts, labour and a new crash pad. (It is sufficiently big to need 2 pads).

It is amazing how much my technique degraded with 2 months off, as you can see from my footwork. That was only my second climb on the wall, though, and the yellow pinch is terrible.

My hands got really soft in my time off. I got around 6 flappers in my first hour. Obviously, I can tape up, so it's not too big a deal.

I've never used a woody before, and it's quite intense. So I was thinking of using it 3 or 4 days a week at most.

Damn, super jelly! Looks great.

Woah, that's cool!

Is it quite humid where you live? I tend to get more flappers and such training during the summer as it is pretty hot and humid where I live that time of year. One trick I will do is put some rubbing alcohol on my skin, let it dry then apply chalk. It dries out my skin a bit and keeps it from getting too soft. My hands tend to sweat a good bit and they almost never get too dry and cracked. Everyone is different in this regards so YMMV.

Thanks both!

The weather in South East England never really gets particularly extreme. It's been pretty hot by UK standard recently, but it's not been very humid. I'm sure the issue is just my hands getting de-conditioned. When I started climbing, it took a while for my hands to toughen up. A couple of friends have also recently built home walls, and they've found the same thing.

I've climbed every day now for 5 days, and my technique is starting to recover, and the hands are starting to toughen up. I don't know if you get it in the US, but I'm a big fan of all the Rhino skin care products. They have a few - Spit is applied pre-climb and helps drying the hand. An another one is similar to Climb On.

I am attempting to a programme which is
Day 1: Hangboarding and pull-ups
Day 2: Climb - 4 hard boulder; dyno training; endurance training
Day 3: Legs and core
Day 4: Climb - Dyno/power practice; hard projects; and footwork training.
Day 5: Hangoarding and upper body lifts
Day 6: Fun climbs

So far, I have done Day 2 (climbing) twice; Day 4 (climbing) once; Day 6 (climbing) once and none of the strength days. I'll attempt to start on the strength today.

Anyway, for logging purposes, yesterday was 90 minutes climbing (over 2 hours with warm up, wamr down etc.) Today I did an hour's yoga before breakfast, and I'll aim to leg day this evening.

On another note, I've been aiming at a range of 140 to 147 pounds for my weight. (I prefer aiming within a range than focussing on a specific number).

I have been at the low end of this for a few weigh-ins, and my trend on Libra (an app, with a database of daily values and a simple smoothing algorithm) is low as well.

So I will give it a few more days, and increase calories if continues to persist. I've been averaging around 2,600 calories recently, and eating more is approaching levels I struggle to meet. I guess I could increase calorie dense food, like home made guacamole (which is delicious as well).

Bulking is going badly. I typically seem to end up at least 400 calories behind an exercise-adjusted revised target. So I've been averaging 2,600 calories in but 3,000 or more out.

Climbing is going well. My hands have recovered. My technique was never brilliant to begin with, but is getting back towards its old level.

Weather has been an issue. The holds do feel worse in the rain - it's still climbable, but not as easy as in the sunshine. It's rained a lot recently.

I managed to do another video.

I am still working out around about daily. My logging is poor.

For example, yesterday was a climb and around 10 miles walk. Today was an hour's yoga, a climb and a slightly longer walk.

The climbing is fun. I seem to do a lot of dyno stuff - I was always pretty poor at this, do it will be interesting to see if I have improved.

I have continued to work out quite a lot. My logging here has been poor.

Bulking is going badly - I am still around 140 pounds.

Today's session was:

Non-climbing warm up Dynamic stretches; skipping; band stuff

Hangboarding warm up Scapular activations, pull ups and easy hangs

Climbing warm up 4 easy routes

Climbing 4 routes with 6 moves. 2 routes with back to back dynos. 4 sets of limit moves, trying to stay on the wall as long as possible

Forearm prehab/rehab Light dumbbell stuff

Core 2 sets of 12 hollow holds. Hurt like hell...

I think I have done some form of the exercise every day this week.

The last 3 days were;
Friday
An hour of yoga.

Leg day. Squatted 75 kgs, rowed 65 kgs, deadlifted 110 kgs. All were ,3 sets of 5.

18,000 steps, which is OK for a school day.

Saturday
Climbed, a long session.

22,000 steps

Sunday
An hour of yoga.

Climbed - good session, I sent just about everything.

Just 17,000 steps, poor for the weekend.

My weight still seems to be 141 pounds, so I may need more than 2,600 calories a day.

My logging is again poor.

Most recent sessions were:
Saturday
Scuba dived in a quarry to check my kit.
Climbed in a 3 hour session, where I sent stacks of stuff
Got a decent walk in

Sunday
An hour of yoga.
Climbed on my brother's home wall. It was good - steep and crimpy.

Today
An hour of yoga.
Got a couple of walks in, ending on 27,000 steps, which is alright for a school night.

Tuesday
Hangboarding, got a PB on the 15mm rung.
Pull ups - 16 rep max in a single set. +30 kgs single rep weighted max.

Wednesday
Leg day!
Loads of pistols.
Squat - 4 sets of 5, 80 kgs.
Deadlift - 2 sets of 5, 120 kgs.
A bunch of core nonsense

Today
I have just done an hour's yoga, before breakfast. I will climb on my home wall later.

Climbing gyms open on Saturday. I have booked a session - it will be interesting to see how much my technique has degraded. I am probably stronger than pre-lockdown, but technique is more important than strength.

Edited to add: weight is still 140 pounds (63.6 kgs). It appears I need more than 2,600 calories a day to put on weight.

Climbing gyms have opened! I got an 85 minute session in.

My standard seemed to be about the same as before lockdown. My technique was a bit worse, my finger strength was a bit better, my routes reading has always been terrible.

Your technique certainly leaves a lot of area for improvement which could rocket you up the grades.

What’s your plan for working on it?