Training

I came across quite an interesting topic the other day, whether stretching before a workout (climbing in our case) is actually worth it. I became interested when I read the line "In the last few years, several studies have found static stretching before playing a sport makes you slower and weaker." This seemed to go against the usual idea of stretching sufficiently before a climbing session, static stretching in particular. Stretching was always one of those admin things you "should" do before a workout, but never actually feel like it or get around to doing. As it turns out we're actually doing ourselves a favour by forgetting to stretch. When we stretch, our muscles try to react against over-stretching and contract and become tighter, this in turn results in the muscles becoming weaker and incapable of moving as fast or as freely. Its like we are destabilising our muscles and putting them at greater risk of being pulled. So all this goes against the conventional wisdom of stretching beforehand, but it doesn't diminish the value of stretching in general, as it can be very effective when done on it's own. Yoga makes perfect use of this, and the benefits are widespread. On the other hand, active stretching, which is basically movement incorporating stretches, are still meant to be beneficial before a workout, but I'm not sure who actually stretches like that. Apparently this research on stretching has been around for quite some time, its just that people have never really taken too much interest, and so the usual ideas around stretching remain. All of this doesn't mean that we don't need to warm up before a session at the wall or outdoors, as blood flow to all our muscles and joints is very important for maximising performance as well as minimising injury, with the fingers being vitally important.


Pre-Work Out Stretching by Maria Cheng

Me stretching out on "Spoon" (7C) at Ezemvelo. Photo by Calvin Kemp.

On another note, I've been trying to boost my power in my bouldering, its something that I've wanted to do in order to give me that boost on those harder problems. Sometimes my slightly shorter reach makes moves that much more difficult, but hard dyno problems also feel out of reach. I've managed to get the technique right for dynos, by staying close to the rock, and trying to engage the arms and legs fully, I just lack the raw power to go far enough. So the best option to get there at this point in time is hyper-gravity training, which is basically just training with a weight belt. This isn't a very good idea if you have any finger or muscle tweaks, and is best done when you're feeling in good shape, and now after a season of boulder league I think all the components are in good enough shape to handle the extra weight. I have been training at the UCT wall with a weight belt here and there, trying to repeat boulder league problems with the added weight of 4kgs, which certainly makes everything harder. The belt doesn't sit at your centre of gravity, and so on more dynamic moves you can get thrown off quite a bit. The article I'm talking about here mentions three ways to boost strength through hyper-gravity training, and the one I'm most interested in are the basic weighted pull ups. All it takes is adding sufficient weight to your weight belt so that you can't do over 20 pull ups, and then doing three sets to failure, with your third set probably failing at around 10. If you can't do 20 pull ups its probably best to start doing them without weight, and building up until you can do over 20. So all this sounds like so much fun, and I'd rather go to the wall or even outdoors for a night bouldering session, but end of the day it can be a very quick session at home on a pull up bar that can get you strong quickly. When you lack that time during the week, and have to try fit in everything you want to do after work, it can really help.

Developing Uber Strength by Eric J. Hörst

Luke Gregor hitting the dyno on one the the Boulder League problems at the UCT Wall. 

Photo by Calvin Kemp

National Bouldering League

The upcoming weekend (24/25th April) is the Finals for the National Bouldering League that we've been going to every week. This year was a cool season, the league is great for getting in shape and getting strong. This year we had Benj join us in Cape Town for the Western Province League. It was really rad having another strong climber to climb with, and it added that much more competition. So on our final round of boulder league we had some pretty cool problems, I decided to spend most of my time working no. 14, a low balancy sloper sidepull chuck to a thin incut jug. The move seemed pretty hard at first, but after working out how to place my fingers exactly, I managed to get the distance, but then it took a good few tries to get the accuracy and actually stick the move. Then once the move stuck, I managed to stuff up the next move by catching a two finger pocket with my ring and middle finger tips, and in doing so pulling one of my tendons. Its a light injury, and is already feeling better, but with finals next weekend I hope it'll let me climb hard without holding me back. The injury is a flexor unit strain, which pretty much means that the force I loaded on my tip transferred down my finger tendon and into my palm, which is where the tendon has strained. It can vary from anywhere in the palm and even into the forearm, and the most common finger which gets injured in this way is the ring finger, primarily due to its length relative to the middle finger, as in many open hand positions the middle finger remains comfortable, while the ring finger is maxed out. So this is a reminder for me to train my deadhangs and improve that open hand tendon strength, but it won't be as important in the coming months as I'll be climbing on plastic less, and more on rock.

