THE ANKLE SESSIONS: TIRED!!!

Three big, beefy sessions in a row made me very tired. My back is stiff, my forearms sore, my fingers scream for justice.

Why? Because I finally could put some decent shoe on my right foot also: a three years old La Sportiva Testarossa, former shoe of The Guru donated to the gym, to give that extra bit to beginners, and in my case to climbers with swollen ankles. Being quite open I can still have it tight in the toes but loose and comfy around my taped ankle. Success.

After the siked and rad session, on friday afternoon I was still feeling eager. I wasn't very sparky, as it came out. Anyway: three sets of four one armers, twisting; then, instead of the front levers, I did swings (as for a high heelhook) from a bad pinch, so that you can't simply let go and take advantage of the swing, but you have to control every inch of the move, otherwise you slip from the pinch, three swings for each side, five sets.

Then, bouldering!!! I found out I can quite load the ankle if I don't twist it, so apart from climbing like a Playmobile toy, it's all good. Sadly I can't complete all of the problems because they end quite high up on the wall and I don't want to risk anything. Anyway I managed to flash e few new problems, and had very good tries on two red problems that I both did yesterday afternoon.

I realized that in the last weeks I've never stepper out of the 45° and 60° walls area.

Then, what's next? Next, there's a month again dedicated to bouldering on rock, as soon as my ankle will be able to take small falls. I have many projects, and many of them are quite low or with very good landings, so something could definitely go. Would really like to join Mikael up in Switz next week, so we'll see.

While I'm typing this, down there in his secluded, dark laboratory miles and miles under the earth surface, The Guru is working for me and for you all who have embraced the Dark Side. He is testing on himself (for a national lead comp) some training methods, that he calls "Functional Power", in which you train every aspect power related, but only on the climbing wall: i.e. no fingerboard, no pull up bar, no campusboard. Everything is a sort of system training, but more specific.

This is clearly what is next for me. This winter will be dedicated mainly to this I'm afraid, so my hopes of yet more records to be set on the smallest holds of the fingerboard are long gone, but if The Guru deposits me on top of what I want, I may even try and not go to the gym at night time to secretly test me on some jibs...

Example here:

THE ANKLE SESSIONS: PSYCHE

Yesterday I got to the gym a bit unsure about what I should do. The schedule was for fingerboarding, but the temp a bit warm, one finger not feeling good and some fatigue from tuesday made me think more: I thought "I'm not syked!!! Dammit bro, this ain't gonna be rad!!!" Luckily one of my homies, Luca, got in. "Yo bring your fat ass under the 60°, Keyser Soze" he told me; I said "Yo weren't you goin' to get some ink?" "Tomorrow, tomorrow: I'm gettin' a long sleeve man, a Chinese landscape from me shoulder to me wrist!!!" " Fuckin hell man, you're gonna look awesome!!! You'd better look awesome tomorrow, because right now I'm gonna kick your ass with just one shoe on!!!"

Then we proceeded to bust big moves between small, slopey holds, body tension baby, full power baby, full steam baby, screaming and yelling our way up the hardest problems the gym had to offer, that lasted so short under our pressure, that we were settin' new rad stuff in five seconds baby.

"Yo mutants, stop pullin' my holds out of the walls!!!" screamed Cristiano, the gym owner, "Hey stop bitchin' like yo' mama and come pullin baby" we replied. Ahh what a session!!! I feel knackered, worked, beasted, beaten.

Ha!

Well, it could have gone like this, but it didn't. I taped my ankle like hell and did a couple of long circuits with only my left shoe on, one at 7b, and one at 7c+ (in two parts!!!) and then I finally put a big right shoe on: the other night I had spent the session deadhanging, watching my friends bouldering; I was thinking that the problems they were working were very hard, only one of them did them after many tries, and I was more or less happy of not being able to join them because of my ankle, because I was afraid of not being up to them. Yesterday night I flashed the first and did the second in 15 minutes.

Lightweight baby.

THE ANKLE SESSIONS

A few weeks ago, I decided not to train for the rest of september, because I was feeling a bit tired and I knew that I have to get to the start of the real training very rested, psyched and with a strong will. So I just tried to focus on climbing, stealing a few sessions out there on the rocks, and just going to the gym to boulder on problems at my limit, as I would do at any bouldering area. I was hoping this method would pay benefits, enabling me to send something hard sooner or later. Well, now I know I was right, because after a few days that were needed to fine tune everything, and make power, finger strength, technique, momentum work together, in the last week I was feeling quite good, and my five minutes of climbing last sunday proved it again.

All this is worthless, if I think about it in terms of going out and sending stuff.

It's useful, if I think about it in terms of the right moment to put some more into it, thinking long term.

So monday I started my "ankle sessions", which is another way to call fingerboarding. It felt strange to take out of the bag the stopwatch again after long long time of just bouldering with no attention to rest times, number of reps, sets and so on. It felt good, though, after a while.

Monday I just did deadhangs on a rounded 1,5 cm edge (much better than the wooden one because you can't use the sharp edge to gain friction so you squeeze more), six sets per arm; then on big slopers, the same I have on The Mother of All Fingerboards (she is still in the house at the sea, but don't worry my dear soon you'll be home again), but these ones at the gym are mounted slightly overhanging so they are hard to hold, unless it's very sticky: six sets again, first without thumb, then with the thumb, pinching and fully locking off to failure; then four sets on the small crimps (again the same of TMoAF), very strenuous at the end of the session. I think that was all, a good test.

Yesterday it was beefy pulling time: I started with five sets of front levers, 10 seconds each; then three sets of four one armers, twisting, for each arm; then other three sets of four, frontal, no twisting. Then five other sets of 10 seconds front levers and I was ready to go home.

I know it will pay out.