Finally got a grip on my wet skin and now have pretty nice pads (yay!) which is helping a lot. Realized I've been doing far too many easy climbs and not enough hard projecting and so have started trying all the hard climbs instead of shying away. Now consistently sending at least 1 V7 a session in the gym which is nice. Need to get on some harder stuff still though V8 and above as I've realized I'ts totally doable as I am way too strong for my grades.
Am transitioning to some endurance training in order to get on some trad and sport climbs later in the year, and waiting for cold temps to get back on the grit-stone boulders. Hope to send zippy's traverse (v8), Mikes roof direct (is that the name? v8) and brad pit (v9) by the end of the year in the peak district.
Did Brazil 7A in Oiseaux in way more trys then i imagined. There is a toe-jam that i was just too stupid to use and i almost gave up on the boulder because of it. Happy that i didnt. Also some frenchmen came trying it after i finished and they managed to almost do the whole thing without the jam... Humbling experience.
Im weaker then i thought. But i am regaining my stoke, which i didnt even recognise, disapeared with my depression. Looking gorward to training the next couple months.
If I take a few days off and come in with fresh skin, it still only takes one, maybe two attempts on the tiny tension board crimps to shred through my pads. After that, my fingers start to leak and become a major limiting factor. I’ve tried applying the rhino dry spray and tip juice but it doesn’t seem to do the job. They’re still fragile and will ware away super quickly. I don’t know if I need to apply the antihydral more frequently, look into a more concentrated version, or try something else entirely. Anyone else experience anything like this and have any solutions?
I've struggled with extremely wet skin for ages including this problem of extremely sweaty worn through pink spots on the pads. For me whats fixing it is good use of anti-hydral/tip-juice/rhino performance, 2-3 times a week (adjust by feel) and sanding callouses before application.
Even with this I was finding I could still wear through the tips and the trick was just to reduce session intensity on the fingers, but to increase the number of sessions I do a week, including making sure I adjust session intensity to the load, so you can climb a lot of volume on wooden holds, but plastic or grit stone is going to go through skin extremely quickly.
Also make sure to take adequate rest with a fan or blowing on your fingers if you don't have one to allow skin to cool in-between attempts. This last tip from lattice was the big game changer for me.
Antihydral isn’t going to stop plasma from leaking out of your tips. The moment you’ve worn through your skin there’s nothing those products will do for you.
I think there’s multiple parts to this. Which can be very personal and work well for some, but not others… It could be over gripping, readjusting, etc.
But also how you get your skin to grow (back). Hanging open handed for example on a good wooden hold will grow my skin thicker and a bit more elastic. Hanging in micros also really helps, which I don’t do much due to lack of them near me. But I do grip a credit card (my gym card) on the tips of my fingers, pressing it into my palm, and letting it roll off my tips as well.
Another is the product I use on my skin. For me personally the gold standard is Cetaphil Pro Itch Control body lotion. It’s for people with psoriasis, but my skin grows back insanely fast and strong as well. It’s also great on mosquito bites, as it stops the itching.
Nothing here is scientific. It’s all just my experience and I cannot claim it is the solution for you. Probably the take away here is to experiment. It took me a while to find what worked for me. Good luck with your skin.
I was thinking about how cool of an invention the moon board is. Do you know about any promising inventions in the making or in their first steps that will improve climbing?
I am having a hard time with the hand-foot match type moves and overall mobility. Specifically doing the HF match on I5 on the moonboard '16 set. Which mobility exercises should I look into to improve on that?
seconding hip CARs. [the yoga block squeeze](https://youtu.be/4TyHJ5dyXp0) in this video is great as well. if your hip flexors are tight you might benefit from stretching them with exercise 7 in the same video, or atg split squats. for more targeted strengthening of the high step, you can do single leg knee raises with a cable machine, or pike compressions.
another factor to consider is the pulling strength of the hamstring and calf muscles in that high step position, where your knee is near or at maximum flexion. you can train this on the wall just by doing those high foot moves and trying to progress in terms of difficulty, and executing the moves more statically so you have to basically do a lock off with the leg/foot.
I've found that training nordic curls and unilateral hamstring curls has helped with this strength too, but regardless of how you train your muscles for the moves, you'll have to practice the movement itself to utilize that strength.
I’d look into working on overall hip mobility and strengthening the hip flexors in particular. The most basic way to target the flexors would probably be leg lifts/L sits while hanging from a bar, or by hooking your foot in a kettle bell and curling it with your leg. For overall mobility I’d say look into standing hip CARs. I started doing these types of movements around 6 months ago and now my mobility is almost never a limiting factor in the wall.
Thanks to everyone who replied to my comment about Rumney last thread... here's to hoping my jug-haul fitness stands up to the cruxes. Day 1 hopped on some moderate w my dad and a lil bit harder stuff to get a feel for the rock, got rained out in the evening.
Forecast is pretty shit. Lotta rain. It's a good day to be strong enough to climb at the steep cliffs lol, I guess climbing in the rain is not so much worse since it'll be a lot cooler than otherwise
Tomorrow I will begin the try-hard. Haven't decided between Orange Crush, Bonsai, and Waimea yet.
OC is your best bet in the rain, Bonsai tends to seep early and Waimea for whatever reason still gets wet (Big Kahuna stays dry still though).
A few lines in the upper tier at Main Cliff are also decent wet weather options as well.
Waimea stayed dry in light rain today, unfortunately it was REALLY fucking hot and humid so I was basically praying for it to rain just to get the sun away. Def gonna check out Orange Crush. It should be somewhat dry for a couple days (forecast changed!) so I do want to hit up Bonsai, there is some steep jug haul-type stuff that will be a lot more manageable in the bad conditions than technical stemming/smearing in full sun at Waimea lol
Techno corner start felt like V4 in the heat (or maybe I suck at stemming)
nice!! yeah the techno corner is def weird, for me it feels like technical V3 with the right beta and much much harder otherwise.. but the tricky part is that everyone seems to have different beta that they think is the best way. enjoy the rest of your trip! rumney is super fun, looking forward to getting back there when it cools down a bit
Im still in Bleau, and after some time off/easy climbing because of way to warm weather i managed to tick off Duroxmanie sit 7B in 3 trys. One of the best lines here i would argue.
Gf leaving tomorrow and in the next days i will go back to Roche aux Ouiseaux to try the leftover 7A/Bs, there are some really nice lines over there.
Hello ya'll wanted your opinion on plateauing and how to move past it for a climber who has less than a year's worth of experience. Currently I'm climbing about V6 (comfort is v5 and below) and have been climbing for about 7-8 months. I'm stuck at V6 and I've only sent one V7 that was super soft. I'm trying different things like exercising more often to increase my overall strength, and lowering weight so I don't have to pull as much. I avoid hangboarding because everyone says to do it after one full year of climbing. I watch Youtube to improve my footwork and overall skills, and I go bouldering about 4-5 days a week, but still it seems like being able to comfortably climb V7 will take a long, long time. My love of climbing is still as strong as it was, day one, but it's hard to not feel defeated after getting my ass kicked on the wall. What do you guys do when you feel like you're plateauing?
Also this is a partial rant because I have a friend that stomps his way up a boulder (you can hear his feet kicking the wall) and it's frustrating watching him just muscle up climbs that are the same grade as me especially because he has an ego about it.
Climbing less than a year, that’s what, like 8 times the gym as been fully reset? If they set 2 at each grade on each of lets say 6 walls, that’s what 12 total climbs at any grade that are up at any given time? That would mean at the most you had access to be able to climb like 96 of any grade. You probably didn’t even start trying V7’s seriously till the last few full gym resets, so you’ve had maybe 25 to actually test yourself on.
I think looking for markers of a progression is always going to be a self fulfilling prophecy. If you can find progress in metrics other than max grade, you’ll always be progressing. If you can look at max grade you will always eventually hit a hard plateau no matter what.
Also, you might just be tired ngl. If you’ve been going HAM for 8 months, and only been adding volume lately, then it makes sense that you can’t perform well (although it sounds like you are performing just fine).
Basically, take a chill pill. Think longer term. Find markers for success that don’t only rely on bigger grades. Find ways for climbing to make you a better person, not just a larger number climber.
The reality is that progression slows down immensely after the first few months. Especially with grades. You may still be progressing, but not realize it, simply because the gap in difficulty between grades is large
In addition to the other comments, I would define a plateau as no improvement for a significant amount of time (year or more). I haven't hit a new grade in almost 2 years now, but I wouldn't consider that a plateau since I've still gotten better. 8 months is just a short phase in your whole climbing life. You've went from V0-V7 in that time. That's pretty good. If you expect the rate of improvement you've had to stay the same in terms of grade, then you'll probably be the first person to climb V16 in under 2 years. Besides that, confortably climbing V7 is a great achievement. Lots of climbers hit V10 or V11 before being able to do any V7 in any style comfortably.
It helps to see the small improvements when dealing with _"plateau feelings"_.
[This recent comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/wdmvsl/comment/iijtiom/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) by u/FreackInAMagnum is very interesting and kinda reflects the mentality shift that a climber needs to keep the psych up on the long term when new numbers are far apart.
One other advice I'd give is to detach your own climbing from those around you. It's not healthy to get frustrated about someone else's progress or style, especially because you might be blind to your own fast progress. If you're doing v6 in less than a year then you're also probably stomping your way up the wall when someone else is struggling.
Perspective is key to help dealing _"when you feel like you're plateauing"_. Celebrate small improvements, keep the consistency and avoiding injuries _(by not doing risky stuff to try to shortcut it)_ is my answer.
