Wow, the start of the new year perfectly coincides with the beginning day of my training journal? Guess that’s good enough excuse enough to jot things down online.
This year, I’ve decided to keep record keeping in a actual gridded notebook, and make my notes as I do the exercise, which makes a world of difference when doing a half a dozen things say, at the gym, and want to keep track of progress on all those things. Even using it for these few days, it’s been amazingly helpful, if not for recall.
Sadly, it makes posts like this one pretty boring, since the added minutiae may not be all that entertaining. But, I’m generally working on a few things:
Aerobic Conditioning
I have no concrete goals, so I’m just hoping for consistency of my aerobic training – doing a workout 6 days a week of at least one hour each workout would be ideal. I’m not looking to kill myself. My aerobic conditioning is probably my most mature of all my fitness by a wide margin. Right now, I’d just like to feel fit, and get a sense of balance and health. Consistency is key – I usually gravitate towards death marches of 9 hours+, but they’re not really really worthwhile for training purposes, as I usually take a few days off afterwards to recover.
Climbing
Far below my aeerobic fitness is my climbing fitness – I couldn’t be any more different in how I train the two. Instead of every day (with one reset day) for aerobic work, I shoot for every other day. I focus almost exclusively on bouldering (power). When it comes time to project a route, it only takes a few weeks to build up enough endurance to make this reasonable. I’m not against training via sport climbing, but I do find bouldering to be the most efficient use of my time. Generally, I find myself pretty heavy for a climber – my legs are pretty developed from mashing those bike pedals and power hiking up those hills, and my upper body just isn’t in comparison. I shy away from any sort of upper body development I don’t need – I’m one step away from being allergic to weights – getting muscle on this frame usually isn’t a problem. Too much back meat does make for a slow Justin.
I’ve been working through an injury in my right ring finger which doesn’t have an exact time/reason it started to affect my climbing, but boy does it. Symptoms are also much stranger than I’ve experienced before: very tender in the pad right after my knuckle – perhaps this is an A2 pulley problem… who knows.
My general way to treat this problem is a little bit of rest, a lot of taping (“x method” being my favorite) and taking a big step back in the grades I climb. Last summer before my trip, I was topping V7’s and V3 were more a warmup. Not being able to do any V3 I want in the gym is a little bit of a pride-swallower. Pulling hard really angers that pad though – more so than crimping. Jugs are also very hard to hold, as they also put pressure on this A2 pulley area. Ugh!
Ankle PT
Man, where to start? Right now, my ankles are some of the worst spots of my lack of mobility. A few years ago, I fell strangely on my left ankle while bouldering, causing an audible (if only to me), “pop”, and some definite problems with my left ankle ankle-ing. I’ve since worked through that, getting marginal mobility back, but pain still remains. Could be just an old-man pain from whatever scar tissue is still in there causing discomfort and slight inflammation. I wish it would go away, and hoping more mobility will at least help on that front.
My right ankle succumbed an intense sprain and/or break (in the foot itself) in September, as I finished my last peak (Longs Peak) of my 105 peak trip. I hobbled down the mountain that day, and got back to the bike, where the injury really didn’t affect me. The next day, I could barely walk. Walking the next few weeks was pretty painful, and running was absolutely out of the question.
I’ve slowly been regaining mobility and use of my ankle, but it’s still touch and go. I’ve started to ramp up my ankle PT I was practicing because of my left ankle for my right ankle. It’s a long, slow, painful process. Each day, I measure the dorsiflextion I can make – just by seeing how many inches away from a wall I can put my foot, and still touch my knee to the wall, when I bend it.
My target is 5 1/2″. I actually do two measurements: one before I workout, and one afterwards, usually after I do all the PT. That way, I can see if there’s a immediate benefit to all the stretching/tearing/terrible things I do to the ankle.
To me, it seems that the ankle PT has to be done almost daily, or the work I do just gets quickly reset.
Yoga
I’ve started doing yoga quite a bit, as a way to work on my total body mobility, which I have painfully (if literally painfully), very little of. I’m quite terrible at it, but it’s fun to start something fully from the beginning again.
Antagonist Training
To be somewhat balanced with all the climbing I do, I sneak in a little antagonist training. I’ve a torn shoulder, so I don’t too any benchpress, but I’m also at the point where pushups are challenging.
Monday, 1/1/18
Off! Happy New Year!
Tuesday, 1/2/18
Before work:
2 hours indoor bouldering @Movement: All the 0’s, 1’s, 2’s 3’s set, except one V3 set on the 45 degree wall. Just too tired, I guess. Happy with the consistency. Last week, I was able to do all V3’s set in a session, so an honest goal will now be to do all the V4’s set. If I can do all the V5’s set in a session by the end of May, I’d be quite stoked.
