Roddy Mackenzie Bouldering

Deep Lock

2011-08-10T13:56:00.000+01:00

In a previous post I mentioned that I had been working on my posture, which has proved to be not only the key to looking "a bit of a dick" as I strut around, but has had a massive impact on my ability to lock.

I had mainly been doing exercises on the wall to address this whilst warming up, but have also taken to doing some basic campus board exercises to really try and hit the associated muscle groups hard. It is clear that my left hand side is progressing faster than my right, but it is hard to ascertain why the right hand side is lagging behind, since it could be one of so many factors, like tightness in pecs, tightness in upper traps, instability in rotator cuff, slightly weaker lower traps, poorer grip strength etc.

Attempting to get Fred Nicole style lock. Must try harder.

Purely Belter

2011-08-03T08:39:00.000+01:00

We had planned to go to the Peak District at the weekend to sample some peak limestone, but the rock gods conspired against us and we were left with a Sunday day trip instead. I'm not complaining about this, since Saturday was to be sunny and hot, whereas Sunday was to be hazy and hot, so looked to be the better of the two days.

Since we had visited the Lakes limestone the previous weekend, climbing at a limestone venue was not going to be an option, so we decided to head to Shaftoe, since we both had projects to put to bed there.

When we got there it was hot and muggy, with barely a breath of air to be had (without breathing in flying ants) and the friction on the rock was as expected, exceptionally greasy. Although the rock appeared to be dry, the moisture in the air just seemed to continually condense on it, which meant repeated pointless chalking and whacking of key holds.

Anna did well managing to do "Viagra Plus sit start" for the first time, despite the crux holds being ridiculously slick, before moving on to try "Timmy Tip Toes".

I got shut down on "The Boss" which was partly due to the conditions and partly due to my head, which left me only one realistic prospect for the day which was to attempt "Purely Belter" on the Font Boulder. Despite not having tried it at all before, I had all of the beta I needed, which was that Sam believed that I would find it easy. Purely belter is a lovely (if lowball) line and I'm chuffed to have done it.

Purely Belter, Font 7c, Shaftoe from Roddy Mackenzie on Vimeo.

Lakesbloc

2011-07-26T13:56:00.001+01:00

Have had a couple of great trips down to the lakes this month, getting fully shut down on many a classic and not-so-classic line. Used the lakesbloc website which is a work of absolute genius.

Anna on Funk Phenomena at Trowbarrow

Beauty of Being Numb at Woodwell

Anna doing Kiss of the Dragon at Woodwell

The Weakest Link

2011-07-12T13:48:00.000+01:00

Ten years ago I was lucky enough to attend a talk by Marius Morstad at the Boulder World Cup in Brum. During the talk, he stated that the Malc had perfect technique, which caused a sharp intake of air by many who attended, which was then followed by laughter from many who had assumed that it was a joke. Marius went on to explain how we could all achieve this same technique of being able to stay face on to the wall whilst performing burly moves between bad holds.

The long and short of it was that he believed you did not need steely fingers to perform hard moves, you needed steely core and posture (lower traps) muscles. The way to achieve this was either through simple floor exercises, or through climbing in Font. Most of the others in attendance weren't really interested in listening and started arguing with him to some extent or other and just asked him how to get stronger fingers (information that he was not interested in providing).

Anyway, I listened and acted, well, sort of. I went to Font for a while and came back climbing harder, so I had assumed that it had worked, although I was aware that I was still struggling with "open" moves, but put that down to them just not suiting me.

Some ten years later (in Feb this year) I decided to sort out my posture, since it would have positive benefits even if it did not make me any better on the wall. The catalyst that drove me to act was that in the BBC's this year I seemed to be the only competitor struggling with the big rockover moves that seemed to dominate the last move of many of the problems. I meant to blog at the time stating that I was going to start a new course of training to correct my posture and hopefully improve my deep lock/rockovers, but was not convinced that it would work, so I didn't. The thing is, is that it really has worked, indoors at the very least. My fingers are nowhere near as strong as they used to be a few years back, but my body (shoulders, lats, traps, core) feel good and strong. This new found strength is definitely getting me up harder problems than ever before and is making me feel worked in a very different way to how I used to at the end of a session.

I'm lucky I guess, since I have been able to find and exploit a major weakness. I suppose I should have listened more attentively 10 years ago so that I could have done something proper about this at the time, but hay ho, I had strong fingers then so didn't care.

The posture exercises are not a golden bullet and would certainly not work for those climbers who already display beautiful posture on the wall, or massive lower traps.

Rehab

2011-02-01T13:02:00.001Z

It's been a long time since I posted, since I have had very little to write about climbing wise in the last six months.

last summer I damaged my hook-of-hamate during the BBCs, got some physio treatment and rehab exercises and have been doing these almost religiously ever since. The damage has resulted in a massively reduced grip strength in my right hand, which I'm told will never get back to normal. For the first couple of months after the comp I couldn't manage to hold on to a small campus rung even with two hands (in fact I couldn't even hang from a jug one-handed), which is a strange experience for me. This also meant that I couldn't really play on problems down the wall or fingerboard.