I got my new Mad Rock shoes the other day, a pair of Conflicts. They are quite aggressive, with a nice down-turned toe but a softer midsole. The shoes also seem to have a good fit, but they seem to have an unusual twist in them that puts my big toe right at the middle of the front of the shoe. Hopefully this is what was intended, but either way I think it'll work. So far I've only had the chance to try them on plastic, but I'll be using them at Nationals so I need to make sure I break them in sufficiently during this week. All in all a pretty rad shoe.

So to avoid using the finger this week, I'm gonna have to focus on doing some training at home, which pretty much means some weighted power-pullups, one arm negatives, pushups and leg lifts. That normally sorts me out pretty good. The hard ones at the moment are the one arm negatives, it entails doing a pullup with opposing hand grips, and then locking off on the arm facing inwards, and lowering yourself down on one arm as slowly as possible. The first try is normally pretty solid and slow, but after that it deteriorates rapidly, and one needs to make sure that you're properly warmed up, cause it's pretty easy to injure a shoulder doing this.

After Nationals hopefully the focus will return to rock, and Marijus and I were talking about spending most of our weekends during May in Rocklands, which will be rad, and a great time to tick off some projects hopefully. In terms of local projects there are a few things I need to tick off soon, but never seem to be getting around to them. Benj sent "Captain Graffitti" (8A) the other day, which reminded me of that project. Shorter people have slightly harder beta on that problem, which involves hitting a two finger slot when you're almost horizontal, and then eventually crossing over to the finishing jugs.

Working "Captain Graffitti" (8A)

Other than that project, I need to get back on "Exam Stress" (8A) at the classroom, and then "Storefront Cemetery" (8A) at redhill. Hopefully some recap sessions will sort those out, and some lower temps. On another note abour redhill, Marijus mentioned getting closer to figuring out the sit-start to "Pandemonium" (7C), which will probably go at around 8A, bringing the line back to its original grade. It such and awesome line, and would have been harder if we didn't find an extra crimp that makes the topout that much more doable. 

Working the slopey topout on "Pandemonium" (7C)

So I'm looking forward the leaving for Joburg on Thursday, spending about a week up there for the NBL final and the Lead comp, and hopefully we'll be able to get out to Ezemvelo for some good sessions too.

Botswana Bloc

During July of 2009, a group of us UCT climbers went to Pretoria for the SASSU climbing comp at The Barn. After the comp was over we had planned a little excursion into Botswana to check out some clusters of boulders we’d heard about and seen pictures of. So off we went in my mom’s green kombi, pretty unsure of what to expect. The trip turned out really well, and we managed to find some rad bouldering on large blobs of featured granite. We put together a short clip of the trip, so here it is…

Back in Rocklands...

We arrived in Rocklands on Thursday night and set up camp at De Pakhuys. First stop in the morning was dihedral boulders, as Benj was keen to have a session on "Ray of Light" (8B), a super hard problem, but he's already done all of the moves, it's just a matter of linking them all, although it's going to be a mammoth task. Duncan jumped back on "Jaws" (7C) and managed to complete the final move quite easily, and just has to link it from the beginning. I chilled for most of the time, but ended up deciding to head to the fortress with Marijus so I could finish off "Cedar Spine" (7C) and try out "Desperado" (8A) and Marijus was planning to get on "The Vice" (8B).

"Cedar Spine" (7C) Photo by Calvin Kemp.

