Six euros well spent

There's not much to mention on the outdoor front unfortunately... I've had limited chances to get out and I didn't use them quite as well as I should have. Let's not talk about it. I started noticing that my endurance and stamina (the possible volume of a session) are suffering badly from my regimen of short, strength and power oriented boulder trainings. I've been doing them almost exclusively for (way) too long: the gains are diminishing and the neglected aspects such as volume and endurance are hitting rock bottom. On top of that, tweaking my diet to support hypertrophy (yes, I know, I still have to finish an article about it...) made me measurably stronger (my deadhang performance took quite a leap, I'll write about that too), but also about 3 kg heavier. I feel like it helped my maximum strength, but it had a detrimental effect on more endurance oriented exercises. Although I do feel stronger than ever on short bursts, it's time to translate the power and strength gains to power endurance. Additionally, training for some stamina will help me make the most of future outdoor sessions.

So I started hitting the gym again once a week to refamiliarize with pumped forearms. For me, the best place to do that probably is Arque: the gym where time stands still and all routes are nothing but endurance and fitness tests. There's no place on earth where I climb as badly as in Arque and I can't image climbing much further out of my comfort zone. Lots of improvement potential and excellent training! Additionally, I devised a 25 move power endurance circuit on my woody and started doing laps on it. Tough! In the steep lead walls of Arque I realized that clipping quickdraws is very taxing for me: I tend to waste a lot of energy there and get pumped extremely fast. This conclusion led me to install a four hangers for quickdraws on my woody. With a harness and a short rope (three meters) I now (try to) include several clips in my power endurance circuit. It's the best 6 euros I've spent in a long time. Relatively easy sections suddenly became much, much harder and super sustained. As all holds are small, the board is steep and all footholds are sloping, holding clipping positions turned out to be a real challenge. After three training sessions, I'm not even close to completing my power endurance circuit once with clipping, whereas I can repeat it eight times more or less to the finish without.

Getting stuck in a routine is an easy pitfall and I stumbled into it again, face first. It's past time to change my game again. I've marked a few dates in my calendar at which I'm supposed to switch routines and enter a new training phase again. All is geared to achieving a peak in lead climbing performance during the holiday break in Februari. In theory it looks good. Now let's see what it really does...