Anaerobic endurance programme

Hey sorry for the absence here, it's been a crazy week with lots of twists and turns. For now, let's just focus on the positive stuff:

My stamina period is over and I've switched focus to endurance now. That is, anaerobic endurance, which means climbing intense short climbs where the goal is to pump out after 30-40 moves, take a short rest to let the lactic acid build-up fade away slightly and then give it another push. Actually, the goal is to NOT pump out completely, but to build up the lactic acid resistance and manage to climb even under intense pain from lack of oxygen in the fore arm muscles.

A tip for Swedes is to read borrbult.nu's excellent power endurance article. Some great suggested exercises to choose from.

My exercises will perhaps mean a bit less actual climbing. I've been feeling some pain and stiffness in my finger (old injury) so I will have to adaptand focus more on certain type of holds and exercises to get the anaerobic endurance without stressing the tendons of the finger too much.

This means that I will do the following exercises:

1. Frenchies: As described by Eric Hörst, one "frenchie" consists of one pull-up with a 5 second hang in the top position of the pull-up bar or fingerboard (arms fully bent), then another pull-up followed by a 5 second hang arms bent 90 degrees, then a final pull-up and 5 second hang arms bent 120 degrees. That's one frenchie and I usually manage to do 2 frenchies per set, regardless of when during the session I do them.

2. Pull-up intervalls: Start your stopwatch and do 3-5 pull-ups, and then rest for the remainer of the first minute on the clock. At the 1-minute mark, do 3-5 more pull-ups and then rest until the 2-minute mark. Repeat for 10-20 minutes. The goal is to manage to do the same amount of pull-ups each minute, so start out easy (3 pull-ups) and if that's too easy, try with 4 pull-ups. I'm not sure if I will try to go for less pull-ups and longer training period (i.e. 3 pull-ups x 20 or 4 pull-ups x 15) or vice versa.

3. Rotators aka "pump machine": Use a stick with a 2.5 kg weight attached at the end of a bit of rope (long enough so that the weight touches the ground if you hold the stick at shoulder height). Start rotating the stick with forearms straight out, palms downwards holding the stick, elbows bent 90 degrees and at your sides. Rotate until the weight is all the way up by the stick, drop it back down and start over. Do so until you pump out. Maintain elbows pressed at your sides, they have a tendency to move outwards as you get tired (much the same as they do when you start feeling really pumped while climbing). Switch between rotating the stick forwards and backwards, thereby working both dorsal and ventral muscles (but always rotate the same way during one push, only switch between sets). You can also do the same exercise but with arms straight out at shoulder height.

The best thing about these exercises is that they are easy on the tendons, thereby minimising the risk of pulley and tendon-related injuries. For me, it's a must to rest my finger and these exercises are perfect if I still want to train endurance.

Here is my updated macro cycle. I've only planned 2 weeks of endurance in a row, as suggested by Hörst in order to not overstress the fingers.

Making it work with work

I love my job, like Emelie I believe I've got the best employer a young engineer can hope for. We are a small consultancy firm within the energy and environment business. RSM (www.ragnsellsmiljokonsult.se) is part of the large Ragn-Sells company but we are pretty much our own little entity. We help both our parent company as well as external clients to solve their energy and environmental challanges and problems.

I work as project manager for various energy companies and municipalities where my main area of expertise is to build new power plants. I don't want to get too technical here but that's basically what I'm doing in Växjö, I'm overall deputy project manager for a new plant which will be completed by the end of 2014 so it's a long project. :)

Because of my key role in this, it's not as easy as just saying 'Sayonara dudes, I'm gonna go climbing for 3 months in a row, good luck with the project!'. I had to see how the time schedule would best fit our travelling plans and come up with a game plan for how the project can make it without me on site.

I had promised myself to wait until after the big deadlines we had this week before telling the project manager (which is also my client, which means he's the one paying for my time in the project) about the trip. I was a little anxious as I walked to his office but when I told him he just went "Of course you have to do this, I know how much this means to you! Did you think my answer was going to be anything else?"

So now I'm just soooooo happy and super motivated because this was a major hurdle that i just jumped over with surprising ease! Now it's just about training training training. Speaking of which... Gotta go! :)

Adding up with some circuit training!

