V-World Wednesday Workout, (Training Exercise #1)
Well, I took off from climbing since Friday, and just headed back to the gym today. To my surprise a couple of new routes sprouted from the bouldering walls, including a new V2 which is very nice with lots of footwork and no painful hand-moves. I went ahead and smacked an old V0 overhanging I hadn't hit before due to some major fatigue the previous time I had tried it. The rest of the day I spent playing stick game, add-on, and Justin the insane dyno-boy.
For those that don't know what a dyno is, it generally refers to a non-reversible move. However, this isn't always the case, since some people manage dynos while remaining relatively close to the holds of origin. Generally we say these guys static'ing the dyno or going static. So during the course of the dyno runs we made up several new moves. The largest I've actually managed to hit so far was about a two foot jump up the wall. Of course with this type of movement both hands have to come off so you wind up having to really stick the end hold pretty hard. After today, we have two new ones that I'll be working on in the future, one with a 3 foot lateral movement and a second with a 1.5 foot vertical jump, but with only the left foot grabbing anything good (left foot is definitely weaker than my right foot).
All of this means nothing to most people, so I'll start taking some pictures. I want to kind of *map* the gym anyway so people can better understand what I'm spending all of my time on. We are also going to throw up a little map-site detailing our excursions in Squammish with some GPS readings and some detailed route maps for people interested in doing outdoor climbing. Should be a blast.
Climbing isn't just about hitting routes though, it is primarily about good general fitness. You wind up using a good deal of balance, flexibility, in addition to the strength most people associate with climbing. In many cases women look much cleaner doing routes because they are naturally balanced for climbing. Most men rely on superior strength which doesn't always get them very far. So at the end of the night we worked through a little training exercise:
Name: Timed Bar Hangs
Overview: Hang on the bar as long as you can while hitting preset positions
Positions: 0 - hanging, 1 - 45 degree angle, 2 - 90 degree angle, 3 - locked off with chin above the bar
Description: Start out by hanging while you start the timer. Ever 3 seconds or so call off a new position. Generally you give them a 0, 1, 2, 3 sequence when starting and then move towards a more random approach. You want them to get a 0 hang ever 20 - 30 seconds. So far the longest I've seen someone go is 90 seconds, but I'm pretty sure some of the other climbers at the gym could beat this with ease (one guy does 5 to 6 one arm pull-ups in a row)