Endurance is Annoying

After my redpoint failures in Skaha on Crestfallen, I figured that though I easily possess enough power to do the moves with relative ease, I lack any kind of endurance to link them together. My few burns on it last October were much better than my send burns this past Friday. My finger strength and overall power easily surpasses last years, but I lack the advantage of having climbed roughly a 100 pitches last summer and fall, before working it.
I decided to tweak my training a little bit, and refocus on my goal of climbing an abundance of medium to hard (for me) pitches, until my birthday challenge this July.
I try to train my fingers and pull muscles when I'm at the station and today was no exception. I adjusted my hangboard routine to reflect my lack of endurance. With this interval timer on my iPhone, I'm able to create timers while listening to music, which I believe distracts me from the fact that I'm hanging from pieces of wood in a government building.
For endurance I figured (after warming up) that I would: hang 20 sec/ rest 40 sec. for a total of 25 min. I feel quite gassed for the last 5 reps. I'm using a 3/4" rounded edge, super comfortable and skin friendly.
After resting for 20 minutes, I went straight into my pullup routine. Again using the interval timer, I setup a 20 minute timer to sound every minute, at the beginning of every minute I do 7 pullups. Near the end of the 20 minutes I'm barely able to crank out the 7th pullup, but still finished the workout with the 140 in 20 min.

I understand that pullups are not the greatest training tool for climbing, I wholeheartedly believe that climbing is by far the best training for climbing. But when I'm stuck in a building 24/7, I try and get my swell on any way I can. I don't see how being able to do a crap ton of pullups could be detrimental to my climbing.
Keep pulling, people!
-PatWC

"My Science this is boring!"

OPEN HAND

Bouldering in Vernon...

Lookout Point

Garry (the legend) Brace and I traveled to Vernon yesterday morning to partake in some bouldering in Cougar Canyon. Cougar is mostly known for its sport and trad climbing, usually in the single pitch realm. The boulders at Cougar tend to seep a lot in the spring and fall, and the best season (from what I gather) is early summer and early fall when its not too hot or too wet yet. My friend Allen Rollin has produced a small comprehensive guidebook for the area, it can be found at Just Another Outdoor Page, he also told me that there is to be an updated version released soon.
My first time at Cougar I spotted a line which is described in the guidebook as "Unknown V6" its a very clean arete, with a distinctively obvious start and clear topout. One thing that really grinds my gears is when a climb has a very ambiguous start and finish. I managed to get the send on film with my buddy's Contour. Excuse the editing, I have zero skills in that department nor do I intend on acquiring any.
Cheers,
-PatWC

Preventing Injuries.

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook about her tendon pulley woes and it reminded me that I haven't been injured in a while. I think getting older and having more patience is partly to blame, but I'd also like to think my supplemental antagonistic training has contributed to me staying off the DL. Last year I would periodically get a numb pain in my right bicep when squeezing hard while bouldering in the gym or in Squamish, but I haven't felt that pain in ages. Regardless, the opportunity arose for me to see a physiotherapist in Kamloops, who is also an avid climber. Though I wasn't experiencing any pain, she did notice that my right rotator cuff was significantly weaker than my left. She gave me a couple of exercises and stretches to do, and I added them into my routine. Luckily, when it is slow at the station, I am able to work out instead of just sitting and wasting time on Facebook/Reddit or writing useless blog posts. Every exercise you see here was developed by someone with knowledge of exercise physiology and I take no credit for them.

Scapular setting in order get rid of that "climbers hunch." The band is girth hitched to my shoulder and I'm resisting against it to pull my shoulder back. In addition, I'm getting 2 birds stoned at once by doing an external rotation to help strengthen my rotator cuff.

 These pulldowns are a great shoulder warm up and also help with posture as well. I often bring my exercise band to the crag and use it to warm up before climbing.

When I lose focus and end up overtraining, I would often get elbow pain (medial epicondylitis most likely). When this happens I always remember to rest, and really hit the reverse wrist curls and elbow pronators. We naturally tend to supinate our elbows when climbing, especially if you're doing a lot of pullups in your training.



I use a piece of doweling with two 2.5lb weights on each side, cheaper than buying a small sledgehammer!

PISTOL SQUATS!!!!!
OMG, this has to be the single best (and only) leg exercise that is relevant to climbing....right??? Not sure if its the best, but I do assisted pistol squats, works my open hand strength too ;)
2 sets of 5.

Some of the best advice I was ever given when I began climbing was to hold on to holds as lightly as possible in order to prevent over-gripping. Along with this advice I figured that while warming up, if you have to crimp a hold, then the hold is too small for your warmup and you should pick a route with bigger holds.
Cheers,
-PatWC

Cancer sucks.

On my last day of work this week I had a very lovely 70 year old female who was dying of cancer in the back of the ambulance and a 45 minute drive to the hospital. After making her as comfortable as I could, we began conversing and after a more thorough medical history (and extent of her illness) she told me something that I doubt I'll ever forget.

"I never thought growing old was gonna be like this, I thought that if you did good and took care of yourself and didn't get into an accident that you would just die of old age, fall asleep and never wake up. I never thought there would be this much suffering, this much pain...day in and day out!"

Pretty sad to read, but I felt it necessary to document this to make sure I never forget to take each day one at a time.
-Pat

F1RST!!!

I asked my planting friend Kendra, who runs a blog that specializes in the most ridiculous puns, to help me figure out a name for my blog. She came up with the name as well as the "walls, calls, and glucose withdrawals" statement.
Today I went to donate blood, but was turned away due to my Type 1 Diabetes. According to the RN, it had nothing to do with the fact that I take subcutaneous shots 5-7 times a day, but because they are liable if something were to happen to me after the donation in terms of hypoglycemia. Oh well, I tried and failed miserably. The lesson learned here is: NEVER TRY!