jessery.com

The 20 Second Front Lever

2018-06-04T22:47:00.002-07:00

Several people have asked me how I trained to do a 20 second front lever. It certainly wasn’t easier being 6’3”, a +3” ape index, and weighing 175 lbs. I’ve always loved trying to figure out “strength tricks” like front levers and one-arm pull-ups. The most interesting part to me is the part that other people seem to find the most challenging: the fact that when you can’t do the exercise, it’s not clear how to even start. This is much more true of front levers than one-arms.
What follows is, as best I can remember, what I actually did to start at zero (can’t do a front lever) and progress to a very long front lever. Yes, I have heard of (and tested) many other approaches not listed here. I’m convinced that there are many inefficient and counter-productive ways to train front levers; so I’m mentioning only what I did.

Primary Theory
Since a proper front lever requires a straight line from ankles, to knees, to hips, to the shoulders, and to head head, all the exercises I do maintain as much of that structure as possible. The only one that we will adjust is the position of the ankles. (This is why I never believed in the approach of kicking the legs in/out to train front levers. And to be honest, I’ve never seen it result in success.)

Form
I am a big believer in form. Fewer reps or shorter hangs with perfect form is always better. Poor form through the steps below will only set you back. To this end, have a partner around whenever possible; preferably the same one. I have been fortunate to train with Bob Banks for the last 20+ years and he has timed all my front lever attempts and been there to comment on my form. This is immensely valuable and I doubt many people would have very good form without a partner commenting along the way. Also, the stricter the partner the better—their job isn’t to encourage you, it’s to tell you what you’re doing wrong.

Equipment
Use a bar if possible, it’s easier than rings. Also, I was incredibly lucky and happened to mount my bar so that when I’m in a front lever, my toes hit the bottom of my hangboard. It was just dumb luck, but it really helped keep my form in shape when I didn’t have a training partner around.

Step 1: Ab-Rollers
I hate watching people do this exercise—form is always crap. Keep a straight line from knees, to hips, to shoulder. Keep your feet tucked up towards your butt, as this prevents cheating and protects your lower back. Don’t slack off on form on the last rep, which is easy to do (finish the last rep fully, then bend at the hips to get up.) Watch my video below. Do these 3-4 days a week until you can do 3 sets of 25 reps with a 2-3 minute rest between sets. It takes me 36 seconds to do 14 reps below, so a set of 25 should take about 64 seconds. Since muscles don't count reps, a better goal might be 3 sets of 60 seconds.

Step 2: Front Lever Raises
Hang from a bar. Tuck your feet up behind you. Rotate your body up to just past level; then lower back to the starting position. Do the motion at a slow, consistent rate both up and down. Remember not to bend the elbows. Let the head rotate in line with the knees, hips, and shoulders. Watch my video. Do these 3 days a week until you can do 3 sets of 7-8 reps with a 2-3 minute rest between sets.

Step 3: Front Lever
If you’ve done the steps above in good form, I think you can now do a 2-4 second front lever. Try it. If not, go back to step 2 for a few weeks adding a slight pause when your body is horizontal.

Step 4: Longer Front Lever
Two factors will need to improve for longer front levers: strength and breathing. My understanding is that you can’t breathe if you abdominal muscles are contracted at 50% or more of your maximum strength. (This is based on old research; does anyone know if this is accurate?) So as you get stronger, you will find it easier to take very quick breaths. These breaths make a long front lever possible. Practice taking little gasps of air. What I noticed is that even one or two little breaths moves my time from about 4 seconds to around 8 seconds. This shows how important breathing is, as I clearly didn’t get twice as strong in a few weeks. Focus on breathing and do 2-3 maximum length holds (3-4 minute rests between sets) 2-3 days per week. You want to feel fresh for these workouts, so if you don’t, do 2 sets 2 days a week. I think this should get you to doing 10-15 second front levers. Once you hit maybe 13-14 seconds, move on to step 5.

Step 5: Very Long Front Lever
On June 16, 2017, I did a 15 second front lever; my longest in maybe 15 years. I trained them lightly until January, 2018 when I switched my routine up and trained front levers twice a week and only 5 minutes per workout. Then on March 27, 2018, I hit 20.5 seconds. I was pretty blown away by a 33% improvement in 9 months given that I was only training them 10 minutes a week. The format I used was 10 seconds on and 60 seconds off for 5 sets. Focus on completing all 5 sets for the full 10 seconds. So start with both knees bent. Once you can do two consecutive workouts holding it the full time on all sets, increase to one leg bent. Then once you can do two consecutive workouts, increase to both legs straight. Once I could do two consecutive workouts with both legs straight, I hit my 20.5 second front lever.

Fine Tuning
There are a few things that are minor elements when you’re starting out, but make a difference when you’re pushing your limit. These are:

The position of the head. Everyone wants to look down at their feet to help judge level and their form. Don’t do this as tilting the head forward pushes weight towards the bar and we want every ounce as far from the bar as possible to counter our legs. I stare at one exact spot behind me every time, which helps me focus and puts my head in the proper position.
Feet. In the video, I point my feet. This is a mistake as it moves weight even further from the bar. Ankles should be at 90 degrees.
Thumbs. I’m still deciding if thumbs should be around the bar or not. Try it both ways a do whatever feels best. On my longest front lever, my thumbs are with my fingers, not wrapped around the bar.

Setbacks, Plateaus, Etc.
I did not just fly through the steps above in one continuous push. I did a 19 second front lever around 2000/2001 and trained them sporadically until 2017. If you take a break, or simply hit a plateau, go back to step 1 or do some other abdominal routines for a while. Russian twists (on a machine, not the floor) are my favorite exercise to mix in. I also have a light 30 minute routine that probably helps build a base. Still, motivation is king and if you’re psyched, I think you’ll see steady gains using the steps above.

Lame

2017-08-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

We've been developing a new cliff, about halfway between the Owl Tor and Mr. Lee's. Since it's a 15 minute hike and about 95+ degrees everyday, we've been stashing out ropes nearby. A black static line (almost new) and a green/white dynamic rope (definitely not new) were stolen. Lame.

Elijah Ball climbing. Photo: Micah Elconin

Owltoberfest 2017

2017-08-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday, October 7th: Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong

Sunday, October 8th: Owl Tor

Hope to see you there!

Owltoberfest 2016

2016-11-14T23:25:00.001-08:00

"The Chopin International Piano Competition is every five years and they didn't award gold medalists in 1990 and 1995. Brutal - same way it should be at the Tor."

-- Antonio Labaro

With this in mind, the concensus is to not award a Lord of the Forest this year. Again, as I wrote in my last post, 2016 sucks.

Bad weather ruled this year's Owltoberfest. Mr. Lee's got rained out entirely, so we spent two days at the Owl Tor - which is hard to do even in good conditions. And the conditions were far from good: the first day was rainy, which is often ok at the Tor, but this time many holds were seeping and damp early. Sunday provided better conditions, but by then most of us were pretty beat. For achievements, here are some honorable mentions, sorry if I missed any:

Dee Lapen giving The Hell of Being Crushed alive 2-3 goes each day
Micah Elchonin sending his variation that starts on New Shatterhand and finishes on The Power of Eating; dubbed The Power of Dieting (5.12b)
Chris Loesch trying to redpoint New Shatterhand despite the top being impossible in the rain
Bob not drinking for 2 full days despite being surrounded by climbers

Photos:

Brian Speiring's Photos
Bob Banks' Photos

A few of my favorites...

Yuling Huo on Auto-Magic (12a) Photo: Bob

Eric Holstad on The Power of Eating (11d) Photo: Brian

Berndt Zeugswetter on Spearmint Rhino (11d) Photo: Bob

Nuke Photo: Bob

Three weeks after Owltoberfest, Micah sent Hard Boiled (5.13b) his hardest redpoint to date. Excellent work! Here's the video.

Enzo Maiorca passed away on November 13th. He was the first person to free dive to 50 meters and is the basis for the character Enzo Molinari in The Big Blue. "Let them try." I have a new line bolted and it will be named in his honor: Combative Grouper: Titanic Struggle.

Owltoberfest 2015 & 2016 and other stuff

2016-10-07T22:51:00.002-07:00

Sorry for the delay in writing this up, my excuse: 2016 sucks...

Owltoberfest 2015 almost didn't happen.The night before, rains made the road impassable. I notified everyone I could about the situation; but, undeterred, I drove up Saturday morning, as planned, and by the time I got there, the river was significantly reduced. There's no cell service at the Owl Tor, but I learned that if you drive east on highway 166 past the usual turnout about 3 miles, there is a spot with very good cell reception. So I went there and notified everyone I could that the event was back on. Still, this significantly affected turnout.
The weather turned out to be perfect. Day 1 was at the Owl Tor and Natalie Mims got the event started off right by redpointing her project, Auto-Magic (5.12a) and earning herself the Lord of the Forest title. There were some solid sends on Sunday at the Tor – but this event has rules and Sunday was the day we climb at Mr. Lee's – so, nice work, but no LOTF title for you. This was the first, and probably the last, year that I pulled together some prizes for the LOTF. Many thanks to all of our sponsors:

Maxim Ropes
Fixe Hardware
Misty Mountain
Kilter Climbing Grips
FrictionLabs
Santa Barbara Rock Gym
The Pad Santa Maria
Inertia Media

I've climbed for over 30 years, and I've never thought much about what rope I buy. I always just bought the cheapest one I could find. But after using the Maxim rope that Natalie won, I can definitely tell a difference and plan on buying Maxim going forward; I was truly blown away by what a great rope it is.
Here's Natalie redpointing and with her prizes: a Maxim 9.5mm x 160' rope, certificate for a harness from Misty Mountain, holds from Kilter, climbing videos from Inertia, chalk from FrictionLabs, day pass to The Pad in Santa Maria, and a DVD of Take it to the Limit.

Redpointing Auto-Magic

Natalie and prizes

The second set of prizes went to the person did the most community service for the event: Luke Anderson. Luke worked tirelessly both days taking photos. Luke won a Maxim 9.9mm x 160' rope, climbing videos from Inertia, chalk from FrictionLabs, day pass to The Pad in Santa Maria, and a DVD of Take it to the Limit.

Luke and prizes

I know Luke took like 800 photos, but I can't find the link right now. Here are 17 that he picked out and below are a few of my favorites.

Erik Holstad on Chips Ahoy (5.12d)

Andree Areno on The Old Pro Skill (5.12d)

Pablo Hammack on Sea of Love (5.12b)

2016
As I mentioned, 2016 sucks...
On February 24th, I learned that Scott Cosgrove past away on the 23rd. Scott was always an inspiration to me. From the easiest way to downclimb a cliff in Joshua Tree to projecting a hard sport climb, Scott was always happy to give me advice. His accomplishments are many, and you should already know about them, so I'm not going to list them here. I'm really hoping that someone tries for the second ascent of G-String someday. There was a service in Joshua Tree and it was good catching up with many old friends.
The next day, February 25th, Lisa called to tell me that Steve lost his battle with mantle cell lymphoma. I met Steve in 1990 or 1991 when I was finishing up at UCSB. We did a lot of climbing, put up many routes, drank all the coffee, and watched a ton of movies; we might have had a drink or two. Our current project – a choss pile near his house in Salt Lake – is now my job to finish. Shit.
On September 17th, about 15 of us got together to attempt the Grandeur 10 and scatter Steve's ashes. The Grandeur 10 was Steve's wish for a funeral. It involved hiking the Grandeur 10 Trail while hitting 10 crags along the way and doing a climb at each crag. Bob Banks warned me that it would be "fucking hard." So I knew I was in trouble: I'm not a hiker and Bob chews up aerobic stuff. Plus, I had hernia surgery 20 days prior.
The last movie I recommended to Steve was "Bill Cunningham New York" and his reaction to it was classic Steve. Fashion, of course, held no interest to Steve; but passion did. Bill Cunningham was a man of passion. Steve was so psyched that he emailed me during the movie, which was rare. Here's the email chain on 1/23/2016:

Me @ 10:11 am:	Bill Cunningham is the Jiro Dreams of Sushi but for fashion. A must watch.
Steve @ 10:20 am:	Watching now. RAD!
Me @ 10:28 am:	So much good stuff in that movie! The bit about his clothes is great, as are his thoughts on money.
Steve @ 10:40 am:	It's really fantastic. I love people like this.
Steve @ 11:46 am:	"please, he is the most important person on earth." [quoting the movie]

The movie is a must see; unfortunately, Bill Cunningham passed away in June, here's a great obituary in the New York Times. I have surprisingly few photos with Steve, neither of us really took many; the first two are certainly the oldest I have, and the third is one of my favorites.

Jade's cave in Santa Barbara circa 1991

below: Scoping the future at the Owl Tor

Finally, here's a song we played a lot back in the Shop days, it's from "Straight to Hell."

Also in June, the Greatest, Muhammad Ali also passed away. A true hero to millions – literally. Imagine a top athlete today giving up everything they have to stand up for a cause they believe in? Micah, Bob, and I donned suits, poured martinis, and gave a toast to the Greatest.

Together, Bob and I have seen and read just about everything about Ali. Bob suggested The Firing Line. "With William F. Buckley?," I replied somewhat confused. Yep. If you're under 40, I doubt you've ever heard of it. My parents watched it when I was growing up and I always remember my mom saying "I don't agree with anything he says, but he's very intelligent." This type of intelligent discourse is sorely lacking in today's media. What makes this even better is that in Ali: The Whole Story they interview Buckley and he says (paraphrasing): "...in the end I thought he [Ali] was absolutely right."

Owltoberfest 2016
This year's Owltoberfest is October 15th & 16th; Saturday will be at Mr. Lee's and Sunday at the Owl Tor. I haven't been able to get any new routes up; but Micah completed The Tower of the Damned (11d?) on the Doom wall. The road was graded recently, so getting to the Owl Tor is easy. I hope to see you there!

Lastly...
One terrific thing did happen this year: I got engaged.

Moderates for Owltoberfest!

2015-09-12T19:40:00.001-07:00

Santa Maria is not known for its moderate climbs. There is one 5.11a at the Owl Tor (the left-most route), but then the climbing jumps to stiff 5.11d. What most people do not know is that about 20 years ago we did put moderates up at the back area, a.k.a. Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. These routes were never given the love and attention that routes in the area need and thus fell into obscurity. But thanks to some elbow grease and a little teamwork, they have been revitalized and are better than ever. There are 14 routes (and counting) between 5.8 and 5.11d and here is your guide to them.

The Doom Wall

Arthur just before flashing Super Shotgun.

Named after popular video game, this wall is an easy 2 minute walk from the parking lot. From left to right, the routes are:

Slough of Despair (5.12a) - No, I'm not counting this as a moderate, I'm including it so that all the routes on the wall are listed and thus each is easier to find. Fun moves to a definite crux; 45' long; consider stick clipping the first bolt.
Shores of Hell (5.11b) - Definitely the most popular moderate, and maybe the best. 45' long with 30' vertical climbing on embedded cobbles leading to a 15' crux section that overhangs slightly. Always a bit sandy, hence the name (also a level in Doom.)
Tower of the Damned (5.11d) - Micah: "Start matched on slopey embedded and head up through some pockets, pinches and incredible crimps. A nice combination of power and tech for the grade." An excellent route. 35' long, 5 fixed draws.
Super Shotgun (5.11b) - A low crux at the first bolt is not the end of this route - it stays engaging; 35' long, 5 fixed draws; consider stick clipping the first bolt.
BFG 9000 (5.10c) - More than any route on this wall, this route had fallen into serious disrepair. Micah worked hard and did an excellent job fixing it up. 35' long, 6 fixed draws.
ADK9 (5.10b) - Fun moves on cool embedded rocks. 30' long, 4 fixed draws..
Deathmatch (5.8) - The right most route on the wall. More embedded cobble climbing, 30' long, 3 fixed draws.