It is really hard to know what to write when the main thing I am working on right now is my thousand moves! J It becomes really boring to go on and on about that one… We have one more week with this one but we have decided to go for another week! Last week some kind of bacteria trespassed the system so I couldn’t train as good as I wished. So that’s why we will continue for an extra week before it is time to work more on the power! But that’s for later… J

What I can say about the 1000 moves is that it work! J I never had so much of endurance in my arms… its crazy!! It’s a totally amazing feeling! My power has gone down pretty much but since I can hold on to the hold like FOREVER (!! ;)) it backs me up in a totally different way… and I can work on my power later. The plan is to build up this “platform” of endurance and just keep it there… then it is time to build up the power on that platform… we will see how it goes! J What I can tell you is: this week I climbed for 60 minutes (up and down) without rest. After that I took a few minutes rest and jumped on a slopy 6C (one of those problems I would avoid a few weeks ago). I climbed this one 8 times in a row!! Just like that… so the endurance is definitely going up… the patient game is paying off! At least it seems like it is going in the right direction! J

This week something new actually happened in my training life! :P I am adding up the training with some circuit training! Since it was a long time I trained in this way I took it pretty easy yesterday. The aim was to do 2 sets on each muscle with a rest of 1 minute in between. Each set was 20 reps and my aim was to reach muscular failure after about 15 reps. Then you just have to push it for the last five one! J It is really good training. I did 12 muscles yesterday. I started with the shoulders and went down through my whole body. This training takes about 1 hour! Perfect! J And you become really tired… totally nice! J I can recommend it! J It trains your brain to continue to push when the muscle is filled with lactic acid!  And that one we need when we climb! J

So what else!? I left my ICA store behind and started to work on my dear hospital again… super nice! J Right now it is just a lot of small project running so I will not go into them! There will be new projects every week for a while! Too much to describe! :P BUT what might be interesting is to know what kind of wonderful company who supports me in my climbing and let me go for a three months trip this year… the company I am working on is called Projektengagemang. Check it out:

http://projektengagemang.se/

Best company ever!! (And yes I know, I get paid to say that…. ;) But honestly, they are really great!!) If you are an engineer who wants to have a good balance between work and spear time, this is the company to apply for! J Most of the people here are really interested in sports and live active lives… which I think is really really fun! J

This week I got really good information about my back! :D My left side of my body is my weak link because of my back injury. Climbing has made my whole body function SOOOO much better. I can REALLY recommend climbing to prevent back problems/pains. If you have problems or know anybody with back problems, feel free to ask me about anything! I have become an expert on my own back so I hope I can help other people too. J My problem right now is that the communication between my muscles and brain is not functioning properly for the left side of my body! :P The good thing is that this is possible to work on… so that is what I am doing! J It can be tricky to climb with this one but like I always believed: nothing is impossible! J The body compensates it in some strange way and finds other paths. So some stuff is not possible to do yet but I believe (10000%) that I will be able to climb everything I want in the future… Just have to fight for it! J

Now it is time for some work before K2 in the afternoon… this week I’ve been listening to this really “guilty pleasure” song… I really love this voice!! Crazy good… don’t blame me for this one! ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz5UROCKM5E

Have a nice day! J

Do talk to strangers!

We Swedes aren't the most talkative of people. We don't strike up conversations with strangers on buses, we don't have loud, passionate, arms-wildly-gesticulating conversations about politics in restaurants. We are bad at cheering encouragments to our peers when we see them trying their hardest at something we practie ourselves. Now there are of course exceptions here and I'm not saying that we are the only people in the world behaving like this, but it's definitely not a trait I'm proud of.

Not so in climbing! For some reason, the Swedish dont-talk-to-strangers-mentality is temporarily suspended whenever we enter the climbing gym or arrive at the local crag. People you've never met before and wouldn't even imagine talking to in any other situation suddenly become your temporary climbing partners as you buddy up to climb the same problems.

Is it because the community is small enough still to make it feel as though we are part of a small group of people that have to "stick together"? Is it some magical aspect of climbing that loosens the tounge whenever in close proximity to plastic grips or granite rocks? Is it the non-competitive nature between climbers where the only fight is against the wall and yourself combined with the fact that we are all gunning for the same goal that makes us open up socially?

It think it's all of the above but I also think it's because we just have so much fun climbing and (looking at myself) I just can't help myself from wanting to share that joy with others around me. When everything else out there in that annoying place we call "the world" - demands, deadlines, stress, bad weather, idiots, missed buses etc - just fades away and you have one focus: climbing! That's when it's easy to relax and just enjoy yourself, and when you see others enjoying themselves just as much as you are it's easy to get into it and you forget you're "not supposed to" be so fucking cheery (you're Swedish for goodness sake! Now wipe that smile off your face and mutter something about all the damn snow).