Thankfully after a couple of months I could play a bit, start building up to front levers and could comfortably hold a bar, to allow me to do some cross training. I did venture outside just once during this period, but it was massively depressing, you can definitely get away with a lot more indoors than you can outside. I've had a few positive breakthroughs since then though, managing to take part in the Durham Climbing Centre's birthday Party Comp, The Battle of Britain at The Depot and the BBCs last month, none of which aggravated my hand.

Best of all, last Thursday at the wall, a strange thing happened. I had a tiny shot on the campus board at A2 and nothing exploded in my hand..........Happy days.

Third World Country

2010-07-01T12:56:00.004+01:00

On the drive back up from the BBCs, Gary and I were discussing how the biggest shame about not quite performing as well as we would like, is that this event is only once a year, and that's a very long time to wait. Sure there are local comps during the winter (and obviously the CWIF and Plywood Masters, which are normally in the spring), but it is only feasible to do the ones local to us, as these comps are almost always held on a Friday evening. The Alien Rock comps are fun, but the terrain, the format, the style and the competition (ie the competitors) are all at odds with the likes of a National or International event. The setting in the Scottish walls in general bears no resemblance to this style (although I believe the EICA bouldering is in the process of being "fixed"), but is good for getting steely fingered.

I'm jealous of the guys in Sheffield (and other well equiped northern towns), they get to boulder on the correct style of problems all year round, get to take part in a fun winter bouldering series and the CWIF, and there is a really strong group of guys there to burn each other off. I appreciate that I could just increase my carbon footprint and commute to Sheffield, Leeds or Newcastle to train, but I think I'll wait for the TCA Glasgow to open and hope that the setting there bears some resemblance to modern competition climbing. Who knows, maybe they'll even hold the odd open climbing competition.

Hueco Tanks

2010-01-20T20:41:00.011Z

Rudden was right of course, I should definately not be bouldering down Alien Two whilst wearing a weight belt with an ever-so-slightly tweaky pulley. But, who can tell me what to do, after all I was going to Hueco in just three weeks time and wasn't quite in the condition I wanted to be in.

I was already looking at my hand as I squeezed a little too hard on a hold, as the required grip meant really engaging my ring finger (bad pun), when I heard the snapping sound (which was too reminiscent of the noise made when separating a chicken leg into drumstick and thigh portions). My ring finger immediately straightened even though my forearm had not let go one little bit. I immediately felt sick, partly due to my stupidity, partly due to the pain, but mostly because I knew that I would be doing very little climbing in Hueco.

With my finger really sore, and with our inability to book a single reservation for North Mountain, we were both starting to think that the trip might be a bad idea.

Well, three weeks later Anna and I finally arrived in El Paso after a rather arduous series of connecting flights, security gates, biometric data collection and finally reporting our crash-pad as missing at the baggage desk. The next morning (17th December) we were able to head to Walmart to stock up on provisions, then to the airport as our mondo had arrived safely, before finally driving out East to Hueco Tanks.

Hueco in the Snow

We got to the park office at midday and managed to sort ourselves out for camping inside the park (this is a necessity if you don't have reservations, as it allows you to be among the first in line for any walk-in spots or cancellations). Without even having to ask, Gary (the office manager) asked if we wanted to get out climbing on North mountain that day. We immediately said "yes, but we don't have any reservations", to which he kind of laughed and said it was no problem. It would seem that our concerns about getting out climbing might have been for nothing.

Our Camping Spot (with free boulder)

After setting up camp we wanted our first taste of the bouldering at Hueco, so we headed up to the first boulders that you come to (the upper lost boulders). To our dismay, we couldn't even manage some of the V1s on these boulders and we weren't flashing the V0s. Still, at least we had a nice warm tent to sleep in that night.

Spending the entire 12 hours of darknes trying to sleep, whilst both fully clothed and shivering, makes it a lot easier to get up in the morning. Campers in the park are allowed to start their engines at 6am to drive to the park office and queue (the office opens at 8am). We were still trying to sleep when we heard the first cars roll past so we leapt into action (well, kinda crawled a bit), scraping the ice from the car and setting off, hoping that we hadn't left it too late to get in. It was totally fine, we were the third vehicle there and were within the first ten people so were given our back-country permit so that we could go out climbing. We headed back to camp to have our breakfast and wait for the sun to restore some heat to us. At about 10am, washed and fed and warming in the sun we headed up again to explore the boulders and hopefully get up something. This day went a little better, we found more aesthetic lines to climb, got up a V2 or two and actually felt a litle bit like we were climbing.

This pretty much formed the pattern for the trip. Always thinking that we had got up to late, racing to the office, always actually getting one of the first ten place, then breakfasting, showering and finally climbing. After a few more days, we really started to get a feel for both the place and for the style of the bouldering. Hueco really is a fantastic and unique place.