The Hondo Boulder
Named after the legend himself, this boulder is about 50 feet right of the Doom Wall. There is currently only one moderate on this wall, it is the left-most route:

Oh Shit Take! (5.11c) - Another Steve Edwards masterpiece? Too early to tell, but it has some fun moves, cool holds, and a crux right before the anchors. 30' long, 5 fixed draws.

The Sea of Love Wall

The Sea of Love Wall

Follow the trail another 75 feet after the Hondo Boulder and straight ahead you will see an arching arete. Left of the arete is a cave with a very long fixed draw; left of that is...

Housequake (5.9) - Always in the sun, so a decent route to start on if it's cold. Some loose rock. (Housequake by Prince.) 50' long, 6 fixed draws.
Thai Dheva (5.11b) - Carefully scramble up into the cave to clip the long first draw. This 55' route has a powerful crux between the second and third bolts. For additional mileage, finish on Genesis (below) after the crux. 6 fixed draws.
Genesis: Rebellion (5.10a) - This route completely fell apart, it has been restored as much as possible with an extended traversing finish. Starts on the first 4 bolts of Sins (below) and traverses left into Thai Diva. 60', 8 fixed draws.
Sins of a Solar Empire (5.10a) - This is the longest moderate route by far. Starts just left of the arete. Destined to be a classic, but still needs some traffic. The climber and belayer should be alert for loose rock; nothing large, but expect some small stuff to come off. 65', 9 fixed draws.
Sea of Love (5.12b) - Just to complete the wall, I'm including this route. It is hard. More than one climber has called it "the hardest 12b I've ever done." It has never (to my knowledge) been onsighted or even flashed. Boulderers should give it a try as the crux is only 4-5 moves on this 30' route.

The Main Wall
The Main Wall is just 30' opposite the Sea of Love Wall and you'll know it when you see it. The moderate here is a last minute, and very exciting addition. It was bolted by John Perlin, creator of classics like Chips Ahoy and Wild Kingdom.

Hell of the Horny Dragon (5.10b) - This route is about 10' left of the huge oak tree that has fallen against the main wall. Just past vertical for the first 20' and then slightly less than vertical for the next 15'. 30' long, 5 fixed draws.

The China Boulder

The approach begins at
either of the two arrows

This is the big block(s) at the base of the Main Wall. I am quite partial to this wall; it usually gets morning shade and then all day sun. To get to the base, climb through the little canyon between the boulders, down-climb the escape ladder, and traverse to the base. From left to right, the routes are:

Call the President (5.9) - Start by pulling left on to the slightly sketchy looking block. Excellent. 40' long, 6 fixed draws.
Central Junction Box (5.10c) - Shares the same opening move as Call the President and then veers right. Fun to the finish and always a bit thrilling finding the best holds. 40' long, 6 fixed draws.
China Is Here (5.11a) - The arete on the right. A few pulls on the starting overhang ease into more moderate climbing. One of the best routes in the area, in my opinion. 40' long, 6 fixed draws.

Summary
A lot of time and effort was put into making these routes climbable. If you're curious as to just how much, check out the "rock" right of Deathmatch. We hope you enjoy the climbing and we look forward to seeing you at Owltoberfest. Below are all the routes listed above sorted by rating.

Route	Rating	Wall & #	First Ascent
Deathmatch	5.8	Doom Wall #7	Phil Requist, 1995
Call the President	5.9	China Boulder #1	Requist, 1994
Housequake	5.9	Sea of Love Wall #1	Requist, 2016
Genesis: Rebellion	5.10a	Sea of Love Wall #3	Dr. K, 1995
Sins of a Solar Empire	5.10a	Sea of Love Wall #4	Requist, 2015
ADK9	5.10b	Doom Wall #6	Kathy Lasky & Hans Florine, 1995
Hell of the Horny Dragon	5.10b	Main Wall #1	John Perlin, 2015
BFG 9000	5.10c	Doom Wall #5	Steve Edwards, 1995
Central Junction Box	5.10c	China Boulder #2	Requist, 1994
China Is Here	5.11a	China Boulder #3	Requist, 1994
Shores of Hell	5.11b	Doom Wall #2	Requist, 1994
Super Shotgun	5.11b	Doom Wall #4	Florine, 1995
Thai Dheva	5.11b	Sea of Love Wall #2	Tom Ruddy, 2011
Oh Shit Take!	5.11c	Hondo Boulder #1	Edwards, 2012
Tower of the Damned	5.11d	Doom Wall #3	Micah Elconin, 2016

Owltoberfest
This year's Owltoberfest begins Saturday, October 17th at the Owl Tor - so that's not really a day for moderates. Still, you could watch the excitement, get motivated, and have a martini. The next day, Sunday, October 18th, we will head to Mr Lee's. Any updates about the event will be posted to the facebook event page. Thanks again to our sponsors:

Maxim Ropes
Fixe Hardware
Misty Mountain
Kilter Climbing Grips
FrictionLabs
Santa Barbara Rock Gym

Getting There:
Most of what you need to get to the Owl Tor and Mr. Lee's are marked on this map. A truck, 4WD, or similar is recommended for Mr. Lee's, although not usually required. The parking lots for both areas are marked on the map.

Camping:
We will probably camp just a few minutes drive from Mr. Lee's. There are almost no accommodations, just an outhouse. So bring everything you need.

Owltoberfest 2015 & Tarantula Hawk Wasps

2015-08-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

The third annual Owltoberfest will be this October 17 & 18. Saturday we'll be at the Owl Tor, camp that night, and climb at Mr. Lee's Sunday. Six great companies have sponsored the event:

Maxim Ropes
Fixe Hardware
Misty Mountain
Kilter Climbing Grips
FrictionLabs
Santa Barbara Rock Gym

So we'll have a good prize for...

The Lord of the Forest
This term, as far as we know, was created by the legendary Klem Loskot. We award the title yearly to the Owltoberfest climber that has pushed their own personal abilities more than anyone else at the event; thus, the title is open to everyone. Elijah Ball won it the first year by redpointing his hardest route ever (at the time): Gala Gala Happy, also a first ascent. Brian Spiering won last year by redpointing Sea of Love, a deceptively hard 12b that is yet to be onsighted, or even flashed. A person could win the title without even climbing... it's a matter of being creative. For example, you could catch a tarantula hawk wasp with your bare hands — maybe even let it sting you. That would get my vote, because...

The Tarantula Hawk Wasp
Whenever I think we've uncovered all the hellacious components to climbing at the Tor, she brings us a new one. Everything about these guys makes me laugh. We've spotted them the last three weekends and Elijah noted, "they fly around like they just don't give a shit." As a fan of the absurd, I read Wired's "Absurd Creature of the Week" column and they covered the tarantula hawk wasp just a few weeks after Antonio brought this critter to our attention:

“There are some vivid descriptions of people getting stung by these things,” says invertebrate biologist Ben Hutchins of Texas Parks and Wildlife, “and their recommendation — and this was actually in a peer-reviewed journal — was to just lie down and start screaming, because few if any people could maintain verbal and physical coordination after getting stung by one of these things. You’re likely to just run off and hurt yourself. So just lie down and start yelling.”

A tarantula hawk wasp at the Owl Tor. Photo: Antonio Labaro

Justin Schmidt is an entomologist that has been stung by hundreds of insects; and this NY Times article makes him sound pretty cool. He rates the tarantula hawk as the second most painful; number one being the bullet ant. Fortunately for us, the wasps are not at all aggressive towards humans — you really have to try to get stung by one of these. This BBC article and this article have some more interesting information and descriptions of the sting:

“A sting feels like a lightning bolt struck the spot; the pain is beyond imagination,”

"To me, the pain is like an electric wand that hits you, inducing an immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one’s ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream. Mental discipline simply does not work in these situations."

Owltoberfest 2015
As usual, I will be making martinis and there will be the standard shenanigans going on; so, there are many exciting reasons to visit this year's event. I'm even camping out this time, so I don't miss all the late-night ripping. I hope you can make it. Here's the flyer, which links to a PDF, please help us promote the event! There is a public facebook event with information and updates.

Recent Sends
It's been hot, very hot, at Santa Maria; but there was some progress. First, I completed the extension from Steve Edward's Drunken Master into the finish of Crocodile Hunter. There's an excellent rest between the two sections, but still, I'd say it bumps the grade from 12d to 13a. Elijah got a two-for-one by redpointing Drunken Master, unclipping the anchors and downclimbing to the rest, then redpointing the new extension — absurd, funny, and excellent work! Elijah also did Wild Kindgom with the extension 13b. Micah redpointed Crocodile Hunter for his first 13a: rad. I videoed 5 or 6 of his attempts, but not the redpoint; here's his last redpoint failure before sending...

Owltoberfest 2014

2015-02-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Redpoints, redpoint failures, perfect temps, friends old and new, a good cause, and, of course, the Lord of the Forest: we had all the necessary ingredients for a great event. We also raised $750 towards Scott Cosgrove's recovery — get well soon my friend! Many local (and pseudo-local) regulars were in attendance, as were crankenfranks Steve & Dee Lapen from LA, and the legendary Randy Leavitt. Hopefully his presence will convince more climbers to pay Santa Maria a visit.

Warming Up
Leading up to Owltoberfest there were several inspiring events. Two weeks before Owltoberfest, Antonio Labaro completed another project, Chips Ahoy (5.12d.) Antonio has been ticking off projects like clockwork for over a year now and seems to have his sights set on New Shatterhand and Hard Boiled next. Nice work!

I dubbed the weekend before Owltoberfest "Paultoberfest" because Paul Dusatko, old friend and former Santa Barbara local was visiting with his girlfriend Emily Dudley. Showing Paul the new routes and catching up about old times was great and Emily said it was the most fun she's ever had sport climbing.
Elijah Ball did the first ascent of Buddhist Palm (5.14a, video.) It is Santa Maria's third 5.14. I bolted Buddhist maybe 18 years ago and am psyched to finally see it get done. Below is Elijah starting to work on Bodyguard from Beijing, Hans Florine's unrepeated 5.14a.

Day 1 - October 25th - Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong
For this year's Owltoberfest, we made Owl Tor "Tick List" t-shirts and sold them for $20 with all proceeds being donated to Scott Cosgrove, who suffered a recent injury. The shirts have all the routes at the Owl Tor listed left-to-right on the back much like the old Smith Rock tick list shirt. Many thanks to Bryce Beatty and Aaron Stireman for making them. Thanks also to Kevin Daniels and Fixe Hardware for supporting the event and overall development of the area. And last, but not least, thanks to Bob Banks for spending the day photographing the event. Here are all his photos and below are my favorites.

Micah Elconin mid-crux on Hard Boiled	Tom Ruddy on Hard Boiled

Just like old times	Randy Leavitt on Crocodile Hunter

The new Hondo boulder	Berndt Zeugswetter on Drunken Master

Randy higher on Crocodile Hunter	Antonio Labaro on Hard Boiled

Day 2 - October 26th - Owl Tor
A second day of great weather helped rejuvenate the spirit for another hard day of climbing. The Owl Tor never disappoints for creating great drama and this day was no exception. With Andree attempting No Skill (12c), Darice working on When the Sea Doesn't Want You (12a), and Steve Lapin attempting to onsight Rubble, Supercrack, and The Hell of Being Crushed Alive, there was more action than I could keep up with. Here, again, are some of my favorite photos...

Steve Lapen's onsight attempt of Rubble	Arthur Guittet on New Shatterhand

Andree fighting the pump on No Skill	Natalie Mims on Auto-Magic

Steve laughing mid-crux on Hell	Darice Lee composed on the Sea

Elijah mono training on Strictly Ballroom	Gregory Su flexing on New Shatterhand

We also got a few videos...

Gregory Su's redpoint of Rubble (13b):

Andrew Benson's redpoint of Auto-Magic (12a):
Steve Lapen's onsight attempt of The Hell of Being Crushed Alive (13a):

Darice Lee going all-out on When the Sea Doesn't Want You (12a):

The Lord of the Forest
Saturday saw no redpoints on the main wall. Sunday had many valiant attempts and a few successes. But there is unanimous agreement as to who earned The Lord of the Forest this year. Sea of Love is an often over-looked 12b at Mr Lee's. It is short, bouldery, and has never been onsighted (or even flashed.) Brian Spiering pushed his personal limits and earned the title of this year's Lord of the Forest. He took a focused, methodical approach and redpointed Sea of Love. I've seen solid 5.13 climbers spend more time working this route than Brian. Excellent work! Here is the video of his redpoint:

The Lord of the Rungs
Time to start training! This year's campusing competition will be held on Tuesday, March 31st. We have changed the format to be only on the 1" rungs (the Metolius medium rungs.) Details coming soon.

Santa Barbara's Hardest

2014-07-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

One of the most popular articles in Allez was Steve Edward's "Southern Cal's Hardest" in issue #3. That was written in 1995 — before sport climbing died. Fortunately, there are a handful people refusing to acquiesce and just go bouldering like everyone else. Bouldering is more convenient, social, and (most would say) fun; but I believe sport climbing still offers many things that bouldering cannot. So, because history is important, and maybe some readers will take up the sport climbing torch, I'm writing an updated version of Steve's article.
In the 90's, 5.13a was a benchmark goal for any aspiring sport climber. That would put 20+ climbs on the list, which is a bit long. Here I'll cover all the routes 5.13b and harder, which reduces the list to a manageable twelve. Since I always like to put numbers behind things... 7 of 12 are in the Santa Maria, so for hard routes, that's your destination. The numbers also reflect the death of sport climbing: 7 were put up between 1990 and 2000, 2 between 2000 and 2010, and 3 since 2010. Many thanks to Bob Banks, Steve Edwards, Elijah Ball, Bernd Zeugswetter, Andy Patterson, Chris Leube, Steve Lapen, Hans Florine, and John Perlin, without your help I could not have written this article. From easiest to hardest, with routes of the same grade being alphabetized, here they are...

