A CLASSIC TALE, OR: WHAT YOU SHOULDN'T DO, OR: WHAT YOU SHOULD DO

Yesterday I received a comment from my friend Martin Keller, a.k.a. The Silent Crusher, a modest - really, not in the hypocritical way of Jens Larssen of 8a.shit - guy with a regular job, who happens to boulder 8c. 

He complained about the lack of updates over here, and he was right. 

So, here's the news: the news are that I spent a lot of time with straight arms.

My last post was a gloomy one, with the black aura of lack of motivation and psyche looming over me. "Could be worse!" I should have thought. "Could be raining!" 

And rain it did. Not in Young Frankenstein's sense, alas I wish it were. 

A few months of weighted pull ups on a 1,5 cm edge suddenly took their toll under the form of a light niggle on my medial left elbow. 

"FUCK YOU LIGHT NIGGLE!" I smartly yelled, and proceeded to put in a good ol' one arm, back3 session on the incut BM rung. Boy did it hurt me. 

"FUCK YOU TOO, TWAT!" the light niggle yelled back at me, only now it wasn't a light niggle anymore, it was a green monster with eyes full of destruction. 

Cutting my losses I decided to avoid one arm sessions for a while, but my board project was waiting, and I thought it was a good idea to stick at it. Beautiful moves on front2 crimps and the compulsory Hubble-style match on a left hand undercling quickly let to big progress, of the green monster. He morphed into something like the Red Hulk, or maybe a cross between The Hulk and Silver Surfer: something everpresent and omnipotent. 

In just a month and a half I understood that board session were to be sacked. I'm surprised it didn't take me longer to get this complex axiom. 

I obviously stuck to the Iron. 

Session after session I learnt what was good and what was bad. Regular curls? Bad. Hammer-grip curls? Good. 

I took out my copy of Jim Wendler's 5-3-1 and applied its principles to my weight training. I bought an Olympic barbell that is a work of beauty. 220 cm and 20,2 kg of pure, shiny steel. I bought some more plates and started snatching and power cleaning. 

This is me repping 66 kg for 8. 

Ugly, I know, but just five minutes earlier, when doing recruitment jumps, forgetting that I had basic, hard soled shoes on, I landed badly on my right toe smashing it on the concrete floor. It hurt. It's now well blue and swollen. Oh well... 

One day I also found out that, if I keep a straight arm, I can also deadhang. FUCKING BINGO! 

So I went back to my trusty edges, the good ol' 9 mm and the freshly made, oldschool 5 mm. 

I found out that I can one arm hang the 1,5 cm edge, just barely with my left hand; with some kilos added (can't remember how much, I think 5) with my right. I set a PB of 5" on the 9 mm edge with 40 kg on, and did 5" on the 5 mm with 10 kg on. 

I aptly bought some Frictionlabs Unicorn Dust chalk.

Of course, I couldn't neglect body tension. I hit the ab-wheel hard, switching from power session to endurance ones with 2 sets of 50 or one monster set of 100. On the system board, I firstly regained confidence, then - with temps dropping - I went back to testing myself again. I worked hard on the full crimp with great benefits. 

Before hurting my toe, I was also doing foot on campusing with front and back3, front2 and mid2. Life is beautiful. 

Of course, my elbow still hurts a bit, but less than before, and in the meanwhile I got stronger. 

There you go. 

Take home lesson: you shouldn't be stupid. You should be smart. You shouldn't injure yourself. You should train around your injury.