Why do I want to make love to a rock?! :O

Two days of travelling and two days at Tenerife. It sounds like a really awfully planned trip BUT honestly, I’ve just had the best vacation of my life!! The trip was long and the weather sucked BUT everything else weighed it up 100000% and more! :P My normal overdose of energy is higher than ever!! And my motivation for climbing and my energy to give even more is so high I can’t even explain!!! Haha…

So, I guess I should start to tell about the climbing… since the main reason for going to Tenerife was to visit my younger sister (which btw turned 25 this Sunday) we focused on climbing close to Adeje where she lives. We focused on an area called Guaria. Look here:

http://www.climb-europe.com/RockClimbingSpain/Tenerife.html

If you look at the map we lived close to “Playa de Las Americas”. It took about 20 minutes to go by car from this place to Guaria.

With some help from a simple map and the guide book for climbing at Tenerife we found this place easily. A tips if/when you go to this places: be prepared for SMALL 45 degree inclining roads with MANY curves… this cause problems if you meet any kind of vehicles going in the opposite direction! Haha… we did this and survived so this is not an impossible action! J BUT it’s totally an interesting experience! ;)

By the way! It is REALLY cheap to rent a car on Tenerife! We rented a car at the airport and left it back three days later. It cost about 750 Skr. There are many places to rent cars from at the airport. Goldstar gives the best prices! J We got a nice looking car but maybe not the fastest one… but it took us to all places we wanted which is all we asked for! J The traffic at Tenerife is ok… it feels safe to drive there! J

The guide book has a very good explanation for how you find Guaria by car. So I don’t go into that one! J It is a litte bit harder to find the climbing spot! This is the tips: take the car up to the last two houses and leave it there. Then go and stand in between the two houses and look down towards the rocks. You will then clearly see some stones painted with white color. Just follow these stones and you will get to the right path! J We came from another direction and missed this sign! So it took us about one hour to get to the climbing spot! It was a nice hike but I recommend taking the right path since it is much safer! J

After the hiking we reached the rock. This rock was totally incredible! It has this warm red tone and a soft surface without being polished. And it gives out such a stable trustable feeling… don’t ask me how… I fell in love on the spot! I was hanging on a rock at Tenerife, overwhelmed by all this good good gooooood feelings which in the end of the day made me wanna squeeze, hug, kiss and totally make love to this rock! Haha… am I crazy or what?! ;)

The rock was in such a good temperature too. Not warm but not cold either! Sine this period is winter time at Tenerife the outdoor temperature was between 17-20 degrees. So with other word: perfect for climbing. I can imagine it will be extremely hot on this climbing spot in high season. I totally recommend going here during colder periods/days.

The climbing was totally awesome!!! I don’t know how to describe it. It was delicate routes combined with this incredible rock and wonderful view! Just imagine yourself hanging on a rock about 15-20 m over the ground. When you turn around you see all the way to the sea many kilometers away. The view was totally amazing!!! This was my best climbing experience so far. And another thing which made me totally happy was that all the endurance training is showing result. I totally enjoyed hanging on the rock. I trusted my hands and feet more than ever! I have a long way to go before I can totally BE THERE. But I felt such a difference from last time I climbed outdoor (which was this summer). I could relax and enjoy every movement. I could enjoy the view and best of all… I was so calm! GAH!! Addictive!!!!

Haha… so this was a little bit about the climbing on Tenerife! Anything you want to know? Just ask! J I totally recommend going here to climb but go for more days… there is SO much to see!

Last but not least… today I need some pop music so I give some to you too… this is a REALLY good song by Tobias Fröberg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEJy_8mP0s

Jummie! This one is by the way on the soundtrack to the DVD “Blomstertid” with Peter Magnusson. The soundtrack AND the DVD is toooootally good. Give it a chance! J

This is it for today! I will show you some pictures and write a little bit more about Tenerife another day during the week! J Have a nice Monday! J

Different kinds of training

I'm going to start going through how I'm planning my training for One More Move 2012. It's not set in stone or anything; I'll update it as I go along to adjust for injuries, illness, fatigue or maybe a newfound weakness i need to work more on.

I thought I'd start by summing up the different types of training I will be doing. Alot of this stuff comes from Eric Hörst's climbing books and online material, and some bits and pieces are grabbed from Dave MacLeods excellent book "9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes" and also from what I've been taught during last year's climbing development programme at Klättercentret.

I'll list some typical exercises to do for each type of training, sport climbing, bouldering, and general/non-climbing.