5.13b / 8a:

Epoxy or Not to Be First ascent Steve Edwards in May, 1995
Location:	Earthwatch, Santa Barbara	Steve at the crux
Second Ascent:	Hans Florine in 1996
Length/Moves:	30', about 13 hand movements
Crux:	Long dyno off a pinch/sidepull.
Type/Style:	Power
Realization Time:	4 years from being bolted to realization.
Description:	Climbs like a cryptic sandstone boulder problem. 13 moves get you to the end of the business, capped by a huge dyno, found by Hans on the second ascent, after Steve spent years working (and doing) it off a ridiculously bizarre move that no one else seemed able to do. A handful of ascents, all by strong boulderers, is fitting for a route inspired by Peak limestone and the Frankenjura. You might want to warm-up before getting to the crag.
Comments...
Steve:	The one thing I remember about this line fondly is that when we first bolted it, I could barely get my feet on and take weigh off of the rope at any point on the climb. It took four years to do the thing but, still, that is noticeable progress. Not one of my better first ascents but, still, have some great memories hanging out at this idyllic little spot.
Chris Leube:	Got psyched on it after having seen German Eric on it. Probably my favorite route in Santa Barbara not counting Santa Maria and obviously Epic Garuda.
Video:	Steve Edwards on the first ascent

The Green Room First ascent Bernd Zeugswetter in 2005
Location:	The Playground, Santa Barbara	Bernd at the crux gaston
Second Ascent:	None
Length/Moves:	~25'
Crux:	Powerful V8 gaston
Type/Style:	Power
Realization Time:	Maybe 2-3 sessions
Description:	It's a solid V8 at the second bolt and eases off at the third, then a slab top-out with another bolt. Bernd also soloed/bouldered the route in 2006.
Comments...
Bernd:	It feels like a SB fusion of bouldering and climbing.
Andy Patterson:	...a bit esoteric, and is really just a one-move wonder. The opening two or three moves are moderately difficult, then there's literally one grim deadpoint. After that, it becomes 5.9-. Not the most continuous line, but the boulder-problem at the start is really hard.
Steve Edwards:	All I remember about the Green Room crux is that it felt scrunchy. Even though it has great rock, and the top is fun, I was never too intrigued by its one-move nature. So instead of trying to do it, when perhaps I could have, I spent all my time on the route to its left, which I could do the moves on but never linked. It's still a project. Go do it.
Photos:

Hard Boiled First ascent Phil Requist in 1995
Location:	Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, Santa Maria	Phil in the crux
Second Ascent:	Hans Florine in 1996
Length/Moves:	45', 22 hand movements
Crux:	At 30': double-throw off a left hand 2 finger pocket, first to a crimp, then to a pinch.
Type/Style:	Power-Endurance
Realization Time:	maybe 5-10 days over a few months
Description:	Starts on good holds, a couple long pulls get you to the first "embedded rock" crux. Then a gaston to two underclings brings you to the crux. Generally thuggish, except for the two cruxes; then you have to slow down and climb accurately. Certainly what I consider a "whole body" route; The Old-Pro Skill (12d) at the Owl Tor would be good preparation.
Comments...
Chris Leube:	What can I say, not your best route Phil...
Phil:	I'm glad the "4 clip" approach I took on redpoint has become almost standard, the route is still totally safe, but it's just radder that way. (The work bolts are still in place.)
Bob Banks:	Sort of my style, but still took me a few years of on-again-off-again projecting, including not one, but two falls at the anchors. The best part about redpointing Hard Boiled is knowing you don't ever have to get on it again.
Elijah Ball:	I think I spent ~15 days trying to redpoint in 2007. Then I got really sick, went to the hospital for a few weeks, got really light, and sent it late 2008 after 3 or 4 days.
Steve Edwards:	The holds are good but the moves are so big and unrelenting, your entire body gets pumped and you feel like you've been in a fight the next day. Really good fun.
Steve Lapen:	Fun... a cool, exposed top section that adds some extra excitement.
Videos:	Bob Banks attempt 1997/1998
	Bob Banks one go before redpointing on December 11, 2004
	Phil redpointing in 1998
	Elijah looking large in a 2007 attempt
	Micah redpointing on 11/5/2016
Photos:

Rubble First ascent Elijah Ball in Spring, 2011
Location:	Owl Tor, Santa Maria	Elijah: no spaghetti arms here
Second Ascent:	Phil Requist on October 12, 2013
Length/Moves:	25', about 12 hand movements
Crux:	Consistently hard moves followed by a throw to a sloper then a long reach a 2 finger.
Type/Style:	Power
Realization Time:	3-4 days
Description:	An adventure for biceps, Rubble is steep and bouldery with frustratingly pumpy pinches, pockets, slopers, and underclings. You have to have a good variety of skills for this short route: two finger strength, pulling power, and sloper strength will all be tested. Great rock (for Santa Maria) and perhaps the steepest route on the list.
Comments...
Elijah:	My first foray into the art of route development and Rubble has calibrated the standard for my own work dauntingly high. Conceived as Steve Edwards’ gift to posterity she is the fruition of my innate sandstone virtuosity, a masterpiece for the ages that submits me for consideration as the Harper Lee of sport route authorship. You are welcome, world.
Phil Requist:	Such a great route! I hope people appreciate the history: it's named in honor of Hubble at Raven Tor. If this route doesn't get the local boulderers to check out the Tor, nothing will.
Steve Edwards:	Bravo to Elijah for giving it some love and realizing the rawness of that little section of wall.
Video:	Elijah Ball attempt in July, 2014
Photos:

Stealing Fire First ascent Stuart Ruckman in 1992
Location:	Green Dome, Santa Barbara	Not Stuart, but Steve Edwards at the redpoint crux
Second Ascent:	Jean-Paul Finne in May/June, 1995
Length/Moves:	50'
Crux:	First move, long with bad feet or wild heel hook. Redpoint crux a thin pull near the end.
Type/Style:	Power-Endurance
Realization Time:	Only a handful of days but over a year or so.
Description:	A boulder problem starts this power-endurance fest, followed by a unique variation of moves requiring a number of techniques — standard schist fare, really.
Comments...
Steve Edwards:	Sharp rock and strange climbing has kept The Kryptor {aka The Green Dome} from seeing a lot of suitors. Though a number of famous rock stars have given this a look, only Jean-Paul is known to have repeated it. While I professed love for this line, I spent very little time trying to do it because I always had my own projects here that I felt were better. Still do, in fact. Private Little War really deserves an ascent after all these years.

Wild Kingdom First ascent John Perlin in 1993
Location:	Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, Santa Maria	Doug Engelkirk on his onsight attempt
Second Ascent:	Unknown (has been repeated)
Length/Moves:	80'
Crux:	Start: cross to a mono then a long reach; then, slightly higher, a throw to the break.
Type/Style:	Powerful start, but overall Endurance
Realization Time:	unknown, maybe 3 months
Description:	Probably 12c over the first 18'. Then a lot of moves on just past vertical terrain. Up high, after a moderate rest, the wall kicks back a lot and you've got some long pulls, so you'd better have something in the tank. Finally, there's a tricky reach to the clipping "jug" off bad crimps.
Comments...
Phil Requist:	I did this before the extension when it was probably light 13b, now I'd guess it's solid-to-hard 13b. I want to try re-repointing this fall, maybe Owltoberfest. Not my style, so it's gonna take some work!
Chris Leube:	Since I was always more the rachitic type, this route was not to bad for me. Not too long or powerful moves just a rather spicy start, the rest endurance.
Steve Edwards:	The start on this thing was so nasty I'm not sure if I ever did it. Never a fan of monos, especially half-pad sharp monos. The top is great and, thus, Crocodile Hunter was born. Has anyone been on this since?
Videos:	Not Wild Kingdom, but Phil redpoint failing on Crocodile Hunter
Photos:

13b/c / 8a/8a+:

Renaissance Man First ascent Andy Patterson in March, 2013
Location:	Renaissance Crag, Santa Barbara	Andy above the crux
Second Ascent:	None
Length/Moves:	~30', 16 hand movements
Crux:	The whole thing
Type/Style:	Power
Realization Time:	Andy: "I don't know exactly how many days I spent on the route, but I know for sure it was at least 15+ days spread out over the Spring of 2011 through the Spring of 2013."
Description:	This route packs a little bit of everything in to a small route. Steep face moves, flared finger-locks, dynamic lunges from incut jugs, slopers, pinches, and even a desperate knee-bar-scum-move guard the chains. Clocking in around 16 tricky hand-movements, the relatively short pitch feels much longer than advertised, and the steepness of the face deceives the eye. Expect sharp but well-constituted rock, with extremely condition-dependent texture. Think of Ren Man as a seven-move V9/10 boulder problem in to a steep and powerful 11d/12a.
Comments...
Andy:	As of this writing, Bernd and I are working on a lower start to Ren Man which begins down the hill and right of the traditional start. It adds a six or seven-move V7/8 in to the original start, with absolutely no rests. The end-result will be twenty-plus hand-movements of exceptional difficulty. The grade will likely jump at least a letter, but I won't know for sure till I send.
Elijah Ball:	You lost me at "knee bar".
Photos:

13c / 8a+:

Better Than Life First ascent Phil Requist in May,1994
Location:	Owl Tor, Santa Maria	Phil at the second mono
Second Ascent:	Hans Florine in May/June, 1995
Length/Moves:	55', 30 hand movements
Crux:	Start: 3' cross-pull off a gaston at about 40 degrees overhung
Type/Style:	Power-Endurance
Realization Time:	25 climbing days over 7 months
Description:	From Allez: "From mono pulls to huge dynos, the route just keeps coming at you. Likened to Chouca at Buoux. 38 hand movements without a decent shake or an easy move. Wills Young thought the first 3 bolts alone were 13a/b. Hans Florine lost a bet to repeat the route over 4 months." This route has a bit of everything: bad feet, poor rests, many pockets. 5 clips with a decent runout at the end.
Comments...
Phil:	This route will always be the symbol of an era to me... in 1993, Steve called me and said he found a new wall near SB, so I moved back. The wall was the biggest pile of choss ever and my hardest redpoint at the time was 5.12c. One year later, I had increased my climbing by a number grade and, as a team, we established the best sport climbing crag within 200 miles of Santa Barbara — that was a good year. Oh, and it has monos, I like monos.
Hans Florine:	I was not in my "bag on boulderers phase" back then, although I really was pissed at Phil for making it so F&$%#^@ hard at the start. I really thought the first few hand movements on BTL were Fricken hard, too hard. I would not have put a V rating on them at the time (now I'd say V9) but I was thinking I was going to kill Phil for making it like some impossible DA concoction that only he could do! (DA=Damnation Alley bouldering wall, for the un-informed.) BTL is probably the first route I had ever gotten on, that I later redpointed, that I couldn't actually pull the moves on the first day. I've never considered myself a "redpoint" climber, especially "back then," but for some reason I invested the effort in BTL.
Chris Leube:	Had to have a talk with Phil to be able to do it, basically less changing of sequences after being close... this talk actually helped me a lot for the future.
Bob Banks:	Unquestionably the best route in Santa Maria and the only route I ever think about when I fleetingly think of sport-climbing again.
Elijah Ball:	This was my first 5.13. It took me 35 days to send, just after I finished college in 2001.
Steve Edwards:	So well done. So cool. So hard.
Steve Lapen:	I also remember Better Than Life quite clearly as it was one of my favorite routes at the Tor, with an exciting section near the top.
Videos:	Elijah Ball redpointing in September, 2011
	Hans Florine on the second ascent
	Phil redpoint failure
	Chris Leube working the route in 1998 includes our "talk"
	Chris Leube redpointing in Bad to the Bones
Photos:

The Odyssey First ascent John Perlin in Summer 1995
Location:	The Acropolis, Santa Barbara	John from Allez Magazine
Second Ascent:	Ian Vickers in 1996
Length/Moves:	43 feet, 7 bolts and 21 hand moves not including clips
Crux:	There are no meaningful rests. The most powerful move is maybe V7 or V8. The mono move is dangerously hard.
Type/Style:	Power/Power-Endurance
Realization Time:	~25 serious redpoint attempts and roughly a year of working out all of the moves and linking sections
Description:	Steep and thin. You need really good mono strength if you interested in trying this route. The power crux is between the 4th and 5th bolts. It’s a long move to the right from a three finger first digit left hand side pull edge to a full handed sloper, which you match on, and from there to a first digit right handed mono.
Comments...
John:	Wire the moves and then when going for the redpoint climb fast, deliberate, and precise. For me personally this is my proudest achievement in climbing. I found the cliff, bolted and cleaned the line, dug out the base to add 4 feet, built the route, and ultimately succeeded in climbing it. It was a brilliant multi-year process. Oh yeah, most importantly the view from the crag is spectacular!

13d / 8b:

Gala Gala Happy First ascent Elijah Ball on October 5, 2013
Location:	Owl Tor, Santa Maria	Elijah just past the crux
Second Ascent:	None
Length/Moves:	50', ~22-25 hand movements, mostly massive
Crux:	Half-way up: big side pull to a two-finger jug, clip, have enough energy to pull in the right arm
Type/Style:	Power-Endurance
Realization Time:	~10 days of concentrated redpoint effort over one summer
Description:	This route is dynamic and brutal from beginning to end. Long, steep, off-balance pulls make this more than just a slugfest. This route contains some of the steepest, and definitely the longest moves at the Tor, which says a lot. If you've done Pro Skill and Hard Boiled, and want even more severe "whole body" punishment, this is the route for you.
Comments...
Elijah:	Opening Gala Gala Happy at Owl Tor’s initial annual climbing celebration secured my claim as world’s first Owltoberfest Lord of the Forest. Phil Requist envisioned, equipped, and realized her. She’s fifty feet of preposterously spaced jugs meandering toward the cliff’s prominent prow. Her opening sequence is a dynamic dream for two-finger pocket aficionados. Cop a knee bar at the minimally useful hueco at one-third height to invalidate your ascent. Choose dignity and be greeted by Gala’s neolithic pulls through gorgeous pockets and slots.
Phil Requist:	I used to say that getting on this route felt like being raped by Godzilla. It still does. This is my main project and I put a lot of time into it in the spring to no avail. It's not a fun route to get on when you're feeling weak; it will just chew you up and spit you out.
Steve Edwards:	A lot of great times are associated with this one, though none have anything to do with climbing it. The name still makes me laugh and gets that dammed song stuck in my head. Gala gala happy!
Videos:	Me getting raped in 2010
Photos:

14a / 8b+:

Bodyguard From Beijing First ascent Hans Florine in November, 1998
Location:	Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, Santa Maria	Wrong climb, but right era: Hans in France in the 90s
Second Ascent:	None
Length/Moves:	50', less than 30 hand movements
Crux:	Sticking shallow two finger, just prior to awkward left traverse to easier ground, and after first 40 feet of significant climbing.
Type/Style:	Power-Endurance
Realization Time:	9 climbing days over 9 months
Description:	One mono pull early on that is not difficult, pinches to pockets. Redpoint burns tempt you to blow off some clips, probably should not. No "rests" per se until after the traverse to left out from under the roof. Chris is the only person to have put serious effort into this route, which only adds to it's mystique.
Comments...
Hans:	Chris {Leube} should be given large credit for the initial bolting and cleaning of the route. On the day I redpointed, it was so cold warming up hands on the back of your neck was required. I sent the route past the crux and was stemming the rest after the traverse when a knob popped off and I fell... waited 20 minutes and "re-red pointed" the route.
Chris Leube:	Kind of like the sloth I am pissed and it is unfinished business for me! Owltoberfest!
Phil Requist:	Not my style; technical and not super steep. The 2 finger undercling move took me about 20 tries alone. I doubt I'll ever redpoint this route, but I'm excited to get all the beta at Owltoberfest.
Bob Banks:	Only got on it once (too many monos.) Belayed Hans on its only redpoint. Watched him fall at the anchors immediately after my (first) fall at the anchors on Hard Boiled, after telling me "I'll never fall there."
Elijah Ball:	Impossible. Can't be done.
Videos:	Chris Leube's high point in 1998
	Chris, again in Bad to the Bones, making it look hard
Photos:

Buddhist Palm First ascent Elijah Ball on October 18th, 2014
Location:	Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, Santa Maria	Elijah mid-route
Second Ascent:	None
Length/Moves:	50', about 30 hand movements
Crux:	Long pull off a 2 finger pocket after 30’ of difficult climbing.
Type/Style:	Power-Endurance
Realization Time:	Elijah: "I think it was the 2011/2012 season that I really focused on Buddhist, putting in ~20 days of work. I just did not have it at that time. Previously there had been maybe two seasons of ~5-10 days working through sections. I put it down for a season, picked it up again in the fall of 2014 and finished up in ~10 days that year. Long story short I had the beta figured out for a few years and just really had to evolve a bit to git 'r done."
Description:	Continuous hard moves for 35'. This route probably has the smallest holds of any of the hard routes at Santa Maria, and the fewest pockets. It's arete-like structure, unique features, and variety of angle changes allow for everyone to find a new place to fall.
Comments...
Elijah:	I started out thinking Buddhist really focused on my weaknesses but I now suspect it specifically suits my strengths. When dissected move for move - small holds, moderately overhanging, mediocre feet - it would not seem tailored to fit my Owl Tor-inspired climbing style. Once I dialed in the beta however, it became a power endurance problem, and that was something I knew I had a chance at. The final season of projecting was an exercise in full route strategy. In my experience Buddhist defines itself as this amalgamation of power and technique. She's a subtle beast.
Hans Florine:	I believe this is one of the routes that I attempted the least. It was too disheartening how far I felt from actually getting the moves and the more remote thought of linking them. I made my attempts on this route when I was at my best sport climbing fitness.
Steve Edwards:	We (I?) also did the Buddhist Palm move different than Elijah did it, which maybe fucked up the rest of the sequences but probably the only way I could do it. Basically, even though I was relatively good at the moves on this route (because I could always find 'cheater' feet as I recall), it was way too hard for me ever to have linked so it's hard to add a lot of commentary other than it was always one of my favorites. Best movement of any of the hard routes at either cliff.
Chris Leube:	In hopes of finding a better sequence for Hard Boiled, I veered a bit to the left, into the Buddhist Palm sequence, it didn't really seem to be easier...
Phil Requist:	This and Better Than Life are the best routes I will ever bolt at Santa Maria.
Videos:	Elijah on the first ascent
	Phil falling at the crux in 2007
Photos:

