It's been a long time since I bought some new holds for the board. It was time for some fresh circuits and I go through my process for setting and designing the layout of the board.
Back when you started climbing, finding motivation wasn’t really a big deal for a lot of folk. Yet for some, it becomes a real issue later on. In this episode I explore this and offer a simple (not not always easy) solution.
Planning endurance training, like any other aspect of physical training demands that you consider basic physiology, individual characteristics, resources available and the demands of the task you are training for. With all this considered, precise prescriptions are not always possible. In the main, I try to err on the side of identifying key priorities and arranging things to make sure those are well covered. My routine when I was training for Rhapsody was one of the simplest plans I’ve ever followed and was also a time in my climbing when I made some of the most sustained progress (excluding ‘noob gains’ as a beginner). In this video I describe what I did and possible reasons why it worked so well.
I made a follow along hang board workout, 30 minutes long and pitched for beginner/intermediate climbers (two handed hangs). In the rests in between the hangs I discuss various aspects of adjusting the hang board loading depending on your level and climbing goals. Enjoy the workout!
This is very similar to the basic workout I used when I started fingerboarding and went from 8b+ to 9a in a couple of years.
A guide to how to actually learn climbing technique, from hard practicalities to underlying principles.
Coaches and sport scientists are often trying to quantify aspects of sport and there’s good reasons for this. But climbing technique is hopelessly complex with endless variation in movement. How could we go about quantifying it, or even thinking about it in any kind of structured manner? With difficulty. In this video I introduce some simple ideas for the way I think about technique that helps me to learn it and monitor my learning.
Maddy and Ollie at Lattice Training recently invited me to their HQ in Chesterfield for their finger strength and endurance testing protocol. It was fun and interesting to see how I compare to their ever growing database of high level climbers for these basic measures of strength and endurance. As you can see in the video, it yielded a couple of surprising results for me and a little food for thought for my general approach to climbing goals in the future.
My annoying tennis elbow improved enough to start bouldering regularly again a month ago. Since then I feel like its stronger every session. A good feeling. In this session I keep on with working through the established problems on my board, building up to starting on the projects. At the end I’m getting close to my Pjs on the fingerboard, which is kind of surprising to me, but great! I also go through some of your questions about training from my last full session vlog episode. If you have more, leave a comment here on my YouTube.
BTW Did you subscribe to my YouTube channel yet? Lots more videos sharing climbing, training, nutrition and nice routes and mountains coming in 2022.
A decent discussion of the principles I apply to structure my bouldering sessions, both during lockdown and at any other time.
Many of you are getting to grips with the hangboard for the first time right now. Here is a deep dive on most of the priorities to think about to get the most out of the tool and stay uninjured. My Hangboard: The Edge.
In this video I reference a review of studies comparing high and low loads for strength training. If you would like to read the study, it is here.
In an age of lots of information about training for climbing, so many either get injured or fail to make progress because of the basics. Right now, as I come back from an injury, I am building a foundation of physical capability. A foundation of sleep, recovery, gradually increasing load and consistency.
A core principle of doing well in sport (or other things) is to find ways to turn bad circumstances large and small to your advantage as much as possible. So many training decision pathways start from this principle, or at least should do.
I got injured. So what do I do now? Some ideas for how to manage the recovery.
While my daughter Freida has been off school with the virus situation, we have been doing Joe Wicks’ morning workouts. Joe asked kids to think of their own workouts and post them up. So we came up with this and posted it up on Freida’s channel, An Koala Pinc. I thought Freida did a nice job of entertaining at the same time as leading the workout. If you like it, do join in and do share it with Joe! He says he’ll pick one to do on his livestream.
Its taken a while but we had a big delivery of Edge Hangboards today. Thanks to everyone who waited patiently. UK orders will go out tomorrow.
https://www.davemacleod.com/shop/edge
Over the coming weeks I’ll be discussing my thoughts on hang boarding during the current lockdown situation and the routines I use. They are quite simple really.
