Training Success/Breakthough Stories

[MarkAnderson]

Super awesome man! What a grand route to have for your first 5.13! (so good it was worthy of an RCTM chapter intro pic, LOL). I noticed you avoided the arête/"Portland Rest"--props.

As far as technique, you looked really polished considering the amount of time you spent on it. You have a nice style that's fun to watch. Looks like you have really flexible hips and good body awareness (relative to your center of mass). However, I noticed you tend to kick your low foot up the wall instead of carefully placing it directly on the next hold--you might want to work on that (haha).

[erick]

Apr 12, 2016 9:20:52 GMT -7 MarkAnderson said:

I noticed you avoided the arête/"Portland Rest"--props.

Thanks, I wanted to climb the "full value" version. I will keep an eye on my foot placements in the future, I have noticed I tend to do the "tap" and "kick" a lot when climbing hard stuff.

[MarkAnderson]

Apr 12, 2016 11:45:05 GMT -7 erick said:

I will keep an eye on my foot placements in the future, I have noticed I tend to do the "tap" and "kick" a lot when climbing hard stuff.

That was a joke, see this thread: rockprodigytraining.proboards.com/thread/934/quiet-feet-drills-utilize?page=1&scrollTo=5949

[daveholliday]

i just got back from indian creek and had one of my best trips there, so far. prior to starting the rock prodigy training, i had redpointed one 11+ there and it took several attempts over the course of several trips. this trip, i led four routes rated 11+ or harder. the result: two onsight, and the other two with one fall or two falls. one thing i really like about the creek is the opportunity to work on different crack sizes in a fairly low-commitment and safe way. the hard sizes for me are 0.5 and 0.75 camalots and i was able to make progress on those as well. my performance cycle will last a few more weeks and i'm hoping to get back there soon and try some other hard stuff.

[scojo]

Sent my first 12a(?) today: Days of Future Passed in Boulder Canyon. Felt more like mid 11 to me actually; only took me 2 tries. But I still feel like I've improved a lot this year! I think less than a year ago I sent my first 11.

I can definitely attribute my progress to the training I adapted from RCTM and also losing some weight , so I definitely have to thank the Andersons for that!

[Chris W]

I've just ended my spring season. Some goals were met, some not, but it's clear I continue to get stronger using the Rock Prodigy system. My main goal, after sending my first 5.12 in the fall, was to climb more of our local 5.12 rock. I managed to send one of them, Monkey Boy 12b, which is basically a 3 bolt boulder problem. Last time I was on it (3 years ago) it felt impossible, but I dispatched it in relatively short order this spring (with numb fingers, screaming babies and an antsy wife belaying). Time will prevent me from adding other climbs this spring since I have a surgery coming soon. I'll write more later; I have to get to work now.

[Chris W]

This has been one of those seasons where my improvement hasn't resulted in as much sending as I wanted, which stings a bit. I was sick several times with various viral things I acquired either at work or from my children and, ultimately, I ran out of time. I did get a solid day of work in on two other local 12's and I'm quite pleased to find all my hard work has put them within my current ability range.

I capped my spring season with a trip to the beautiful New River Gorge. Guess whose kids were running a fever 3 days before we left? Mine of course! Guess who started running a fever hiking out from Summersville Lake on Tuesday? In spite of my illness, I discovered I'm capable of all the moves on Psycho Wrangler at Cotton Top. Maybe in the fall, I'll be able to "spray" about some more impressive sends. Right now, I'm thankful for my progress (and my normal temperature).

[EMP]

This is my third post in this thread. I am mostly finished up with my spring sport climbing season and it was my most successful to date. I sent a 13a (my 2nd), which i was happy about. But my real goal was a really awesome 12d, that is damn hard. I managed both within the same week, making it definitely the best week of sport climbing i've ever had. I also did maybe 6-7 routes in the low to mid 5.12 range. I might get another day or two in but I am very satisfied with the results.

[Charlie S]

We had a pretty wet spring, where rain was almost predictable over the weekends. That compounded with a finger injury for the first 3 months of year made it a pretty hard season.

So my best send was a Moon Board problem called "Ivory", 6C (about V5).