I saw (and felt) quite a bit of this amazing atmosphere this weekend. The final Boulder Bash event at Klätterverket went down last Friday. Say what you will about "for-fun"-climbing comps and how they are stressful and the place is packed with too many climbers and how it sometimes feels like someone is going to get seriously injured falling on someone else. But when you see the newbies struggling on the easiest problems there are and a whole bunch of really good climbers cheer them on like they are going for the world's hardest climb, that's a really unique thing to see. In a way, they ARE going for the hardest climb in the world, as far as they are concerned, it might as well be. And we've all been there and that's why it's so easy to feel happiness for other people's accomplishments instead of jealosy. Hats off to Klätterverket, they really put on a good show every time with fun "half-time" shows, quality problems, nice prizes and exiting finals.

Now this is not to say that climbing doesn't have its fair share of douchebags and people with attitude problems or that you yourself sometimes just feel like shutting the hell up and just climb without talking to everyone around you. But I hope that we can continue to maintain this great atmosphere where it's ok to discuss problems with eachother and cheer people on even though you don't know eachother or climb at the same level. I think it's a constant fight and it requires an open mind.

So I guess the point here is that I don't just love climbing itself, I love the community as well. It's just filled with so much joy, friendliness and passion. Keep it going!

I also realised this weekend that what we do really does affect people (so happy whenever someone comes up to me and tells me they've started to train seriously to develop their climbing and that one more move is at least in part responsible for it), and since this is alot about training and being serious about development, I feel some degree of pressure to put the my own training on an appropriate level. Will blog more about that later on, but for now, one really important rule/lesson: Listen to your body! Don't climb harder than your joints, muscles and mind can handle for longer periods. Resting is probably as important to success and development as training is! So keep on pushing hard, but listen to your body and stop if you feel pain.

Stamina training in(side) a nutshell

Stamina training is all about quantity over quality. Even though stamina won't make me climb harder or prevent me from pumping out, I know that I will be climbing for weeks and weeks in hot weather and it's important that my body can take that shear volume of climbing without risk getting completely exhausted to the point where I need weeks of rest before I can get back on the routes.

I view stamina climbing as a way of training cardio for your climbing muscles. The idea is to get your pulse going, and then race around the boulder wall och up-and-down the routes like a jojo, and then rest before getting back up. Eric Hirst recommends resting the same amount of time as you're climbing, so for a 10 minute interval I would rest for 10 mins, which is kind of a sweet deal because I need to belay my partner anyway while he/she does the same routine.

After one week of stamina training, trying to work out the proper amount of intervals, time per interval, tempo etc. I can say that the most difficult thing is finding the right grade and time on the wall. I want to avoid pump since that turns the exercise into an anaerobic endurance session, but I also want to get my blood pumping, so it's a fine line to walk. What I've done is to remember to take short rests on the wall when I feel the pump coming. In Stockholm at K2 it's easy to find long routes with good holds so it's pretty easy to avoid the pump, but in Växjö (where I do one session per week) I'm pretty limited in the selection of circuits and type of holds to grab, so often it's easier to just jump down and start over right away instead of trying to go for something really hard and getting pumped.

The climbing gym in Växjö is actually a racket ball gym, where they've "redecorated" one of the racket ball courts into a bouldering room, it's reaaaaaally tiny (the "inside-a-nutshell"-metaphor is spot-on). The holds were put up sometime... long ago, and haven't been replaced or even moved since then. I kind of like it though - it is what it is. There's a small group of local climbers who come here every other day, training on the same old holds they've practised on for years. Hat's off for their dedication and... patience! Don't know how they do it!

Just for fun, I put together a small clip of the gym, with me doing a typical stamina session of 3 minutes (compressed into one) for you guys to... well "enjoy" is probably not the right word but... watch atleast?



In other news, I've been invited to go for a 2½ week long climbing trip to Spain at the end of March, soooo psyched!!! I've missed climbing outdoors and it is always there that I get most inspired, most exited and it's when I'm the happiest while climbing. Climbing and training indoors is fun, it's convenient and social, but it is also just a means to an end. And that end is to climb as much as possible outdoors.

Climber food: Chicken Curry? Curry Chicken!

It's not enough to just train hard if you want to reach the next level in climbing (or any sport for that matter), you also need to eat right. With a busy schedule as it is and having to fit ambitious cooking plans into that... well let's just say that for both me and Em, we realised that we had to come up with dished that are also fast and easy to make. And they have to taste good, because we LOVE food!

So, as a step in one more move, we (or atleast I) plan to give you the recipes for a few of our favorites, to help you find some gastronomical inspiration when time is tight and you still need to down those calories to get you through the next training session.