Strictly Ballroom First ascent in Steve Lapen in December, 2006 or January, 2007
Location:	Owl Tor, Santa Maria	Steve at the mono crux
Second Ascent:	None
Length/Moves:	55'
Crux:	Low: A bouldery start with a very hard mono pull. Probably V9/10 for the first 18'. Middle: A hard series to 2 finger pulls culminating in a dyno to a jug beyond your sight. High: Another throw to a crimp you can't see.
Type/Style:	Power and Power-Endurance
Realization Time:	maybe 3-4 days over 1-2 months
Description:	A brutal, bouldery mono move low guards a ledge rest. People usually call the start V9/10. From the ledge to the top is maybe 13b/c. The cruxes above are all you need to know.
Comments...
Steve:	I remember the route having a boulder crux right at the beginning, a dynamic crux at the top, and a tricky middle section that seemed extremely hard at first, using some undercling beta, which shut me down for about 20 redpoint tries until you have me some trick foot beta that made a big difference and eliminated the hard undercling.
Phil Requist:	I've put a lot of work into this route over the last 20 years. I've probably 1-hung it 15 times, which shows you how useless that metric is. It's hard to have the power for the start and the endurance for the whole route. Steve wore socks when he did it — socks! What an ass. I want to see someone try Jason's {Campbell} beta, he onsighted the low crux — static.
Chris Leube:	Fricking hard.
Bob Banks:	Fun moves between two distinctively hard cruxes. Lasting memory is really of Jason Campbell making the mono move look fucking stupid.
Elijah Ball:	Fuck Strictly. I've been working this route for the last 6 months. One move has me shut down. The fucking mono. There to the chains, no problem, I did that months ago. Ground to the mono, no problem, done that dozens of times. Fuck you Phil.
Videos:	Steve Lapen working the route
	Phil not redpointing in Above the Smogline circa 1997
	Steve Lapen redpointing Ghetto Booty (14c/d) at Charleston
Photos:

The Future
There are still many more excellent, hard lines remaining. What Santa Barbara needs is more psyched sport climbers to do them. The bigger the team, the better the energy. Hopefully some people will get psyched on the routes above and also want to add to the list. Owltoberfest on October 25 & 26 will be the perfect time to get beta on most of the routes above. I hope to see you there!

Ratings & Difficulty: Appendix

2014-07-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

In my last article, I tried to take an objective look at ratings. By far my most popular post ever, it was also, mostly well received. There were several good questions and comments that I will now address.

The Definition
I tried to make it clear that I was picking a definition for the words "hard" and "difficult." For the scope of my article, if twice as many people could do task 1 than task 2, then task 2 is referred to as twice as hard as task 1 (or twice as difficult.) Most people seemed happy enough with this approach; a few clearly hated it, but none offered alternatives.

The Goal
I was mainly trying to get an objective measure for how much harder (clearly using the above definition) one climbing grade was from the next. I was looking for the big-bucket (10%, 50%, twice, five times, ten times harder) rather than a discrete value. I knew the data available would only allow for a general range; something specific would require 10-100 times more data points.

The Data
The best source of data I could find was 8a.nu. This resulted in focusing only on the top end of the rating scale. Several people asked exactly how I got the data; here is my process:

Go to www.8a.nu
Click "Ranking"
Click "All Time"
Under the left column titled "All time Route Ranking", start with the first person on the list, click their name.
When their profile comes up, click "Routes"
Under "Ranking Routes" click "All Time"
Copy the data from the "Route Scorecard Statistics" to Excel (or whatever)
Go to step #4 and continue on with the next person on the list

"Missing" Data

Yes, I'm aware that Chris Sharma has climbed 9b+. I did not "exclude" him from the study. I studied only climbers that entered their routes into 8a and adding him would have tainted the data. This raised two subsequent issues/complaints, so let's look at each.

First, many people asked how adding Chris would change the results (some even claimed that it would completely invalidate the entire article.) Below is the previous chart of the count of climbers that had climbed each grade with Chris added to the fifth column. (Remember, the way I looked at the data before, he counts as a climber that has climbed each of the grades, so each total increases by one.) Now we have 171 climbers that have climbed 8c+/14c turning into 2 that have climbed 9b+/15c. Following the same process as before, that means that 85.5 turns into 1 and the quad root of 85.5 is 3.04. The net result is that instead of saying these grades average 3.61 times harder than is previous, it would be 3.04 times harder — still the same major bucket.

Rating	Climbers	"Harder"	3.61	w/Chris	3.04
9b+/15c	1	2.0	1	2	1
9b / 15b	2	8.5	3.6	3	3.04
9a+ / 15a	17	4.9	13	18	9.24
9a / 14d	84	2.0	47	85	28.1
8c+ / 14c	170		170	171	85.4

The next issue is what happens if you add someone that has climbed 9b+/15c but not 9b/15b (or, for the sake of argument, no other grade.) That would mean there would be 2 9b+/15c climbers and 2 9b/15b climbers and thus, per our definition, no difference in difficulty, hence a logical flaw to some readers. This, clearly, is the problem of a lack of data, not a flawed assumption; any statistically large sample size will eliminate this "problem." (The math would be almost identical to the example above of adding Chris Sharma; it would be about a 3 times difficulty multiple.)

Standard Deviations
Several people commented that I should look at a normal distribution and increasing grades as steps from the mean. I'm hoping that someone with a better statistical background than myself will take up this torch, which is one of the reasons I supplied all my raw data. I looked at the data again in this light, and I'm convinced someone can generate something interesting here; but it's not me, at least, not right now. Ok, I'll take a guess... my guess is that the bell curve of climbing ability is in the ballpark of the one below, with 5.10c (redpointed outside) being the mean. The red line indicates how much harder each grade is from the previous one. I spent 15 minutes on this in Excel, so if I did something stupid, just relax.

Changes Over Time
Maybe the most thought provoking questions I got was this: "If we take data from 2002, when 15a was the top of the scale, but probably a lot less 14ds were in the log book, is there the same proportion of senders between 15a and 14d as there is today? Can grades get 'easier' over time?" I think this is a great question and I saved it for last since my response is simply my subjective opinion. I'll start by listing a few definitions of the word "technology":

the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes
the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area
a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge

It's important to remember that technology is not just your cell phone. Knowledge is technology. The routes we all climb are the most basic tool in making us better climbers, so they are a technology as well. So what does that mean when those routes don't exist? To me, it clearly means that you're going to have a harder time. This viewpoint will be unpopular as it makes it much harder to compare things over larger time scales.
Think about it like this: is it easier to understand Einstein's theory of relativity today, or around 100 years ago? The theory (as published) hasn't changed, but only a handful of people understood it then whereas now every college physics student learns it. It just seems obvious that this is how things work: we find ways to make hard things easier and apply the time we "create" from this efficiency to work on something even harder.

Jackie Chan
Everyone's heard of Jackie Chan; but he did all his best work before ever being "discovered" in America. Below is the documentary that made me a fan — inspiring. I recommend: Police Story 1 & 3 (aka Super Cop,) Armor of God 1 & 2, Project A 1 & 2, Drunken Master 2, and Dragons Forever.

Ratings, Difficulty and the World's First 9c/15d

2014-06-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

Antonio on No Skill (12c) Owl Tor, Santa Maria, CA

I guess 12c is a lot
harder than 12b.

— Antonio Labaro

I've planned on writing something about ratings and difficulty for a while, but Antonio's comment finally motivated me to do the work. Antonio has been progressing through the grades at the Owl Tor and in April he redpointed The Hell of the Upside-Down Sinners, his first 5.12b. Full of psyche and energy, he moved on to No Skill, a 5.12c variation of two other routes. He's doing well, but he did notice: yes, in fact, 12c is a lot harder than 12b.
But how much harder? And aren't ratings subjective? Most climbers talk about them as if they are. I haven't seen this done before, and I wish I had more data, but we need to start somewhere and try to have an objective discussion about ratings.

Why Ratings Exist
Ratings exist for a reason: to give someone an indication of how hard something is to do. What does that mean? Well, if 100 people can do task #1 and 50 of them can do task #2, and 25 can do task #3, then a logical rating system might rate task #1 a 1 and task #2 a 2, and task #3 a 3. Clearly, the symbol — 1, 2, 13a, 8c+, IV — is irrelevant. The point is that the relative likelihood of doing a task is represented by certain, agreed upon, symbols. If something changes regarding task 2 which now enables 150 people to do it, it would be illogical to still rate it a 2, it might, perhaps, be rated a 0. All of this should be obvious.
Back to climbing ratings... I'm sure you all know that climbers (in America) have agreed that the scale starts at 5.0 and increases until 5.10 where the grading symbol gains an a,b,c,d. Currently, the scale tops out at 5.15c. In context of the above example, it is quite apparent that ratings — as a whole — are not arbitrary or subjective. We can all agree that fewer people can climb 5.15c than 5.9. I know, this is boring, but I have to start somewhere.

An Objective Scale
Let's add another "rating" system to the analysis: weights. Clearly, people typically don't think of weights as a rating system, but that's exactly what they are — or can be used for. That way, when you walk into a gym to do curls, you might grab the 25 pound dumbbells, but probably not the 100 pound dumbbells. (That would be rad.) Weights highlight a key element of how I'm going to look at difficulty. Let's suppose someone asks the question, "How much more difficult is it to bench press 600 pounds than 300 pounds?" Should the answer be "twice" as hard? And, using the same logic, is 900 pounds "50%" harder than 600 pounds?
Although you could do that, I don't see how it is in any way productive. Here's why: tens of thousands of people can bench 300, but only hundreds of people can bench 600. At a minimum, 100 times as many people can lift 300 as 600 and around 5 people can bench 900. So it is much more helpful and informative to call 600 pounds 100 times harder than 300 pounds, and 900 pounds about 100 times harder than 600 pounds. This is how I will use the term "harder" when describing the increased difficulty between climbing ratings.

What Are Climbers Doing?
How hard is "hard?" How much harder is one grade than another? I know many readers are convinced that answers to questions like these are meaningless and subjective. But just because the rating on one route, for one person, can be subjective does not mean that the aggregate is subjective; and I do not see why we don't try to put some objective analysis behind it. So, sticking with the approach described above whereby something is harder if fewer people are doing it and how much harder is determined by the relative decline in people doing it, we need data on what climbers are actually doing. I looked at this in three different ways...

Rating	Climbers	"Harder"	3.61
9b+/15c	1	2.0	1
9b / 15b	2	8.5	3.6
9a+ / 15a	17	4.9	13
9a / 14d	84	2.0	47
8c+ / 14c	170		170

First, I went to 8a.nu and downloaded the data for all climbers that have redpointed 8c+/5.14c or harder; 170 climbers have done this. (Here is the raw data; the "climbers" tab.) Then I looked at the rate at which these climbers drop off as the difficulty increases. 84, or 49.4%, of the 170 climbers have redpointed 9a/14d. This would indicate that 9a/14d is twice as hard as 8c+/14c — because twice as many people are doing 8c+/14c. Next, 17 climbers redpointed 9a+/15a, this is a 79.8% decline; meaning almost five times as many people have redpointed 9a/14d as 9a+/15a. Of those 17 9a+/15a climbers, only 2 have redpointed 9b/15b, translating to it being 8.5 times harder. Finally, only one of those two has redpointed 9b+/15c making it twice as hard. So over four grades (8c+/14c to 9b+/15c) the numbers of climbers drops from 170 to 1; this means that averaged over these four grade increases, each grade is 3.61 times harder than the previous (3.61^4 = 170.)
Second, I looked at how many redpoints the 84 9a/14d climbers have done. (Downloading redpoint data for all 170 in the set above was too epic.) There were 4360 redpoints graded 8b+/14a or harder for this group. This data is summarized in the chart below; see the "redpoints" sheet in the raw data. The "Harder" column again indicates how many times more the previous grade was climbed; i.e., 9a/14d is 2.4 times "harder" because 8c+/14c has been climbed 2.4 times more often. The three columns on the right average how hard it is to move between different grades. As we would predict, as the grades get higher/harder, moving between them increases in difficulty; that is, it is easier to go from 14a to 15a than from 14c to 15c. Here, the data would indicate that moving from 8c+/14c to 9b+/15c is, averaged over the four grade increases, 3.95 times harder — quite close to the finding above of 3.61. For the low end of the difficult range (14a to 15a) the data shows an average of each grade being 2.4 times harder than the previous; this is also close to the result above. Below is an attempt to combine the two approaches and see what the tail end of the difficulty curve looks like.

Rating	Redpoints	"Harder"	14a to 15a	14b to 15b	14c to 15c
9b+ / 15c	3	3.3			1.0
9b / 15b	10	5.2		1.0	3.3
9a+ / 15a	52	5.9	1.0	5.2	17.3
9a / 14d	305	2.4	5.9	30.5	101.7
8c+ / 14c	729	1.9	14.0	72.9	243.0
8c / 14b	1420	1.3	27.3	142.0
8b+ / 14a	1841		35.4
Avg. "harder" over 4 increments:			2.44	3.45	3.95

My intent is not to achieve a scientific "proof" around the difficulty question, but I do think that facts will help us approach a reasonable estimation of the relative difficulties involved. At the very top of the scale, both approaches indicate that each grade is four times harder than the previous. (There are 17 15a climbers for 1 15c climber and 52 15a redpoints for 3 15c redpoints,also a 17 times multiple. Then we take the square root of 17 (4.123) since this is over two grade increments. The raw data for this chart is visible on the "aggregate" tab.) So if you're ever wondering how hard 9b+/15c is, I'd say, "about 500 times harder than 8b+/14a."
Of course, there are some problems, and many over-simplifications with this approach, but as I said at the beginning, you have to start someplace. Overall, the data indicates that grades are large ranges, 14b is definitely not 10% harder than 14a — it's closer to 60% harder. At lower grades, the difference between grades will lessen. My guess would be that (if we had the data) it would show the 5.13a-d range having a 30-50% drop-off between each grade; and the 5.12a-d range having a 20-30% drop-off.
If anyone wants to write a basic data-scraping bot to download all the 8a.nu data we could probably learn a lot more, and maybe look at the bouldering data as well.