We finally started to seek out the classic problems at the grades and hiked for a very long way (we got lost a bit) to find Ghetto Simulator, which looked (from the photograph in the guidebook at least) to be a long roof problem. I was completely wrong, it is in fact a very safe 10ish meter highball (see photo below), where another boulder follows you at your back so that you (okay me) can step off if you get too gripped or too pumped. I like to think that I got too pumped, but that's just not true. I actually ended up having to work the crux (which is the top few moves on small crimps) after blowing the flash. Anna had an almost identical experience on this problem and thankfully put herself through it enough to successfully redpoint it (redpoint genuinely feels the correct term on this occasion).

After Bailing out on Ghetto Simulator

On Christmas Eve (one week in to the trip), I managed to do a low roof problem called El Techo de los Tres B (made famous by Dave Graham in Dosage IV, but actually a Fred Nicole problem), the footage for this is very bad and is at the bottom of the page. I believe that it has beenm a bit of a trade-route this season (pardon the pun), due to the non-aggresive holds and it being distinctively low-ball. The main reason for me trying it was that not only had a hold improved (not by chipping, just a little piece fell out), but that hold didn't hurt my injured finger. Oh yeah, and the fact that it was a V11/12 and I'm a grade-whore.

El Techo de los Tres B

This was just a blip though, as up to this point I had managed nothing harder than V7. It took another full week before we both got the hang of the style properly and felt like we were starting to get a workout.

To cut this long story a little shorter, we took a couple of commercial tours out to East Mountain and East Spur, took the odd reat day due to snow or general broken-ness and then suddenly felt like we were running out of time.

We only had a couple of days left, so went out on North again where Anna managed to despatch King Cobra, which was not her first V6 in Hueco, but was the one that I was most proud of her for doing, due to the convoluted nature of the problem.

Anna on King Cobra

The very next day (our last proper day out climbing), Anna managed her first Hueco V7 by doing Daily Dick Dose. She had been close on several other days so I had always expected that she would get it done. I hoped that this would pave the way for me to do my final project for the trip.

Anna on Daily Dick Dose

All I had left to try (that wasn't either too hard, or too tweaky, or too technical, or.......) was a problem called Anal Intruder #10. It climbs way better than its name. Anyway, here's the failure footage (needless to say, I didn't do it).

Anal Intruder #10

To sum up, Hueco is an amazing place that exudes a very similar energy as Fontainebleau does for me and was well worth all the hassle. I would absolutely love to return in shape, but geography always makes it a little bit difficult to go somewhere so far away regularly.

Here is the bad (due in the most part to me being a wimp and needing the pad moved) El Techo footage

El Techo de los Tres B

Getting it Right

2009-10-07T12:22:00.004+01:00

Ever since the British Champs I've been trying to think about where I have gone wrong over the years when I have been competing (and whilst trying hard projects on rock for that matter).

After every competition (with the exception of only two internationals and one BBC) I have felt like I either didn't climb my best or just shouldn't have turned up at all.

Originally, my poor performance was down to naivity, as I didn't realise that in an onsight comp you had to read the problems. I used to just pull on and see how far I would get, which was nowhere. I was quite quickly able to sort this out and started doing a little better, but not that much.

With the benefit of hindsight, it has become clear that the times I had climbed badly I had always put pressure on myself to do well. I used to think that this was purely because I was trying to prove my worth in front of my peers, but it has become more apparent over the last few years that I believed that my life would somehow magically change for the better, if only I could get a good result just this once.

The other main reason for climbing and performing poorly has been down to training really hard prior to a comp, setting new personal bests and then believing that the hard work was over and somehow the boulder problems would feel easy. I couldn't have been more wrong, the hard work always takes place during the competition.

My best results have been when I have not been in my best shape physically and have given everything that I have on the day of the Competition. This has been down to a mixture of the lack of pressure on myself (not expecting to place well), not worrying about how anyone else is getting on and therefore not expecting my life to change at the end of the Comp. This allowed me to focus one hundred percent on reading the problems, enjoying myself and being able to concentrate on the most important thing, which is simply the act of getting from one hold to the next until you top out.

In summary, the times I have climbed well, my brain has (quite unintentionally) been de-cluttered and this has proved to be the most important factor.

Besides, if you want your life to change for the better, you have to work for it, not climb for it.

Analysis

2009-07-21T12:27:00.003+01:00

Another year, another British Bouldering Championship comp comes and goes. This year I managed to make the final, which is something that I have consistently failed to do for the last 7 years.

Here is my list of things I got right and wrong this time, so that hopefully I can learn for next year.

Successes

1. Strong body
2. Relaxed attitude
3. I wasn't put off by other peoples failures
4. Scarpa shoes rather than 5.10 (better for me by far)
5. Nice relaxing day the day before, with a gentle warm up session
6. Good dry skin

Failures

1. Fitness (got totally pumped in the final and didn't recover, need to do some interval training next time)
2. Grip strength was poor due to two bad fingers stopping me from training as hard as I would like (I'll sort that out soon enough thanks to Ned and Dan)
3. Flexibility has always been a weakness for me, will try harder from today onwards

Dylan has also supplied me with a whole lot more Slap Holds which will be appearing at Alien2 shortly. If any other walls would like some samples or some route-setting then please get in touch.