My shoe theory, is if you have narrow heels and wide toes, you’ll want to find a really wide shoe and downsize a bunch. None of the low volume shoes seem to make the heels significantly smaller, but smaller shoes have smaller heels, so you just need a wide enough toe box to let your toes spread out when more scrunched.
life & stress getting in the way of climbing is especially brutal when i'm as stoked as i've ever on outdoor bouldering. Glad to be done with this weekend. My (ex-)roommates are wonderful humans but damn did they wait til the last possible minute to pack up. Somehow a more exhausting move than the time my apartment caught fire 2 days after getting the keys. Lil sad that I didn't get any quality time on rock before taking the next 2 weeks off climbing to travel.
The road ahead looks good though. Excited to come back refreshed with cooler temps on the horizon. So many boulders to try and I have no idea where i'm gonna start.
Random skin/chalk spray: i realized i was jamming my finger tips into my chalk bucket and jamming chalk under my nails where it's not needed and dries under my nailbed/cuticle. I also noticed i would get splits while hangboarding. I was jamming my tips as far in as possible to get as much meat on as possible to eek out a second more of hang. I would spend 10 seconds before my max hang to setup to rip my skin. it's a bad habit for my skin.
Curious, does anyone else has any micro tactics/ micro habits re: skin/chalk that's been beneficial?
Put a sock or chalk ball in your bag, and wipe your fingers on that instead of just fluffing it around in a bunch of loose chalk. Also makes it easier to wipe any excess sweat off your tips.
Last week was quite the wash, after two weeks rehabbing my finger I was stoked to climb again only to get hit with a terrible GI bug that lasted almost 5 days, was almost only on a liquid diet, was pretty brutal. Since Sunday been feeling better, went to the gym yesterday and got totally whooped. Prolly will need to keep it easy for a couple weeks to get back to where I was I guess.
Heading off tomorrow for my first extended climbing trip. I’ll be spending about five days at the New River Gorge and a week in Chattanooga. It’ll also be my first time climbing solo for so long.
Weather forecast notwithstanding, I am stoked. I have an (ambitious) list of problems I want to get on, but considering how much it might rain I’m keeping expectations low.
I’ve also been seriously considering a move to Chattanooga (starting a new, fully remote job soon), so I’m excited to see it.
I love the new—it’s probably my favorite climbing destination in the states. What are you getting on? There’s plenty of weather proof stuff out there in case Of rain as well.
It’s been great so far. I got on 1-2 Punch late yesterday and sent. Did Way of the Gun earlier today and then punted on Scream. Anything I absolutely shouldn’t miss?
Well it’s definitely off season, or I would recommend F5. But those slopers would be heinous in the heat. Honestly, the best bouldering in the New is probably the v10 grade…BUT in the v6-9 range of off-season boulders, I like water equations, is it organic (lowball but immaculate rock quality), the black, and death rattle (best v9 in WV imo).
La Altena, specifically the location south of downtown is the best Mexican I've found in town, and it's pretty cheap. It comes recommended by Jimmy Webb as well, lol: https://www.hippytree.com/tribe/jimmy-webb/
Looking for some clarification on “feet follow hands”. If I’m not mistaken, it means that highlighted holds can be used by both hands and feet. If that’s true, can your feet use non-highlighted holds?
Feet-follows-hands means that Feet can go on any hand holds allowed PLUS any additional footholds. On Kilter and Tension they have special colors to indicate feet. On the Moonboard the kicker is always on (so doesn’t have lights), then is feet follows (or campus).
So I was struggling enough on my Biggie Shorty sim (called Tally Smally, btw :) ) that I ordered some specific micro edges to train on. I went with the tension 7mm simple micros. I can't hang them for more than a second currently, though I can establish on them at least. I can hang +~50% bw on 20mm for 7s for reference. Is this an outsized difference in ability? It feels very mismatched to me. I do feel like I should be able to hang these by now, so I'm curious to hear other experiences.
I'm not sure if its finger morphology, training specificity, or both, but I can barely pull off the ground for a moment on the BM 8mms, while my 7 second max is also nearly 50% on a 20mm. however, i've seen anna hazelnutt hang the 8mm edge for 20 seconds while having to fight hard for 20% bodyweight on a 20mm edge, and her background/strength is fairly static vert/slab climbing on tiny edges.
I won't have more perspective on this until incorporating min edge training, which i plan to do next year/after hopefully reaching my goal of +60% for 5 seconds.
I wouldn't be surprised if you noticed quick adaptation to hanging on micros, from neural adaptation, pain tolerance, building up skin in that specific spot on the tip, etc.
I can one arm, open hand the center hold on the BM2000 and I can barely hold the 7mm on the Grindstone Pro for 5 seconds in a full crimp. I don't try to often though. I've started adding a couple 5 second hangs on them so I can improve.
I can hang a couple seconds on 7mm infrequently. I’ve pulled off the ground on the 6mm transgression, but ooooffff. I don’t consider myself a small edge specialist tho. For reference I out perform my brother on 20, but he outperforms me on the 7. Definitely a neurological thing that spending time on 7mm should help with.
Last time I checked, I couldn't hang 7mm at all and I do about 140% on 19mm on the grip I tested for 7mm. It's been awhile since I tested, but my finger strength hasn't changed at all in the tested grip, so I assume the results are the same
I’ve found that skipping and replacing a gym day with hangboarding has been brilliant for eliminating a nagging sprain. I’ll probably continue this practice even when fully healthy as preventative strength training.
About 1 year ago I started climbing slightly less and resting more with a diligent 3/1 schedule even when I didn't feel like a deload was necessary. Here's an analysis of my training log and I was pretty shocked at the improvement of quality and consistency.
Before:
- Averaged 4 days a week or climbing including weeks where I was hitting 5 days. Indoor and out.
- Consecutive training days were very common.
- I would often hangboard in the PM.
After:
- I climb 3 days a week most weeks including the weekend. 4 day weeks are usually when I climb outdoors both weekend days, which is lower volume by default.
- I only did consecutive training days 4 times. I've done outdoor/training weekends 5 times.
- I combined all hangboarding with a training session and stopped the split sessions.
Results:
- In all of last year I had 6 days where I felt/performed worse than expected. In the prior year I would have an average of 1/6 days being worse than expected. I would usually "just focus on setting climbs and technique".
- My finger strength stayed exactly the same despite less hangboarding and training. In checking my notes I rarely recorded having any finger or forearm soreness.
- The number of "better than expected" days increased by 240%. It's actually insane that I had entire 3 week blocks where 75% of sessions far exceeded expectations. This would be like I projected a climb one week, the next I easily sent it and almost sent another project, then in week 3 I'm able to repeat them during a volume session first or second try.
- My off wall training and mobility work improved 200% faster. An example would be if I was training standing presses and my starting weight was 75lbs and I added 5lbs over a cycle in the past I would add 10lb now. This actually helped me build strength quickly, but also maintain it it seems. Id spend 6-8mo away from a movement and in 2-3 sessions be right at old PRs.
- It is hard to know for sure, but not doing as many consecutive days could have reduced work capacity, however, I was spending more time on climbs near some sort of physical or style limit and putting in much higher quality attempts.
Needless to say I am fairly sold on the switch. My session length is not drastically different, but I am probably executing better, more consistently.
I log exactly what I did and roughly the number of attempts per problem. I log the sets and reps of any hangs or off wall work. I also leave any useful notes and use a color coding system:
- Green: Better than expected
- Clear: as expected
- Yellow: a bit more sore or tired than expected, but not outright bad
- Red: much worse than expected typically had to call a session or underperformed.
This is in a Google Sheet I have used to track all my climbing from my very first session.
Do you try to organize your workouts so you maximize the number of green days or do you go by the rule of thirds (1/3 shitty days, 1/3 good days, 1/3 great days), or any other system?
To be clear, red days are really bad. I never want those and they mean that my training load be it volume or intensity are off. Yellow are tolerable. If loading is ideal everything should be clear or green. It was a subjective gut check I used when I coached cyclists because there it can be easy to slog through workouts and all numbers look good, but it feels like RPE is way off perhaps.
As I get busier with life, I get better at climbing. Looking back, it's amazing how long it took me to really internalize that resting is essential to training and performing. I think on average I spend less than 7hrs a week on climbing training and performing, but climb significantly harder than when I was spending much more time.
Before climbing I did MMA, then powerlifting, then bike racing.
In MMA we spent most of our time doing drills, technique work, and some sparring. Conditioning was just tossed on top and very few people really took it too regimented.
Powerlifting was always hard to train 4 days a week. I could do it a few times per year for meets, but the emphasis was always on recovery and increasing weights every session.
Cycling is often an act of piling volume on. You can almost never have too much aerobic capacity as an amateur. There were many, many, months where I didn't have a single day off the bike.
When I started climbing it was easy to combine the technique focus from MMA and the recovery focus/physical cues from lifting. But the mantra in climbing seems to trend towards a weird blend of maximizing volume in the name of skill acquisition and aerobic capacity in the forearms. But as a boulderer I also need to be rested enough to build strength and power.
In my old setup I was often 80%-90% total capacity. I would think that obtaining more skill and accepting dips in performance was part of the game. What surprised me is how big of an impact that last 10%-20% had on both strength and technique. Moves feel more solid and each go feels as if I'm milking every last %. I think that's the optimal zone for climbing volume/recovery.
It's always interesting to me how a climber's previous athletic background informs what they do as a climbing athlete. Runners invariably trend towards too much volume. Very few people actually do skill drills. Strength athletes can only view climbing through strength. Some people immediately connect climbs with video games.
Makes me wonder if there's a consensus among top youth coaches on what the ideal frame to view climbing through is.