STAMINA
I like to think of stamina as fundamental to my overall condition both on and off the wall, and also as a measurement of climbing quantity. Stamina climbing means climbing alot, as opposed to climbing hard. It makes your body and your muscles "used to" climbing and because it is low-intensity, you can focus on technique as well.

Definition	Aerobic endurance, ability to perform sustained workout at between c:a 50-80% of maximum level where muscles work in the presence of oxygen
Benefits	- Increased ability to climb longer periods, e.g. all day long and/or many days in a row - Faster recovery while resting - Modest gains in anaerobic endurance
Sport exercise	Interval training on "easy", overhanging or vertical routes, example: 8 sets x 3 minutes climbing, 1 min rest between each set, total time 32 mins
Bouldering exercise	Boulder circuit, example: climb 15 "moderate" problems (vertical/overhanging but easy holds), rest 1 min between each problem. Total time approx. 30 mins
Non-climbing exercise	Interval training ("fartlek"), example: 1 min at normal pace, 1 min at "near-max" (~80% of max) pace, repeat 10 times. Total time 20 mins

ENDURANCE
This is that kind of exercise that gives you super-pumped forearms which, at the end of each session, are screaming for oxygen. Since you have to climb at near-maximum difficulty level, it is very hard on your fingers, shoulders and elbows so don't do this type of exercise for too long periods.

Definition	Anaerobic endurance (also called "power endurance"), ability to perform short sustained bouts (around 20-40) of moves at near-maximum level where muscles work in the absence of oxygen
Benefits	- Increased lactic acid "tolerance" - Increased removal rate of lactic acid etc. - Increased ability to climb short, powerful sport routes
Sport exercise	Interval training on "near-max" (pick a route you can finish but feels hard), example: 2 sets x 6 tries, climb until top/fall, lower down and rest for the same amount of time as you climb
Bouldering exercise	Boulder circuit, example: climb 4-5 "near-max" problems (avoid weird cruxes you risk falling off from), climb each problem 5 times with 1 min rest between tries and 4 mins between each problem. Total time approx. 80 mins
Non-climbing exercise	- Pull-up intervals (3-5 pullups at start of each minute for 10-20 minutes total) - "Frenchies" (hang on best holds on hangboard, do a pullup and hang in lock-off position 5 seconds, go down, do another pullup and then lower down directly to 90 degree angle and hang 5 seconds, repeat and go down to 120 degree angle: that's 1 "frenchie", repeat 2-4 times)

POWER
I see power as a dynamic application of your strength, by that I mean how fast I can summon my strength from the moment i touch a hold until I've applied adequate force on it to be able to hold on. Useful to train this for dynamic climbing which is sometimes necessary. Have to be careful not to overuse fingers though!

Definition	The speed at which your muscles can transfer energy (roughly translated to strength x speed)
Benefits	- Increased ability to "stick" a holds dynamically - Also trains anaerobic endurance, depending on exercise
Sport exercise	Climb routes dynamically (but stick to easier routes to prevent injuries to finger joints etc) by deadpointing and dynoing between holds instead of climbing statically
Bouldering exercise	Perform dynamic moves on boulder problems, campus climb (no feet) problems
Non-climbing exercise	- Ladder climbing (without using feet) up fast and down slowly. Both left-right-left-right hands from bar to bar as well as dynoing with both arms between bars - Dynamic pullups, go down slowly and then up fast - Campus laddering on fingerboard, only for the pros (which means not me!)

STRENGTH
Increased muscle mass isn't the only factor in increased strength. It is also a matter of neural adaptations in your sensory system, resulting from repetitive stimulus. Neural adaptations account for a large proportion of early strength gains and beginner climbers rarely have to actually train strength in order to climb harder.

Definition	The force your muscles exert on holds (and other things in general)
Benefits	- Increased ability to hang onto small/bad holds without falling off - Also trains anaerobic endurance indirectly
Sport exercise	One-arm traversing, put one hand behind back and lunge sideways for next hold, then upgrade feet and repeat, reverse direction and use the other hand going back
Bouldering exercise	Climbing problems at or beyond strength limit (or by using weight belt), target one specific type of hold, should produce rapid failure
Non-climbing exercise	- Pull-ups - Deadhangs on fingerboard - Lock-offs, pull up with both hands on pull-up bar and then let one arm go and hang until failure starts to set in. Drop down using both arms before failure

Comments
I feel that stamina will be very important to train both now initially as well as during the build-up for the big climbing trip. I'll need to have great endurance in order to be able to climb continuously for 3 months outdoors during the hottest months of the year.

