Managed to get about four hours sleep before waking up with anxiety about something work related. Worst part is I have the day off so fml.

Ez run
6.51km in 34:10 (5:15/km)

Just trying to stack non injuring sessions on one another for now.

Exercise 47

3 rounds
Incline DB bench 7x60s
Chins 5xBW+30

3 rounds
Flat BB bench
BB rows

Cable flys 4 sets

4 rounds
Pec dec
Rear delt cable flys

Pretty wiped hope I can get some sleep as I’m traveling tomorrow.

Was supposed to be on a flight this morning to ATL but it got delayed 6+ hours. Was going to go to a climbing gym which I was looking forward to because it lets me test my flash/onsight grade across a lot of new boulders.

Instead I’m stuck at home but decided to get my thoughts together on achieving this one arm chin by end of May. I’m going to break it into 3 different 5-week blocks.

Goal for 1st block
1xBW+80 chin
5xBW+55 chins
One arm ring lock offs
Frenchie BW+45

Exercise 48

Did this at home

3x8xBW chin
Leg raises 3 sets
Uneven chins on rings 3x1
Hanging knee raises
One arm ring lock off attempts x3 (not very close)
Hangboard lock offs 3x15sec
Hammer curls

All over the place wanted to test my ability on a few of these. Looooong way to go.

2/21

Exercise 49

Hotel gym

Standing DB press 3x8x40s
Incline DB Bench 3x8x55s

4 rounds
Machine press
Side raises

2/22 off for travel

2/23

Exercise 50

Footloose campus competition - climbing gym 90min

48 total campus boulders set, 12 in four different categories. I signed up for the intermediate category and I sent the 5 hardest rated boulders including flashing four. I thought I’d place as they take the score from your top 5 with a flash bonus but somehow I didn’t even podium. Guess that means people in my class went and sent boulders in the advanced section. I tried a few of those but was wiped and stood no shot.

Happy with my performance. Of course the one video I took was of the toughest rated intermediate boulder and I failed to match the finish but got it the next time. What was frustrating at the time was I already flashed the four hardest besides this one so I thought a flash on this one would mean I won my category.



Stayed to watch the finals. One of the best female climbers in the country just dominated. Cool event hopefully next year I can participate in the open category.

Ez run
5.01km in 25:58 (5:11/km)

Exercise 51

Woke up with right shoulder pain. Didn’t hurt during comp and I crashed on couch watching USA #1 curling so could have been it.

Press
6x115 @9
—wtf was going to be excited about 5, could have gone for a 7th.
5x115 @9.5
5x115 @9.5

Did a bunch of explosive chins between sets as a bit of a recovery exercise from last night.

Paused Incline bench
5x115
5x125
5x135

Elbows started screaming at me at this point lol.

4 rounds
Arnold press
I-T-Y’s

Did a bunch of super light shoulder rehab work after. Shoulder didn’t impact my lifts at all luckily.

Awesome job man. Sounds like some of those intermediate competitors weren't so intermediate? Seems like if you can send advanced campus problems you are in the wrong category. Maybe I don't know how bouldering competitions work though. I'm jealous, I've wanted to find a beginner comp for months now!

How were the campus holds and moves at the intermediate level? Congrats on the flashes. Very cool

Thanks yea those guys were 100% in the wrong category. You were supposed to pick based on your climbing grade so maybe they’re just super strong guys who have awful technique?

The moves were fun and the holds were mainly positive but in the video I posted you can see they weren’t afraid to put slopers and crimps on the routes. Being tall(ish) helped a ton and might have taken the fun out of a few of the dynamic moves.

It was my first comp, fun to get the competitive juices flowing but just like in my climbing gyms the atmosphere was super laid back and everyone was cheering for one another and helping people figure problems out.

Sounds amazing, I'm gonna start looking for competitions in Boston area.

Competing as an intermediate seems really hard because, at least in the last Rock Spot competition, intermediate was like V4-V7. So if you're even a V5 climber you have to compete with a totally different league of competitors in V7 guys.

Yea it was a good time. Couldn’t get any of my climbing buddies to tag along so just met a lot of new folks.

Here are some videos from finals I found on instagram.

The girl in the perm is the one I was talking about, scary strong she flashed all three finals problems no issue. Dude in the pink shorts outweighed everyone by a good 30lbs in the men’s final and still crushed them.

https://instagram.com/p/BfkqUHfl70b/

2/25

Exercise 52

Climbing gym 5 hours

Nothing of note except my elbows hate me. Did some one arm work.

2/26

Exercise 53

3 rounds
Incline DB bench 6x60s
Toes to bar

3 rounds
Incline DB bench 11x45s
Hanging leg raises

4 rounds
Pec deck
Lying leg raises

Cable flys 4 sets
Standing DB press 4 sets

2/27

Exercise 54

DL
5x225 conventional
5x225 sumo
6x225 sumo

Conventional feels faster but sumo feels safer.

Weighted chins 4x5xBW+35

4 rounds
BB rows
DB shrugs

4 rounds
Lying down face pulls
Scapula push ups

Exercise 55

4 rounds
Press 9x95
Front lever drills

4 rounds
Cable crunches
Bench 8x135

4 rounds
Seated DB press
V ups

Side raises 3 sets
I-T-Y’s 3 sets

Exercise 56

Chin up + 15 second lock off
1xBW+35
1xBW+55
1xBW+65
1xBW+70

Frenchies 3x1xBW+25

1 arm t-bar row 3 sets

Pretty worn down before this one, probably would be good before a climbing session but about all the energy I could muster today.