Adam Ondra

Adam Ondra's Data
Rating	Date	Months	Redpoints
7b+ / 12c	7/28/2001		13
7c / 12d	5/10/2002	10	15
7c+ / 13a	7/20/2002	2	14
8a / 13b	8/20/2002	1	241
8a+ / 13c	9/14/2003	13	238
8b / 13d	4/10/2004	7	210
8b+ / 14a	6/4/2004	2	119
8c / 14b	12/31/2004	7	127
8c+ / 14c	12/29/2005	12	108
9a / 14d	11/11/2006	11	65
9a+ / 15a	2/10/2008	15	19
9b / 15b	3/13/2010	25	9
9b+ / 15c	10/4/2012	31	3
9c / 15d	1/7/2016	40
9c+ / 16a	2/14/2020	50
10a / 16b	12/24/2025	71

Finally, it's always interesting to put a name to the data; and here, we're in luck... because Adam Ondra has entered a lot of redpoints into 8a.nu — he's redpointed 450 routes rated 8b+/5.14a and higher. In looking at his data, I also wanted to get a picture of how long it has taken him to progress between grades (since that was the question that started us on this journey.)
At the lowest end of the rating spectrum (that we have data for) we can see that it took Mr. Ondra 25 months to go from 12c to 13c, or basically 6 months per grade. This rate continues, generally, up to 8c/14b where it begins to slow noticeably; as would be expected.
Finally, for fun, I forecast when he might climb grades beyond what anyone has done — 9c/15d (January 7th, 2016) and higher. So that's about 18 months away from now for 15d, seems like a pretty good over/under date for the gamblers out there. (If pressed, I'd take the over.)
Antonio, I think you'll get No Skill around November, plus or minus a month, based on data. So how much harder is it? Well, it's 6-9 months of hard work harder.

1-5-8
I'd like to welcome Elijah to the local 1-5-8 club. I believe he is the fourth member (with Dean, Thomas, and myself.) (1" rungs, 22cm spacing, clearly.) Hopefully there will be more soon, now that SBRG has a campus board. Hans and the Touchstone team better start working if they ever want to win the team title. Maybe I'll do a write-up similar to this one on campus board move difficulty someday.

Hard Things
Finally, it's always good to mention Neil deGrasse Tyson, here's his input on hard things...

Foundation 2.0 & Owltoberfest 2014

2014-06-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

I just completed my latest foundation phase and I'm so happy with it I'm dubbing it foundation 2.0. The refinements might seem minor, and I still need to find a better plan for climbing outside on the weekends; but overall, I resolved enough basic problems that feels like a solid step forward. The foundation phase I've been looking for involves training on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with a large volume of campusing, fingers, core, pulling, and "prehab" shoulder training for 3-4 weeks. I'm a weekend warrior, and am 100% focused on sport climbing; hopefully, the handful of sport climbers left might find some of this useful. I still have one cycle to write-up, but these will be more productive if written while I'm in the cycle; so that's what I'm doing this week. I redesigned this phase by reviewing my previous ones , noting the problems, and testing alternatives.

Campusing
I love campusing and I think it's essential to maintaining and maximizing finger and arm power. The problem with campus training in the foundation phase is that campusing three days in a row is usually too intense; also, when combined with other training skin can be a limiting factor. This cycle, I broke my campusing down in this way:

Tuesday: 3 finger Base Moves
Wednesday: 4 finger Base Moves
Thursday: Component Moves

I covered Base and Component Moves in April, but this is the first time I incorporated them into my foundation phase. A key component was doing 3 fingered campusing on Tuesdays and 4 fingered on Wednesdays. The hand positions are significantly different and I need to train both; but just as important is that they hit the skin differently and thus skin problems are less of an issue. I also distributed the Base Moves over all three rungs sizes (5/8", 1", 1.75") to help with skin problems. I did 20 moves each day on 3 minute intervals; totaling 60 minutes. Next cycle I'll probably try 24 moves on 2.5 minute intervals, but otherwise I don't see any changes to this routine.

Finger Training
I skipped hangboarding in favor of finger lifts. I did 3 sets of 30 second lifts on each finger and at each joint; total workout time was about 45 minutes. This would be difficult to duplicate on a hangboard and very hard on the skin. My fingers feel solid, and ready for much higher intensity, which is exactly the feeling I target for my foundation phase. After a week or two of hypertrophy, I should learn how well these lift workouts translate to the hangboard and finger strength in general.

Core
I have never prioritized core exercises above pull-ups and/or other pulling exercises, but this cycle I am. I worked all my favorite core exercises every training day; doing 3 sets of each exercise with a 1 minute rest between each set; totaling about 45 minutes. Exercises:

Overhead Pushup (max. static hold)
Front Lever (static hold)
Ab-Rollers, Stand (feet 78" from the wall)
Front Lever Repetitions
Godoffes
Russian Twists (on a back extension machine)
Ab-Rollers, Knees
Straight Leg Deadlifts

Pulling
I had two pulling routines: a standard one I did on Tuesdays and Thursday, and a static one I did on Wednesdays. The exercises in the standard routine are quite common. Static training is far less common and I haven't done any in over 10 years; but it was essential to my success with an old birthday challenge, so I am revisiting it. The standard routine was about 75 minutes long and the static was about 15.

Standard Routine:

Hammer Curls (3 sets of 30 reps)
Lateral to Front dumbbell raise (3 sets of 30 reps)
Inverted Rows (3 sets of 30 reps)
Dumbbell Rows (2 sets of 30 reps)
Typewriters (2 sets with help)
Archers (1 sets each side, 2 sets total, with help)
Pullups (1 set each, 6 sets total, with help) wide back, wide front, shoulder, narrow, under-wide, under-narrow
1-Arm Pulldown Shrugs (2 sets of 30 reps each arm with Red band)
Press-Throughs (2 sets of 30 reps)

Static Routine:

Pullups: Start, 135 degrees, 90 degrees
Curl: Low, 90, High
Pressdown: High, Low
Gaston: Wide, Shoulder, 2x6
Bear Hug: Wide, 2x6

Prehab/Rehab
I don't have any injuries, but I think that the shoulder exercises in this article will help me remain healthy and improve strength. I do exercises #1,2,3,5,6. These exercises take about 20 minutes (3 sets of each.) I committed to prioritize these over all other exercises; so if I was ever going to run out of time, I would cut everything else first.

Summary
It would be nice to get 2-3 hours of bouldering in each week, but this is already ~14-15 hours of exercise - not counting weekend workouts. I think this is about as much volume as I can handle. If you're looking for time saving modifications, I'd reduce the Pulling exercises first; then the campusing (and reduce the interval time,) and finally the fingers. I'd leave all the Prehab and as much of the Core as possible.

Owltoberfest 2014
Since one day isn't enough to contain the radness that is Owltoberfest, we're making it a two day event on October 25th and 26th. Day 1 will take place at Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong; day 2 will be at the Owl Tor. Last year's event was great, and we'll be planning even more radness this year. I will, of course, be making martinis again. We're also raising money for steel carabiners as we've used up all the ones we got last year.

The holidays are a bad time for training

2014-06-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

Food, wine, traveling, family obligations - all of these combine to make training challenging around the holidays. While this might cause many to conclude not to attempt a training cycle, I see this as the most important time for structure. Sure, it might not generate the gains one would usually hope for; but the structure is a better defense against the onslaught of temptations. For a goal, nothing outside was too close and/or enticing, so I went with only campusing goals: 1:4-7 & 1:5-7 on the 5/8" and 1:5-8 on the 1". The first two were quite realistic, although both would be personal bests; but the third was definitely a long shot.

Foundation

The best thing about writing these articles is that it forces me to state what my plan is and why. I'm still searching for a better foundation phase structure. Ideally, it would involve campusing, hangboarding, core, pull-ups, climbing, and all the shoulder stabilization exercises on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Unfortunately usually something breakdowns before I can finish all components each day: skin, energy, psyche, etc.
I'm not too excited about this routine, and I will be changing it for my next cycle. The main problems are: campus ladders are boring, hangboarding after ~150 campus moves is very hard on the skin, insufficient core and pulling work, and lack of shoulder stabilization exercises. Finally, I think the Foundation phase should be at least as long as any other training phase. This cycle, I did 3 foundation weeks and 4 hypertrophy weeks; probably because foundation is the most boring and I wanted to move on.

Saturday: Laps at the Owl Tor
Sunday: Rest
Monday: Bikram
Tuesday:

Campusing:

5 sets on the 3 min.: 5/8", 3 fingered, 1-2-3-4-5 up only. 25 moves
5 sets on the 3 min.: 5/8”, 4 fingered, 1-2-3-4-5 up only. 25 moves
5 sets on the 3 min.: 1", 3 fingered, 1-3-5-7-9 up only. 25 moves
5 sets on the 3 min.: 1”, 4 fingered, 1-3-6-8 up only. 20 moves
4 sets on the 3 min.: 1.75”, back 2 fingered, moves TBD, but should be ~20 moves
4 sets on the 3 min.: 1.75”, front 2 fingered, moves TBD, but should be ~20 moves
4 sets on the 3 min.: 1.75”, middle 2 fingered, moves TBD, but should be ~20 moves

Hangboard: Easy Repeaters (font 7Aish routine, 30 seconds between sets, 21 sets, Green band @ knee)
Press-Throughs: 3 sets at shoulder range then 3 sets to tricep press (Black band doubled over, then Red)
Mono lifts: 3 sets of 30 seconds, Pinky & Index @ 25 lbs., Middle & Ring @ 35 lbs.
Typewriters: 3 sets of 20 with TBD band
½ hour Set (3 pullups, 3 pushups, 3 AbRollers, 3 Hammer Curls, 5 rehabs)
½ hour wall set of easy, continuous climbing
Grippers: 3 sets x 20 with Sport
Power Forearms

Wednesday:

Hangboard: Easy Repeaters (font 7Aish routine, 30 seconds between sets, 21 sets, Green band @ knee)
½ hour Set (3 pullups, 3 pushups, 3 AbRollers, 3 Arnold Press, 5 rehabs)
Shoulder Shrugs 3 sets @ 25 lbs.
Straight Leg Deadlifts 3 sets @ 20 lbs.
½ hour wall set of easy, continuous climbing
Grippers: 3 sets x 20 with Sport
Power Forearms

Thursday: same as Tuesday
Friday: Rest

Hypertrophy

I tried putting campusing after hangboarding this phase. An obvious mistake in retrospect: I'm a firm believer in the principle of training in the most to least powerful exercises as well as most technical to least technical. I also tested out doing partial and/or training campus moves rather than trying standard Up moves.

Saturday: Hard routes at the Owl Tor
Sunday: Rest
Monday: Rest
Tuesday:

Hangboard Repeaters/Encores (18 sets = ~75 minutes):

6 sets on campus board: 2/3f @ 5/8", 3f @ 5/8", 4f @ 5/8", 2/3f @ 1", 3f @ 1", 4f @ 1"
6 sets on campus board: 3f @ 5/8", 4f @ 5/8", 3f @ 1", 4f @ 1", front 2f @ 1.75", back 3f @ 1.75"
6 sets of Beastmaker font 6Cish program; start with red band, switch to Black band upon failure.

Campusing (23 sets @ 2 minutes per set = 46 minutes):

5 sets of High Touches: 1 touch 4 on 1.75"
3 sets each side of Low Touches: 5 touch 1 on 1.75"
3 sets each side of High Bumps: 1-3 bump 4 on 1.75"
3 sets each side of Mid Touches: 3-5 touch 1 on 1.75"
One-Arm Shrugs: 3 sets each arm

Mono lifts: 3 sets of 12 seconds, Pinky & Index @ 45#, Middle & Ring @ 55#.
Pullups: wide back, wide front, shoulder, narrow, offset-L, offset-R, under-wide, under-narrow
Typewriters: 3 sets of 8 reps with Purple band
Press-Throughs: 3 sets with Purple band + 3 sets of Tricep Press with Black band + 1 set with Red band.
Shoulder Shrugs: 3 sets of 15 reps @ 30#.
Straight Leg Deadlifts: 3 sets of 15 reps @ 30#.
Godoffes: 3 sets of Max reps.
Ab-Rollers: 3 sets of Max reps.
Grippers: 3 sets x Max reps (should be 6-10) with #0.5
Power Forearms

Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: same as Tuesday
Friday: Rest

Recruitment
Not much change in my recruitment training. I did manage to get mono hangs back into my routine; first pad mono strength disappears quickly, I find. Once you've built the requisite tendon strength, it's essential to maintain this type of power.
This was only a 2 week phase, so weighted campusing was my primary recruitment tool. The key to recruitment is maximizing intensity. Thus, the trick is learning what your body can handle without getting injured.

Saturday: Future projects at the Owl Tor
Sunday: Rest
Monday: Rest
Tuesday:

Campusing: 2+ hours. All weighted, max time 5/8" rungs
Hangboard:

5 sets of Mono hangs on middle & ring fingers; 4-6 second hangs; 1-2 minutes between hangs; help TBD
5 sets of 2f hangs; 4-6 second hangs; 1-2 minutes between hangs; help/weight TBD.

Off-Set Pullups on the campus board: 3 sets of 2-4 reps with TBD band.
Pullups 3-5 reps @ 25#: wide back, wide front, shoulder, narrow, offset-L, offset-R, under-wide, under-narrow.
Press-Throughs: 3 sets with Green band + 3 sets with Purple band + 1 set with Black band
optional: Bouldering
Grippers: 3 set x Max reps (should be 2-4) with #1

Wednesday: Rest
Thursday:

Campusing: 1.5 hrs. max at bodyweight
Bouldering
½ hour Set (3 pullups, 3 pushups, 3 AbRollers, 3 Hammer Curls, 5 rehabs)

Friday: Rest

Peak
Due to Christmas plans and traveling, I only had a couple days to hit my campusing goals. I hit 1-4-7 on the 5/8" rungs fairly easily; but unfortunately, I tore my skin doing it, so I had to call it a day without trying 1-5-7 on the 5/8".

Facts & Stats
This cycle was probably too short to derive very much from the data, but it's good to track nonetheless.

Goals:

Campusing 1:5-8 on the 1" = Failed
Campusing 1:4-7 on the 5/8" = Achieved
Campusing 1:5-7 on the 5/8" = Failed; not attempted
Campusing 1:5-7b9 on the 1" = Achieved

Training Days in Cycle: 62
Weight, Body Fat %, Body Fat pounds:

Start: 168.2, 6.0%, 10.1 lbs.
End: 173.3, 6.5%, 11.3 lbs.

1/2 hour sets: 2
Pull-ups: 516
Push-ups: 180
Ab-Rollers: 485
Climbing Outside: 10 days, 37 hours
Climbing Gym: 9 days, 9 hours
Campusing: 16 days, 21 hours
Hangboard: 13 days, 16 hours
Power Forearms: 7
Gripper Workouts: 11
Bikram: 5
Rest Days: 30 (35 rest & Bikram days, or 56% of the cycle.)

Analysis
Again, the holidays are a challenging time for training. Still, I am convinced that long-term, I progressed more by still doing a cycle. My next cycle, in the spring, will involve another Lord of the Rungs campusing competition, as well as a significant climbing goal outside.

A comment on goals...
Goals are clearly important to me; but I must point out that goals are not merely something you "want" to do. Just saying, "I want to climb V7," or "I want to campus 1-5-8" does not make those things your goal. And if all you're doing to achieve this thing is exactly what you're doing anyway, then it's also not a goal. Goals take sacrifice, commitment, and pushing your limits. If I want a burger and I walk over to American Ale (my favorite burger in Santa Barbara) and then I eat the burger, then I haven't achieved any goal. Similarly, if all you do is go bouldering whenever it's fun and you eventually climb your target route or grade, that's not much of a goal. It might be fun, but I would say that person did little to learn about struggle and determination. Do you think CT Fletcher just sorta shows up at the gym, or do you think he sets massive, challenging goals?

Adam Ondra onsights 5.14d
If you follow climbing news at all, you've probably seen this video of Adam Ondra onsighting 5.14d. I've been climbing for about 30 years and when I started in 1984, the hardest route in the world was 5.13d. Few climbers, myself included, can even comprehend onsighting at Ondra's level.

