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The Power Cycle: Stay-At-Home Routine Day 8

Day 8 of a 28-day power-training cycle for the climber looking for strength at home.

Day 8:

With our light exercise complete, we should have afforded our hands the additional day they needed to fully heal. With our fingers feeling strong, we can move onto our second week, and third day of hangboard. The Day 8 training, as mentioned yesterday during Day 7, will be a heavy training day. Tomorrow will bring with it a much needed rest day before we move into our second weekly set of hangboard.

When you are hangboarding, it is important to execute each “burn” with precision. Forcing your fingers onto the board is one thing, but maintaining shoulder engagement, and joint stability is essential if you are looking to improve without injury. It is essential that you hangboard first, as this will be the most taxing portion of your training. Following our rest day, we will move into weighted exercises such as weighted pull ups, and begin to look into the benefits of various power-focused exercises.

Warm Up:

  • Warming up will likely differ between people, but these are a few good warm ups.
    • Shoulder rolls
    • Rotations: hold arms out perpendicular to the length of your body. Your arms should be parallel to the floor. Begin by rotating your wrists clockwise while your arms are straight. Then increase the rotation from the shoulders, maintain g your straight arms. Steadily increase the radius of rotation until your arms are wind milling, then reverse the direction.
    • Hang on a bar and retract and relax your shoulders
      • Complete a number of pull ups that would warm you up but not tire you out

Hangboard:

These hangboard exercises listed below are simple and easy to follow. The training is still exceptionally difficult, and that thought should remain present at all times. When pulling onto a board, you should constantly consider the safety of your fingers.

Step 1:

Pick an edge. You will use this edge for the entire month. It should be something you can hold for 7-10 seconds. If you can hold it for 16 seconds or more, it is possible that you will need to add weight or decrease the edge size. If possible, retain the edge size, and add a small amount of weight.

Step 2:

Know the hand positions.

  • Open-hand is defined by a straightened pointer finger, a 90 degree bend in the middle two, and a relatively straight pinky finger.
  • Half-crimp is defined by the pointer, middle and ring fingers bent to 90 degrees, with a semi-straight pinky finger
  • Full-crimp: we will not train.
  • Watch Dave MacLeod’s video on hangboarding for alternative hand-positions for more advanced climbers and general tips and tricks

Step 3:

Warm up the fingers.

  • Warm up your fingers by hanging on progressively smaller holds for increasing amounts of time.
  • Pull on various edge sizes while retaining contact with the ground. This is known as the “French Traverse”.
  • After your fingers are warm, a process which should take at least as long as it takes to warm your fingers up on easy climbs in the gym (10-30 minutes), begin training.

Step 4:

Training

  • For those doing two handed hangs:
    • 3 sets of four-finger open-hand for 7-10 seconds
    • 6 sets of four-finger half-crimp for 7-10 seconds
    • Rest for 2-5 minutes between each hang.
  • For those completing one handed hangs:
    • Place on hand on edge, on hand on a static rope to the side of the edge
    • Hang on the edge with one hand, and pull on the rope to counterbalance the weight that your edge-hanging hand cannot sustain.
      • Hold the rope as low as possible and aim to lower that hand between sessions so that you can increase the weight on the engaged hand.
    • Complete 9 sets of 7-10 second hangs on a large edge (15mm-35mm) on both sides.
      • If you fall part way through the hang, move your hand higher up the rope so to ensure that you complete the set on the set.

Agonist muscles:

Once your biceps and shoulders are fully warm, or so warm that you could pull as hard as you would want, begin off-set pull ups.

Offset pull ups:

Offsets are designed to help you build one-arm power. Though we completed a few of these over the course of our conditioning period, we will adjust them for maximum output. For Day 8, hang a rope from your pull-up bar. Place your hand as low as you can on that rope. Either knot it or tape the rope so that you know your maximum offset distance between days.

  • Complete 4 sets of 3 repetitions on each arm
    • Rest for two to five minutes between each set, even between arms
      • Be careful of your wrists during this period.
    • If you are already capable of completing a one-arm pull up, then strive to complete between 6 and 10 one-arm pull ups, a side, separated by two-minutes rest.

Pull-ups: High Intensity

Over the course of this routine, you will strive to complete each exercise, resting 30 seconds between exercises. For Day 8, you will work to complete all three pull up variations a total of three times in a row.

