Sunday 5 August 2012

More progress on my project


Conditions have been dry enough for another 2 sessions on my Steall project albeit in the heat and more than a few midges. Objectively, they were pretty good and still showing progress. Diminishing progress, but still progress and as good as I could expect. On the first session overlapping halves more consistently than before, and then overlapping halves for my warm-up once. I ought to be happy with the progress but it’s hard not to balance this against restlessness that such good links and feeling strong on the moves doesn’t translate to getting any higher from the ground yet. 
All of this renews my respect for the route. On some attempts I did notice a ‘head problem’ creeping in that I was feeling the inevitability of how I was likely to get on in the attempt. That usually means it’s time to take another tack. I’m 95% there. I can see I don’t have much to do, but not much more to give either. My endurance training has worked well and I’m not really feeling pumped when I fall, just ‘powered out’. It seems maybe my strength to weight ratio is just not quite there. 
So I’m stepping up the attack on both sides of the ratio with a beefed up fingerboarding routine, using a 10kg weight belt to up the intensity and decrease volume on my circuits and a very organised diet which isn’t something I do often. I tend to ‘train heavy’ most of the time since my somatotype is heavy, and only get slim when It’s totally clear it will be worth it. The main reason is that it’s logistically difficult to balance a routine of hard climbing and training without running into various problems of underfuelled training, injuries, illness etc. But in the short term it works really well.
Fingers crossed for the route be dry enough to get a try or two next week. I definitely feel that working on it and feeling strong in bad conditions might still set me up to be in a really great position if we get some cold and windy weather sometime.

5 comments:

  1. If you dont mind me asking, how tall are you and how heavy is heavy. Also how light do you go when you go light? I dont know what sort of weight would be optimal for me so this might give me some idea.

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  2. I don't really know the answer to the question, I just monitor my weight by 'feel' ...so to speak. I have some references such as I know what my body looks and feels like at 8, 9 and 10% body fat since I've had proper skinfold measurements at those weights in the past. I'd guess I was around 7% fat when I did Echo Wall but if I don't try super hard to stay thin I settle over 10%.

    comparing your body weight to someone else doesn't give any useful information really.

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  3. Thanks, I was more interested in how much of a change there is in your training and performance weight since as you say comparing my weight to your weight is pretty meaningless.

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  4. Well most of the time the difference is probably 1 or 1.5kg with a maximum of 3kg. I don't ever let myself get fat (in the athletic sense of the term) so dropping 3kgs from my normal training weight is difficult and extremely difficult to sustain for any length of time. I've only gone as far as that when at the last move of a long term project.

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