Campusing - Goals and Plateaus

2014-05-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Regardless of your campusing ability and experience, plateauing is a common problem. The main reason for this is that the next hardest move/goal is often much harder than the move you've just completed. I recommend having parallel goals on the same rungs and alternate goals on other (bigger and smaller) rungs. Clearly, trying a specific goal is one way to train for it. The next most obvious method is to simply try the goal on bigger rungs. This article covers the less obvious ways to train for a specific goal; the methods I cover here are: Drops, Component Moves, similar moves on the same board, and Stacks.
For the sake of this article, I'm going to assume you've adopted the Lord of the Rungs standard model for campus board design and rung size. This is for two reasons: first, most of my readers are from Santa Barbara and have access to such a board; and second, I have to have a fixed platform upon which to plan a routine.
The LOTR site has all the moves used in competition and these will cover most peoples goals. The glaring exception is Drops. Everyone should have a Drop goal but I'll cover that at some point in the future. This article will cover only Up goals as those are the most common.
The table below has the standard Up moves for the combinations to 5,6,7, and 8. Moves easier than 1:3-5 are not covered as you should probably go to bigger rungs or do something other than campus if you're already using the 1.75" rungs. Moves harder than 1:5-8 are not covered because 1:5-8 on the 1" is the most difficult move I've done.

A Survey On Syntax
I experimented with a different syntax for campus moves. The only change is to use a ":" to separate the starting hand position from the move(s). For the Up moves, the change is minor: 1-4-7 becomes 1:4-7; but many training moves are more complex. Here are some examples of the changes by move; if you have a preference, please cast your vote below.

Bumps: Old syntax 1-4. New syntax 1-4:3-4; meaning start on 1 & 4 and the hand on 4 bumps between 3 & 4. This can also be used for the High Bumps where 5:1-5 means start matched on 5 then the moving hand lowers to 1 then back to 5.
Drops: Old syntax 6-2-1-6 or 5-1. New syntax 2-6:1-6 and 1-5:1-5; meaning start 2 & 6 and the hand on 6 lowers to 1 then goes back to 6.
High Shrugs: Old syntax N/A. New syntax 1-5:7; meaning start on 1 & 5 and the hand on 1 goes to 7.

Difficulty Tiers

I categorized each move into a "Difficulty Tier." I estimate that if we were to look at 100 people's campusing ability, we would see it group somewhat like what I have described. (I put my estimation for what percent of active campusers would be working a goal in the specified tier for the 1" rungs.) The point of the tiers is to give suggestions for goal selection.

Parallel Goals

By "Parallel Goal" I mean a move on the same rung size as your main goal. I suggest working all the moves in the same difficulty tier in parallel. If there are no moves in the same tier, try a move from the next harder tier. If that move seems too hard, focus on alternate goals on other rungs.

Alternate Goals

"Alternate Goals" refers to different moves on bigger or smaller rungs. For smaller rungs, select a move from the difficulty tier one tier easier than the tier of the goal. For larger rungs, select a move from the difficulty tier one tier harder than the tier of the goal. I list specific examples; these are the "Easier Board Goal" and "Harder Board Goal" columns.

Drops

Drops are most appropriate when the goal is a short move followed by a long move (i.e., 1:2-5, 1:2-6, 1:3-7.) If a Drop is listed for your goal move, it is your best training device. If the Drop move I suggest is too hard, find one a bit easier. You should be able to do 2-4 reps of the Drop.

Component Moves

I discussed Component Moves in my last post and they are also covered on the exercises page. The component moves are: Bumps, High Shrugs, and Low Explosives. Like Drops, they are not listed for all goal moves, but if they are, they should be an excellent way to train.

Same Board Moves

Some goals are trainable by doing similar moves that are slightly easier. For example, one that worked well for me when training for 1:5-8 is 1:5-7b9. That is 1:5-7 then the hand on 7 bumps again to 9 then you match 9. This move is maybe 80-90% the difficulty of 1:5-8; which is an excellent target range for training moves.

Stacks

The Stacks to 9 are described here and listed here. In the past, I have not used Stacks in training for my goals. I am going to begin experimenting here and listed the stacks I estimate would be most appropriate for each goal.

Up Moves in Approximate Difficulty Order

Diff. Tier	Goal Move	Drops	Component Moves	Same Board Moves	Stacks	Easier Board Goal	Harder Board Goal
1 (40%)	1:3-5				1:2-4-5-7-8-10	1:4-6	1:3-4
	1:4-5			1:3-5	1:3-4-6-7-9-10	1:4-6	1:3-4
	1:2-5	1-4:1-4		1:3-5	1:2-4-5-7-8-10	1:3-6	1:2-4
2 (30%)	1:4-6		Low Explosive: 1:4 Bumps: 1-4:3-4		1:4-5-8-9 (1:4-5,1:2-5,1:4-5)	1:5-6	1:4-5
2 (30%)	1:3-6		Low Explosive: 1:4 Bumps: 1-4:3-4		1:2-5-6-9-10 (1:2-5,1:4-5 x2)	1:5-6 1:2-6	1:3-5
3 (15%)	1:5-6		Low Explosive: 1:5 High Shrugs: 1-4:6	1:5-5b6	1:4-5-8-9 (1:4-5,1:2-5,1:4-5)	1:5-7	1:4-6
4 (10%)	1:2-6	1-5:1-5	Low Explosive: 1:5		1:5-6-9 (1:5-6 & 1:2-5)	1:3-7	1:2-5
	1:4-7		Low Explosive: 1:5 Bumps: 1-5:4-5		1:3-6-8 1:4-6-9	1:5-8	1:3-6
	1:5-7		Low Explosive: 1:5 High Shrugs: 1-5:6b7	1:5-6b8	1:4-5-8-9 (1:4-5,1:2-5,1:4-5)	1:5-8	1:4-6
5 (3%)	1:3-7	2-6:1-6	Low Explosive: 1:5 Bumps: 1-5:4-5	1:2-6	1:4-5-9 (1:4-5 & 1:2-6)	1:5-8	1:2-6
6 (2%)	1:5-8		Low Explosive: 1:5.5 High Shrugs: 1-5:7b8 Bumps: 1-6:5-6	1:5-7b9	1:3-7-9 (1:3-7 & 1:5-7)	1:5-8.5	1:5-7

Finally
I gotta get a bit more intense during my workouts...

Campusing Base and Component Moves + Exercises Page

2014-04-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

Maintaining Power
Regardless of if and how you cycle your training, I'm convinced that maintaining power is critical. Not at 100%, but at maybe 80-90% of your peak at all times. Power can disappear quickly: if I don't train monos, I lose my mono strength very fast. But campusing, is powerful by nature, how does one best incorporate it into a training cycle? This was the problem I faced in my current cycle. The approach I took was new - to me.

Campusing Base and Component Moves
"Base Moves" refers to moves that you can hit consistently, say 85+% of the time. I targeted 20 moves; 10 different moves performed on each side (right & left.) Every three minutes, I did a move, so the entire workout is 1 hour. That was my Tuesday campusing workout (Tab: Base Moves.)
On Thursdays, I did the "Component Moves" which refers to three partial movements done in repetitions. These three component moves are: Bumps, Low Explosive, and High Shrug. Again, I did my sets every 3 minutes and did a 1 hour workout (Tab: Component Moves.)
A "Bump" is when you start one hand on rung 1 and the other higher, say rung 4. Then the high hand bumps up to 5 and then back to 4 for the targeted number of repetitions. (I don't like the more common version of this where you start on rung 1 and then bump one hand higher and higher. That movement gets exponentially harder as you get more tired, which is usually not a productive configuration.)
For the initial portion of a long move, the "Low Explosive" exercise does only the initial reach from rung 1. Thus, starting matched on rung 1, pull as fast as possible up to the target rung and grab it. Do not match it with the other hand. As soon as you grab the high rung, let go, drop to the ground, and restart on rung 1 for the targeted number of repetitions. Do not rest between drops and use the same side (right/left) for the entire set. (The more common of this exercise, "Touches" involves dropping back and catching rung 1. This is a good exercise for recruitment, but too hard for other phases.)
The "High Shrug" exercise completes the series, focusing on the high hand in long moves. Start off-set, as with high bumps, for example, rungs 1 and 5. Then, the hand on rung 1 goes to the target rung, say 7. As with the low explosive moves, do not match, drop to the ground as soon as you grab rung 7. Then restart on rung 1 for the targeted number of repetitions. Again, do not rest between drops and use the same side (right/left) for the entire set. I often bump the moving hand up after hitting a rung; for example, if I first hit 6, I'll bump it to 7 and then 8. The key here is to generate the maximum amount of the continued upward force with your low (non-moving) hand.
Target a 6-8 reps for hypertrophy and 3-4 for recruitment. I started this approach during my hypertrophy phase and also did it (weighted) in my recruitment phase; I have not yet applied it to foundation training. I did 6 Base Moves workouts and 7 Component Moves workouts and could not have been happier with the results. It's very rare for me to be so convinced that an exercise routine works after only 13 workouts; but I am. Clearly, there are more improvements/refinements ahead - I'd love to get some feedback on modifications or how it works for you.
I should add here that there's clearly no magic to the Base Moves - it's just doing standard moves on an interval. I think what helped me is that it forced me to change intensity. Otherwise, I would just try my goal moves over and over every workout - which is not productive. The Base Moves might be less productive for people that rotate their intensity.

Exercises
Finally, I created an exercises tab. Nothing too original there; but it contains all the exercises I've used for the last year. I will add proven exercises only after they withstand the test of time. I don't think researching the newest, hippest exercise usually yields very much. I'm quite particular about how exercises should be done, so if you want to know the right way, check it out.

Motivation
I get motivation from athletes of many different sports. This week, I found a John Brzenk compilation. My favorite part is at 1:18.

Old Articles, New Goals, and The Lord of the Rungs

2014-04-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

Reprints
I finally found the time to OCR the PDFs of my old articles from Allez magazine. I posted them under the dates they were originally printed (see topic: training.old.) They feel dated to me - they are 20 years old; but Steve Edwards agrees that they're still directionally accurate. They probably aid me more than anyone else, as I'm always reviewing my training past for ideas to test in the future.

Rubble and The Lord of the Rungs
After hitting my base fitness level in the last cycle, I had two big goals heading into the fall. First and foremost was Rubble (13b) at the Owl Tor. It's short: 12 hand movements and three clips. Second is the first ever Lord of the Rungs campusing competition. Micah Elconin's genius idea; we've talked about it over the years, but Micah finally generated the necessary spirit to make it real. The Santa Barbara team would be competing against Hans Florine's team from Diablo Rock Gym.
This aligned well with my campusing goal for the cycle, which was 1-3-7 & 1-5-7 on 1" rungs. Since the competition was scheduled for Tuesday, October 8th, I had 9 weeks to train for it. Then, I'd have three weeks when I should be peaking to do Rubble. (I was heading to Las Vegas for Halloween, which would, no doubt, hurt my fitness, so I had to redpoint before then.)

Foundation

As identified in my last post, I had some issues to resolve in my foundation cycle: excessive intensity and thrashing my skin. Reviewing the schedule below, I'm surprised by the volume - I really had to think about if I recorded my workouts correctly. This speaks to the importance of recording your workouts; the devil is in the details, and without recording them, you'll miss the details.

I decreased the campusing volume from 200 to about 100 moves and I didn't do any campusing on the 5/8" rungs. Thus, campusing was a 50% decrease in volume, but probably a 75% decrease in intensity. I also dropped bouldering at the gym. Thus, I achieved my objective compared to the last phase: lower intensity and higher volume. I think the higher volume was unplanned. It's easy to forget that the intensity/volume curve is non-linear. For example, if you're at 75% of max, then you're doing about 10 reps, drop that to 65% (a 13.3% decrease in intensity) and you'll be doing 15 reps (a 50% increase in volume.) That's in the ballpark of what I changed between the two foundation phases; some of this was unplanned.

I still don't have a foundation phase answer for how to climb outside. This is mainly because my main crag, the Owl Tor, is the worst cliff you can imagine for foundation phase training - this is a work in progress. The plan below for Saturdays doesn't work. (Routes at the Tor start at 12a and are power-endurance sprints; ideally, I'd have access to longer routes between 11a-11d.)

I did 3 weeks of this phase. The risk of short phases is getting them wrong. If you're doing an 8 week phase and a week or two go poorly, you still have 6-7 solid weeks under your belt. But with a 3 week phase you have to nail every week. When I started periodizing my training, all my phases were 8-12 weeks - mainly because I didn't know any better. The information and advice at the time drove me in that direction. In retrospect, that was a very good way to start because it teaches you what the phases feel like and are meant to accomplish - you can't learn that in 3 weeks.
I added mono lifts this cycle; these are simply first digit finger lifts using a platform with weight and a carabiner. This is a great base exercise for anyone wanting to improve their one-finger strength and the weight is easily adjustable.

Saturday: Redpoint Intervals; equal time climbing & rest.
Sunday: Standard weekday workout, Gym Climbing, or Rest
Monday: Bikram
Tuesday:

Campusing:

10 sets @ 3 min.: 1", 1-4-Match-7-Match-10 (6 m/s = 60 moves)
10 sets @ 3 min.: 1.75”, 1-3-6-8-10 up only (5 m/s = 50 moves)

Hangboard: Reverse Easy Repeaters (font 6Cish routine with shorter rests)
Mono lifts - 3 sets of 30 seconds:

Pinky @ 20 lbs.
Index @ 25 lbs.
Middle & Ring @ 35 lbs.

Press-Throughs: 3 sets (red band doubled over)
½ hour Set (3 pullups, 3 pushups, 3 AbRollers, 3 Arnold presses, 5 rehabs)
½ hour wall set of easy, continuous climbing
Grippers: 3 x Max of Trainer
Power Forearms

Wednesday: same as Tuesday
Thursday: same as Tuesday
Friday: Rest

Hypertrophy

My hypertrophy routine stayed largely unchanged. The key difference would be the static climbing outside, which I do think is the best method for me in this phase. Still, in reviewing my notes, I see that I didn't actually do it; I just climbed whatever was fun that day. My campusing was a bit more focused on moves for the campusing competition than the previous cycle.

Saturday: Static climbing outside
Sunday: Gym Climbing, Hangboard Repeaters, or Rest
Monday: Bikram
Tuesday:

Campusing: 1.5 hours. 50% on 5/8", 40% on 1", 10% on 1.75".
Hangboard: Repeaters (font 6Cish program) with Black band
One-arms: 3 sets of 6+ reps with help
Mono lifts - 3 sets of 15 seconds:

Pinky & Index @ 40 lbs.
Middle & Ring @ 50 lbs.

optional: Pullups: wide back, wide front, shoulder, narrow, offset-L, offset-R, under-wide, under-narrow
Press-Throughs: 3-5 sets (Black band) + 3-5 sets of Tricep Press (Red band)
Ab-Rollers: 3-5 sets of max reps
optional: Bouldering at gym
Grippers: 3 x 6-8 reps of #0.5
Power Forearms

Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: About the same as Tuesday
Friday: Rest

Recruitment
I had three weeks of recruitment training before the competition - really, more like two, since I would need to rest a bit the week before the comp. This increased rest created a "mini-peak" within a cycle and is a technique to keep in mind.So with two real weeks of recruitment I had to go hard. Thus, I did two weeks of weighted campusing, adding 10 pounds on each of the four workouts.
For climbing outside, I often use the recruitment phase to get on future projects, maybe things I don't think I'll ever be able to climb. Another technique I used in this phase is to get on my current project after 2-3 attempts on routes much harder than my project. Sure, I get killed, but compared to 14a, 13b doesn't feel so bad; then, in the peak phase, when I get straight onto my project, it (hopefully) feels easy.

Saturday: Hard climbing outside.
Sunday: Rest
Monday: Rest
Tuesday:

Campusing: 2+ hours. All weighted with 10 pounds. max% time on 5/8".
One-arms: 3 sets of 5+ reps with help
Mono lifts - 3 sets of 10 seconds:

Pinky & Index @ 40 lbs.
Middle & Ring @ 55 lbs.

