Monday, April 19, 2010

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.

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