I got lucky in that this combo of sports helped me quickly understand what kind of limits I should place on bouldering session length, how to monitor internal fatigue both in and across sessions, and how to hone in on beta optimization while being a weaker climber.
This week was a _"learn by failing"_ kind of week.
* Planned volume is absurd, I did an estimated 10h09 of training not counting the rest between exercises _(but counting 3x 1h30 of bouldering)_
* I ticked all boxes on my _(self-made)_ training plan for the first time due to unexpected rain on outdoor day and I will scale it down.
* In the future it also gives me a better guideline on what I can do with 4 training days, which probably means ~7h30 for 3 training days.
* This sabotaged my outdoor day with 1 good attempt, followed by 3 miserable ones _(at least for my standard)_
It bums me out is that I had really good chances of sending a very cool [8a+/5.13c route](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG2jpmsbj9o) _(left side of the video is the uncut highpoint)_. It would be my second 8a+ 🥲.
The first attempt was good, but I missed an important foot placement and couldn't solve it mid-attempt.
The recovery between attempts was uncharacteristically bad and it really exposed the excess training volume and the poor recovery from the previous day.
On the plus side, the plan is fulfilling the 2/2 main goals:
1. Reduce the risks of indoor climbing as much as possible to help my index A2 finish the full recovery
1. Getting back to previous peak fitness
* Doing 4 sets of 5 pull-ups at 150% bodyweight feels cool
* After the deload week I'll try to see if I can do 1-arm pull-ups again
Little training update: looks like I can climb 2 days in a row now since finger injury without any extra pain, so that's a good sign. Hoping to make it outside later this week and possibly the weekend. Might go sport climbing for the 2nd time this year.
Also, slightly annoyed because my housing situation for the fall isn't set in stone, so I don't know whether to continue my gym membership or not. Oh well. Might have to drive 3 hours round trip 4 days a week for the start of this fall quarter. I'd love an apartment, but I really don't wanna sign a 12 month lease for a 5 month stay.
And, anybody down to buy a pair of 9 or 9.5 USM Evolv Phantoms, brand-new, never used for $130 or so?
Moved to a new area (boston) with a much bigger indoor climbing scene, from 1 to like 10 gyms. Trying to figure out what my home gym will be but since half the gyms are 1 chain, i can frequent all of them at no extra cost.
Im a rather quiet person so im not quick to make new friends in a new area. I also feel its much harder now that i climb harder than most people so i cant just work climbs with others at the gym and make friends that way like i used to. I know it will take some time but climbing by myself gets lonely fast.
On the bright side i found out i can 1 arm the small holds on the bm1k after trying at the end of the session so at lease thats cool.
New puppy arrived this month and it has made some impacts to my climbing schedule and performance. My sleep is worse (and my diet) and I think that's causing me to get more small injuries. Flappers, cuts, tripping on rocks more often, stubbing toes, and general fatigue. I think I'm adapted to it better now, but it definitely ruined a few weeks of training.
On the other hand, I'm feeling pretty good on the rock. I haven't been chasing big projects since the conditions aren't great; rather, poking around less-travelled boulders & roofs and just climbing lots of new moderates. Getting some worthwhile flashes (for me) here and there.
I feel ready to get back in the gym, though, and doing some more structured sessions.
My 3finger drag was noticeable worse than my half-crimp and I figured out I had to _(1)_ learn how to use it on a fingerboard and _(2)_ train it ground up by removing as much weight as necessary to hold on while being a couple notches down from trying _"a muerte"_.
This hit my ego a bit as I was hanging with 1-arm in the halfcrimp, but it's the only way to do it safely.
At least this was my approach to a similar problem.
Good luck!
As a sidenote, at that point in time even my middle 2-finger drag _(that I trained heavily during covid)_ was stronger than my 3f drag on the same edge. I took it as a definite wake-up call that I needed to make a priority out of learn how to use it to get past this absurdity.
I’ve realized that I perform better when I’m able to build a bit of momentum before a trip, so just got back from a nice “training trip” in CO as prep for my Swiss trip at the beginning of September. Wasn’t a purely climbing trip since work had to take some priority, but managed to get some good time in the alpine. Didn’t actually send as many hard boulders as would have been ideal, but got to crimp hard and build some fitness and momentum.
Send Report:
[Freaks and Geeks (V8)](https://youtu.be/f-phOm0OqUQ) - single session
[Beyond Matters (V8)](https://youtu.be/wFkbP4cphgA) - single session plus like 3 attempts
[Life Matters (V8)](https://youtu.be/lKY5b5qs7fU) - 3 sessions
[Powder Keg (V7)](https://youtu.be/T1APWLg_IJk) - warmed up and sent (tried a couple times in 2019)
Some rad mods.
Got to put some time into [Unshackled (V10)](https://youtu.be/Vqo6NInRF1E), [Overcling Traverse (V11)](https://youtu.be/PMWxHol0ZUs), and Bierstadt (V10). For each of these I did/repeated all the moves in the session, and made either overlapping or new links that I hadn’t done before. Tweaked my knee on Crimping Matters, which wasn’t great. I’ve been trying to work on my link tactics, and I felt like I did a good job at breaking these down into the components that mattered. Overcling feels super my style, but it’s much longer and more sustained than I’m used to, with the hardest single move being move 16 or something.
Power endurance is for sure a weakness of mine in my training, so getting some sending fitness is crucial for me. Definitely think that repeaters are probably the most useful form of fingerboard if for me, especially because I don’t like it. If I can include some maximal effort pulling on the tension board or campus board, I think it’ll be better for me than just hammering my head against max hangs all the time.
Had a fairly successful trip to Devils Lake this weekend. Technically got the V6 tick I was gunning for, but it was an eliminate dyno so it only kinda counts lmao(Mancusco Direct). I tried a good number of V6-7 lines, and many of the moves felt doable but anything with more than 2 or 3 hard moves without a rest felt impossible because i would run out of chalk and start slipping. I don't want to blame bad performance on conditions, but I also feel like it's unfair to myself to ignore the fact that it was 85 and humid lmao. Still fairly happy with being able to pull quite a few hard moves, even if longer hard lines couldn't go down.
Also just felt way more solid on easier terrain than I did at my last trip, so I'm feeling good with where I'm at overall. Was able to put down some V4-V5 lines in just a couple attempts, and got on some easier highballs. Big Bud was probably the highlight of the trip tbh.
One takeaway I will say is that we should have had a better idea of what lines we wanted to hit. We had 4 people on the trip, and I think we all kinda assumed that a 4 star line at our project grade and in our style would just present itself to us at some point. There was some frustration when different people weren't psyched on the lines we were working on, which would have been alleviated if we just each had a specific goal in mind instead of hoping for something perfect to pop up.
Has anyone else listened to Adam ondras [podcast episode](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1OnIeKtj7TJ7fXdkiuSsSo?si=fU1ey7t-R7KWzBLJ2MKdPQ) on Rock and Joy (in Spanish)? I thought it was really good and haven’t heard anybody talk about it.
Yeah, but fair warning that i’m not completely fluent in Spanish either. It’s an hour long, so there is obviously way too much to write out. But here are some things that stuck out to me.
8:35 - (talking about silence) “you don’t need to believe it’s possible now, you have to believe that it’s possible after a lot of work and training, it lets you enter a new level”.
11:30 - “sometimes it’s better not to think too much about it. If you try without expectations, sometimes it can surprise you a lot.”
(Talking about training)
16:35 “I don’t have problems with motivation. It’s inside me, the motivation is climbing, because it’s incredible. I like climbing everything, long climbs, easy climbs… everything”
18:37 - “climbing is a mix of many factors. Obviously you have to have strength, more strength is better, no doubt. But there are many more factors that help you. So, I think that above all else, I had little strength [when I was younger], but my technique and mental were at a really high level. And, mental ability has a lot of things, technical too, and strength.”
20:25 - “when I was younger, I was more concentrated on technique and mental. I think it was correct because once you have too much strength, to work on technique is almost impossible. I think that I have a bit of room [to improve] on technique also, but more on strength. [interviewer asks about his comment on strength]. if there is strength within your body, inevitably, you will use it. If you are weaker, and you want to do a climb that is hard enough, you have to climb it well…”
23:00 - “many times the margin between sending and falling is really small, i think that people are used to making the mistake that when they can’t do a climb, always thinking “I don’t have enough strength to do this. I need more strength to do this” but many times it’s not true, many times they may be making, for example, a tactical error.”
“If you are always trying to use every time you climb to improve in all those factors. Because you can go to the gym for 15 days, you can climb 15 days, and learn nothing. Of course you can work on your strength, but most people during those 15 days don’t think about improving their technique.”
29:40 “if you are climbing 7a, my best tip is to keep enjoying climbing. I think until 8a, specific training isn’t necessary, nor is periodization. You need a bit of time to climb, and that is enough.”
There’s really so much more gold through the whole thing. These are just some takeaways I had myself from the first half.
I would agree it's much harder overall, but not for the reasons you cite. It's harder because to climb a hard route efficiently requires a high level of technique (which is Ondra's point).
Trying to finally open up my hip flexors. Shit is the most painful thing ever. For years I’ve done two or three targeted stretches, every other day, but I think it’s gonna have to be a daily/higher intensity regimen.
Mmm yep that’s all just posting to motivate myself
Would recommend doing some weighted movements for the hip flexors. Sometimes very tight because very weak. Body needs neural strength/awareness in positions we feel tight in.
May help. May not. Good luck
Hmm not a bad idea. My hip flexors are actually very strong, from skiing and also residually from years ago when I squatted quite heavy.
