21/02/12 Session and General North/South musings

I've barely climbed in the last week unfortunately, but I've had to rush back North due to my dad being taken into hospital. So climbing had dropped onto the back burner for a while.

I managed to go up to Westview in Preston last night and had a good session managing to climb a few v8/v8+'s. It wasn't really a major session though. I find now that the gradings between north and south are quite different. It seems problems in London are far harder, but not as fluid and nice to climb.

I guess it just depends on the setters and the type of climbing they mainly prefer. At westview it's mainly crimpy problems due to Ian Vickers setting there who is a very strong climber, the current set had a lot of gaston moves in it which I find are lacking in London.

I think that currently in London one of the best walls for bouldering setting would be Craggy Island, with Mark Croxall as their main setter. It seems for me that his style matches my style very well. Plus I've had to learn how to hold wide pinches on steep overhangs! Which I use to be terrible at doing.

14/02/2012 Session

I had a session at Craggy2 today which went really well. I managed to finally work out a move on the font7c+, which involves a simultaneous toe hook and heel hook while throwing up for a sloper on a very steep overhang. Hopefully next session I shall managed to climb the whole thing in one go. So hopefully 3 sessions and it's done!

I also spent a lot of time creating my own problems to try, which involved lots of hard gaston/press moves that are almost at full reach, so it makes you really have to use your shoulders on the problems.

I then finished off the session with the following:

1-3-5-7-9-11 and reverse on all 3 sets of rungs - I managed all of this in under 5 minutes without really getting pumped!

I then did a set of 1-5 and reverse with both hands separately on all 3 sets of rungs, this is the same as mentioned in a previous post. So one hand on and one foot on a small foothold below the campus board. The smallest rungs are trickier to hold as expected and holding the 5th rung is quite tricky.

Nail bed update/ Chalk update

Interestingly after having a 2hour session I had no nail problems today and no pain at all in my fingers. I think this is definitely down to the change in chalk that I have been using. I shall keep track of this over the next few weeks and make notes for each session. It seems all I needed after all was pure old Magnesium Carbonate.

10/02/2012 Session

I headed down to Craggy2 for a session yesterday, I had decided beforehand to tape over the nail injury and see if I could still climb on it. The result... I could! So I climbed quite a few problems up to about v6, it seemed anything harder than v6 I wasn't able to climb due to lack of friction with the tape on my finger.

I decided to then go and have a campus session, and managed to following:

1-3-5-7-9-11 and reverse on all 3 sets of rungs.

I then decided to do doubles up the medium sized rungs and managed 1-9.

I then tried something new, basically I kept 1 foot (Lets say right foot) on a foothold below the campus board and with my (right) hand I would then go up the campus board one hand only up to the fifth rung and reverse it. I did this for both hands/feet on each set of rung sizes. The smallest rungs are quite tricky.

It seems to be quite a good exercise for body tension and contact strength for when you lunge for holds with only one hand.

I think I shall now incorporate this into my training routine and hopefully it will help for those pesky lunging climbing moves...

09/02/2012 Session

So I've taken a couple of days off over the past week due to ripping up my nail again. I went to Westway this evening and my first port of call was the shop, I bought a box of climbing chalk which had no drying agent in it, I then proceeded to give all of the metolius super chalk to my friend Laura, lucky girl! That cost me £6.

So I went for a boulder session and climbed a few problems from v0-v6, but then got bored unfortunately due to there not being enough harder things to try. So I decided to go give the campus board a re-visit. I managed the following:

1-3-5-7-9-11 and reverse on all 3 sets of rungs (1 minute break in between)

1-3-2-4-3-5-4-6-5-7-6-8-7-9-8-10-9-11 on the largest rung.

1-3-5-7-9-11 on largest set of rungs

I then planned to carry on with a longer campus session, but somehow managed to get my toothbrush to catch under the bad finger nail, resulting in the bristles of the brush cutting my nail bed again... NNFN!

Hopefully if it heals OK tonight, I shall go for a bouldering session tomorrow. We shall see how it goes...

Chalk - will it harm you?

I've noticed recently that since I've started using Metolius super chalk that my skin is more dry and I'm more susceptible to having nail bed problems. I posted a query on ukbouldering asking for advice on this, which can be seen here:

http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,19454.0.html

It seems from other peoples replies that the super chalk does cause dry skin problems due to the drying agent that is added to the chalk, which I now think may be a reason to the nail bed lacerations.

The chalk I was using, was this metolius chalk:



I've decided to revert back to the chalk I used to use which is the C.A.M.P. climbing chalk. I've never used to have skin problems with this, so hopefully I'll see how it goes with the new-old chalk and post an update.

Climbing Catch up...

Friday 27th January Session

I headed down to craggy2 in the hope of trying the new problems but unfortunately the main comp room was closed off and the room that was open was half closed due to setting for a climbing comp the next day. I had a short 1hour session and basically tried to throw laps on problems to try and get pumped out.

Saturday 28th January Session

I had a session after work which was meant to be a power endurance session, but with the new boulder problems being up I decided to try them instead. I also climbed with my friend and we decided to make up a lot of problems that were probably in the v7-v9 range. The hardest one involved a large shoulder pressing gaston move, which is yet to be done. I must try this again this weekend. I was suffering from sore finger tips/nail beds again though.

Tuesday 31st January

I was route setting all day on Tuesday, so didn't get much climbing in. Plus we had a power cut at the centre which wasn't great! We were praying the impact batteries would last until the power came back or we'd be down to T-bar setting... I ended up setting 3 traverses, probably graded at 5+, 6a and 7a. I also jumped in and added a v5 problem to the 40' board which was cool, it ended up being a wide powerful pinch/crimp problem. Just my style!

Wednesday 1st February Session

I headed to Craggy2 for the evening with the hope of finally trying all the new problems. Generally the new problems seemed good, although there was a lot of pinch style problems which are not my style, but it will definitely help for improving. I tried the font7c+ which is a problem of all slopey holds and wide moves, it's a very good problem, but will need a lot of work! I can get about half way at the moment after one session. So we shall see. Unfortunately my session ended sooner than I wanted due to my nail bed bleeding again!