Training Success/Breakthough Stories

[amalec]

Jan 13, 2016 12:30:20 GMT -7 James_E said:

Also one thing to consider is that you are focusing too heavily on the physical aspects (e.g. strength and power) and not enough on skill acquisition and movement training. With bouldering I find that I can easily hang on the holds of harder projects but sometimes neglect the subtle body positions and tension necessary to do the moves. I have had several "ah-ha" moments when I realize that I'm strong enough to do a problem, but have just been doing it wrong (for me). 

Most definitely this. This is exactly why I'm switching to a program design that gives me more climbing time (including going outdoors every chance I get). I work skill acquisition every workout during my warmup, and my volume cycle is built around repeats at onsight/onsight- level, focusing on finding smoother and more effectives approaches.

[cookienomster]

been climbing 12a and had pretty much plateaued for a year. Started my first cycle ever back in the summer but tweaked a pulley midway through. I wasn't able to start up again until oct and i just sent my first 12b with a week left to spare in my performance phase.  so nice to see the training program pay off!   only wish i came across this earlier.

[jetjackson]

So, just spent 3 days in Hueco tanks. In the lead up to it I strained a pulley, or something similar, so was restricted to only jugs and wide pinches with my right hand. 

Previously on my last single day trip to Hueco I didn't get a single tick. After a cycle of hangboarding, and a couple of campus sessions, plus a whole bunch of core and heel hook practice I went back. There were a lot of problems I couldn't get on, due to the injury, however I was able to send a V5, Lobster Claw, on my third attempt, and the two V4's, Warm-up roof, and Ostrisizer, which I was unable to complete at Christmas, I got both of them on my first attempt, on the third day of bouldering. Plus I got a bunch of V1s and 2s, and had heaps of fun.

I'm pretty happy with that progress, considering my previous PB is 5.11b, and it gets me even more psyched to continue the RPTM. 

Below is a pic of me on Moonshine roof, on my fourth attempt, desperate to get to that left hand jug, didn't end up getting it, but it's possibly the most fun I have had climbing.

[MarkAnderson]

Nice! great pic. You were sending stuff super fast.

[mikael]

I ended my first bouldering season one week early with bleeding fingertips. Leaving the project unfinished didn't feel empty inside. It felt good. I'm looking forward not focusing on the weather, thinking about how strong I feel, manipulating the family to get time to go outside. I didn't send my Big Project, but still did personal best by two V grades.

What I've learned:
- My chosen project was too hard. I should have focused more on milage (but the conditions on many boulders were bad).
- I can't control the weather, but my work allows me to control my hours.
- I learned a good warm-up routine for winter bouldering.
- Getting back from injury. I was injured the whole autumn and only got outside once or twice. Take it easy and rehab.

[marcusyoya]

I want to say that the book is super awesome. It is a all in one resource with scheduling, exercises, and motivation.
After two full seasons of the training and a couple month break of training (lots of climbing) in between, I have progressed from never sending a 5.12a, to sending my first 5.13a in one calendar year! (Next is 8a) I am not expecting these types of gains in the future, but am psyched for what the next training seasons will bring. Grades don't necessarily matter, but seeing progress and being able to comfortably climb so many 5.11 and 5.12 pitches at a crag makes climbing so much fun!

The data driven methodology for the hangboarding makes it motivating to try hard. Thanks M&M for putting the time and effort into bringing this training to us masses. Cheers.

[MarkAnderson]

Wow man, that's awesome improvement, great work!

[alexandra]

I wanted to share some preliminary thoughts and results on my training so far and say a big THANK YOU to Mark and Mike! I have just finished my strength cycle and decided to take some "time off" training to go bouldering outdoors for 2 days (which coincided with spring break). My strength phase almost completely overlapped with the Crossfit Open which just ended (a 5-week competition) -I had to compete in the open as a prerequisite to make my affiliate's competition team, though our team training and competitions won't start till next fall. So overall, I have to admit I did not rest much at all between crossfit competitions and HB workouts, but I did try to at least not do any arm intensive things the day before a hang board session and plan my comp days to be at least a day apart from training days. Unfortunately, the only times I could go bouldering outside were the days right after one of those super intense events, so I was already pretty sore and tired having taken no rest at all for days. Even though I wasn't at my best, I managed to complete a pretty cool V5 in two sessions, (it had one and a half hard move and the rest were pretty casual, so doing that move was what gave it the grade) and achieved high points on two of my projects (one super reachy V5 and a V6). I also managed to do all the hard moves including the crux move on a V6+/V7, but had no energy left to put it together (and my fingertips were bleeding). I am pretty amazed that even being extremely tired, I felt so much stronger doing moves that I was struggling with and sending climbs that it would have taken me days to complete if at all. I can't wait to see what I can do if I rest more and train longer