When we got to the parking we were chased away as we didn't have our Wildcards with us, and so we opted for Campground, and set off working "Rasta Roof" (8A). It's not the most aesthetic line, but it has some cool moves. Marijus and I worked the crux moves for a while, and although we made some progress and found beta that seemed to work, we seemed to lack that extra notch of strength, and so we were done on that. We headed to "Tea with Elmarie" (8A+) so I could give it a go, and to my surprise I managed to get through the first moves on my first go, and it actually felt quite good, but my next two tries only deteriorated. So back to camp for a good supper and checking out some of the footage we had taken of the day's climbing. Matt managed to send "Black Velvet" (8A) quite convincingly, his first 8A, and a pretty awesome one at that. So on Saturday we decided to head to Campground, and the first problem we headed to was "The Woody" (7B). It ended up being just my style, nice and crimpy.



Then after heading back to the car for some lunch and a slackline we headed up to "Tea with Elmarie" (8A+), but this time I planned on just doing the left variation, called "Teatime" (7C). It runs through the same crimpy leftward moving crux on the boulder, only to go left and then up instead of finishing directly up the face as for "Tea with Elmarie" (8A+).



After sending that quite easily and feeling really good on the crimps, I felt re-psyched to get back on it for the direct finish. I had a few goes which got me close to getting into the sidepull/crimp on the face, but not close enough. My fingers were feeling great on the crimps, without a tweak anywhere, which is such a nice relief after having dealt with so many finger tweaks over the past few years, its great to see them improving and getting stronger.

Setting up to hit the sidepull in the face on "Tea with Elmarie" (8A+). Photo by Duncan Fraser.

So hopefully "Tea with Elmarie" (8A+) with be possible quite soon, with some fresh tips and strong crimps. Benj did the stand start called "Teatime Direct" (7B+), which is the problem I need to do after the crimpy crux, and it's still no walk in the park, with a painful left crimp to pull yourself to the top.

Beaverlac

A few months ago myself, Luke and Megs went on a camping trip to Beaverlac, just off Picketberg (on the way to Rocklands). I never really had the intention of going bouldering, but thought I'll take my pad incase, plus it makes a sweet couch for chilling around the campfire. So we went to Beaverlac and I kept my eyes peeled for any amazing bouldering, but as usual nothing caught my attention. On the second day we decided to take a short hike up to some pools, and the one we ended up at was quite secluded, but had a rather large boulder. After a quick inspection I noticed some definite lines going up either side of the boulder, and despite the rock being smooth from the water flowing through, the friction actually seemed pretty good! So I ran back to camp to fetch my shoes and pad. In the end I opened a few lines, some easyish ones on the boulder next to the large one, and a 7B "Lumo Cougar" on the right side of the large boulder.

"Lumo Cougar" (7B) Photo by Luke Gregor

The line follows some two finger pockets up and right, and then you set up in a good left pocket and a right gaston, then its a fairly big slap around the arete to a slopey jug. The topout utilises a wedged rock on your left, as it looks too hard otherwise, but maybe that line can be opened at a later stage.

Project. Photo by Luke Gregor

So the main attraction was this line. It has a perfect start on the inside, in two good pockets, with a cross to a perfect pocket which lets you do a fairly reachy slap around the corner to some good holds. So then you set up heel hooks on both sides of the corner, and move up some slopey holds and up to a crimp. This is the tricky part, as you can either set up the left or right on the crimp, but either way, the next comprehendable hold is very far away, and its a small crimp. So unless I can find another "hold" I think its gonna be a very hard move.

So other that those lines, I think there may be an assortment of easy lines up the river, and maybe a few mid range difficulty ones. I'll have to see on the next trip. With the current spree of Rocklands trips I'm not sure when I'll be going back, but hopefully I can fit a trip in sometime soon. Then with time I think a nice topo can be put together, for what could be a nice little area. Anyway, its Rocklands later tonight, till Saturday night, got the HD camera from Arjan so hopefully some vids are gonna be coming soon.