Lattice Training Log Part 5: Week 3 of training. More progress. Finding the routine. Easing off.
This was the week of Sept 5, and was the third week of my first cycle.
You can find a spreadsheet of the details
here. The highlights are:
Completed all of the sets of the repeater workout in half crimp for the first time.
Completed 6 sets of 8 reps of pull ups for the first time.
Completed the full 4 sets of 6 reps of wide pull ups for the first time.
The bar core workout felt a lot easier, and I did the movements slower and with better form.
Now that I’m in week 3, I feel like I’ve gotten into the routine of training. My sessions are feeling really efficient and I’m spending a lot less time at the gym. I’ve also made a bunch of adjustments to make training more engaging and comfortable.
Initially I followed the routine that Lattice gave me very strictly, and timed all my stretches. Lately I’ve stopped timing myself, and started going more by feel. I wanted to be able to spend a bit more time getting into spots where I feel tight.
I’ve substituted / modified a few poses, since some felt too hard and didn’t allow me to feel a proper stretch. Finally, I added a few movements where I move the stretch around. For example, doing “windshield wipers” with your knees while sitting on the floor, or rotating your hips towards and away from your leg when doing “head to knee”.
I feel like for the first time, I’m making a lot of progress on mobility. For example, the pancake stretch has always felt impossible to me. My lower back would round so much that I couldn’t ever really feel anything in my hamstrings. I’ve been trying it at the end of my mobility sessions and now I feel like I can actually lean forward without rounding my back and feel the stretch where I’m supposed to feel it. It’s pretty exciting!
Last week I shared my
tension board warmup, where I traverse the holds while keeping my feet planted on the floor, and then practice driving with my feet while I try moves on good hands.
I shared that video with Billy, and he recommended also adding two more drills:
leaving feet in the same spot on the kick board, walk your hands around as far as you can extend.
leaving hands in a comfortable position, walk your feet around as high as you can in each direction.
I like this warmup so much I’ve been doing it even on days when I’m not using the tension board for my main session. I feel like it’s a really great way to practice finding tension in extended positions, driving through my feet on big moves, and keeping my weight in my lats and shoulders, rather than in my biceps. Plus, my fingers feel way warmer than when I use the set boulders (I’m noticing that a lot of the V0-V4 boulders use really large holds so it ends up not really getting into my fingers so much).
Due to the much higher volume on the wall, I’ve had to dial in my skin game a bit. I preemptively tape my pinkies for tension board sessions. I also got a blister on one of my index fingers, and preemptively taped that so it wouldn’t rip off and make for a painful session.
I’ve been more careful about sanding down my calluses while I warm up, if I feel them squishing around too much.
And, I got some salve, and have been using it a bit after climbing. I don’t know if that’s actually changing anything, but it feels nice so I’ll probably keep doing it.
If you’ve been following along, I felt like last week was pretty rough, and I was a bit worried about an overuse injury. After consulting with Billy, I decided to make some adjustments this week to try and not dig myself into as much of a hole.
I’m still tuning the boulder triplets session. I think I’ve still been using problems that are too long and not intense enough. In previous weeks I’d do 10 or so moderate moves in each go, which ended up making me feel very fatigued.
This week I tried doing shorter but more powerful boulders. I failed on the last repeat of 2 of them, but it was more of a “not enough power” sort of feeling, rather than a “peeling off” sort of feeling like in previous weeks. I think that’s more of what I’m looking for, and I ended up not feeling as tired later in the week.
Upon Billy’s recommendation I backed off of the tension board grades a bit. This also coincided with my max effort session switching to a “sending” session this week, where rather than working cruxes, I was supposed to try and finish maximal climbs that I’ve worked over the previous weeks. I focused on V4s and V5s during my tension board time, stepping away from the V6-V7 cruxes I’ve worked previously.
I ended up repeating a V4, sending a new V4, and sending my first tension V5 (optical illusions) during my board session.
The moderate bouldering session was interesting. For the first 30 minutes, I felt powerful and snappy. I ended up sending a pretty long, sustained V6 after working it for 15-20 minutes, and sending a short & powerful V7 on my second go (the difficulty in the gym seems to be all over the place lately).
After 30 minutes, I seemed to run out of juice and I felt like I couldn’t really apply force to the holds any more. I ended up even sliding off of V5s towards the end. If I had to make a guess, I’d say it was possibly my CNS just not being able to keep up any more (I especially found it difficult to pinch very hard).
So, spending a whole hour on moderate overhanging boulders still feels tough, though I’m really hoping that I can hang on to that amazing snappy feeling for longer in future weeks.
Due to all of these adjustments, I feel like I’m in a much better mood this week, and my shoulder is feeling solid.
Also, next week is my first de-load week. I’m really excited because I’ve never actually done a planned de-load before. I’m curious to see how it feels next week, and what coming back after will feel like.