After work: Vinyasa Yoga, 45 minutes
Core Work: front/reverse/side planks, 1×60 seconds each
1 hour spin @ 136 bpm
Reverse Wrist Curls – 1 x 25 @8lbs; 2×25 @ 10lbs
I’m experiencing some sort of elbow tendinopathy, so I do these to try to fix that. Takes just a few minutes, seems to help.
Hatha Yoga, 1 hour. Another yoga class for the day. This class is specifically about mobility, using yoga poses more to get to that goal.
Ankle PT
- Right Dorsiflextion before: 1.75″; after 2.25″ – .5″ improvement
- Left Dorsiflextion before: 3.5″; after 3.75″ – .5″ improvement
As you can see, my left ankle is in much better shape than my right, but my right used to be my, “good” ankle, before I injured it. Being at 1.75″ is a pretty abysmal place to be, when I want to be at 5.5″ – 3.25″ to go!
I’m not going to describe completely what each part of my PT is, but instead just use my own shorthand – it would be an entire post to describe what the hell I’m doing, honestly. Maybe in another post specific to it.
Balance Board, front/back, side/side, 50 count. Blind – meaning, I closed my eyes to make this more difficult, as I’m receiving no feedback from my immediate surroundings.
Calf Barbell Smashes – 3 passes. Basically rolling a barbel over your lower foot, while on your knees. This is fucking painful
Ankle bandwork push + pull, two minutes each side, each way.
Wednesday, 1/3/18
Off – I may have overdone it, the day before!
Thursday, 1/4/18
Bouldering @ Movement, 2 hours
Finger felt surprisingly good. Not much structure in today’s sess., as I just played around with the reset on one of the walls. Nabbed a ton of V4’s, and one V6, which is a huge improvement from the past few months. Perhaps a turning point for the finger?
1 hour spin @ 136 bpm av.
Ankle PT
- Balance Board, front/back, side/side, 50 count. Blind.
- Lacross Ball Massage on the bottom of the foot, one minute each foot
- Calf Barbell Smashes – 3 passes.
- Ankle bandwork push + pull, two minutes each side, each way.
- PT Walks (4 types)
- Wall Downward Facing Dogs, 4 x 30 seconds
- Right Dorsiflextion before: 2.25″; after 2.75″ – .5″ improvement
- Left Dorsiflextion before: 3.75″; after 4.25″ – .5″ improvement
Reverse Wrist Curls – 3 x 25 @ 10lbs
Core Work
- front/reverse/side planks 1×60 seconds each
- supermans 1×60 seconds
- hollow body hold 1 x 50 seconds
General lower body stretching
Friday, 1/5/18
Run to gym ~ 2.7 miles
1 hour spin
Ankle PT
- Balance Board, front/back, side/side, 50 count. Blind.
- Ankle bandwork push + pull, two minutes each side, each way.
- Right Dorsiflextion before: 2.25″; after 2″ – .25″ setback
- Left Dorsiflextion before: 3.75″; after 3.75″ – same
Run home
Saturday, 1/6/18
Bouldering @ Movement, 2 hours
Another not very structured day on the new reset. More V4’s, and a few V5’s topped, working on one V4 in particular that’s giving me trouble, most especially because of my lack of ankle mobility – or just my height – whatever. Really struggle with the opening move, that didn’t seem to give anyone else a problem, but finally found a sequence that worked for me. The top it seemed, still shut me down, but I felt good making progress. Finger tender – may have slightly overdone it. Feel stronger than before, so that’s good.
Frenchies 1 set. Yeouch! Finger too tender to be hanging isometrically for so long, switched to pullups
Pullups 5 x 5
Reverse Wrist Curls – 3 x 25 @ 10lbs
Ankle PT
- Balance Board, front/back, side/side, 50 count. Blind.
- Lacross Ball Massage on the bottom of the foot, one minute each foot
- Calf Barbell Smashes – 3 passes.
- Ankle bandwork push + pull, two minutes each side, each way.
- PT Walks (4 types)
- PT ankle ledge work (2 types)
- Wall Downward Facing Dogs, 4 x 30 seconds
- Right Dorsiflextion before: 2.25″; after 3″ – .75″ improvement
- Left Dorsiflextion before: 4.25″; after 4.25″ – same
Core Work
- front/reverse/side planks 1×60 seconds each
- supermans 1×60 seconds
- hollow body hold 1 x 60 seconds
Spin, 1hr @ 134bpm av.
General lower body stretching
Wall Handstands! 10, 30, 25, 30, and 30 seconds
Pushups, 10 x 5
Sunday, 1/7/17
Run, ~1 hr
Pretty cranky right ankle by the time I hit the actual trail – ugh! I’m hoping it’s just growing pains from the ankle’s new-found mobility. Having started the week measuring 1.75″ on my test, by Saturday, this was measuring, 3″! The crankiness def. affected my performance, and this run was well within a comfortable pace, all things considered.