The Rankin Boulder - Topo

2009-06-11T12:55:00.008+01:00

The Rankin Boulder - Dumfries and Galloway

Directions

Park on the A712 between New Galloway and Newton Stewart at the carpark marked "Talnotry". This is car park immediately after the "Grey Mare's tail" car park when heading West, which itself is immediately after the Wild Goat Park.

Cross the road and head down the forestry road situated about 50metres to the East of this car park and walk along this road. After about 5 minutes you'll pass the mountain bike track situated at grid ref NX 488 713

The Mountain Bikers slab

About 1 minute further on from this point you'll reach a small layby on the rhs of the road. At this point if you look back and down to your right (towards the river) the Rankin Block should come into view.

Despite the fact that it is only about 200 metres away from the road you should take your time crossing the ground to reach the boulder. It appears mostly flat and green, but is made up of old fallen trees and moss and as such you may find yourself falling through the surface. Do not wear sandals!!!!

The Problems

All Problems are shown as starting from the marked holds (click on the image for a better view)

Boulderdash ss Font6a
Cowboy Country Font6b
Crouching Kitten Font6b
Retroclaim Font7a+
Project (hardish - maybe font7c/8a)
Project (V Hard)
Bohemian Rhapsody ss Font 7b
Broke Back Mountin Font 6c (the sitstart is a project - maybe font7a)
Carpet Samples ss Font 6b (around the corner from number 8)

Problems 2,4 and 7 are on the youtube video shown on the previous post on this topic

Topping out on Retroclaim

The Crux on Carpet Samples

Boulderdash

Volume Control

2009-05-22T15:44:00.003+01:00

Training has been going pretty well recently, with my birdie finger finally able to take a fair amount of load. The only downside of this being, that I can now play properly on the mostly-pointless but enjoyable boulder problems in the wall. This may not sound like much of a problem, but it is already starting to distract me from more important things like weighted campusing. Must try to stay focused.

Have been playing a little bit at trying to do a back lever and am now getting pretty close. I've been trying top build up to it for a little while, but despite it apparently being easier than a front lever, I find it desperate.

I'll post a wee vid of training stuff pretty soon.

The last month has been spent climbing on rock (at the start of the month that is, before the monsoon started) and building a new volume for A2.

The volume building has gone badly. After spending a total of about 10 hours building a 6foot long volume and making it real nice and rounded, I discovered a fatal fault right through the centre of the plywood (and indeed the volume). It would of been ok, but I discovered when hammering in the t-nuts which broke one side of it clean in half. Back to joinery this weekend to make it into two 3-foot long volumes that can be put end to end if req'd.

The outdoor stuff has been going well and we only need one trip back to the Granite block before revealing the full details. Anna added a couple of new lines to the boulder and there is only one line left to do that is within my capabilities.

Anna managed to secure her first Font7b, doing 'Low and Hard' at Back Bowden. This was also the first time that I have felt like Anna is going to overtake me.

I guess I better get back on the campus board pronto!!

The Block

2009-04-08T13:40:00.005+01:00

On Sunday I returned to the granite boulder armed with the appropriate tools for cleaning the lines and more importantly, my climbing stuff.

I hadn't really appreciated how much hard physical work was involved with cleaning up new lines. After breaking off the loose holds, I set about vigorously scrubbing at the hand and foot holds so that I could try the easiest line from standing. 30 seconds later I found myself standing on the slab bleeding, as I didn't realise that you have to scrob underneath the handholds as well.

I carried on scrubbing and cleaning and managed to climb three lines. The hardest line remains undone, but will be climbable by someone with bigger shoulders and stronger fingers than me (hopefully me, after some serious training).

This is a video of the three problems in order of difficulty (easiest first), with the unclimbed line to the right of the last problem. There are also still some hardish sit starts to

"Move Along........Nothing to See Here" or "Bouldering in Scotland"

2009-03-30T09:34:00.004+01:00

On Saturday I went to have a look at a boulder that I had first visited sveral years ago. I didn't take my stuff for two reasons. Firstly, the weather wasn't meant to be that good and Secondly I had completely forgotten how good it looked.

South FaceThis is the first time that I have ever been excited about bouldering in Scotland. Even though it is highly likely that this bloc has been fully bouldered out, I'm still going to go back as soon as possible for a proper session.

Here is a wee tour of the boulder

Backing Off

2009-03-25T14:01:00.000Z

I've been thinking a lot about the various routes that have led to injury whilst I've been training and bouldering indoors.

I have obviously hurt myself when I've not warmed up properly, when I've overdone it during re-hab from previous injury, when I've had way too many shots at the same move and when I've been too tired or ill.