First out is my favorite curry recipe right now. Here's what you need for roughly 5-6 portions (depending on what you need to eat, this will give you 6 portions of about 580 kcal)

500 g chicken fillet
8 dl coconut milk
1 red pepper
200 g bamboo shoots
200 g pineapple (sliced)
200 g baby corn
1 dl of cashew nuts (unsalted)
2 dl fish sauce
2 dl sugar
1 tablespoon kaffir lime leafs
6 teaspoons of red curry paste
garlic
ginger
1 tblspoon cooking oil

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add ginger (grated), garlic (grated) and the curry paste. Add about 1.5 dl of the coconut milk and let it cook for a few minutes

2. Add the chicken (sliced, or use tofu if you prefer a non-meat-alternative) and another 2 dl of the coconut milk. Let the chicken cook in the coconut milk for a few minutes (atleast until the chicken turns white)

3. Crush the cashew nuts powder-like and add a little coconut milk and mix it to a thick paste

4. Add the sugar, fish sauce and the lime leafs (these can be found in the "thai-shelves" at well-sorted grocery stores). Add the pepper (chopped in square pieces), baby corn (chopped in half) and bamboo shoots. Add the nut paste and most of the rest of the coconut milk. stir it around and let it cook for a while. Give it a taste and add more curry if needed. Also, you can add some coriander or cummin at your own discretion.

5. When the chicken is all cooked-through, serve with bulgur or rice. Enjoy!

Healthy for ya!

What do I do when I don't climb?

This week I left my dear hospital drawings to start working with a new project. An ICA store in Stockholm is re-building so I’m drawing the solution for HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning). It is a REALLY fun project but it is a small one so I’m going to finish it during next week. It will be interesting to see how it turns out…

I don’t know whether to tell this or not! The aim for today was to write about my life when I don’t climb. But to be brutally honest, every piece of my life has some connection to climbing in my head. I work to be able to climb – go on trips, buy gears and afford to live in Stockholm! :P I see my work as a crazy fun place which continuously gives me small missions to solve. It keeps me entertained and gives me a perfect eight hours rest every day.

Even dough I think a lot about climbing when I create my drawings my mind is mainly focused on my work. This mental rest is really important for me. In all sports I have practiced I have always needed this mental break. I need to balance up my sport with studies, work or anything else which give focus to something outside my sport performance. For me the mental rest is as important as the physical rest. My work gives balance to my sport and my sport gives balance to my work. Just PERFECT! J

I wake up 05.30 so I can be at work around 06.00-06.30. Unfortunately I work in Mörby Centrum right now so it takes me about 40 minutes to go to work… BUT soon my company is making room for me at the office in Liljeholmen. Which happens to be a few minutes from K2… I live I Hägerstensåsen so I think you can see the picture. A few minutes to work and even less minutes to K2. Work 06.00-15.00 and then off to K2… GAH! I can’t wait! J

 I go up early every day to be able to go early to K2 in the afternoon. It’s so many people at K2 in the evenings! Which is FUN but it’s nice to have done most of the training when it starts to crowd up… you can pick any route/ropes/boulder without risk to fall on other people/stick to one route for an hour without being a pain in the ass…

I just love hanging around at the climbing gym. The only thing I can complain about is that they don’t have any open hours in the early morning! Just think about it! Wouldn’t it be perfect to be able to go for some morning climbing before work?! Is anybody with me on this one? J This is my wish for K2! If you open 06.30 two days every week I PROMISE you to be there (every week) for some morning climbing before I hit my missions at work… do we have a deal? ;)

So what else do I fill my days with? Hmm… I have a big family! I have four sister and brothers which I want to spend as much time as I can with. Unfortunately none of them are living in Stockholm and none of them are climbing… but since I am the oldest one I still believe I can influence them in the right way… we will see… I’m working on it! J Family and friends is REALLY important to me so that’s another reason for going up early and hit the gym early. This gives me more hours in the evenings to spend with friends and family.

Wow! Now I’ve been writing A LOT and it is still almost exclusively about climbing… But this is how it works! I eat, sleep, work, chill and live for climbing. It might not make sense but that’s how it feels. It’s more a lifestyle then a sport in my eyes… which is just lovely!

Now I really have to round this off! :P Want to share two stuff which inspired me this week! Gabriel Wagnberg is making TOTALLY AWESOME music!!! Which I happened to find this week… Unfortunately it is only available on soundcloud.com but if you have facebook you can log in through that account… don’t ask me how but it works! :P

Go to soundclound.com, log in with your facebook account and search for ”Gabriel Wagnberg”. Then listen to “Big & Drone” and “Forgive My Song” to begin with… it is sooooo GOOOOD!

Another thing which inspired me a lot this week was seeing Alex climb the new 7B+ at K2! Awesome good climbing!! Thaaanks for that! J