Regarding strength, Eric keeps pointing out how fundamental it is to train strength to increase your maximum level, but as far as I know and feel from the climbing I've done so far, I haven't had a single moment where I've thought "Damn, I'm just too weak to do this move, even if I'm fully rested". I've always failed because of fatigue and being pumped, never because a single move has been beyond my strength. I don't know if that will change soon (my old trainer Robin thinks I can easily climb 7c without having to increase my strength one bit)

I love doing power training, but I think for this year there will be no or very little finger training beyond what I get just climbing normally. So for power, I will stick to doing campus moves on big holds and on the ladder, no finger- or campusboards for me.

I'll put together a full-year schedule and post it here, I've been working on it quite a bit but have had to change it because of injuries and work load so it's taken some time to get it done. So psyched to put the last touches on it now that I have an idea on how the training year is going to look!!!

All work and no climbing make Anders go nuts

Phhheeeewww!!!
I just delivered the mother of all deadlines at work today. Feels so good to finally get it done!

I work as a consultant where I help clients (basically municipalities and big energy companies) build new power plants. Right now I'm deputy project manager for a large such plant and my work over the last few months has been to produce massive amounts of technical and legal requirements before we hand it over to suppliers of said power plants. Easily more than 300 pages of technical "mumbo-jumbo". The work load has been off the charts and I've had literally no time whatsoever during the last week for anything else besides eat, sleep and work (not exactly "eat, pray, love" now is it?).

Now the worse is behind me, unfortunately this high-intensity, sleep-deprived state of affairs has left me with a nasty cold, so now I'm forced to rest from climbing and training alltogether, even though I BADLY want to get up on the wall again! But I'm not going to rush getting back, or my training will suffer and I'll just get sick again.

While away from training, I've given my setup for the coming weeks a little more thought, and I've decided that I'm gonna go for endurance training for at least the first four weeks once I get back from sick-leave. By endurance I mean aerobic endurance, climbing low intensity climbs for a long time without rest. Last year when I trained for the development programme at K2, we also started out with endurance and I felt it really payed off. I will blog more in detail about my thoughts on endurance later.

Now I'm gonna eat some home-made thai red curry (stay tuned for recipe - it's the perfect food for us trying-hard-climbers), watch "The Wizard's Apprentice" starring Adam Ondra (bought it yesterday!) and then sleep like I've been awake for a year.

Fighting fears! :)

So another nice Saturday passed by! I woke up, had some egg sandwiches and went to K2 to do some lead climbing. That’s what I call a perfect morning! J The mission for today was to fight some fear…

It was a few weeks since I climbed lead so I got scared in the middle of the first climb! GAH!!! BUT… today I realized something totally unbelievably cool! I was so determined not to let my fear rule today so I continued to push myself to climb two different routes over and over again. My whole body was shaking, my whole mind was telling me “let go, give up, give up, give up!!!”… but still I just went on and tried to push away all that stupid nonsense.

Then suddenly, everything just turned around in my head. It was like my body got sick of sending out fear in my body when I refused to listen to it. My mind became totally focused and I only saw the next hold. “One more move, one more move”. The fear was still there in the background but it was kept in some kind of control! Don’t ask me how but that is what I felt! Totally unbelievably cool! Haha… So in some way I cracked some kind of code in my mind today! Which off cause made me very happy!! Now I know have to continue to fight with that one… some kid of breakthrough! J Awesome!!

After climbing I went directly to work to fight with another fear…. Put on and off the alarm at work! Honestly! It took me 5 minutes to dare to start the process to put the alarm OFF.  Then I worked for a few hours, sitting in a totally empty dark office, listening to some goooood music. Totally nice! After that I spent another 10 minutes staring at the paper with instructions how to put ON the alarm again. Then I just did it! :P Let me say, I THINK everything went ok… we’ll see when I go there tomorrow! Hopefully everything is in order… I totally fought that fear too anyway!

AND by the way… the reason for working on a weekend is TOTALLY ok… Me and Karthik is leaving Sweden for a long weekend on Tenerife Thursday to Sunday….. that’s why I am working in some hours this weekend! J So you have some nice sunny pictures and reviews on the climbing on Tenerife to look forward to for next weekend! J

Finally! Found a new brutal dubstep song… crazy good!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMX6xxtN6bc

Have a nice weekend! J

Here we go! :)

So the new year started and I have had crazy much to do! That’s why I havn’t wrote anything yet! It’s gonna get better… just have to get this into the routine! ;)

So this year started with a lot of work! My days have been filled with making drawings for a hospital and off cause; climbing! J In the end of last year I started training to increase my endurance. I plan to focus on endurance for eight weeks in a row just to see how that will affect my climbing. My aim is to do 1000 moves about 3 times every week.