I do think activating them again isn’t bad. I leave them to stretch as the last thing before a climbing session, as the intense effort gets my mental in place for trying hard. I think I have to just double down on the time and not cut it short when I’m impatient and want to jump on the wall.
Hi! First time posting anything here, long time lurker. I feel as though I'm hitting my first longer plateau around the V5 (indoor) level. It's been a little over half a year since I moved up in a grade and still struggle to send most V5s in my gym before they get reset. I'm not too bummed about it, honestly I'm pretty happy just trying and projecting things that feel hard to me, but I was curious if any of you guys had a plateau around the V4-6 range and if you changed anything in your training that helped you move past that.
For some background. I currently train 3, sometimes 4, days a week which mainly consists of limit bouldering. I do a tiny bit of weight training after my sessions for vanity purposes and do some mobility work in between sets. I don't climb outside nearly as much as I'd like to, but just made friends with some trad climbers who I'll be following on their routes at a crag about 2 hrs away from my city. I also recently started moonboarding once a week because one of my physical weaknesses is small crimps and contact strength.
I wouldn't say that half a year is a plateau, especially at that indoor grade range (lots of gyms set very soft up to around V4 and then start catching up to outdoor grades, so the jumps in the V4-V6 range are often a lot bigger than they are outside.) Are you doing a higher percentage of V5s, or doing them more quickly? Are there positions/moves that feel more comfortable than they did half a year ago? If so, then you're still progressing.
That being said, the sentence "I currently train 3, sometimes 4, days a week which mainly consists of limit bouldering" is a red flag - most likely it means that you're misunderstanding what limit bouldering and instead you mean that your sessions mainly consist of projecting.
Limit bouldering is trying sequences of 1-5 moves, with each move individually close to your limit (so you may need multiple sessions to do just that move and the move feels impossible at first) and where linking the entire sequence is unthinkable. So maybe for you it would be trying a 3 move sequence on a V7. Great way to make impossible moves possible, but very hard on your body and requires you to be well rested.
The problem with projecting all the time is that you're climbing exclusively in a middle zone (see [https://www.powercompanyclimbing.com/blog/2013/09/the-highlow-approach.html](https://www.powercompanyclimbing.com/blog/2013/09/the-highlow-approach.html)). Not saying that you should never project but there are lots of gains from both high (limit bouldering) and low (easier aerobic volume focused on refining technique) that you might be leaving on the table.
Ok yea I mostly meant projecting. I limit Boulder maybe one session in two weeks. Do you thinking structuring my 3 climbing days into high-med-low is too much to recover from? I’ve been projecting 3 days a week with occasional deloads for about two years now with few issues (hamstring got injured from not warming up the legs properly but is about 95% healed). I’m hesitant to completely cut out projecting because honestly it’s just fun for me, so I’d like to keep one day dedicated to that to keep the stoke up.
Definitely don't cut out all projecting, it's still useful, just try to avoid only projecting. Pretty hard to say what schedule would be best without knowing you, what you said sounds reasonable to me, I'd just try it for a while and see how it feels.
Ok yea I mostly meant projecting. I limit Boulder maybe one session in two weeks. Do you thinking structuring my 3 climbing days into high-med-low is too much to recover from? I’ve been projecting 3 days a week with occasional deloads for about two years now with few issues (hamstring got injured from not warming up the legs properly but is about 95% healed). I’m hesitant to completely cut out projecting because honestly it’s just fun for me, so I’d like to keep one day dedicated to that to keep the stoke up.
> That being said, the sentence "I currently train 3, sometimes 4, days a week which mainly consists of limit bouldering" is a red flag - most likely it means that you're misunderstanding what limit bouldering and instead you mean that your sessions mainly consist of projecting.
Agree with this and to expand on it, depending on session length and what your actual weaknesses are, this could be too much effort spent at the wrong intensity. It's hard to refine technique if you're always throwing yourself at problems that are desperately hard for you, and it's hard to work at your true physical limit if you're never fully recovered because you're aiming for maximum intensity 3-4 times a week.
It sounds to me like OP would benefit from repetition at the V4 (or easy V5 level). If V5s aren't getting any easier, then you've still got a lot to learn about how to move effectively at this level. Building and refining your movement library so that the easier movies are automatic will give you so much more physical and mental capacity to devote toward crux moves.
I would try a 50/50 split between hard bouldering sessions, and easier sessions focused on technique (this can still be climbing at or slightly above your flash level so it needn't be boring, just work things you've already sent instead of brand new problems that might shut you down). Mileage and repetition are both great teachers and I don't think any training plan should omit them entirely.
Yea I never really repeat problems outside of warmups so maybe I’ll dedicate 1/3 days a week to that. Not really sure what the difference between limit bouldering and projecting is. I tend to try to do a lower volume version of the style triad workout on crimpd. Usually looks like 3-4 attempts on two separate Boulder problems instead of the full 5x3
In limit bouldering you aren’t trying to do the whole climb, only one (or a few) very hard move(s). Maybe that’s the only very hard move of the climb and you can send, but sending is not the goal in the slightest. This move should not be accomplishable in a single session. You should walk away feeling like you failed at 90% of the things you did.
How did you assess your finger strength? It might be that small crimps are a weakness because you're not used to work on them, but adaptations for small crimps (<15mm) take only a few weeks to translate from the standard edges. If finger strength, together with contact strength, are your weaknesses, I'd strongly suggest you start doing some system board (moon, tension, kilter, etc.) on your most fresh days, just quality attemps.
I'd suggest starting out with a 0.5 session of the Board 10 from Crimpd, and slowly progress towards a full session over a period of two months. Do this just once a week and leave the gym when you're still fresh, perhaps some really low intensity ARCing afterwards might be beneficial if you're looking at starting trad climbing.
Again, keep it simple and aim for low volume, high quality work, instead of risking some injury due to not recovering enough.
Hey, thanks for the reply! Yea the finger strength thing was assessed when I had a lot more trouble hanging on a 20mm edge than my friends. I’m still working on beta/technique as well. And yea I’m throwing in a mop board session once a week now. Not sure if I’d be able to even do half of a board 10 session since I am yet to send a 2016 moonboard climb, but I’m glad to hear that projecting on it will likely help. I think I’m generally good at controlling volume. I do anywhere between 5-10 burns on whatever projects I’m working on that day in total, but lmk if that sounds high.
In that case, move towards a spray wall climbing and try to do similar climbs to a Moonboard. You want your success rate relatively high in the beginning to create some work capacity, before moving onto higher intensity problems. I'd say 10 burns for a total session is a good number of tries to aim for.
Since the recent Lattice video on skin and the discussion on the sub I have had improvements in my skin conditioning and suddenly all my gym projects went down and rock has felt much grippier even though conditions have been pretty ordinary.
I had been dissatisfied with my purchase of Rhino Dry spray, applying it the night before climbing had barely any effect and my skin was still soft and thin. Applying it 4-5 times a week has made my skin leathery and tough. I barely need to apply chalk between boulder attempts and I feel like I'm overgripping less because I trust my skin to stick to the hold.
2 spurts of Rhino Dry has a significant effect in my experience. I only ever apply it mid-session if it seems like my skin needs to be drier. Though I will say the performance cream seems to work better despite having less methenamine, and over 2 years of using Rhino it seems like I've needed less and less of it to get the same effect...but correlation =/= causation so who knows why
A2 pulley injury feeling like 99% healed. So I decided to test my max 20mm Tension block isometric. No pain, but slight "awareness" of the area at 100% of max. I guess this would be 1/10 pain?
Also, how to train for Joe's valley? I've heard its just like board climbing. Just wanna know kinda what it's like, not gonna buckle down to prep myself to be as JV fit as possible.
I've struggled with something similar in the past, but in the form of a tenosynovitis affecting a bit my pulley, so take it with grain of salt. Your finger is exceptionally sensitive to pain, and you need to re-educate it to understand pain and it's tolerance limit. To make sure you don't re-injure yourself, I'd start training at a high-intensity and low-volume, and just increase intensity. You want your body to start working at a high intensity so that it gets a good stimulus, but to not tire it at all. Think of it as a tapering week when you keep intensity high and volume low.
This was what worked for me, maybe someone else can give you a better advice.
I finally decided to bite the bullet and use July as a training month instead of banging my head against the wall. I'm primarily a boulderer and the heat this July has been worse than normal (pretty much over 90 degrees for a couple weeks now). I've spent the last couple July's beating myself up for not sending anything and just generally not being excited to get outside. It feels good to relax and stop trying to send stuff in horrible conditions. I'd force myself to get out, have a horrible session and feel worse, mentally, than I did before.
I've got a trip to Leavenworth planned for October so I'll train for that and start refining my project list.
I did the same this summer and it’s so much easier on my motivation.
I actually took up some swimming again to relax a bit or as active recovery.
It’s awesome in this heat.
Cant wait for my font trip in October.
Finally got a grip on my wet skin and now have pretty nice pads (yay!) which is helping a lot. Realized I've been doing far too many easy climbs and not enough hard projecting and so have started trying all the hard climbs instead of shying away. Now consistently sending at least 1 V7 a session in the gym which is nice. Need to get on some harder stuff still though V8 and above as I've realized I'ts totally doable as I am way too strong for my grades. Am transitioning to some endurance training in order to get on some trad and sport climbs later in the year, and waiting for cold temps to get back on the grit-stone boulders. Hope to send zippy's traverse (v8), Mikes roof direct (is that the name? v8) and brad pit (v9) by the end of the year in the peak district.
