Weeks 39 & 40: consulting Nate Drolet

Consultation:

Nate Drolet from the Power Company gave me loads of useful information, so I decided to add a section on top of my usual format. He watched several videos of me as well as videos of my current project in order to give specific advice.

Technique:

My breathing on most routes is very deliberate, which he likes. But for my project it is probably a bit too fast. He wants me to try more relaxed breaths to conserve energy, simply breathing out longer than I have been should work.

My feet are very low when I climb. This is mostly due to my hips as my range of motion is severely restricted, but even a tiny bit higher will make things a lot easier for me. Being a gym climber may have taught me some bad habits for outdoors as well, as they tend to set minimal foot holds and place them far apart. He suggested I make more foot movements than hand moves and make sure I move my centre of gravity slightly up each time (even if that means bending my arms), which should keep me in the safe range of motion in terms of hips.

He noticed I prefer climbing with 1 leg on the wall (again, mostly due to a lack of ROM in the hips), but it looks like I'm a bit lazy with my flagging techniques. He suggested I explore the full range of (for instance) the backflag. It should feel like getting into a clipping position each time. When done right, there's almost no swing whenever you let go of 1 hand. In the backflag position, if I flag far enough I could engage a smear with that foot, which could make it much easier as well.

I have a huge preference for open hand holds. Even though I got stronger in the half crimp and full crimp positions, I struggle to apply my new found strength on the wall. I told him that I believe this is because my body position is still in the open hand position, and as a result my centre of gravity is just a tiny but too low. As I go from open hand to half crimp, my hand basically has to do a "hand only pull up", so the whole weight is on my hands. He suggested I try to hit a hold in the open hand position, then do a little "kip" to get my body up just a little bit and unweight my hand as I get into the half crimp or full crimp position. If I do this correctly, I should still have a large amount of weight on my feet like I've learned to do in the open hand position. Finally, he suggested I "roll" my fingers from open hand to crimp, to increase the amount of skin surface area.

I could probably climb a lot faster by removing the time between moves. So I don't need to speed up my climbing, I just need to get rid of the wasted time. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Tactics:

I climbed in my project when it was soaking wet, as a result my hands and shoes got really dirty and every move turned into a challenge. Although this was a really good experience in terms of confidence (I improved my micro beta on every single move), it's not a good tactic as it wastes a lot of enery and may cause a habit of overgripping. He suggests that, if it's wet, I start at the 4th bolt and work the route from there till the end (this whole part is almost always dry).

I already use anti hydral because of my sweaty hands, and it is also giving me a thicker skin which helps on the sharp holds in this route. He suggested I also add a little bit to the sides of my finger, as it could help against the sharp pockets that could otherwise cut me. I already knew that torn and painful skin makes it hard to commit for moves and really pull, but he said that if skin is just slighlty worn it can actually cause overgripping. So it's good to be aware of this and apply tape early if I notice overgripping or worn skin.

The cost / benefit of the knee bar is complicated. The knee bar is so early in the route, that I'm not pumped yet. The crux of the route is immediately after the knee bar. Currently, I try to stay in the knee bar for about 3 minutes... as a result, as soon as I'm out of the knee bar, although I'm not pumped, I am powered out. He suggests I experiment with shorter rests, so that I get past the crux in under 2 minutes.

Exercises: 

I mentioned that this route (as well as many others) don't necessarely cause me to fail due to pump, I just feel completely powered out. He said this is mostly due to the anaerobic system, and gave me a few exercises to try specifically for my project. The first exercise is climbing for 1 minute, then taking 3 minutes of rest and repeating this 4 times. I should pick a climb that is hand/finger intensive. I should try and imitate the hand positions of the route, so I could grab a kilterboard hold with 3 fingers for training value. After a 15 minute break I should try the second exercise: 2 minutes on 5 minutes off on a boulder problem with great holds but very big moves that require uppery body strength. I should try and climb at the same pace as I do in my project. In both exercises I should drop down and immediately pull back on rather than down climbing, so that the intensity of the boulders can be higher.

I can practise my single leg climbing by climbing boulders and applying the technique advice he gave me to ingrain it into my system. Similarly, I can try and apply his half crimp advice by doing some foot on the ground campus board laddering, or doing some easier climbs, and focussing on the "kipping" and "rolling" that he mentioned.

To train my core for this route, he suggested the Pallof press. I should focus on the ability to breath while I keep tension, as I tend to hold my breath in many positions. The Pallof press has several variations that I can try, I could even press overhead and try to keep tension while breathing there.