However, these days I always injure myself when I'm having a great session. I don't just mean an ordinary great session, I mean the kind of session where it feels like you could rip the holds off the wall by merely twitching your back muscles. I'm slowly learning to recognise this feeling as early on in a session as possible and then I can shorten the length of the session so that I stop training or climbing right at the point when I am feeling at my strongest.

This is easier said than done. It means potentially sacrificing my only opportunity to tick a lot of my indoor projects, but should mean that I can come back and have a great uninjured session next time. Quite a few folk who write on training for climbing and other sports talk about finishing your session when you feel strong, but they are usually referring to not training to exhaustion.

You just have to be aware that if you are having one of these extraordinary sessions, it generally means that you are managing to load parts of your body in ways that they are not accustomed to yet. It's purely a case of learning when you need to back off. Most of my climbing friends (myself included) do not always recognise this and tend to injure fingers when finally getting back to full strength after a layoff.

When training for most things, you train cyclicly rather than linearly and should always have a phase of high mileage in order for your body to get accustomed to this new level of exertion. The same obviously applies to fingers, they do not get stronger in a linear fashion for very long, so when they feel at their very best, the best they have for years maybe, don't injure them by asking too much too soon. You should expect that you now have to put in a good amount of mileage (ie several weeks worth) in order to allow your fingers to get used to this before you start snatching for progressively worse and worse holds.

The reason I'm writing about this now, is that I'm finally back from injury and almost at the level I was at a year and a half ago and I'm desperate not to repeat this cycle of injury-rehab-injury.

The Forest

2009-03-19T12:55:00.000Z

Last year we only managed one trip to Font, which was over the Easter weekend and was a complete failure with the exception of one thing. This thing was that we realised that it was possible to drive to Font and back for a long weekend, thus saving a whole lot of money on flights, car-hire etc.

As it had been almost a year since we last visited we checked the weather forecast for the weekend, asked for a couple of days off work and set off down the A1. I'm not going to pretend that it isn't just the tiniest bit epic to undertake this journey for just a weekend, but it is well worth making the effort.

We arrived at the campsite on Thursday evening a more than a little road-weary, but were glad to get the tent sent up, listen to the magpies bicker and enjoy a cold French beer before turning in for the night.

Friday (the 13th) was one of the most enjoyable days I think I've ever had in the Forest and we ended up climbing for almost seven solid hours. Bas Cuvier was first, as it has always been my favourite venue. I managed to repeat Biceps Mou for the first time since 2002, managed Carnage first shot and just had a great time trying lots and lots of classic problems. Anna managed to lose a hell of a lot of skin on Cortomaltese, which is becoming the theme for all of our visits to Font. Hopefully she'll put that one to bed next visit.

Haute plains was next on the Agenda as Anna really wanted to do Solitaire after trying it back in 2007. Footage below

Job done, we immediately left Haute Plains in favour of Cuisiniere, so that Anna could do Bizzare Bizzare. This took a little more work, but was still dispatched very quickly and we then finished off the day trying Sanguine I had flashed this back in 2007, but couldn't touch it last Easter and it took a few attempts this time round. Anna is going to have to work on Hip/Hamstring flexibility to get the high heel in like I use in the video below.

Saturday we woke up broken from the ridiculously long session the day before, but Anna was keen to get on some more sevens. We tried a little problem up at a new area of Coquibis, but it had a disgusting top out so we went to Roche aux Sabots. Needless to say it was ridiculously busy given the good weather and the fact that it was the weekend. Thankfully no-one was under le Jeu du Toit so I quickly set about finding an efficient sequence (for a change) for the crux. Anna has made a very short film of this, which is below.

Shortly after this it started to drizzle, so we went off to got some provisions and set about having a look at my project. I photographed some of the holds so that I could remember how to train for it before we go back.

By Sunday we were fully exhausted, but went to 95.2 for a play and then finished off the trip by going to Isatis. For the first time in seven years I got a row for using magnesie by a guy climbing with a pof-bag round his waist. He also told us that a soft brush was bad for the rock, but it was somehow ok for me to whip the chalk off the rock with my heavyweight whack. With that, we decided we were better off calling it a day and returned to camp.

It was fantastic to have a last-minute trip to Fontainebleau and remarkably I was even relatively coherant at work on Tuesday.

The only downside of a trip like this, is that we have missed two campus sessions.

R.I.C.E.

2009-02-27T15:26:00.000Z

For the first time in several years I found myself Sheffield bound, but with no intention of going to an indoor wall. This is one of the real advantages of no longer being on "the team".

Previously I always told myself that I would climb outside the day after team training, but would wake up the following day feeling beasted from the day before and inevitably decide to drive back up the road.

Anna trying remergence, a crag classic

It was great to finally climb on the grit again and Dylan kindly gave us the tour of some of the nicer problems at the Plantation and Burbage North. I didn't really try anything hard as my finger (although feeling a lot better) is still not ready for doing any serious work. On that note I just discovered that I had been getting the whole RICE treatment thing wrong for years, apparently it isn't Rest-Ibuprofen-Coffee-Excercise. I don't really understand how the other version would fit in with my daily routine.