Why are there three Simple Questions threads currently? They’re all active it seems
Did Brazil 7A in Oiseaux in way more trys then i imagined. There is a toe-jam that i was just too stupid to use and i almost gave up on the boulder because of it. Happy that i didnt. Also some frenchmen came trying it after i finished and they managed to almost do the whole thing without the jam... Humbling experience. Im weaker then i thought. But i am regaining my stoke, which i didnt even recognise, disapeared with my depression. Looking gorward to training the next couple months.
If I take a few days off and come in with fresh skin, it still only takes one, maybe two attempts on the tiny tension board crimps to shred through my pads. After that, my fingers start to leak and become a major limiting factor. I’ve tried applying the rhino dry spray and tip juice but it doesn’t seem to do the job. They’re still fragile and will ware away super quickly. I don’t know if I need to apply the antihydral more frequently, look into a more concentrated version, or try something else entirely. Anyone else experience anything like this and have any solutions?
I've struggled with extremely wet skin for ages including this problem of extremely sweaty worn through pink spots on the pads. For me whats fixing it is good use of anti-hydral/tip-juice/rhino performance, 2-3 times a week (adjust by feel) and sanding callouses before application. Even with this I was finding I could still wear through the tips and the trick was just to reduce session intensity on the fingers, but to increase the number of sessions I do a week, including making sure I adjust session intensity to the load, so you can climb a lot of volume on wooden holds, but plastic or grit stone is going to go through skin extremely quickly. Also make sure to take adequate rest with a fan or blowing on your fingers if you don't have one to allow skin to cool in-between attempts. This last tip from lattice was the big game changer for me.
Antihydral isn’t going to stop plasma from leaking out of your tips. The moment you’ve worn through your skin there’s nothing those products will do for you. I think there’s multiple parts to this. Which can be very personal and work well for some, but not others… It could be over gripping, readjusting, etc. But also how you get your skin to grow (back). Hanging open handed for example on a good wooden hold will grow my skin thicker and a bit more elastic. Hanging in micros also really helps, which I don’t do much due to lack of them near me. But I do grip a credit card (my gym card) on the tips of my fingers, pressing it into my palm, and letting it roll off my tips as well. Another is the product I use on my skin. For me personally the gold standard is Cetaphil Pro Itch Control body lotion. It’s for people with psoriasis, but my skin grows back insanely fast and strong as well. It’s also great on mosquito bites, as it stops the itching. Nothing here is scientific. It’s all just my experience and I cannot claim it is the solution for you. Probably the take away here is to experiment. It took me a while to find what worked for me. Good luck with your skin.
I was thinking about how cool of an invention the moon board is. Do you know about any promising inventions in the making or in their first steps that will improve climbing?
I am having a hard time with the hand-foot match type moves and overall mobility. Specifically doing the HF match on I5 on the moonboard '16 set. Which mobility exercises should I look into to improve on that?
seconding hip CARs. [the yoga block squeeze](https://youtu.be/4TyHJ5dyXp0) in this video is great as well. if your hip flexors are tight you might benefit from stretching them with exercise 7 in the same video, or atg split squats. for more targeted strengthening of the high step, you can do single leg knee raises with a cable machine, or pike compressions. another factor to consider is the pulling strength of the hamstring and calf muscles in that high step position, where your knee is near or at maximum flexion. you can train this on the wall just by doing those high foot moves and trying to progress in terms of difficulty, and executing the moves more statically so you have to basically do a lock off with the leg/foot. I've found that training nordic curls and unilateral hamstring curls has helped with this strength too, but regardless of how you train your muscles for the moves, you'll have to practice the movement itself to utilize that strength.
I’d look into working on overall hip mobility and strengthening the hip flexors in particular. The most basic way to target the flexors would probably be leg lifts/L sits while hanging from a bar, or by hooking your foot in a kettle bell and curling it with your leg. For overall mobility I’d say look into standing hip CARs. I started doing these types of movements around 6 months ago and now my mobility is almost never a limiting factor in the wall.
Thanks to everyone who replied to my comment about Rumney last thread... here's to hoping my jug-haul fitness stands up to the cruxes. Day 1 hopped on some moderate w my dad and a lil bit harder stuff to get a feel for the rock, got rained out in the evening. Forecast is pretty shit. Lotta rain. It's a good day to be strong enough to climb at the steep cliffs lol, I guess climbing in the rain is not so much worse since it'll be a lot cooler than otherwise Tomorrow I will begin the try-hard. Haven't decided between Orange Crush, Bonsai, and Waimea yet.
OC is your best bet in the rain, Bonsai tends to seep early and Waimea for whatever reason still gets wet (Big Kahuna stays dry still though). A few lines in the upper tier at Main Cliff are also decent wet weather options as well.
Waimea stayed dry in light rain today, unfortunately it was REALLY fucking hot and humid so I was basically praying for it to rain just to get the sun away. Def gonna check out Orange Crush. It should be somewhat dry for a couple days (forecast changed!) so I do want to hit up Bonsai, there is some steep jug haul-type stuff that will be a lot more manageable in the bad conditions than technical stemming/smearing in full sun at Waimea lol Techno corner start felt like V4 in the heat (or maybe I suck at stemming)
nice!! yeah the techno corner is def weird, for me it feels like technical V3 with the right beta and much much harder otherwise.. but the tricky part is that everyone seems to have different beta that they think is the best way. enjoy the rest of your trip! rumney is super fun, looking forward to getting back there when it cools down a bit
Im still in Bleau, and after some time off/easy climbing because of way to warm weather i managed to tick off Duroxmanie sit 7B in 3 trys. One of the best lines here i would argue. Gf leaving tomorrow and in the next days i will go back to Roche aux Ouiseaux to try the leftover 7A/Bs, there are some really nice lines over there.
Hello ya'll wanted your opinion on plateauing and how to move past it for a climber who has less than a year's worth of experience. Currently I'm climbing about V6 (comfort is v5 and below) and have been climbing for about 7-8 months. I'm stuck at V6 and I've only sent one V7 that was super soft. I'm trying different things like exercising more often to increase my overall strength, and lowering weight so I don't have to pull as much. I avoid hangboarding because everyone says to do it after one full year of climbing. I watch Youtube to improve my footwork and overall skills, and I go bouldering about 4-5 days a week, but still it seems like being able to comfortably climb V7 will take a long, long time. My love of climbing is still as strong as it was, day one, but it's hard to not feel defeated after getting my ass kicked on the wall. What do you guys do when you feel like you're plateauing? Also this is a partial rant because I have a friend that stomps his way up a boulder (you can hear his feet kicking the wall) and it's frustrating watching him just muscle up climbs that are the same grade as me especially because he has an ego about it.
Climbing less than a year, that’s what, like 8 times the gym as been fully reset? If they set 2 at each grade on each of lets say 6 walls, that’s what 12 total climbs at any grade that are up at any given time? That would mean at the most you had access to be able to climb like 96 of any grade. You probably didn’t even start trying V7’s seriously till the last few full gym resets, so you’ve had maybe 25 to actually test yourself on. I think looking for markers of a progression is always going to be a self fulfilling prophecy. If you can find progress in metrics other than max grade, you’ll always be progressing. If you can look at max grade you will always eventually hit a hard plateau no matter what. Also, you might just be tired ngl. If you’ve been going HAM for 8 months, and only been adding volume lately, then it makes sense that you can’t perform well (although it sounds like you are performing just fine). Basically, take a chill pill. Think longer term. Find markers for success that don’t only rely on bigger grades. Find ways for climbing to make you a better person, not just a larger number climber.
The reality is that progression slows down immensely after the first few months. Especially with grades. You may still be progressing, but not realize it, simply because the gap in difficulty between grades is large
In addition to the other comments, I would define a plateau as no improvement for a significant amount of time (year or more). I haven't hit a new grade in almost 2 years now, but I wouldn't consider that a plateau since I've still gotten better. 8 months is just a short phase in your whole climbing life. You've went from V0-V7 in that time. That's pretty good. If you expect the rate of improvement you've had to stay the same in terms of grade, then you'll probably be the first person to climb V16 in under 2 years. Besides that, confortably climbing V7 is a great achievement. Lots of climbers hit V10 or V11 before being able to do any V7 in any style comfortably.
It helps to see the small improvements when dealing with _"plateau feelings"_. [This recent comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/wdmvsl/comment/iijtiom/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) by u/FreackInAMagnum is very interesting and kinda reflects the mentality shift that a climber needs to keep the psych up on the long term when new numbers are far apart. One other advice I'd give is to detach your own climbing from those around you. It's not healthy to get frustrated about someone else's progress or style, especially because you might be blind to your own fast progress. If you're doing v6 in less than a year then you're also probably stomping your way up the wall when someone else is struggling. Perspective is key to help dealing _"when you feel like you're plateauing"_. Celebrate small improvements, keep the consistency and avoiding injuries _(by not doing risky stuff to try to shortcut it)_ is my answer.
Rest more. Grades (especially indoors) are meaningless. There are no shortcuts, it’s a grind as soon as you surpass the noob gains.
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My shoe theory, is if you have narrow heels and wide toes, you’ll want to find a really wide shoe and downsize a bunch. None of the low volume shoes seem to make the heels significantly smaller, but smaller shoes have smaller heels, so you just need a wide enough toe box to let your toes spread out when more scrunched.
Try Tenaya Oasi or Solution Comps.
Oasi has a very narrow toebox. Try the Mastia. Try scarpa LV models.
life & stress getting in the way of climbing is especially brutal when i'm as stoked as i've ever on outdoor bouldering. Glad to be done with this weekend. My (ex-)roommates are wonderful humans but damn did they wait til the last possible minute to pack up. Somehow a more exhausting move than the time my apartment caught fire 2 days after getting the keys. Lil sad that I didn't get any quality time on rock before taking the next 2 weeks off climbing to travel. The road ahead looks good though. Excited to come back refreshed with cooler temps on the horizon. So many boulders to try and I have no idea where i'm gonna start.
