maandag 21 september 2015

Crash, crush!

Another strength training cycle is finished! For thirty days I religiously followed the training plan and it seems to have paid off. A few weeks ago I already wrote that even though the first sessions weren't good - number 2 being soul crushingly bad - a promising upward trend became visible after five trainings. The sessions that followed absolutely blew my mind: in terms of volume training number 6 was the toughest I've ever recorded and all the following trainings surpassed the previous. The volume graph below (in red) shows the rapid volume increase through the cycle compared with the previous cycles. After ten trainings I've set personal records on the added (and total) load for every single grip position (see second and third graph). I am amazed! After the 'big crash' this summer I set my hopes on reaching old strength levels again and didn't dare thinking about actually crushing them.

This is the first quantifiable result since I started recovery and it seems that through the course of the past thirty days I've fully reached my old (finger) strength levels again. Now let's hope the measured gains will translate well into power and increased climbing performances… Campus training is up next and I hope to get out on the rocks soon again!

Workout volume and time under tension per training (explained here). A rapid increase in volume during the third cylce is visible. The last five trainings exceed volume levels of previous cycles. Note that season 1 and 2 are hardly comparable, due to the much lower T.U.T. in season 1. Season 3 shows improvement over season 2 for similar T.U.T. though.
Added (or substracted) load per grip position (the exact excercises are described here). Personal records on all grip positions were reached. The figure below shows this also holds for the total load, which includes effects of body weight fluctuations.


vrijdag 4 september 2015

Relapse, return

Just after sending my project 'Super Surfer', my life was thrown upside down. I started feeling ill on wednesday and found myself on the intensive care by saturday. Luckily the days of absolute misery that followed went by in a bit of a blur. One thing was made very clear though: if Michelle hadn't dragged me to the hospital, I would have died. Possibly on the same day. My liver was failing, my kidneys were failing, my brain was failing and my blood values were dropping like a brick in free fall. Not good. Although I was promised at least a month in the hospital, the doctors released me after a week. To this moment they are failing (and still trying) to identify the cause of my relapse, but after five days of intensive treatment and administration of a high dose of prednisone I started recovering rapidly. Two days later I slept in my own bed again. And for a few weeks, that's what I've mostly done: sleeping. Initially, even reading was too much of an effort. I got pulled through by Michelle, who arranged to be at home and take care of me for weeks.

As psychologically provoking and cathartic the experience may have been, I somehow fail to write down anything meaningful about it. I try to remember and to forget simultaneously. Most of all I want to feel healthy and strong again. It's severely testing my patience… After ten days at home, exactly three weeks after climbing 'Super Surfer' I tried climbing on my woody again. It was terrible: I couldn't finish a single boulder. Even the warmups of my previous trainings were too hard. I felt miserably weak. I was miserably weak. Since then, I did some sort of rehabilitation training on almost every single day: yoga, light crossfit, long walks, bouldering, anything to get back into climbing shape again. Gradually the intensity increased and after three weeks of rehabilitation I climbed a 7b route in Teuto again. Although still a long way from 8a, it was a massive confidence booster. I deeply enjoyed the following weeks of holiday, being able to enjoy live, to walk with Michelle and the dogs for days in Luxembourg and even do some more climbing in the lower half of the 7th grade. Higher 7's felt completely impossible though.

I will need one or more full training cycles to get back to my previous shape again. When work started two weeks ago, I kicked off a new cycle and began with strength training. Anticipating disappointment, I started with low loads. I was disappointed nevertheless… Because fingerboard trainings are very quantifiable, the results left little doubt about the fact that my initial performance sucked big time. Perseverance is paying off though and after two demoralizing first trainings I got the hang (pun fully intended) of it again. Now, five trainings in, it seems I'm on track to reach the high points of my previous season again. I'll be back!