However, the highlight of the season wasn't necessarily redpointing anything, but getting to the top of my first 5.13a and realizing that this is the "big hairy goal" that I absolutely want to spend effort on. See the time-lapse recon climb here:

http://instagram.com/p/BFz3_4knsky

[callen2]

Just entering my third on phase...I have gone from barely being able climb "v4" to flashing them. So exciting. The actual reason for my post though...Super amped, for the first time completed the 1,3,5 then the match on mediums while doing the beginner workout all on mediums. Super Excited!

[tedwelser]

I made a post about my spring season, here: boulderingathenscounty.blogspot.com/2016/05/spring-season-in-review.html

In short, I climbed 25 days at the Red and New, and sent a slew of routes on my first or second try. I had to lower the intensity of my power training due to a finger injury, but had a good season of consolidating my progress by sending several routes in the 11d-12a range: 8133, Diablo, Ro Shampo, Check Your Grip, and Betevul Pipeline. I also did some crag exploring, and if the access issues can be resolved, I will have some great sources of motivating projects for the future.

[tedwelser]

This is one of the promising crags from our exploring this spring.

[Chris W]

25 days?! How'd you manage that? Getting outside is always one of my season crux's.

[tedwelser]

May 31, 2016 5:33:34 GMT -7 Chris W said:

25 days?! How'd you manage that? Getting outside is always one of my season crux's.

Hey Chris-   One of the keys is that I tried to keep as much flexibility in my schedule so that when weather was promising I would go climbing.  I had a few different partners, but my main partner (Yoichi) was similarly motivated to get out more often at the drop of a hat.  I keep all of my crag and camping gear ready to go, and sometimes we decided to go the night before.  My wife Laura was very understanding and patient with me through all of this too.  Perhaps she understood because we used to climb together over 80 days a year when we were younger and really into climbing.

For spring break I took my daughters (Anna 14, and Sydney 11) to the Red for 7 days.   So this was perhaps the best year for climbing with kids--  since they were both still excited about climbing and could both belay TR and Anna was heavy enough to belay for me on lead.  Many of those days were pretty low key, but I could still climb easier 11's as both girls were interested in climbing up to about that hard.  

The main thing is that I sacrificed the height of my performance peak because I extended the breadth of my outdoor season.  This meant that I was climbing outside a couple days every month from January to May, but with extras in April and May when my official performance phase was scheduled.  I worked really hard on the training but I also accepted that I was sacrificing some intensity and consistency with the outdoor interruptions.

This coming fall I will not have as much flexibility in my schedule, but in principle I will continue to try to get two outdoor trips per month, even if one of those trips is just for a day.  

[jetjackson]

Nice sends Ted! I'm working on plans for a 6 day trip to the Red at the end of November.

I'm mid performance peak at the moment, had a makeshift season that was built around rehabbing my middle finger from an injury back in February. Just got back from 3 days at HP40 in Alabama. The original plan had been to focus on endurance routes at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, but weather sent us in the other direction for the long weekend. Certainly not ideal, given the conditions - with HP40- known for slopers, and the fact that I had really skipped power training this season to give my finger a break. I decided this could be de facto power training, and an opportunity to get exposure to different styles of problems. 

I was reasonably happy with the results, I flashed 3 V3's, sent about 10 V2's mostly flashes, and got a V4 on the third try. There were a couple of V5 problems I started to project, but given the nature of the problems, the humidity, and the lingering finger issue, I decided to pull back and jump on a vast range of problems instead. 

Going to work on power endurance this week, and head out to Austin to project 5.11d/5.12a's over the next two weekends - if the weather behaves.

One thing that strikes me is how unfit I feel this season, compared to last. In the strength cycle I pulled back to rehab the finger, finishing about 7 HB sessions with the last session about 20-30lbs less resistance than the prior season. As mentioned I skipped power entirely and went straight to power endurance. I believe I made the right decision there, as my finger is back to about 90% - after 3 days of working problems it was slightly sore yesterday, but that soreness is already gone this morning. Feeling the difference between this season and last, has really cemented in my mind, the importance of the strength and power phases of the training.

Looking forward to finishing out the season with a couple of short 30-40 foot projects. After a week break, and an ARC cycle, I think my fingers will be ready to return to the same intensity on the strength phase that I finished up with last season. 

Here I am pulling myself over Panty Shield for the flash.