Training-wise things are going pretty well with improving my strength in the deep lock range of campusing. One thing I noticed folks doing down the wall was trying to do 1-3-5-7-9 on the big rungs but ending up doing 1-3-4-5-6-7-flail-fail. When this sort of thing happens, either aim purely for dynamic 1-3-5's until they are easy or go for 1-2-3-4-5 as statically as possible, in order to get a couple of good reps out with each arm. If this starts to feel easy then try to pull a little deeper until that the single rung reach eventually becomes a choice (ie you could have reached two rungs).

I guess it all comes down to what you are training for at the end of the day, but it certainly doesn't hurt to mix it up a bit on the campus board and it definately helps if you're not just trying to burn your mates off on the night (although, this helps with recruitment too but should really come in to play later on).

Pure

2009-02-11T14:05:00.000Z

Chuck has finally made a new bouldering film, which is being shown at the EICA on Monday March 16th at 7:30pm. Trailer Below (look it's even got Killy in it)

PURE - A Bouldering Flick by Chuck Fryberger OFFICIAL TRAILER from Chuck Fryberger on Vimeo.

Go to http://www.jonoellis.co.uk/pure/ for ticket information.

Go to http://www.chuckfryberger.com/Pure/Pure_Home_Page.html for more info on the film and how to purchase it

Getting a Taste of My Own Medicine

2009-01-28T17:05:00.000Z

Over the festive period I joined the ranks of the whinging masses by picking up a bad pulley injury on my "birdie" finger. It's the first time in many many years that I haven't been able to hang from a conventional campus rung whilst injured.

When building the board in my flat I hadn't really considered this outcome, so put no large rungs on it. The Campus board is currently just a cupboard and will be for a little while longer.

The campus board at Alien2 however, has a set of massive rungs that I can hang off with no discomfort at all. Which is a good thing, as I can't really play on the problems at the moment. I'm working on my deep lock as it's one of my main weak spots and will post a video of some training exercises soon that should demonstrate some alternative ways to use the campus board (well one alternative anyway).

Fisrtly here is my attempt at a one armer on each arm. The start is strong enough, but I really have to kick my legs to get anywhere near full lock.

Here is the video of me trying to address this problem by campusing at round about full lock. People always seem to foorget that you can use the campus board to address specific areas of weakness, rather than for just improving their campusing ability.

Finally here is a very poor attempt at a front lever pull up so that I can monitor my improvement.

Hopefully this training will get me closer to my real goal, which is doing 1-4-8 on my home board in the short term hopefully followed by 1-5-9 later in the year (oh and a couple of projects on rock)

The Generalist vs "That Guy"

2008-11-25T16:40:00.000Z

Got my copy of essential fontainebleau through the post and on first inspection I wasn't that impressed. Firstly there didn't appear to be enough photos of me (only kidding) and Secondly the book was crammed full of tiny photo-topos, making it look way too busy.

As I looked at it again, I realised that all of those tiny photo-topos are absolutely great, it means that you actually stand a very good chance of being on the correct problem. The book also closely mirrors my own ideas for the perfect ticklist (although I would choose different problems in order to avoid slabs, pockets, traverses etc.) and was the final step in inspiring me to train hard again.

My own ticklist (of probs that I've yet to do) ranges from 6b to 8b and that's what I'm currently working towards. My training and outlook on training is governed by one (maybe ridiculous) ethic and one ethic alone. I won't train for one project only, nor two for that matter, I will train to get stronger and better all round and that way I can have my pick of the problems. I know that this mindset is not perfect and it also makes me highly unlikely to ever really achieve more than a handful of my projects. It's bad enough that I'm "that guy with the crap tatoos" but I won't allow myself to become "that bendy guy" or "that guy who's awesome on pockets". I'd much rather be "what guy?" because I'm a generalist through and through.

Using injuries part 2

2008-10-14T13:36:00.000+01:00

Ok, last time I mentioned what I did in order to improve and since then I've been thinking a lot about the way that other people train.

As far as I'm concerned there are only really a couple climbers that I know, who are really well-rounded climbers, so I'll exclude them from what I am saying.

For everyone else out there

Whenever you tweak a finger or get a dodgy elbow or shoulder, this is the least of your problems. None of you are fit enough, flexible enough, strong enough, subtle enough (weighting your feet), dynamic enough, relaxed enough, efficient enough etc. Regardless of where you think you are at, you should really face up to what you need to do to get better, if you really are serious about improving. So dont take six weeks off next time you break a finger nail, instead get your finger out and do some relevant training.

mini-rant over

Except for one thing. Don't ask why you are always tweaking your fingers. If you have no other strengths then how could you possibly injure anything else?

Ok i'm done for real this time.

Here is some old and very bad footage (because i needed Anna to move the pad, rather than the camera) of me managing to do my very first Font 8a in the forest (Verdict at Rempart)

Using Injuries

2008-09-17T16:54:00.000+01:00

Over the last few years, I have made most, if not all of my significant gains during peiods of injury.