[erick]

Nice work Alexandra! Sounds like you are very invested in Crossfit so I would not suggest stopping that but as you can probably imagine you would likely see great gains in your climbing if you could separate your climbing and crossfit seasons a bit more. There seems to be a lot of conflicting info out there as to if and how crossfit benefits climbing so I look forward to hearing your experiences in the future.

[alexandra]

yes, I do not want to stop crossfit at all! I started doing it way before climbing (and I am much better at it;p). My experience so far has been the following, but this only would apply to more beginner climber who i think benefit a ton from pure strength. I stopped crossfit for about a couple of years when I moved back to San Francisco, and I only surfed and climbed at the climbing gym (surf in the am, climb at night). At the time I could climb gym V4 and some V5 at dogpatch, but I climbed 5 times or more a week consistently. I could probably only climb V4 outside. Then I moved to the midwest and picked crossfit back up, but stopped climbing for a year (and alas, surfing) because there was no climbing gym at the time. This year, my boyfriend opened up a bouldering gym and I found that when I went back to climbing after a year of only crossfit and not climbing at all, I was pretty much exactly at the same level I was when I was climbing every day! So crossfit definitely helps for that baseline strength, once you have some understanding of basic climbing technique. Now I have climbed a few V5, V6 and a V7 outdoors and I feel like crossfit only hurts my climbing cause it tires me out a lot, but my personal choice is to keep up with both.

[MarkAnderson]

Mar 27, 2016 9:25:31 GMT -7 alexandra said:

I can't wait to see what I can do if I rest more and train longer

Me too!

[jonfrisby]

Just finished off my first 12c. Took 6 tries, was a power endurance route, and I'm in the end of my strength phase. Really psyched to see where this season might be heading. The route is called Target Practice at Farley Ledges in Massachusetts. Really awesome big moves up to a hard mantle, followed by a no-hands rest to a technical slab to another basically no-hands, to a few 11- exit moves. 

Also, today was my first day in my new Tenaya Tarifas. They're amazing, great edging and smearing but with a toe rubber patch. Also, despite sizing them really tight, when I came down from routes, there was very little discomfort in my feet. 

[MarkAnderson]

Awesome! Sounds like you have a big season ahead of you. Maybe see you in Rifle (or elsewhere in CO)?

[erick]

Just got back from a week long trip to Smith where I completed a nearly 10 year long dream when I climbed 'Darkness at Noon' and snagged my first 5.13! I was lucky to be able to make a short 2 day trip 3 weeks ago where I put in two "reconnaissance" attempts which helped me feel like the route was doable. Once the real campaign started it took a total of 9 additional attempts but only about 6 were true redpoint attempts. The whole process of redpointing is still very new to me and the mental battle and the anxiety that go along with shooting for such a huge goal was hard to deal with, but it made the send super memorable. Apparently a large portion of the climbers who were still hanging around at that time stopped and started watching me when the heard my ugly crux grunt as I stabbed for "the mail slot." As soon as clipped the chains I heard everyone who had stopped what they were doing to watch start cheering, it could not have been better!

I have two more weeks of 'performance' which I am going to use to fill out my route pyramid a bit better. It has been crazy to see how easy it has been to squeeze so much performance out of myself once I really started trying, and I still feel like I have potential for quite a bit more with my current fitness. I am going to ride this performance cycle till its end then I have some really LONG term goals I think I am going to start planning for. If I was able to take myself from 12a to 13a pretty easily in about 1 years time, then I am really excited to see what I can do in the real long term.

Here are links to videos of the send
Highlights clip for those of us who think watching climbing is like watching paint dry
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd2ZcieUMkA

Lightly edited version for anyone who has 10 minutes to kill,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_vMJ0SmCGg&nohtml5=False

And if anyone has any input from watching the video about my pacing, movement or general tips to climb better, I'm all ears!

Eric

[Chris W]

Awesome Eric! Cool story