  • Pull-up: complete 5-10 repetitions
  • Wide grip: complete 5 – 10 repetitions
  • Archer pull-up: complete 6 – 10 repetitions.
    • archer pull ups are defined by a wide grip. First engage your shoulders as you would while hanging from a wide-grip position. Once you have done so, complete a repetition by pulling up, and bringing your sternum in line with your left hand. Release, and complete your second repetition by bringing your sternum to your right hand.

Lock-Offs:

Once your offsets are complete, rest for five-minutes and begin your lock-offs.

Try and hold a lock-off with one arm bent at 90-degrees. If this is too challenging, complete the exercise in a full lock-off on one arm. If this is too difficult, complete ten negatives.

  • Negatives: Hold a full lock-off with two arms at the top of the bar. Let one arm go and try and resist gravity with the other arm. You will either hold the lock-off or slowly descend to a straight arm position. The goal of a negative is to increase the time it takes to descend.
    • Complete ten one-arm negatives on each side
  • Lock Offs:
    • If you are able to complete the lock-off, then…
    • Aim to hold lock for 10 seconds. 3 sets a side.

Core:

For Day 8 we will maintain a fairly high level of repetitions in our core exercises. We will reduce this number slightly in an effort to perfect our form. On the leg-lifts especially, strive for perfect form. Remember, perfect form means no swing and straight legs.

Hanging leg-lifts:

Beginner: 10 sets of 5 repetitions: bring the legs up so that your body makes a 90-degree angle

Moderate: 10 sets of 5 repetitions: bring your feet to the bar

Expert: 10 sets of 10 repetitions: feet to bar

The 5-minute Core Destroyer:

  • One minute each of the following exercises:
    • Plank
    • big kicks
    • swimmer kicks
    •  V-Sit
    • big kicks
      • There is no rest between each exercise, instead rest at the conclusion of all five exercises. Then rest for five minutes and repeat the series twice more.

Antagonist Muscles:

Push-ups: High Intensity

Complete 5, 7, or 10 repetitions depending on your skill level per exercise on Day 8. Once that is established…

Complete the following exercises three times in a row for a total of nine sets. Your total push-up count for the day will be either 45, 63, or 90 repetitions.

  • elbows-back push-ups: complete 5-10 then rest 30 seconds
  • diamond push-ups: complete 5-10 then rest 30 seconds
  • archer push-ups: complete 5-10 then rest 30 seconds

Flexibility:

Hold each stretch for 15-30 seconds:

  • Straddle Splits: This stretch is important to climbing as it increases a climber’s lateral flexibility for moves like stemming in a corner.
  • Hamstring: keep your legs straight and bend down to your feet. Keep your back flat for an alternate version of this stretch.
  • Hip-flexor: Flexible hip-flexors allow a climber to high-step.
  • Quadricep: preventative against injury
  • Triceps stretch: preventative against injury
  • Shoulder stretch: increases mobility
  • Calf stretch: increased heel-hooking mobility

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@k.will____ during a full moon session on “Le Crack Machine.”! – Repost and ? @felipesh ? ”In times like this is hard to keep the stoke everyday, especially for things like climbing, when we don’t know when or if things will go back to “normal.” We were lucky enough to be able to build a homemade crack climbing machine in our backyard at the beginning of our stay-at-home order and it has been really useful to help us stay positive, get some time outside, and keep us excited for the time when we can go climbing on real rock again. Two days ago we had a full moon session ? and I got this photo of @k.will____ trying hard on “Le Crack Machine.” I used my @zeisscameralenses 18mm/2.8 on my @sonyalpha camera and a @blackdiamond headlamp for a little extra light, but the moon above provided almost all the brightness we needed to capture this fun image. En tiempos como estos es difícil mantener la motivación todos los días, especialmente en temas como la escalada, cuando no sabes si todo va volver a la “normalidad” pronto. Tuvimos la suerte de construir un sistema de fisura en nuestro patio al principio de la cuarentena. Nos ha ayudado un montón para estar bien positivos, y salir al aire libre (nuestro patio) y mantenernos motivados y fuertes para cuando tengamos la oportunidad de salir a escalar a la roca. Hace dos dias tuvimos una espectacular sesión bajo luna llena donde tomé esta imagen de @k.will____ dándolo todo en “Le Crack Machine”. Use mi lente @zeisscameralenses 18mm/2.8 con mi cámara @sonyalpha y una frontal @blackdiamond para darle un toque extra de luz, pero la súper luna nos facilitó toda la luz necesaria para crear esta imagen. ” #homeclimbinggyms #keepitsimple #keepitpositive #covid19 #fullmoon

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Featured photo by Julian Finney of Imogen Horrocks.

 

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