It all started with a really bad pulley injury in my right hand, which meant that I could no longer hold small or marginal holds, except under very controlled situations . At the time I didn't see it as an opportunity to get stronger. Instead it seemd like my tiny little world was over, what with an upcoming trip to Font planned and the winter fun bouldering comps coming up.

A session at the wall, injured, unable to attempt any of the problems that I normally used as my benchmark would go like this.

Warm up on the easiest of the Alien V1s and some easy climbing about.
Gentle hangs on the campus-board using open, half-crimped, full crimped and bi-doigt grips.
Campusing using the four above mentioned grips (if everything was feeling ok).
Light stretching.
Session over.

I came out from the end of this training, heading to font and getting some long-overdue projects laid to rest and all because I had started training with different grip positions, which I knew had been a weakness for many years (I couldn't close-crimp for toffee).

I guess that what I'm trying to get at is that if you want to improve in some specific way, then you should just go ahead and train for it and not let the distraction of the brightly coloured problems get in your way. This is easier said than done, but if you aren't improving from year to year, then you need to make some changes now, rather than wait for the next injury to provide you with the opportunity.

The Scene

2008-09-05T11:34:00.000+01:00

Being a climber based in Edinburgh can be both good and bad at times

Firstly, there is very little rock to play on after work, which drives a great many of us indoors.

Secondly, Edinburgh has probably got the strongest indoor scene this side of Sheffield and by “strong” I don’t just mean the exceptionally large number of keen participants, but the shear number of very strong punters. This can be a good thing, as there always tends to be motivated people climbing around or above your level when you go to the wall, (at Alien anyway) which can certainly help with motivation levels.

For me however this causes problems, as a year or so ago, if I was feeling weak and crap, then I would go down to Alien2 and burn a load of people off, which would immediately make me feel a whole lot better. The problem now is that this strategy no longer works. Any time I have visited the wall recently, I have left feeling significantly worse than when I went in.

What appears to have happened, is that a very large number of climbers have gotten a lot better and by "a lot better", I mean they are now at pretty much the same level as the strongest climbers on the local scene.

This makes Alien2 a very hard place for a strong outsider to come to, as they will almost certainly get shut down (new angles, new holds, strong locals etc.). This rarely happens elsewhere. When I have been to the other walls in Scotland, I haven't had this problem. Nor do I find that I have had this problem with a lot of the walls in Englandshire. The only reason, however that I have not had a hard time in Sheffield is because it has been good weather when I have gone their to train and I’m the only idiot indoors.

All of the above makes Edinburgh a pretty unique place to train and live and I feel that Alien Rock has been pivotal in creating such a strong and friendly indoor scene.

For the future, I have no idea. At the moment there must be over 20 guys down A2 that are physically capable of doing a Font 8a. The problem being, that many of them will never get out there and actually do one. The other problem is that without the top few guys improving, we end up with a natural ceiling that people aim for and until some seriously strong youths emerge on the scene or someone has a serious breakthrough, this will be the case.

Fiera, Mello and Ailefroide

2008-07-11T13:01:00.000+01:00

Here are a few piccies of what I've been doing over the past month or so

Anna and I finally finished building the camp campus board

We then went to Fiera for the World Cup (Fiera town square looking a bit damp)

Despite most of the problems being set by Jamie, I only topped the very last bloc (on my 3rd attempt)

Val di Mello was next on the agenda, but it was far too wet to climb

The only choice was to head for Ailefroide, as the forecast was for good weather (Anna on the reception boulder)

Anna on the Mushroom boulder

Arrived back home to find that the holds from Dylan had arrived, so set a couple of problems down at Alien2

Grindelwald

2008-06-04T17:12:00.000+01:00

As I was feeling pretty good about myself (due to my body finally being able to do what I expect from it), I had pretty high hopes for the competition in Grindelwald.

I did everything right this time, travelling out at a sociable time the day before, getting a good night's sleep, even warming up nice and slowly before going out to compete, but I forgot the most important thing - my head. For some reason, I just wasn't psyched or excited about the problems and nor did I have any conviction in the decisions that I made. I ended up climbing like a proverbial "sack of spuds" and came off stage feeling at a brand-new all-time low.

The following three hours were spent watching the rest of the boys climb and I had resigned myself to giving up comps completely, telling myself that I should be concentrating on more important things like climbing on "real" rock and DIY. It took me a while to realise that the reason I was having this crisis of confidence was because of the lack of an obvious excuse for my crappy performance.

I just have to knuckle down and get psyched for Fiera next weekend. After all, there'll be plenty of time for DIY when I finally retire

The view from the Hotel

flick and stick

2008-05-28T11:59:00.000+01:00

I realised during the competition in Hall that I was lacking two pretty crucial ingredients

Firstly, I really need to be climbing a lot more dynamically
Secondly, I need to be able to catch what I flick for (what some people call contact strength)

I was psyched to get on with the next phase in my training which ought to give me my snap back. This has comprised of dynamic weights excercises combined with some dynamic campusing. 3 weeks into this I am finally starting to feel good and dare-I-say strong again.