If I want to practise climbing faster, he suggests I start at 60% of my normal speed first and try to climb perfectly. Then redo the climb at 80%, then 100% of my normal speed while staying precise. After this, start speeding up on repeats until I notice it's too fast to keep good form. In my case, I should focus on removing the lag between moves rather than speeding up.

What I did:

I climbed in Glucose 3 times. The first time everything felt harder than before, but the second and third time I managed to make MUCH bigger links. I managed to get to the 5th bolt quite consistently, and I can go from that bolt to the 8th bolt (which marks the 7c). I've experimented with different resting positions and found a second knee bar, although this one is really hard to hold for more than a few seconds, it does make clipping a lot easier. On my last trip to Glucose everything was dripping wet, causing me to overgrip and slip off most foot holds. It felt like a much harder route, and as a result I managed to seriously improve my micro beta on pretty much every move.

I also managed to do the exercises Nate gave me in a session, I liked them :)

Reflecting:  

I can't help but think that if I would've had a couple of consultations with Nate throughout the year... I may have already sent the 8a by now... I notice I'm already applying the technique tips and they're making a difference. I will apply the tactics next time I'm at Glucose, I'm sure they will help.

But so far it's the breathing exercise in combination with the Pallof press that could be a potential game changer! It's teaching me to keep tension while breathing), something I've always struggled with. It's hard to explain, but it's almost as if I'm using a totally different set of muscles to breath now.

Furthermore, my confidence in my own ability is at an all time high. The other day I flashed a 7A on the 50 degree kilterboard while doing on the minute boulders that I was varying with deadlifts. It's a hard, full body exercise, which suggests I might be able to do a 7A boulder problem halfway up a route now. Climbing on Glucose while the holds were dripping wet also gave me a newfound confidence, as I managed to improve my microbeta on every single move and still get almost as far on each attempt as on my previous sessions. 

I'm REALLY enjoying the process again. It's so nice to be psyched like this! I had a bit of a slump around the lattice hangboard training (possibly due to overtraining and feeling shut down by Hermann Buhl), but I'm now 100% motivated again. I also notice that my  endurance is really improving; I managed to do 50 moves on the 45 degree spray wall of Wildflower climbing gym for the first time!

The graph below does suggest I need to take it a bit easier again... Either I've started training a bit too much again, or I've caught a virus (there's another wave of corona in Holland right now, wouldn't be surprised if I got sick)... Regardless, the graph below it shows that my psych was maxed out during every single session, which is awesome :)

What will I do next time:

My strategy for Glucose: after low pointing the 7c (from the 4th bolt with knee bar rest to the 8th bolt, I should send the 7c. This in turn will act as an 8th bolt high point on the 8a (12 bolts in total). Finally, I will low point the 8a until I can do it from the knee bar rest at the 4th bolt. If I can do that, then sending the 8a is within reach. This plan has plenty of milestones to keep me stoked, I hope it works! If it's wet like last time, then I will start at the 4th bolt and work on the 8a before sending the 7c... wet hands and shoes just don't make for a very nice climbing experience :)

Tuesday and Friday: train the half crimp and flagging in the warm up. Then work my way up to some hard kilterboard problems and start doing on the minute training: on minute 1, 3 and 5 a kilterboard problem and on minutes 2, 4 and 6 deadlifts. Looking for 20 seconds of work and 40 seconds of rest each time. This should feel very similar to the 8a in terms of effort! I should end every session with foot on the ground campus board laddering (threshold training, 5 minute sets and low to moderate pump) for aerobic endurance.

Wednesday: Same warm up then do the exercises Nate gave me for anaerobic capacity. The spray wall at Wildflower is perfect for this! In a few weeks, when I've had enough of the anaerobic capacity training, I will use the spray wall to improve my resting positions (climbing for 1 minute but adding a 30 second on the wall to shake out before and after each climb).

Weekends: Roped climbing in a gym. I should climb a route around my onsight level 3 times in a row, and set a timer for 1 minute... Every minute I should stop climbing immediately and shake out for 20 seconds in order go get better at finding rest positions. End the session with a couple of ARC (10-20 minutes no to low pump) or threshold climbing (5 minutes low to moderate pump) sets for aerobic endurance.

Of course, any time I go to Glucose I will skip the Friday (and potentially Wednesday) training to keep the overall volume the same. Oh and, as always, I'm doing physiotherapy exercises, stretches and cardio several times a week as well.

Statistics:

Climbed 170 meters on real rock.

Climbed 0 meters of aerobic endurance laps (while doing movement drills).

Taken 6 falls while committing to the next move.

Biggest link in Glucose: 5 bolts (out of 12 in total).