Press-Throughs: 3-5 sets (tbd band) + 3-5 sets of Tricep Press (tbd band)
Grippers: 3 x max reps of #1
optional: Bouldering at the gym
½ hour Set (3 pullups, 3 pushups, 3 AbRollers, 3 Hammer curls @15#, 5 Rehabs: tubing)

Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: About the same as Tuesday
Friday: Rest

Peak
I went into the campusing competition very psyched and well rested. I managed to hit all my campusing goals (primarily 1-5-7 & 1-3-7) and some other personal bests. I finished third overall, and since I'm older than the first and second place finishers combined, that's not too bad. Four hours of campusing at your limit is a massive workout, and the whole event was incredibly fun. Furthermore, our little Santa Barbara team was able to defeat Hans Florine's team from the Bay area.
Eleven days after the competition, I redpointed Rubble - only four weeks after I wrote this comment about my climbing day outside: "Just warmed up and moved rocks - super exhausted." The lesson here is to trust in the process; you won't always climb well during your training phases - don't expect to. What matters is climbing well when it counts: in the peak phase.

Saturday: Redpoint attempts on Rubble
Sunday: Bikram
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Campusing
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Light bouldering or redpoint attempts on Rubble if I can get outside
Friday: Rest

Facts & Stats
I came up with a much better way to total and review the stats of my cycle. I added a "Totals" tab to my training sheet and totaled the exercises by phases. Although this took maybe 30 minutes to design and get right, future phases will take minutes to compile and I believe this will result in valuable objective data in a concise format. Most importantly, this makes it very easy for me to see how much I'm resting in each phase. I know I should be resting more in the peak phase and the totals highlight that. In my last cycle, I rested on 50% of my peak days, this cycle was 53%. This should be minimum 57% (4/7 days) and I might target 71% (5/7 days) to see how it feels.

Goals:

Rubble = Redpointed
Campusing 1-3-7 & 1-5-7 = Achieved
Lord of the Rungs = 3^rd place, better than expected

Training Days in Cycle: 61
Weight, Body Fat %, Body Fat pounds:

Start: 172.5, 7.5%, 12.9 lbs.
End: 172.5, 6.7%, 11.6 lbs.

1/2 hour sets: 17
Pull-ups: 1595
Push-ups: 1380
Ab-rollers: 1820
Climbing Outside: 9 days, 33 hours
Climbing Gym: 20 days, 13 hours
Campusing: 24 days, 25 hours
Hangboard Workouts: 18
Power Forearms: 11
Gripper Workouts: 16
Bikram: 8
Rest Days: 25 (Bikram is mostly a rest, so I consider this 33 rest days, or 54% of the cycle.)

Analysis
Without a doubt, the best part of this cycle was the Lord of the Rungs competition. Hitting goals is always fun, but the LOTR generated motivation throughout the community.
I find it can be long-term productive to back off a bit after some wins - even wins take a lot of emotional energy. Thus, with the holidays coming on, my next cycle will be short, and not very ambitious.

Rubble
Thanks Elijah, for putting up this excellent route. All photos Bob Banks.

Training Cycle Structure

2014-04-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Revamping My Training Cycles
On June 3, 2013, I decided to make 1-5-8.5 on the 1" rungs my birthday challenge for next year (June 5, 2014.) As I mention before, I broke it into 3 waypoint goals: 2 months each to do 1-4-7, 1-5-7, and 1-5-8. That left me six months to do 1-5-8.5. 1-4-7 was also an appropriate goal for me at the time because it's what I would consider my normal "base" level of fitness, which I was not at.
I decided to do a short cycle, 9 weeks total. Without getting into a long discussion about cycle length, I'll just say that I picked this because I thought the goal was not too far off and short cycles provide more immediate feedback as to their results (i.e., shorter cycles are shorter, duh.) Basically, feedback on the structure was critical, since I wanted to revamp how I was doing my periodization. I always like to have a climbing goal, but Rubble (13b) would be too hard for me this cycle. So while I will get on it, it will be the goal of my next cycle, not this one.

Periodization
As mentioned in my last article, periodization is a systematic way of training each of the distinct musculature and energy systems. Periodization for climbing is typically 4 training phases followed by a peak phase. These training phases, in order, are:

Foundation. While many climbers use this phase for aerobic training, I consider this phase's primary benefit building connective tissue and getting me ready for long, hard workouts. You can't do long, hard workouts if you can't do long, easy workouts - clearly. It's common for people to target high volume at 30-40% intensity level. That's what I used to do; but I've switched, I now target 50-65% intensity level at relatively high volume. I find this more specific for most of my goals (power endurance routes 40-60 feet long.) I think it's almost impossible to do too much in this phase; i.e. more exercise is generally better. This is the most commonly skipped phase (or type of training not performed by those not periodizing their training.) I think this type of training is essential to preventing injuries and I attest my mostly injury-free history to the foundation phase work I've done. This is the time to do preventive/rehabilitation/stabilization exercises; these should be at least 25% of the work done in this phase.
Hypertrophy. This is the muscle building stage. Body builders spend all their time here. In terms of repetitions, it's from 6-12, or approximately 20-40 seconds of time under tension. I start around 70% intensity and finish the phase 3-4 weeks later close to 85%. I do two big workouts each week, not counting a day climbing outside. On those two days, I think it's hard to do too much; you can do very big workouts, just remember to follow these days with 1-2 complete rest days. Building muscle does not mean that you're going to get "bulky" - women often express this fear. That doesn't happen - unfortunately - you don't just turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger overnight and be like "what happened?!?!?" Building muscle for climbing means building just the right muscles required to achieve your goal.
Recruitment. The greatest phase. This is where you train your muscle fibers to all fire at the same time - maximizing output. Other important factors like the Golgi tendon reflex, slow-velocity strength, high-velocity strength, the stretch shortening cycle, etc., are also trained in this phase. Quality, not quantity is of paramount importance here. It is very easy to do too much volume in this phase; but it is almost impossible to be at too high an intensity level. You want to drive your muscles to fail at near maximum output. Follow these workouts with 1-3 complete rest days.
Power-Endurance. This trains the anaerobic system and maximizes the ability for high output for a longer period of time. Many other sports refer to this phase as lactate threshold training. Activities requiring 1-3 minutes of high intensity output emphasize this metabolic system. Of the four training phases, this is the one I am least confident in my training methods. I dialed in the other three phases over my last 4 cycles (well, really, dozens of cycles for the last 20 years) and plan on refining my training for power endurance soon.

I decided to do 2 week phases and started with an initial week of rest. (I rarely rest for a week, but that week was my birthday and I think I was too busy for any serious workouts.) Two weeks is very short for a phase, I'd only recommend it if you've done a lot of training and are confident that all your workouts will be efficient. I didn't include a power-endurance phase; this is because campusing takes no power-endurance - it's pure recruitment.
I think about periodization like the pyramid below. The foundation phase is critical in building connective tissue and adaptation capabilities for hypertrophy and recruitment. Hypertrophy builds the raw muscle mass so that there is something to recruit. Finally, recruitment gets to turn the previous work into something real and usable. Power endurance doesn't make the pyramid because it trains an energy system, not a musculature system. I don't know how much my specific workouts will help people; but over time, after I've documented 3-4 full cycles and you compare my reformulations to your own, I think patterns will emerge that you can leverage, as I have. I'll describe any uncommon exercises in a future post; right now I'm focusing on cycle structure.

Schedule
I'm a weekend warrior, so planning my schedule is dependent on work, social obligations, etc. Ideally, my calendar would look the the schedule below. If you're new to periodization, I'd recommend longer phases because figuring out the right intensity will take some time. As you advance, I think shorter cycles are better because you're body will naturally adapt to the phases quicker and once your body adapts, you need to switch things up.

Foundation
Most people wouldn't do campusing as part of their foundation phase; but I like campusing and I wanted to do some experimenting. You can see my specific workouts and notes, but my basic weekly schedule is below. I'll save you the time of reading my notes, here's what I did wrong:

Failed early in the workout, this shouldn't happen in foundation.
Excessive intensity, thus I was unable to complete my target workout.
I mutilated my skin, which further reduced the quality (and fun) of the workouts.

These are basic issues and I got them wrong (most were mentioned in last week's post.) I made a note at the end regarding how to improve the structure in my next cycle. Even though I don't believe I heeded my own advice, it's still a good reference point to have. (The note was: I have determined that the only exercises I will do for campusing in foundation are: 2 finger hangs, 4 finger up moves on the 1" rungs, and 1-3-5-7 up & down on the 1.75" rungs.)

Saturday: 10 laps at the Owl Tor (mostly 12a)
Sunday: Optional gym climbing of easy, high volume; or ½ hour set
Monday: Bikram
Tuesday:

Campus Laddering (Goal is 200 moves in 1.5 hours):

10 sets on the 3 minute: 5/8" rungs, 1 rung laddering: 60 moves
10 sets on the 3 minute: 1”, 1 rung laddering: 90 moves
10 sets on the 3 minute: 1.75”, 1-3-5-7-9 up only: 50 moves

Bouldering (1 hour): high volume, routes on the 2 minute (30 routes averaging V3/4)
½ hour of easy, continuous climbing at the gym
½ hour Set (Every minute for 30 minutes: 3 pullups, 3 pushups, 3 AbRollers, 3 Hammer Curls, 5 rehabs)
Power Forearms (5 minutes)
Grippers (10 minutes): 3 x Max of Trainer

Wednesday: ½ hour Set
Thursday: about the same as Tuesday
Friday: Rest

Hypertrophy
I didn't leave many notes, so evaluating this phase is difficult. Again, recording your workouts is fundamental. Still, you can see that volume decreased and intensity increased compared to the foundation phase. Exercises in this phase should be performed at about 75-85% of maximum. (This is approximately 6-10 repetitions.)

Saturday: Hard climbing outside. 5-7 laps (not redopints) on 12c-13b.
Sunday: Optional climbing at the gym
Monday: Bikram
Tuesday:

Campusing: Stacks: 1 hr. 4f on 1": 1-3-6-8, 1-4-6-9, 1-4-6-8, 1-3-6-7. Bumps: 1-4-5.
Bouldering: 1 hour. Working problems and/or 4x4s with 1:1 rest.
Hangboard Repeaters 2 sets of: 2f on 1", 3f on 1", 4f on 5/8", 2f on 1.75".
Pullup Shrugs: 3 sets of max reps each arm
Pullups: wide back, wide front, shoulder, narrow, offset-L, offset-R, under-wide, under-narrow.
Ab-Rollers: 3 sets of max reps
Grippers: 3 x 6-8 reps of #0.5
Power Forearms

Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: about the same as Tuesday
Friday: Rest

Recruitment
I think campusing, and drops specifically, are the most important exercise for recruitment. By "drops" I mean one hand starts high, say rung 5, and the other low, say rung 1. Then you let go with the high hand, drop and catch rung 1, then immediately pull-up and go back to 5 with the same hand. Doubles, where both hands start high and drop to a lower rung, and then go back up, are also good.
Again, volume decreased and intensity increased compared to hypertrophy. All the exercises in this phase should be performed at about 90-100% of maximum. (90% of your maximum is approximately 4 reps.)

Saturday: Very hard climbing outside. 3-4 laps (not redopints) 13b-13d.
Sunday: Rest
Monday: Bikram
Tuesday:

Campusing:
- Drops on the 5/8” rungs (Max 5-2-1-5)
- Drops on the 1” rungs (Max 5-1)
- Maximum up moves on the 1” rungs
- Maximum up moves on the 1.75" rungs
Bouldering: 1 hour. Working routes at my limit.
Hangboard: Max Pulls 3 sets w/2f & 3 sets w/4f
Pull-ups with 40 lbs.: wide back, wide front, shoulder, narrow, offset-L, offset-R, under-wide, under-narrow.
Ab-Rollers: 3 sets of max reps
Grippers: 3 x 1-3 reps of #1

Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: about the same as Tuesday
Friday: Rest

Peak
As you can guess, my peak phase consisted mainly of trying my goal - 1-4-7. Volume becomes extremely low in this phase. I achieved my goal of doing 1-4-7 as well as 1-2-6 and 1-5-6.

Saturday: Best attempts at projects outside.
Sunday: Bikram
Monday: Rest
Tuesday:

Campusing:

1-4-7 on 1" (done)
1-5-6 on 1" (done)
1-2-6 on 1" (done)
1-5-7 on 1.75" (failed)
1-3-7 on 1.75" (failed)

Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: about the same as Tuesday
Friday: Rest

Facts & Stats
These stats took me under 10 minutes to compile - a testament to the benefits of recording your workouts.

Goal: 1-4-7 = Achieved
Training Days in Cycle: 42
Weight, Body Fat %, Body Fat pounds:

Start: 172.8, 7.6%, 13.1 lbs.
End: 174.3, 8.1%, 14.1 lbs.

1/2 hour sets: 6
Pull-ups: 816
Push-ups: 531
Ab-rollers: 355
Climbing Outside: 7 days, 38 hours
Climbing Gym: 13 days, 17 hours
Campusing: 12 days, 14 hours
Hangboard Workouts: 3
Power Forearms: 7
Gripper Workouts: 11
Bikram: 5
Rest Days: 16 (Bikram is mostly a rest, so I consider this 21 rest days, or half the cycle.)

Analysis
I emailed my training buddies at the end of my cycle and it sums it up pretty well:

Sent Tue 8/6/2013 11:28 AM:
I finished my first cycle, which lasted nine weeks. Most importantly, I completed all my 1” campusing goals (albeit just barely.) These were: 1-4-7, 1-5-6, and 1-2-6. I didn’t have a major climbing goal, I sort-of tried Rubble (13b), but that was unrealistic for this cycle. I redpointed The Old Pro Skill (12d) on my last climbing day of the cycle, which is a fitness litmus test for me (I was unable to redpoint it at the start of the cycle.) Overall, this cycle got me to what I generally consider my “base” level of fitness.
My next cycle starts today and is 10 weeks long; maybe 11 if I add a third week of recruitment. My goals are: 1-5-7 and 1-3-7 on the 1” – 1-5-7 is very realistic; but 1-3-7 is no joke. I’m confident this next cycle will be much more efficient, as I did a lot of testing and reworking of routines in my last cycle.
I’ve come to the conclusion that, overall, the “old ways” (the exercises we’ve traditionally done) work very well. I’m adding one arm work, hangboarding, Press Throughs, and mono-lifts this cycle. My time in the climbing gym will decrease, it’s just not that useful. I’ll probably end up doing 1 hour twice a week, primarily for movement. Outside my redpoint goal will be Rubble. I am injury free, and I think the weekly Bikram helps in this regard. I had a couple minor tweaks at the start of my last cycle, but they are gone, can’t even remember what they were.

Recruitment training pays off for Ben Moon on Agincourt (14b) FA 1989.

