Quick Van Update

Yes. I have a big white van. It's awesome.

When I bought the van, the first thing I did was strip the inside and insulate the whole thing. I used Reflectix (the shiny stuff) and 1in hard foam insulation (the pink stuff). To insulate the doors, I stuffed them with traditional fiberglass insulation.

 The insulation was then covered with wooden paneling and a wood floor. Initially the bed was built along the back of the van along with a bookshelf. After a few trips I decided that I didn't like that layout, so I dismantled the bed/bookshelf and started over. This time I built a small wall behind the driver's seat and built the bed longwise off of that. Making sure to build the bed at such a height to allow for maximize under-bed storage, while still being able to sit up and utilize the bed as a couch.

 I went to the store and bought a ton of plastic bins which I am now attempting to use to organize all of my nonsense. We'll see how that goes. I'll try to keep posting updates on the van construction, but no promises. Blogging is boring.

Something To Do

Yay! There is a hard boulder 20min. from my parents house! It feels so good to have something I can work on near home. The climb was put up a few months ago by Tim Rose who called it "Nicodemus" V12. So far his is the only ascent, not that a bunch of strong dudes are lining up for this 5-mover in the suburbs :) It starts on a right facing crimp rail and makes 3-4 hard tension moves on bad crimps in a 50deg overhang, to an all out dyno from a tenous position into a huge jug. So nice. The rock quality is actually pretty good. Only one hold flexes a bit, though I doubt it will ever rip off (if it did break, the problem would still go, just a bit harder). The boulder itself is really short and not very awe-inspiring, but the quality movement is there.

I made good progress on the first session. I did all the moves but the crux. I was close on the crux move, but it is hard to stick to V12 crimps in the summer...in the woods...in Maryland...on a 75+ degree day. Maybe Chelsea is right and I'm just a rock diva :) Seriously though...it's time to bust out the night tactics! 1-3 crisp evening sessions and I think this thing will go down. It is so nice to be able to try HARD again. I love it.

I'll keep you (whoever "you" are) posted on the progress.

Confession

I was a 14yr old gym rat too.

This was back when the T-Rex was the biggest hold I had ever seen...

More Dave MacLeod Links

I am headed to the New River Gorge for a few days, so I don't have time for a full post. I did want to share these articles before I left though. I have talked to a few of you (team kids) about these articles and I think you will really like them. There is some good stuff here that is worth coming back to every once and a while as a reminder.

I'll be sure to write up a trip report when I get back.

DISTRACTED FROM THE TASK AT HAND
TECHNIQUE LEARNING - NOTICING THINGS
TRAINING THE ABILITY TO TRY
THROUGH THE WHOLE MOVE

Mahogany Everything

I have had some extra time recently, so I have been crafting some new training tools that I will be using over the next few months.

Hangboard:

I have always prefered to do my hangboard workouts on the campus rungs instead of on an actual hangboard. The texture of resin or urethane hangboards wrecks my skin and interferes with the quality of my training. All the fancy features of the commercial hangboards are essentially worthless. Who needs all those pockets? If you want to train 3, 2, or 1 finger, then just use those fingers...Anyway, the rungs are mahogany. I know. Pretty classy. I feel like I should be doing my workouts in a red velvet smoking jacket while smoking a pipe. Alas, velvet is too sweaty, and smoking is bad for the lungs...Seriously though, the mahogany is so comfortable and gets nice and tacky with chalk. I am super biased, but I'm going to go ahead and say that this is the best board I have ever trained on. Word.



Pinch Blocks:

Yup...also mahogany. That is how I roll on these streets (it's hard out on the farm). Three sizes so far: Small=@2.1in; Medium=@2.8in; L=@3.5in. I might make an XSmall (@1.4in), but who knows. I haven't ever trained pinch strength, outside of just climbing on pinches. Mainly because I find pinches on a hangboard to be uncomfortable, and more of a compression workout. I have seen videos of others using wooden blocks like these, so I figure I'll try it out and see how it goes.

System Holds:

I am probably most excited about these (of course they're mahogany). After testing a few different shapes I don't think I ever want to train on plastic again. Okay, that's a little extreme. There are certainly things that plastic can do much better than wood (complex shapes for example), but these wooden holds are pretty rad. Again, the mahogany doesn't wreck the skin and gets nice and tacky with chalk. The decrease in friction also requires you to grip HARD to stay on these things, which I like. Another thing I like...being able to make whatever shapes I want (within the limitations of the wood's structural integrity). I can also make sure that they are perfectly mirrored so I can train both hands equally. I can even make  shapes to mimic certain holds on my projects outside, then slowly sand down the shape so it gets harder and harder to hold. A neat and hopefully effective way to adjust training intensity.


I'll keep you posted as I make new things and assess whether  any of this nonsense actually works.

DAVE

THE VIDEO

Watch this. It is a great video of Dave MacLeod talking about pushing your limits. Plus there is awesome footage of him climbing New Baseline (V14) and Mystic Stylez (V15).





Check out his blog and buy his book "9 out of 10 Climbers", it's amazing. At some point I'll type up a review of the book to better convince you, but for now you'll just have to believe me.

http://www.davemacleod.blogspot.com/

Mini Phase Wrap-up

After a 4 week mini-phase of strength/power training with Andrew, The two of us have noticed some huge differences. Good things and bad things. First of all...so strong! On our first evening back to regular "fun" climbing, both Andrew and I noticed big increases in overall grip strength and upper body power. On the downside, we also noticed a significant DECREASE in overall climbing technique. For myself I really noticed a lack of full body awareness in relation to my core. Especially on moves with a more "3 dimensional" quality. Which makes sense considering I have been training almost exclusively on a single plane system board. Fortunately, as the evening session went on, we both felt our movement skills returning. I am sure that will continue as we break away from the system board for a while.

I am most excited by the fact that I could even start training again. It has been almost a year now since I injured my finger(s) and it feels good to be able to try hard again. I'm still not 100% which is why the training phase was only 4 weeks (as opposed to 6-8weeks). Hopefully as my fingers continue to improve I will be able to train my fingers more specifically.

At some point I will post the workouts Andrew and I did. Stay tuned.