My life of late has looked like this:
Chest infection
Swine flu
Chest infection
Pneumonia
Worst case of the galloping trots anyone has ever had - EVER
Sinusitis - doesn't sound much but it was agony
Xmas
I've not climbed productively since September. I finally got back to it yesterday with a 2 hr session at Penrith. Predictable results were a lack of fitness and timing/fluidity. Less predictable was that my arm + body strength seemed OK but i had lost a lot of finger strength. This has always been a weakness and those hours spent dangling off my Beastmaker in the utility room seem to have been frittered away through inactivity.
Fitness was shocking and i failed on a 6b and a 6a+ at the end when i just gave up. A very steep 6a felt, well, very steep and it used to be my first steep warm up route.
Forgetting all that it was just a huge relief to be back climbing with no set backs and i loved it. I've had 2 false starts in the last couple of months so i'm going to take it easy. Felt fine today so fingers crossed.
Going to work out my 'baseline' over the next week or two and take it from there.
One baseline assessment i'm not happy with is my in-ability to fit into my jeans. They look like mine, they're in my wardrobe so they must be mine, but they don't fit like mine. My harness had also been adjusted during my absence.
Goal number one is weight down from 76 to 73 kg by end of the month. Running outside is too cold at the minute and makes my old man's lungs seem to want to lurch out of my body. In order to get some exercise in i tried this idea from Tommy Caldwell. Circuit Training.
I didn't fancy the intensity of just 3 exercises today so i did:
press ups 10
back raises 10
pull ups 5
dips 5
crunches 10
pistol squats 3 each leg
10 minutes gave me 4 run throughs and i certainly felt it.
I then had a mince pie with brandy cream. FFS Andy FOCUS
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Theres an article on 8a.nu about it taking two weeks to get back on form with climbing. I don't know how relevant it will be (with the illnesses) but it has some pointers about getting the body up and running again. Mainly easing back into things using 3-4 sessions a week focused on mileage and recruitment.
ReplyDeleteThought I'd mention it for some motivation. :)
Cheers mate. Had a great day out at St Bee's today. Nothing of any note done at all but sooooo good to be out again :0) No more motivation needed, i've never been loving it so much.
ReplyDeleteCertainly going to ease back into it. My plan was mileage at my local wall ( climbing round and round ) and bouldering - which will be at Bee's now. I'll have a search on 8a.nu and see what i can find. Thanks for the link.