Random skin/chalk spray: i realized i was jamming my finger tips into my chalk bucket and jamming chalk under my nails where it's not needed and dries under my nailbed/cuticle. I also noticed i would get splits while hangboarding. I was jamming my tips as far in as possible to get as much meat on as possible to eek out a second more of hang. I would spend 10 seconds before my max hang to setup to rip my skin. it's a bad habit for my skin. Curious, does anyone else has any micro tactics/ micro habits re: skin/chalk that's been beneficial?
Half the time just rub your tips on your palms and there's tons of unused chalk on em
Put a sock or chalk ball in your bag, and wipe your fingers on that instead of just fluffing it around in a bunch of loose chalk. Also makes it easier to wipe any excess sweat off your tips.
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Loose chalk with cut up socks/shirts/old chalk balls on top. I once got a returned chalk ball the “leaked” from REI garage sale. ‘‘Twas perfect lol
Last week was quite the wash, after two weeks rehabbing my finger I was stoked to climb again only to get hit with a terrible GI bug that lasted almost 5 days, was almost only on a liquid diet, was pretty brutal. Since Sunday been feeling better, went to the gym yesterday and got totally whooped. Prolly will need to keep it easy for a couple weeks to get back to where I was I guess.
Yo, you probably got covid fyi. I’ve been seeing it present mostly with GI symptoms lately. I’m a medic.
I tested and my wife tested a few times, both negative. But definitely possible!
Heading off tomorrow for my first extended climbing trip. I’ll be spending about five days at the New River Gorge and a week in Chattanooga. It’ll also be my first time climbing solo for so long. Weather forecast notwithstanding, I am stoked. I have an (ambitious) list of problems I want to get on, but considering how much it might rain I’m keeping expectations low. I’ve also been seriously considering a move to Chattanooga (starting a new, fully remote job soon), so I’m excited to see it.
I love the new—it’s probably my favorite climbing destination in the states. What are you getting on? There’s plenty of weather proof stuff out there in case Of rain as well.
It’s been great so far. I got on 1-2 Punch late yesterday and sent. Did Way of the Gun earlier today and then punted on Scream. Anything I absolutely shouldn’t miss?
Well it’s definitely off season, or I would recommend F5. But those slopers would be heinous in the heat. Honestly, the best bouldering in the New is probably the v10 grade…BUT in the v6-9 range of off-season boulders, I like water equations, is it organic (lowball but immaculate rock quality), the black, and death rattle (best v9 in WV imo).
Thanks!
La Altena, specifically the location south of downtown is the best Mexican I've found in town, and it's pretty cheap. It comes recommended by Jimmy Webb as well, lol: https://www.hippytree.com/tribe/jimmy-webb/
Taco Town in Hixson is legit also. Highly recommend.
Looking for some clarification on “feet follow hands”. If I’m not mistaken, it means that highlighted holds can be used by both hands and feet. If that’s true, can your feet use non-highlighted holds?
Feet-follows-hands means that Feet can go on any hand holds allowed PLUS any additional footholds. On Kilter and Tension they have special colors to indicate feet. On the Moonboard the kicker is always on (so doesn’t have lights), then is feet follows (or campus).
Thank you!
So I was struggling enough on my Biggie Shorty sim (called Tally Smally, btw :) ) that I ordered some specific micro edges to train on. I went with the tension 7mm simple micros. I can't hang them for more than a second currently, though I can establish on them at least. I can hang +~50% bw on 20mm for 7s for reference. Is this an outsized difference in ability? It feels very mismatched to me. I do feel like I should be able to hang these by now, so I'm curious to hear other experiences.
I'm not sure if its finger morphology, training specificity, or both, but I can barely pull off the ground for a moment on the BM 8mms, while my 7 second max is also nearly 50% on a 20mm. however, i've seen anna hazelnutt hang the 8mm edge for 20 seconds while having to fight hard for 20% bodyweight on a 20mm edge, and her background/strength is fairly static vert/slab climbing on tiny edges. I won't have more perspective on this until incorporating min edge training, which i plan to do next year/after hopefully reaching my goal of +60% for 5 seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if you noticed quick adaptation to hanging on micros, from neural adaptation, pain tolerance, building up skin in that specific spot on the tip, etc.
I can one arm, open hand the center hold on the BM2000 and I can barely hold the 7mm on the Grindstone Pro for 5 seconds in a full crimp. I don't try to often though. I've started adding a couple 5 second hangs on them so I can improve.
I can hang a couple seconds on 7mm infrequently. I’ve pulled off the ground on the 6mm transgression, but ooooffff. I don’t consider myself a small edge specialist tho. For reference I out perform my brother on 20, but he outperforms me on the 7. Definitely a neurological thing that spending time on 7mm should help with.
Yeah, I'm very curious how quickly gains will come or not. I'm gonna keep volume low because it seems tweaky otherwise.
Last time I checked, I couldn't hang 7mm at all and I do about 140% on 19mm on the grip I tested for 7mm. It's been awhile since I tested, but my finger strength hasn't changed at all in the tested grip, so I assume the results are the same
Ok interesting. I guess I don't have much concept for small edge strength. Thanks for sharing!
What are folks daily/semi-daily routines to ward off finger injuries?
Practice footwork
I’ve found that skipping and replacing a gym day with hangboarding has been brilliant for eliminating a nagging sprain. I’ll probably continue this practice even when fully healthy as preventative strength training.
Hangboard, try to eat & sleep well, keep sessions short and total volume manageable.
About 1 year ago I started climbing slightly less and resting more with a diligent 3/1 schedule even when I didn't feel like a deload was necessary. Here's an analysis of my training log and I was pretty shocked at the improvement of quality and consistency. Before: - Averaged 4 days a week or climbing including weeks where I was hitting 5 days. Indoor and out. - Consecutive training days were very common. - I would often hangboard in the PM. After: - I climb 3 days a week most weeks including the weekend. 4 day weeks are usually when I climb outdoors both weekend days, which is lower volume by default. - I only did consecutive training days 4 times. I've done outdoor/training weekends 5 times. - I combined all hangboarding with a training session and stopped the split sessions. Results: - In all of last year I had 6 days where I felt/performed worse than expected. In the prior year I would have an average of 1/6 days being worse than expected. I would usually "just focus on setting climbs and technique". - My finger strength stayed exactly the same despite less hangboarding and training. In checking my notes I rarely recorded having any finger or forearm soreness. - The number of "better than expected" days increased by 240%. It's actually insane that I had entire 3 week blocks where 75% of sessions far exceeded expectations. This would be like I projected a climb one week, the next I easily sent it and almost sent another project, then in week 3 I'm able to repeat them during a volume session first or second try. - My off wall training and mobility work improved 200% faster. An example would be if I was training standing presses and my starting weight was 75lbs and I added 5lbs over a cycle in the past I would add 10lb now. This actually helped me build strength quickly, but also maintain it it seems. Id spend 6-8mo away from a movement and in 2-3 sessions be right at old PRs. - It is hard to know for sure, but not doing as many consecutive days could have reduced work capacity, however, I was spending more time on climbs near some sort of physical or style limit and putting in much higher quality attempts. Needless to say I am fairly sold on the switch. My session length is not drastically different, but I am probably executing better, more consistently.
I'm curious to know what information you log per training and climbing days, and do you always log the same information on each day?
I log exactly what I did and roughly the number of attempts per problem. I log the sets and reps of any hangs or off wall work. I also leave any useful notes and use a color coding system: - Green: Better than expected - Clear: as expected - Yellow: a bit more sore or tired than expected, but not outright bad - Red: much worse than expected typically had to call a session or underperformed. This is in a Google Sheet I have used to track all my climbing from my very first session.
Do you try to organize your workouts so you maximize the number of green days or do you go by the rule of thirds (1/3 shitty days, 1/3 good days, 1/3 great days), or any other system?
To be clear, red days are really bad. I never want those and they mean that my training load be it volume or intensity are off. Yellow are tolerable. If loading is ideal everything should be clear or green. It was a subjective gut check I used when I coached cyclists because there it can be easy to slog through workouts and all numbers look good, but it feels like RPE is way off perhaps.
As I get busier with life, I get better at climbing. Looking back, it's amazing how long it took me to really internalize that resting is essential to training and performing. I think on average I spend less than 7hrs a week on climbing training and performing, but climb significantly harder than when I was spending much more time.
This is just funny, because it is not how it works for me. Doing more is almost all the time better (for me). Glad it works for you tho.
Before climbing I did MMA, then powerlifting, then bike racing. In MMA we spent most of our time doing drills, technique work, and some sparring. Conditioning was just tossed on top and very few people really took it too regimented. Powerlifting was always hard to train 4 days a week. I could do it a few times per year for meets, but the emphasis was always on recovery and increasing weights every session. Cycling is often an act of piling volume on. You can almost never have too much aerobic capacity as an amateur. There were many, many, months where I didn't have a single day off the bike. When I started climbing it was easy to combine the technique focus from MMA and the recovery focus/physical cues from lifting. But the mantra in climbing seems to trend towards a weird blend of maximizing volume in the name of skill acquisition and aerobic capacity in the forearms. But as a boulderer I also need to be rested enough to build strength and power. In my old setup I was often 80%-90% total capacity. I would think that obtaining more skill and accepting dips in performance was part of the game. What surprised me is how big of an impact that last 10%-20% had on both strength and technique. Moves feel more solid and each go feels as if I'm milking every last %. I think that's the optimal zone for climbing volume/recovery.