Due to the current situation we are only shipping to the UK at the moment. As soon as we can be confident that international post services are running a reliable service we’ll restart international shipping.
The warm up for climbing is fairly simple and there's no need to overcomplicate it unless you have poor conditioning or injury. But there are definitely some basics to get right. This episode (Vlog #35) goes through them.
Many of you then asked how I warm up at the crag, especially when there are few options for warming up. In this episode (Vlog 36) I warm up on the crux moves of my 9a project. Just take it step by step!
People ask me over and over 'what's your secret?' to climbing hard, maintaining level into my 40s, balancing climbing with work and family etc etc. So I felt I should address this 'meta question' of secrets of training directly.
Many of you have emailed me over the past week to ask what I think of a big budget movie just released on Netflix called The Game Changers. The movie promotes the idea that a plant-based diet will be beneficial for health and sport performance. It also suggests that eating meat will have the opposite effect. In this episode (Vlog #31), I watch the movie and offer some quick thoughts on its content and a look at some of the evidence presented in the film. Below is a list of references I discuss in the episode. I encourage you to read all of them, not just take either the Game Changers, or my own views at face value.
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31569235 Johnston, B. C., Zeraatkar, D., Han, M. A., Vernooij, R. W. M., Valli, C., El Dib, R., Marshall, C., Stover, P. J., Fairweather-Taitt, S., Wójcik, G., Bhatia, F., de Souza, R., Brotons, C., Meerpohl, J. J., Patel, C. J., Djulbegovic, B., Alonso-Coello, P., Bala, M. M. & Guyatt, G. H. 2019. Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption: Dietary Guideline Recommendations From the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium. Annals of Internal Medicine.
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31622423 Händel, M. N., Cardoso, I., Rasmussen, K. M., Rohde, J. F., Jacobsen, R., Nielsen, S. M., Christensen, R. & Heitmann, B. L. 2019. Processed meat intake and chronic disease morbidity and mortality: An overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. PLOS ONE, 14, e0223883.
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1973470 Ornish, D., Brown, S. E., Scherwitz, L. W., Billings, J. H., Armstrong, W. T., Ports, T. A., McLanahan, S. M., Kirkeeide, R. L., Brand, R. J. & Gould, K. L. 1990. Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lifestyle Heart Trial. Lancet, 336, 129-33.
4. https://archive.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/gladiator.html
5. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0110489 Lösch, S., Moghaddam, N., Grossschmidt, K., Risser, D. U. & Kanz, F. 2014. Stable Isotope and Trace Element Studies on Gladiators and Contemporary Romans from Ephesus (Turkey, 2nd and 3rd Ct. AD) - Implications for Differences in Diet. PLOS ONE, 9, e110489.
6. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141020090006.htm
7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23988511 Rizzo, N. S., Jaceldo-Siegl, K., Sabate, J. & Fraser, G. E. 2013. Nutrient profiles of vegetarian and nonvegetarian dietary patterns. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 113, 1610-1619.
8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28534027 Phillips, S. M. 2017. Current Concepts and Unresolved Questions in Dietary Protein Requirements and Supplements in Adults. Front Nutr, 4, 13.
9. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10584048 Campbell, W. W., Barton, M. L., Jr., Cyr-Campbell, D., Davey, S. L., Beard, J. L., Parise, G. & Evans, W. J. 1999. Effects of an omnivorous diet compared with a lactoovovegetarian diet on resistance-training-induced changes in body composition and skeletal muscle in older men. Am J Clin Nutr, 70, 1032-9.
10. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17684208 Hartman, J. W., Tang, J. E., Wilkinson, S. B., Tarnopolsky, M. A., Lawrence, R. L., Fullerton, A. V. & Phillips, S. M. 2007. Consumption of fat-free fluid milk after resistance exercise promotes greater lean mass accretion than does consumption of soy or carbohydrate in young, novice, male weightlifters. Am J Clin Nutr, 86, 373-81.
11. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1323303/ Volek, J. S. & Feinman, R. D. 2005. Carbohydrate restriction improves the features of Metabolic Syndrome. Metabolic Syndrome may be defined by the response to carbohydrate restriction. Nutrition & Metabolism, 2, 31.
12. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18396172 Volek, J. S., Fernandez, M. L., Feinman, R. D. & Phinney, S. D. 2008. Dietary carbohydrate restriction induces a unique metabolic state positively affecting atherogenic dyslipidemia, fatty acid partitioning, and metabolic syndrome. Progress in Lipid Research, 47, 307-318.
13. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16443784 Nieuwdorp 2006 Glycocalyx Nieuwdorp, M., van Haeften, T. W., Gouverneur, M. C. L. G., Mooij, H. L., van Lieshout, M. H. P., Levi, M., Meijers, J. C. M., Holleman, F., Hoekstra, J. B. L., Vink, H., Kastelein, J. J. P. & Stroes, E. S. G. 2006. Loss of Endothelial Glycocalyx During Acute Hyperglycemia Coincides With Endothelial Dysfunction and Coagulation Activation In Vivo. Diabetes, 55, 480.
14. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2352199/ Key, T. J., Thorogood, M., Appleby, P. N. & Burr, M. L. 1996. Dietary habits and mortality in 11,000 vegetarians and health conscious people: results of a 17 year follow up. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 313, 775-779.
15. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29674591 Smith, F. A., Elliott Smith, R. E., Lyons, S. K. & Payne, J. L. 2018. Body size downgrading of mammals over the late Quaternary. Science, 360, 310.
16. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-latin-america-50330717
17. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618215011829 Wißing, C., Rougier, H., Crevecoeur, I., Germonpré, M., Naito, Y. I., Semal, P. & Bocherens, H. 2016. Isotopic evidence for dietary ecology of late Neandertals in North-Western Europe. Quaternary International, 411, 327-345.
18. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24694282 Helander, H. F. & Fändriks, L. 2014. Surface area of the digestive tract – revisited. Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology, 49, 681-689.
19. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844163/ Sobiecki, J. G., Appleby, P. N., Bradbury, K. E. & Key, T. J. 2016. High compliance with dietary recommendations in a cohort of meat eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians, and vegans: results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Oxford study. Nutr Res, 36, 464-77.
20. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23183299 Carpenter, K. J. 2012. The discovery of vitamin C. Ann Nutr Metab, 61, 259-64.
21. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16848698 Cahill, G. F., Jr. 2006. Fuel metabolism in starvation. Annu Rev Nutr, 26, 1-22.
22. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5056667 Drenick, E. J., Alvarez, L. C., Tamasi, G. C. & Brickman, A. S. 1972. Resistance to symptomatic insulin reactions after fasting. The Journal of clinical investigation, 51, 2757-2762.
23. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9311957 Popovich, D. G., Jenkins, D. J., Kendall, C. W., Dierenfeld, E. S., Carroll, R. W., Tariq, N. & Vidgen, E. 1997. The western lowland gorilla diet has implications for the health of humans and other hominoids. J Nutr, 127, 2000-5.
24. https://journals.lww.com/nutritiontodayonline/Fulltext/2018/07000/ Assessing_the_Role_of_Cattle_in_Sustainable_Food.5.aspx#pdf-link Layman, D. K. 2018. Assessing the Role of Cattle in Sustainable Food Systems. 53, 160-165.
25. https://www.biogeosciences.net/16/3033/2019/ Howarth, R. W. 2019. Ideas and perspectives: is shale gas a major driver of recent increase in global atmospheric methane? Biogeosciences, 16, 3033-3046.
In 2007 I gave up on the idea of climbing Hunger, 9a. Over ten years later, I returned as a better climber and finished the job. But not without a carefully planned and executed preparation.
I am a quitter and in this episode (vlog #24) I go through why perhaps you should consider tactical quitting, as well as discussing the difference between tactics and strategy for achieving your goals.