3/2

Exercise 57

Climbing gym 4 hours.

Sent a new, soft V5 and a new hard V4. Landed the dyno on my project which is the 2nd hardest move but failed the crux twice. It’s a legit V6 and would be my first. Probably be taken down by the time I get back.

3/3

Exercise 58

Incline DB bench 2x5x65s - shoulders weren’t loving these

Paused incline bench 3x5x135
Flat bench 3x12x115
Pec deck 3 sets
Cable flys 3 sets

Did abs randomly throughout.

Exercise 59

Climbing gym 3 hours.

Sister Gym was open late night so went over. Did some one arm chin work and just messed around a bunch climbing wise. Didn’t send anything of note. Didn’t want to try my project at this gym as back to back days had my elbows feeling iffy and that problem is all pulling hard.

Since I did a two a day I rewarded myself with about 5,000 calories today including my first fast food in nearly a year.

Ez run 5.02km in 26:04 (5:12/km)

Exercise 60

NG Chins 3x8xBW+15 ezpz
One arm t bar row 4 sets

3 rounds
Above knee rack pulls up to 6x305
Wide grip chins 8xBW

3 rounds
Rope pulldowns
Laying down face pulls

Cable rear delt flys 3 sets

3 rounds
Heavy DB holds 30sec
Reverse curls

Exercise 61

Press
4x120 @10
3x6x105

3 rounds
Paused flat bench up to 4x150
Front lever drills

4 rounds
Seated DB press up to 5x55s
L-sit holds 10sec

4 rounds
Side raises
Kneeling cable crunches

What's up with all the assistance work: are you seeing gains there/is it benefiting your climbing? or just for bodybuilding purposes?

Mainly aesthetics, some to hit a few goals like bodyweight press, front lever, etc.. and stupid **** like that.

I don’t think it’s interfering as I only climb 2-3x/week and I have no unreal expectations that I’ll ever climb consistently harder than like V7.

You’re already almost at V7 and you’ve been climbing like a year right? Why not aim for V10+? You have the build for it and your progression is excellent

I project V5’s and like 1 in 20 V6’s that fit my style. That’s ways away from consistently climbing V7’s.

But I’m happy with my 1-year progress for sure. I’m probably like 2 months of serious hangboard work from being at legit projecting V7’s but I don’t want to break myself to get there.

Perfectly fine with slowly and safely getting myself to that point. Hell most V5’s are fun and interesting enough to climb anyways.

Yeah agreed, definitely no reason to rush. I guess I'm just saying that I don't believe that V7 is your limit based upon your progress so far. Thousands of people can climb V10, which might be understating the difficulty, but its totally possible and I don't believe that it requires some special genetic talent to achieve (unlike the V12+ outdoor stuff that top pros are climbing). I could certainly be wrong though, lol.

TFW you walk in the gym and they haven’t reset your project

Exercise 62

Climbing 3 hours

Woooooooooo sent my V6 project. Fell first time today but tried harder second time and sent it. I realized after matching the crux I had never done the finish move but luckily it was decent enough of a hold. No video because I wasn’t expecting to send it lol. If it’s still up Friday I’ll try to record it.

Did a bunch of other V5 and above projecting but sent nothing else. Pretty wiped out after but super pumped to get it done.

Finished with some light fingerboard stuff but didn’t have much energy left to pour into it.

I agree with jgarza that you could end up climbing 10s if you put your mind to it given your build and progression so far. I've seen some fairly average Joe looking guys who climb that hard, which is kind of inspiring actually. I guess finger strength genetics plays a role on how quickly you get there. I've actually noticed little improvement in climbing since losing 14lbs which prob suggest my pulling/fingers are strong enough but technique just sucks.

Of all the strong climbers I've chatted with none have said they were climbing double digits in less than 5 years. Im sure it happens but probably not often. Most of them say like 10yrs or something. I was talking to a dude this weekend who also mentioned like jgarza said while 10s are hard 12+ is just another world.

Exercise 63

DL
5x230 conventional
5x230 sumo

15sec lock offs x4

Air squats 4 sets
PVC overhead squats 4 sets
Kettlebell swings 4 sets
Assisted pistols 4 sets

Trying to do this workout after a hard project session wasn’t a great idea. Doing it on no sleep and low food was worse. So decided to cut it short.

I have a ton of room to improve regarding finger strength. I think my overall relative strength and athleticism is quite high even though I’m an OLD.

Technique is a dumpster fire, really need to spend some time on my footwork.

But yea end of this year I’d like to be V7 projecting V8 then see where I can go from there.

Some days you wonder if you’re making progress at all...today was not one of those days.

Exercise 64

Chins
1xBW+75 @8.5 (PR, flew up)
4xBW+55 @9 (+1 rep PR I think)
5xBW+45
6xBW+35
7xBW+25
3x8xBW wide grip

Reverse pec dec 4 sets
Rear delt cable flys 4 sets
Hammer curls 4 sets

Exercise 65

Bench
6x155
6x155
5x155
8x135
8x135
11x135

Did cable crunches between sets

3 rounds
Incline DB bench
Leg raises

4 rounds
Cable flys
Flutter kicks

Pec deck 3 sets