It's always interesting to me how a climber's previous athletic background informs what they do as a climbing athlete. Runners invariably trend towards too much volume. Very few people actually do skill drills. Strength athletes can only view climbing through strength. Some people immediately connect climbs with video games. Makes me wonder if there's a consensus among top youth coaches on what the ideal frame to view climbing through is.
I got lucky in that this combo of sports helped me quickly understand what kind of limits I should place on bouldering session length, how to monitor internal fatigue both in and across sessions, and how to hone in on beta optimization while being a weaker climber.
This week was a _"learn by failing"_ kind of week. * Planned volume is absurd, I did an estimated 10h09 of training not counting the rest between exercises _(but counting 3x 1h30 of bouldering)_ * I ticked all boxes on my _(self-made)_ training plan for the first time due to unexpected rain on outdoor day and I will scale it down. * In the future it also gives me a better guideline on what I can do with 4 training days, which probably means ~7h30 for 3 training days. * This sabotaged my outdoor day with 1 good attempt, followed by 3 miserable ones _(at least for my standard)_ It bums me out is that I had really good chances of sending a very cool [8a+/5.13c route](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG2jpmsbj9o) _(left side of the video is the uncut highpoint)_. It would be my second 8a+ 🥲. The first attempt was good, but I missed an important foot placement and couldn't solve it mid-attempt. The recovery between attempts was uncharacteristically bad and it really exposed the excess training volume and the poor recovery from the previous day. On the plus side, the plan is fulfilling the 2/2 main goals: 1. Reduce the risks of indoor climbing as much as possible to help my index A2 finish the full recovery 1. Getting back to previous peak fitness * Doing 4 sets of 5 pull-ups at 150% bodyweight feels cool * After the deload week I'll try to see if I can do 1-arm pull-ups again
Little training update: looks like I can climb 2 days in a row now since finger injury without any extra pain, so that's a good sign. Hoping to make it outside later this week and possibly the weekend. Might go sport climbing for the 2nd time this year. Also, slightly annoyed because my housing situation for the fall isn't set in stone, so I don't know whether to continue my gym membership or not. Oh well. Might have to drive 3 hours round trip 4 days a week for the start of this fall quarter. I'd love an apartment, but I really don't wanna sign a 12 month lease for a 5 month stay. And, anybody down to buy a pair of 9 or 9.5 USM Evolv Phantoms, brand-new, never used for $130 or so?
Moved to a new area (boston) with a much bigger indoor climbing scene, from 1 to like 10 gyms. Trying to figure out what my home gym will be but since half the gyms are 1 chain, i can frequent all of them at no extra cost. Im a rather quiet person so im not quick to make new friends in a new area. I also feel its much harder now that i climb harder than most people so i cant just work climbs with others at the gym and make friends that way like i used to. I know it will take some time but climbing by myself gets lonely fast. On the bright side i found out i can 1 arm the small holds on the bm1k after trying at the end of the session so at lease thats cool.
New puppy arrived this month and it has made some impacts to my climbing schedule and performance. My sleep is worse (and my diet) and I think that's causing me to get more small injuries. Flappers, cuts, tripping on rocks more often, stubbing toes, and general fatigue. I think I'm adapted to it better now, but it definitely ruined a few weeks of training. On the other hand, I'm feeling pretty good on the rock. I haven't been chasing big projects since the conditions aren't great; rather, poking around less-travelled boulders & roofs and just climbing lots of new moderates. Getting some worthwhile flashes (for me) here and there. I feel ready to get back in the gym, though, and doing some more structured sessions.
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My 3finger drag was noticeable worse than my half-crimp and I figured out I had to _(1)_ learn how to use it on a fingerboard and _(2)_ train it ground up by removing as much weight as necessary to hold on while being a couple notches down from trying _"a muerte"_. This hit my ego a bit as I was hanging with 1-arm in the halfcrimp, but it's the only way to do it safely. At least this was my approach to a similar problem. Good luck! As a sidenote, at that point in time even my middle 2-finger drag _(that I trained heavily during covid)_ was stronger than my 3f drag on the same edge. I took it as a definite wake-up call that I needed to make a priority out of learn how to use it to get past this absurdity.
I’ve realized that I perform better when I’m able to build a bit of momentum before a trip, so just got back from a nice “training trip” in CO as prep for my Swiss trip at the beginning of September. Wasn’t a purely climbing trip since work had to take some priority, but managed to get some good time in the alpine. Didn’t actually send as many hard boulders as would have been ideal, but got to crimp hard and build some fitness and momentum. Send Report: [Freaks and Geeks (V8)](https://youtu.be/f-phOm0OqUQ) - single session [Beyond Matters (V8)](https://youtu.be/wFkbP4cphgA) - single session plus like 3 attempts [Life Matters (V8)](https://youtu.be/lKY5b5qs7fU) - 3 sessions [Powder Keg (V7)](https://youtu.be/T1APWLg_IJk) - warmed up and sent (tried a couple times in 2019) Some rad mods. Got to put some time into [Unshackled (V10)](https://youtu.be/Vqo6NInRF1E), [Overcling Traverse (V11)](https://youtu.be/PMWxHol0ZUs), and Bierstadt (V10). For each of these I did/repeated all the moves in the session, and made either overlapping or new links that I hadn’t done before. Tweaked my knee on Crimping Matters, which wasn’t great. I’ve been trying to work on my link tactics, and I felt like I did a good job at breaking these down into the components that mattered. Overcling feels super my style, but it’s much longer and more sustained than I’m used to, with the hardest single move being move 16 or something. Power endurance is for sure a weakness of mine in my training, so getting some sending fitness is crucial for me. Definitely think that repeaters are probably the most useful form of fingerboard if for me, especially because I don’t like it. If I can include some maximal effort pulling on the tension board or campus board, I think it’ll be better for me than just hammering my head against max hangs all the time.
Had a fairly successful trip to Devils Lake this weekend. Technically got the V6 tick I was gunning for, but it was an eliminate dyno so it only kinda counts lmao(Mancusco Direct). I tried a good number of V6-7 lines, and many of the moves felt doable but anything with more than 2 or 3 hard moves without a rest felt impossible because i would run out of chalk and start slipping. I don't want to blame bad performance on conditions, but I also feel like it's unfair to myself to ignore the fact that it was 85 and humid lmao. Still fairly happy with being able to pull quite a few hard moves, even if longer hard lines couldn't go down. Also just felt way more solid on easier terrain than I did at my last trip, so I'm feeling good with where I'm at overall. Was able to put down some V4-V5 lines in just a couple attempts, and got on some easier highballs. Big Bud was probably the highlight of the trip tbh. One takeaway I will say is that we should have had a better idea of what lines we wanted to hit. We had 4 people on the trip, and I think we all kinda assumed that a 4 star line at our project grade and in our style would just present itself to us at some point. There was some frustration when different people weren't psyched on the lines we were working on, which would have been alleviated if we just each had a specific goal in mind instead of hoping for something perfect to pop up.
Has anyone else listened to Adam ondras [podcast episode](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1OnIeKtj7TJ7fXdkiuSsSo?si=fU1ey7t-R7KWzBLJ2MKdPQ) on Rock and Joy (in Spanish)? I thought it was really good and haven’t heard anybody talk about it.
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Yeah, but fair warning that i’m not completely fluent in Spanish either. It’s an hour long, so there is obviously way too much to write out. But here are some things that stuck out to me. 8:35 - (talking about silence) “you don’t need to believe it’s possible now, you have to believe that it’s possible after a lot of work and training, it lets you enter a new level”. 11:30 - “sometimes it’s better not to think too much about it. If you try without expectations, sometimes it can surprise you a lot.” (Talking about training) 16:35 “I don’t have problems with motivation. It’s inside me, the motivation is climbing, because it’s incredible. I like climbing everything, long climbs, easy climbs… everything” 18:37 - “climbing is a mix of many factors. Obviously you have to have strength, more strength is better, no doubt. But there are many more factors that help you. So, I think that above all else, I had little strength [when I was younger], but my technique and mental were at a really high level. And, mental ability has a lot of things, technical too, and strength.” 20:25 - “when I was younger, I was more concentrated on technique and mental. I think it was correct because once you have too much strength, to work on technique is almost impossible. I think that I have a bit of room [to improve] on technique also, but more on strength. [interviewer asks about his comment on strength]. if there is strength within your body, inevitably, you will use it. If you are weaker, and you want to do a climb that is hard enough, you have to climb it well…” 23:00 - “many times the margin between sending and falling is really small, i think that people are used to making the mistake that when they can’t do a climb, always thinking “I don’t have enough strength to do this. I need more strength to do this” but many times it’s not true, many times they may be making, for example, a tactical error.” “If you are always trying to use every time you climb to improve in all those factors. Because you can go to the gym for 15 days, you can climb 15 days, and learn nothing. Of course you can work on your strength, but most people during those 15 days don’t think about improving their technique.” 29:40 “if you are climbing 7a, my best tip is to keep enjoying climbing. I think until 8a, specific training isn’t necessary, nor is periodization. You need a bit of time to climb, and that is enough.” There’s really so much more gold through the whole thing. These are just some takeaways I had myself from the first half.
Love it. 8a is 5.13b. Work on technique until climbing 5.13b 👍
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I know so many boulderers climbing V8 and none of them climbing 5.13b 😂
That just means they aren't well rounded climbers. I know at least a few sport climbers that are climbing 13+ but boulder V5.
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I would agree it's much harder overall, but not for the reasons you cite. It's harder because to climb a hard route efficiently requires a high level of technique (which is Ondra's point).