 I have done this endurance training for three weeks now and I already feel the difference. The biggest difference I feel is that I am starting to lose my fear for getting pumped. (No shit?! ;)) I really start to trust the fact that even if it feels like my hands gonna pop out any second I still can go on for a long time. It’s literally a mind game and a total mind fuck! I might be crazy but I totally love it… and I hope this training will help me to get rid of some fear in lead climbing… we have to wait and see! J Five more weeks!

So what else!? J Not so much actually… I’m working, climbing, and off cause listening to a LOT of music... so with other words: life is totally NICE! The only thing I might wanna complain about is that it would be nice to have even more time for climbing… but that’s another story! J

Since I’m a big freaky fan of music I just HAVE TO take the change to spread some nice pieces here! For two year I’ve almost exclusively been listening to dubstep… so there will be a lot of this kind of sounds… BUT I will try to get some other masterpieces up here too! J Hope you enjoy! J

This one has been on repeat in my iPod this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWmLQdv5GWU

Just can’t stop listening to it!!

And one of my favourit bands are NERO so I have to start with one of their goodies to…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85wgzj8hZyg

Now it´s time for another eight hours with my dear hospital! See you in K2 after that! ;)

Hold on!

Week one is coming to an end, time to sum up.

I finished with some tough bouldering today to try and establish my weaknesses using certain holds, also did they same on rope earlier in the week. From what I can tell after just two sessions of this, I seem to feel stronger while crimping than climbing slopers generally, however the idea is to NOT crimp and instead try to climb open handed only (might not be that big of a surprise, I think most novice climbers have weaker open hand/sloping grip strengths compared to crimping), so I will consciously work on that. Slopers are always kind of awkward to climb, especially with high foot placements and while moving sideways, keeping balance and body tension and so forth. So a little of that too in the mix!

However, I do not feel that one certain type of hold is giving me any special problems, so I will probably not need one-type-of-hold-only-training. Instead, I will work on all holds and the techniques behind using all of them. I think I can make faster improvements with my body and foot technique than what kind of hold I'm grabbing, so the technical part of the training will definitely be more about that.

Next week will unfortunately be very busy for me workwise so no climbing during the week, but I will have time next weekend. Will do some endurance, power, and strength training respecively to find a ... rhythm in the training, see how much I can do before I get tired, how to set up the different exercises, how long they take, if I need to supplement the climbing with gym exercises, fingerboard etc. So more detective work in other words...

Going south already?

Six-fourteen. A.M. Monday. On a train going south. Work.

So this is how OneMoreMove is going to start? Me running off to some lonesome smalltown out in the middle of the Swedish forest of the south (this part of Sweden is friggin' called "Little land" for cryin' out loud)? Well I do love the work I do and even though climbing has quickly become a passion for me, it takes time to adjust everything else to it. "I have a plan", is all I can say. Getting to it is the trick!

So, let's get this show on the road!

Leaving for our Tour-de-mediterráneo in the middle of June... that means we got about 5.5 months to get in shape, get enough lead experience in us, plan the trip and just get psyched about all the climbing ahead of us. Sounds waay longer than it will actually be in the end.

For me, since I finished off last year with a nasty finger injury and bucket-loads of work, step 1 for me is just figuring out where and how much I suck. How scared am I to fall? How's my climbing technique? Am I better at slopy, pinchy or crimpy routes? Slabs, overhangs, dead verticals?

While away on work I'll do cardio (there's definitely some traces courtesy of mums christmas food and sweets I'd like to rid myself of like a bad ex) and what little bouldering I can get my hands on. Växjö is known neither for its rocky landscape (It's flat, OK!) nor its volumous amount of large climbing gyms (I've nicknamed the local climbing gym "the box", pics to follow) so I'll make due with what's on offer.

I'll also upload the training schedule as soon as I can. It's basically a google calendar visible to all. That way I can both have it easily accessible for myself ("if it aint in my iPhone cal, it don't exist") and share it to the wider audience.

I'm actually not as super psyched as I thought I'd be going into 2012, but I feel it growing. I need to 'get back into the swing of things' a little I think. Finding the routine I had back in November. Also need to find a pace together with Em, her trainer and with all my other climbing buddies.

Might be a slow start, but the wheels are slowly turning!

Seven-oh-seven. AM. Monday. Time to get to work. *Yaaawn*