Anna has filmed me getting a p.b. on the fitted furniture. The sunlight has gotten in the way a bit so excuse the brightness levels.

0-5-8

Off to Grindelwald tomorrow for the next round of the boulder world cup

WC Hall

2008-04-25T16:35:00.000+01:00

I was out In Austria at the weekend with a few of the British Team for the first round of the World Bouldering Cup. I wasn't expecting too much from myself due to being right in the middle of a strength conditioning programme, so I am climbing a bit like a sloth (see below).

Showing typical form, I topped one of the harder blocks and dropped all of the reasonable ones, placing me in a position where it was significantly easier to measure my performance from last place, than from 1st place. All the same, it was still well worth the trip, even if just to get back in the swing of things as much as giving me an almighty kick up the backside.

If Carlsberg Built Fitted Furniture

2008-04-07T13:17:00.000+01:00

I have recently been Training frantically, but have finally put the time aside to undertake some long overdue DIY. In order to make space for a gymn in our spare room, I agreed to fabricate a bespoke shelving unit to house all of the boxes and general stuff that we would normally keep in the box room, thus freeing up all of the floorspace for training.

As you can see from the pictures, it will be large enough to store a couple of midgets at the very least

As this has been such a large task we will be holding a launch party for the "shelving unit" when it is finally complete.

The Return

2008-02-22T15:47:00.000Z

Last weekend was my first venture down South for team training since my long layoff from training and climbing due to the winter lurgi.

On Saturday we were based at The Climbing Works in Sheffield, where we had a great session with Andy Earl about identifying our Strengths and weaknesses. I had wrongly thought that a general lack of deep lock/ inability to weight my feet were my main weaknesses, but Gaz and Andy both reckoned that a general lack of height/ inability to live near appropriate training venues was closer to the truth. Needless to say, they are both correct (Gaz and Andy that is) as I do need to get exposure to the correct style of boulder problems and I suppose I have to admit to being a "short arse" at some point.

Sunday was spent at BoulderUK in Blackburn for comp practice. I hadn't realised how weak I am at the moment until trying these problems. I am perfectly used to being unable to read a problem correctly, or notice every little element of usable trickery, but having zero power as well was quite depressing. As usual, everyone else looked suitably awesome, so it's time to knuckle down and get into some serious training.

Here is a picture of me humping a ball in Erlangen last year, courtesy of climbing.nl and Adwin Timmer.

I'm seriously looking forward to this years comp season (as long as I can get back in shape soon).

Plywood/Rock

2007-12-05T16:27:00.000Z

The last three weeks I have been taking part in 'fun' comps

The first of these was the EICA round of the East verses West comps. The setting was supposedly easier than the previous round but I was in full shambles mode so the problems felt Really hard. Thankfully I wasn't the only one struggling that day so I managed to shake my way to a perfect score.

The second of these was the Plywood Masters at BoulderUK

This comp was excellent as ever, with a great mix of technical, novelty and power problems. The qualifier went badly for me (a bit of an running theme), but I somehow managed to sneak into the final in 7th place. After being fully shut down on every problem, I managed to convert this to a stunning (yup you guessed it) 7th place

Last was round 2 of Alien Rocks winter bouldering series. The problems were of the highest quality and this more than makes up for the lack of difficulty (three of us had perfect scores). Hopefully all the setters will keep up the good work with the next round.

Deadly Strain

2007-11-22T10:58:00.000Z

Due to my weakened physical state (after my food poisoning incident), I thought that I had succumbed to this dreadful cold that everyone on the planet seems to have.

The symptoms definately seemed to fit, whilst walking up to problem 1 in Brno I felt ok (aside from the usual nerves), but once I had pulled on, it was immediately apparent that I had no power. I topped the problem (it wasn't very hard!) in horrible shaky style and immediatly started to sweat. I had a total nightmare on the following five blocs, barely managing to scrape any bonuses together and feeling horribly ill.

Once back in Edinburgh I assumed that I would soon start feeling better, but I was wrong. I don't have a cold at all but have caught the deadliest strain of the shambles virus.

Be afraid! The shambles virus is highly contagious, even observing someone elses shambolic floundering on the wall is enough for you to become infected. Even last night, an unsuspecting Niall forgot to avert his eyes whilst I was flapping around and then he too immediately started to display the same symptoms.

If you are unlucky enough to be near me next time I am bouldering, be sure to look the other way.

You have been warned

Font Rocks

2007-11-02T12:09:00.000Z

Just back from a great two week trip to Font where, after years of trying, I have finally managed to do my first Font 8as. The first being Verdict at Cuvier Rempart (which really suited me as it is crimpy as hell and a little bit campusy).

The second took a lot of tries and a lot of different approaches, until I finally managed to send Fata Morgana by using a high heel (see below).

All in all it was a great trip with Anna managing her first 7as (her first in the forest that is), despite being so psyched as to climb 14 days straight.