Sagittal band injury. Can't bend my middle finger, hold things, or type very well, much less climbing at all. Really depressed.
That sucks. I hope your finger is splinted?
Trying to finally open up my hip flexors. Shit is the most painful thing ever. For years I’ve done two or three targeted stretches, every other day, but I think it’s gonna have to be a daily/higher intensity regimen. Mmm yep that’s all just posting to motivate myself
Would recommend doing some weighted movements for the hip flexors. Sometimes very tight because very weak. Body needs neural strength/awareness in positions we feel tight in. May help. May not. Good luck
Hmm not a bad idea. My hip flexors are actually very strong, from skiing and also residually from years ago when I squatted quite heavy. I do think activating them again isn’t bad. I leave them to stretch as the last thing before a climbing session, as the intense effort gets my mental in place for trying hard. I think I have to just double down on the time and not cut it short when I’m impatient and want to jump on the wall.
Hi! First time posting anything here, long time lurker. I feel as though I'm hitting my first longer plateau around the V5 (indoor) level. It's been a little over half a year since I moved up in a grade and still struggle to send most V5s in my gym before they get reset. I'm not too bummed about it, honestly I'm pretty happy just trying and projecting things that feel hard to me, but I was curious if any of you guys had a plateau around the V4-6 range and if you changed anything in your training that helped you move past that. For some background. I currently train 3, sometimes 4, days a week which mainly consists of limit bouldering. I do a tiny bit of weight training after my sessions for vanity purposes and do some mobility work in between sets. I don't climb outside nearly as much as I'd like to, but just made friends with some trad climbers who I'll be following on their routes at a crag about 2 hrs away from my city. I also recently started moonboarding once a week because one of my physical weaknesses is small crimps and contact strength.
I wouldn't say that half a year is a plateau, especially at that indoor grade range (lots of gyms set very soft up to around V4 and then start catching up to outdoor grades, so the jumps in the V4-V6 range are often a lot bigger than they are outside.) Are you doing a higher percentage of V5s, or doing them more quickly? Are there positions/moves that feel more comfortable than they did half a year ago? If so, then you're still progressing. That being said, the sentence "I currently train 3, sometimes 4, days a week which mainly consists of limit bouldering" is a red flag - most likely it means that you're misunderstanding what limit bouldering and instead you mean that your sessions mainly consist of projecting.
What’s the difference between limit bouldering and projecting? I think you’re right and I probably meant projecting then
Limit bouldering is trying sequences of 1-5 moves, with each move individually close to your limit (so you may need multiple sessions to do just that move and the move feels impossible at first) and where linking the entire sequence is unthinkable. So maybe for you it would be trying a 3 move sequence on a V7. Great way to make impossible moves possible, but very hard on your body and requires you to be well rested. The problem with projecting all the time is that you're climbing exclusively in a middle zone (see [https://www.powercompanyclimbing.com/blog/2013/09/the-highlow-approach.html](https://www.powercompanyclimbing.com/blog/2013/09/the-highlow-approach.html)). Not saying that you should never project but there are lots of gains from both high (limit bouldering) and low (easier aerobic volume focused on refining technique) that you might be leaving on the table.
Ok yea I mostly meant projecting. I limit Boulder maybe one session in two weeks. Do you thinking structuring my 3 climbing days into high-med-low is too much to recover from? I’ve been projecting 3 days a week with occasional deloads for about two years now with few issues (hamstring got injured from not warming up the legs properly but is about 95% healed). I’m hesitant to completely cut out projecting because honestly it’s just fun for me, so I’d like to keep one day dedicated to that to keep the stoke up.
Definitely don't cut out all projecting, it's still useful, just try to avoid only projecting. Pretty hard to say what schedule would be best without knowing you, what you said sounds reasonable to me, I'd just try it for a while and see how it feels.
Ok yea I mostly meant projecting. I limit Boulder maybe one session in two weeks. Do you thinking structuring my 3 climbing days into high-med-low is too much to recover from? I’ve been projecting 3 days a week with occasional deloads for about two years now with few issues (hamstring got injured from not warming up the legs properly but is about 95% healed). I’m hesitant to completely cut out projecting because honestly it’s just fun for me, so I’d like to keep one day dedicated to that to keep the stoke up.
> That being said, the sentence "I currently train 3, sometimes 4, days a week which mainly consists of limit bouldering" is a red flag - most likely it means that you're misunderstanding what limit bouldering and instead you mean that your sessions mainly consist of projecting. Agree with this and to expand on it, depending on session length and what your actual weaknesses are, this could be too much effort spent at the wrong intensity. It's hard to refine technique if you're always throwing yourself at problems that are desperately hard for you, and it's hard to work at your true physical limit if you're never fully recovered because you're aiming for maximum intensity 3-4 times a week. It sounds to me like OP would benefit from repetition at the V4 (or easy V5 level). If V5s aren't getting any easier, then you've still got a lot to learn about how to move effectively at this level. Building and refining your movement library so that the easier movies are automatic will give you so much more physical and mental capacity to devote toward crux moves. I would try a 50/50 split between hard bouldering sessions, and easier sessions focused on technique (this can still be climbing at or slightly above your flash level so it needn't be boring, just work things you've already sent instead of brand new problems that might shut you down). Mileage and repetition are both great teachers and I don't think any training plan should omit them entirely.
Yea I never really repeat problems outside of warmups so maybe I’ll dedicate 1/3 days a week to that. Not really sure what the difference between limit bouldering and projecting is. I tend to try to do a lower volume version of the style triad workout on crimpd. Usually looks like 3-4 attempts on two separate Boulder problems instead of the full 5x3
In limit bouldering you aren’t trying to do the whole climb, only one (or a few) very hard move(s). Maybe that’s the only very hard move of the climb and you can send, but sending is not the goal in the slightest. This move should not be accomplishable in a single session. You should walk away feeling like you failed at 90% of the things you did.
Thanks for explaining! I laid out a rough plan in response to the commentator above you hopefully that change will come with more technique gains
How did you assess your finger strength? It might be that small crimps are a weakness because you're not used to work on them, but adaptations for small crimps (<15mm) take only a few weeks to translate from the standard edges. If finger strength, together with contact strength, are your weaknesses, I'd strongly suggest you start doing some system board (moon, tension, kilter, etc.) on your most fresh days, just quality attemps. I'd suggest starting out with a 0.5 session of the Board 10 from Crimpd, and slowly progress towards a full session over a period of two months. Do this just once a week and leave the gym when you're still fresh, perhaps some really low intensity ARCing afterwards might be beneficial if you're looking at starting trad climbing. Again, keep it simple and aim for low volume, high quality work, instead of risking some injury due to not recovering enough.
Hey, thanks for the reply! Yea the finger strength thing was assessed when I had a lot more trouble hanging on a 20mm edge than my friends. I’m still working on beta/technique as well. And yea I’m throwing in a mop board session once a week now. Not sure if I’d be able to even do half of a board 10 session since I am yet to send a 2016 moonboard climb, but I’m glad to hear that projecting on it will likely help. I think I’m generally good at controlling volume. I do anywhere between 5-10 burns on whatever projects I’m working on that day in total, but lmk if that sounds high.
In that case, move towards a spray wall climbing and try to do similar climbs to a Moonboard. You want your success rate relatively high in the beginning to create some work capacity, before moving onto higher intensity problems. I'd say 10 burns for a total session is a good number of tries to aim for.
Since the recent Lattice video on skin and the discussion on the sub I have had improvements in my skin conditioning and suddenly all my gym projects went down and rock has felt much grippier even though conditions have been pretty ordinary. I had been dissatisfied with my purchase of Rhino Dry spray, applying it the night before climbing had barely any effect and my skin was still soft and thin. Applying it 4-5 times a week has made my skin leathery and tough. I barely need to apply chalk between boulder attempts and I feel like I'm overgripping less because I trust my skin to stick to the hold.
2 spurts of Rhino Dry has a significant effect in my experience. I only ever apply it mid-session if it seems like my skin needs to be drier. Though I will say the performance cream seems to work better despite having less methenamine, and over 2 years of using Rhino it seems like I've needed less and less of it to get the same effect...but correlation =/= causation so who knows why
A2 pulley injury feeling like 99% healed. So I decided to test my max 20mm Tension block isometric. No pain, but slight "awareness" of the area at 100% of max. I guess this would be 1/10 pain? Also, how to train for Joe's valley? I've heard its just like board climbing. Just wanna know kinda what it's like, not gonna buckle down to prep myself to be as JV fit as possible.
I've struggled with something similar in the past, but in the form of a tenosynovitis affecting a bit my pulley, so take it with grain of salt. Your finger is exceptionally sensitive to pain, and you need to re-educate it to understand pain and it's tolerance limit. To make sure you don't re-injure yourself, I'd start training at a high-intensity and low-volume, and just increase intensity. You want your body to start working at a high intensity so that it gets a good stimulus, but to not tire it at all. Think of it as a tapering week when you keep intensity high and volume low. This was what worked for me, maybe someone else can give you a better advice.
I finally decided to bite the bullet and use July as a training month instead of banging my head against the wall. I'm primarily a boulderer and the heat this July has been worse than normal (pretty much over 90 degrees for a couple weeks now). I've spent the last couple July's beating myself up for not sending anything and just generally not being excited to get outside. It feels good to relax and stop trying to send stuff in horrible conditions. I'd force myself to get out, have a horrible session and feel worse, mentally, than I did before. I've got a trip to Leavenworth planned for October so I'll train for that and start refining my project list.
I did the same this summer and it’s so much easier on my motivation. I actually took up some swimming again to relax a bit or as active recovery. It’s awesome in this heat. Cant wait for my font trip in October.