Theories & Rules - Training & Chess

2014-04-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

As I said, I'm going to write one introductory "theory" article but after this my format is mainly going to be "I wanted to do <goal> so I did <training>. In the end I <result> and I think that's because of <interpretation>." There are already enough people out there taking the "do this workout" approach, which is good, and necessary; but that's not for me, and it's not the audience I'm looking for either. I'm not a great climber but I have trained, pretty scientifically, for over 20 years; so I think I'll have something useful for people.
Training for climbing is a bit like chess: each is a blend of science and art. It's a matter of feeling what works and what doesn't, of reviewing your history, reapplying what's worked well in the past, and testing new theories. Furthermore, different goals/opponents require different approaches. You must learn your style and all approaches do not work equally well for everyone. Like chess, there are some abstract theories that should be understood and followed before they are broken. For training, my rules are:

The Basics

Don't Injure Yourself
Listen To Your Body
Train Smart, Not Hard
Nutrition Matters
Record Your Workouts

Strength Principles

Strength Comes From Stress and Rest
Specificity & Variety
Periodization
Don't Train Fine Muscle Movements Tired

Force Multipliers

Set Goals
Learn Execute Mode
Know What Is Possible
Have Fun

Don't Injure Yourself
Sadly, I have to review this, the most basic and important principle, since most climbers are still breaking it. Notice how I wrote "don't injure yourself" instead of "don't get injured?" This is because even the language climbers use is broken. If you're injured, you injured yourself. A set of pull-ups didn't jump out of a dark alley and inflict tendonitis on your elbow. If your foot slips and you over-grip a crimp and then your tendon snaps, you injured yourself. Climbing and training injuries aren't like the flu or a cold - they don't just happen to you, you cause them. The bottom line is that your long-term climbing ability (and fun) will be inversely proportional to how often you cause yourself to get injured. This one is a rule - not a theory, not an opinion.

Listen To Your Body
Most people think of this only as it relates to preventing injuries - which is a very valid case - but it's not the only one. I'm learning now that how my body feels at the end of a training day (or phase) is the best gauge for how effective that workout was; or, more importantly, if the workout hit what I was targeting. That is, it's better than "objective" measures like what I climbed, or how much weight I added on hangs. I'll go into this more when I discuss periodized training, but there are only four training phases and each feels significantly different. Being aware of these differences helps me stay on track. I'm convinced this is an essential ingredient for success.

Train Smart, Not Hard
I've definitely done more hard training than smart training. What can I say, I love training. I still put a fair amount of time into it, but I am trying to prioritize quality over quantity. Still, there is a limit (depending on your fitness level) on how little you can train and still get results. I agree with CT Fletcher at 8:17, "20 minute abs, 20 minute butt... 20 minute any-fucking-thing is a pile of bullshit. If you see somebody with great abs, a great butt, a great whatever, they didn't do the shit in 20 minutes." Training well takes time; depending on your fitness level and goals, it can take a lot of time. I also like his thoughts on overtraining - bahaha.
Another component of "training smart, not hard" is to begin getting a good gauge on exactly where you're at. Many people start training by going as hard as they can and then inevitably turning down the volume and/or intensity - or injure themselves. It is much more efficient to start slow, then add workload. In part this is because when your below your maximum you have some sense of how much more you have in you; whereas when you're above your maximum it's much harder to tell how much to decrease intensity. If you get this wrong, you can ruin a whole workout or two, which is too many if you're doing 3-4 week phases, or 6-12 workouts total.

Nutrition Matters
Jack Lalanne said, "exercise and diet are the king and queen of fitness... but exercise is the king." For most of the last thirty years, I've taken that to mean that if I workout enough, I can ignore my diet. I have always eaten fairly healthy (i.e., no fast food, not too many desserts, etc.) and this plan "worked" well. Then I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and began seriously changing my diet. So for the last two years, I've done a lot of juicing and switched to organic food whenever I can (within reason.) I am astounded at the results. I am now convinced that proper diet is critical to maximizing your potential. Again, I'm not going to recommend anything specific (I don't buy into any of the fad diets, like paleo, gluten free, etc.) but I will probably do a short post on what I eat and why.

Record Your Workouts
I use a Google Spreadsheet to track my workouts. (After several requests, I made these available in OpenDocument and Excel format. Just delete my data and upload it back to Google Docs.) I haven't always done this but I restarted in June, 2013 and I will always do it going forward - it takes less than 5 minutes a day. Inevitably, sports performance goes up and down. The ability to go back and review what you were doing when things were going well is invaluable. The earlier you start, the more valuable it is long-term. I'd pay a lot of money to have a record of all the workouts I did over the years. I find that the process of writing down what I'm doing helps me spot many problems; i.e. spending too much or too little time on various aspects of training. It also helps vet my rationale for what I'm choosing to work on.

Strength Comes From Stress and Rest
Yes, this is obvious. Training involves always doing more (intensity, volume, etc.) and this is difficult - it takes a lot of time and motivation. What people often do when these components are lacking is cut workouts short, or go at a lower intensity level. The problem with "going light" is that if you're capable of doing 10 reps and you do 9 then you haven't worked out. (Because you haven't stressed the muscles - the 10th rep is the rep that stressed the muscles.) Also, I find this does little to recharge motivation levels. If I don't have the proper motivation for a workout, I quit for the day. I watch a movie or drink a martini instead. Fortunately, this only happens once or twice a year.
Do your exercises (climbing, weights, whatever) in good form - it will pay off in the long run. If you're into CrossFit, you're wasting your time here, I have nothing for you. Also, remember that time under tension, not reps, is the measure while doing an exercise. If a pull-up workout recommends doing 4 sets of 10 reps, it's because they want you to do about 20-30 seconds of pull-up work. I would say 30, because I think a proper pull-up takes about 3 seconds. If you manage to do 10 shitty pull-ups in 15 seconds, you haven't done the recommended workout. People count reps because it's a proxy for time. (Also, when you do pull-ups, don't do the old "chin above the bar" bullshit. Pull as high as you can on every rep. Why? Because if you pull on a hold, but fall because you still can't reach the next one, you don't get to say "well, my chin was above the hold, so I'll just count it as a redpoint." When watching climbers, it quickly becomes clear which ones hammered out a bunch of useless reps, and which ones are strong.)
Finally, remember that your muscles get stronger when you rest. It's the proper balance between stress and rest that produces success. Resting is hard, especially for those of us who love training. I'm learning that resting is an unavoidable fact of life. Structured and periodized training can help prevent you from getting caught up in climbing or training and thus doing too much.

Specificity & Variety
Specificity simply means the training needs to be applicable/specific to the end goal. Obviously, if you do a lot of steep climbing then pull-ups, lock-offs, and typewriters are a better exercise than push-ups. By "variety" I mean that it's better to do three exercises (again, like pull-ups, lock-offs, and typewriters) than just one. Climbing involves many large and small muscles and it can often take several exercises to maximize results and simulate the target environment. Start learning which exercises correlate to certain motions and how this feels when applied to the "real" goal. I won't go into a broad array of exercises; but I will describe what I do and detail the more obscure ones.

Periodization
Training for aerobic endurance, strength (hypertrophy & recruitment,) and power endurance require completely different workouts. Peaking - when you attempt your goal - is yet another phase because when you're training your body is too broken down to perform at it's highest level. Optimal structuring these five phases is the goal of periodized training. If you don't like the concept of periodization, think of this alternative: always doing the exact same workout forever. That doesn't sound like fun or a recipe for success does it? You should never just campus, just hangboard, just boulder, or just anything - you will stagnate and/or get injured. You can keep doing the exercises you like, but you should alter something about the routine. I campus almost year-round, but I significantly change what I do campusing every 2-3 weeks, I'm not always doing my harder moves. Periodization can also be thought of as simply mixing up your workouts, because that's all it really is. Some of us make this step more complicated and structured, but you don't have to.

Don't Train Fine Muscle Movements Tired
Bruce Lee said it, so it's true. Power relies on your neuro-muscular system and it needs to be fresh to learn and perform well. In general, your workout should start with power and decrease in intensity. A big mistake in climbing is to work on something tired and ingrain the wrong body mechanics for the moves. Learn new movements fresh, practice them (in proper form) tired, and stop before you're flailing.

Set Goals
Having specific goals is required in order for your training to succeed. The goal is the benchmark by which the training is judged. Goals like "get stronger" and "climb 5.13" are lame and ineffective. Go out on a limb, pick something specific, pick a route, pick a boulder problem, pick a campusboard move. Then tell your friends, make it real, build a support team that can motivate you when you need it. I think many climbers avoid stating a goal for fear of not attaining it. But this is not failure - to me, failure is not pushing yourself. Don't fall into the trap of retrospectively calling whatever you did your goal - that's a cop-out and shortchanges what you could really be accomplishing.
Next, try and set some waypoints between where you are and your end goal. These objective landmarks will serve to motivate and guide you. Depending on how far out the goal is, these waypoints might be the goal of an entire cycle. I broke my goal of doing 1-5-8.5 into 3 waypoint goals: 2 months each to do 1-4-7, 1-5-7, and 1-5-8. That left me six months to do 1-5-8.5. (I'm behind schedule because I didn't hit 1-5-8 in December.)

Learn Execute Mode
By "Execute Mode" I am referring to your ideal performance state; that is, the state of being in which you perform best. Top competitive athletes learn this over years. Stereotypically "clutch" players (like Michael Jordan) know how to put themselves into this performance state when it really matters. Executing is a skill that can take a long time to develop, and is never mastered. Start learning it now.

Know What Is Possible
Inevitably, when pursuing a goal, the thought will come into your mind that it's too hard - it's not. By looking at what true masters have done we can see that our goals are very attainable. 25 years ago people were climbing V13 and 5.14d. (The first V13, Le mouvement perpetuel, was done in 1989; and the recently uprated Hubble the first 5.14d, was done in 1990.) The goals most of us are attempting are not new and are not difficult and they get easier when seen in this light.

Have Fun
Since none of us are pushing any world standard, have fun with it, see what you can do, set a crazy goal and see how close you come. I see people at the gym get all edgy because they didn't do some Vmeaningless-route-that-will-be-gone-in-a-week; that's crazy. I'm gonna reuse the Todd Skinner quote, "Never take climbing too seriously - have fun. Because no matter how much you train, and how long you climb, someday some kid you've never heard of is gonna show up and climb harder than you can imagine." And speaking of masters...

Finally, back to chess...
I'm a slightly better than average player (maybe) but here are my rules for chess anyway. These days, I only play chess960, because it's better. If you're up for a game via email, challenge me (requistp) on SchemingMind.com.

Play with the pieces, i.e., never push a pawn if you don't know what to do.
No early queen sorties.
Castle, remember you are the king, defend yourself.
Develop pieces with an attack, this keeps your opponent on the run.
Don't have "grand schemes" for what's going to happen 4 moves from now, it never works.
When your opponent has made a move with an "obvious" response, avoid playing it. If you can find an equally good, or better move this can throw them off.
Have fun. Contrary to popular opinion chess ability is not an indicator of intelligence, it's an indicator of how much you've played chess.

Building Your Own Sharp Stick

2014-03-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt, my favorite "article" in all of Allez is Belt's "Detailed instructions for building your own sharp stick." The point being, as the great Todd Skinner said, "Never take climbing too seriously - have fun. Because no matter how much you train, and how long you climb, someday some kid you've never heard of is gonna show up and climb harder than you can imagine."
Jean-Paul Finné's visit had a big impact on my climbing. He stayed with us at The Castle for a month after doing the third ascent of Just Do It, 14c. He got me to put very small dowels on my wall - 3/8" thick x 1/2" diameter smooth wooden footholds on a 45 degree wall - great for core training. There's also a lesson tucked away in the interview that took me a long time to learn. Jean-Paul describes doing "terribly" on White Wedding (14a) after doing JDI, which is two letter grades harder - in his description it's clear that it was a mental issue. The lesson is this: hard projects take a lot of emotional energy. Usually, after completing a hard project, it's best to take some time off. This is often difficult to do, since your psyche level will be high, but overall, it's a rule I try to follow.
I'm not too happy with my training article from this issue; mainly because the idea that fingerboards aren't great for hypertrophy training is madness. The quote I used from Jerry Moffatt still rings true today, "Endurance routes get easier. Hard moves are always hard moves."
Next week I'll begin to post some stuff on training.

So Cal's Hardest (20 Years Ago)

2014-03-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

By the third issue of Allez, we clearly didn't care if anyone else liked our style. I no longer remember the climb diagrammed on page 2, Steve? In contrast to American climbing magazines - which have a "What's the Best 5.10?" article every other issue - we did a write-up of the ten hardest climbs in Southern California. The hardest route on the list, G-String (14a) is still unrepeated; Scott Cosgrove is a total hero.
I'm not sure that my own Better Than Life (13c) deserved to make the list; but it was Steve's article. Sadly, although BTL has had several repeats, only one was by a Santa Barbara resident, Elijah Ball, the others were all visitors: Hans Florine, Chris Leube, James Kim, and Steve Lapin (in the order, that I know of.) But I get it... bouldering, not sport climbing, is in vogue these days. (BTW, the PDF skips from page 14 to 18, so you have to scroll down to page 16, then back up to read that article in the proper order - that's Bob's fault.)
The interview with Lynn Hill was quite a score. I always thought it was odd that she started by describing her training as "not very scientific." Yet when asked a general "what's next" question she says, "Usually I peak in my physical ability in late summer or fall, so now I'll get back into my foundation phase..." - that's a pretty scientific approach. I think top athletes often forget how much they've learned. Many lessons are so ingrained into their lives that they no longer see them as "training."

The photo below is Todd Mei on Action Direct, 14d. Steve returned from that trip immensely psyched on power - which benefited us all. I can't remember who picked the quote (Steve or I) but it resonates more for me now than ever: "All limitations are self imposed."

Let's Go Scrubbin'

2014-03-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

I had completely forgotten the poem Todd Mei wrote for Allez's second issue; for most newcomers to the Owl Tor, it's as appropriate today as it was 20 years ago. I wish there was an equivalent to the "News" section; Climbing used to have a similar item for the major climbing areas, but I think that's been gone for a long time. It helped me identify who did the second ascent of Chips Ahoy: Ian Vickers. He and Paul Twomey were visiting from Scotland; they did a lot more drinking than climbing when they stayed with us. Ian had onsighted 13c at the time, so onsighting a 12d would have been a warm-up. My training article seems a bit erratic; but overall, the theories and principles haven't changed much. The addition of Belt as a writer for Allez was huge.
Unfortunately, there were only 5 issues of Allez. The fifth was published only online and has been lost forever. Issues #3 & #4 will be posted on the next two Fridays, and then I will actually post about training. My approach is going to be very simple: Step 1: statement of my goal. Step 2: what I did to train for it. Step 3: statement of results. Step 4: my interpretation of why the results happened. Although, I'll start with an introductory piece on basic theories, I'm not going in that direction overall.

On another note, I was excited to see that The School Room has been reborn. The Brits have always focused on power; but more importantly they're funny. My favorite part is that instead of trying to make it "better" with cutting edge technology and designs, they recreated the original facility. Exactly what I would have done - rad! I always wanted to visit the U.K. just to go to The School Room, and now maybe I will. Here's one of my heroes, Ben Moon, training at the old School Room. I'm still chasing the campusboard achievement he did 20 years ago: 1-5-8.5.

Control-Alt-Delete

2014-03-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

In June, 2013 I began a nearly impossible (for me) birthday challenge: campusing 1-5-8.5 on 1" rungs at Moon spacing (22 cm.) I also began exchanging emails regarding training advice with Steve, Micah, Will, Hans, and Normal Guy. Since tracking, discussing, and recording the logic behind various approaches to my workouts seemed like most of the work involved in writing a blog, I decided to restart this sucker. (I made 3 posts back in 2007.)
Training is about the future, but I'm going to start with some history. Partly because it does contain the training articles I wrote 20 years ago, but more importantly, it's a lost part of Santa Barbara climbing history - and a very influential one at that: Allez Magazine.
Allez was started by Steve Edwards, Aaron Greene, and myself in 1994. It was everything a climbing magazine should be: funny, irreverent, and honest. Steve and I were always strongly influenced by the powerful British and German climbers of the 90's - and that is heavily reflected in the magazine - not to mention almost all the climbs Steve and I established. Twenty years is a long time for such a young sport, so clearly, many things seem dated. Still, it gives some interesting insight into the state of climbing at the time - the V scale was not even commly used. Other topics, like Steve's emphasis on bouldering, were quite futuristic. Bouldering was much less popular back then and Steve (and crew) had a massive impact in developing Santa Barbara's bouldering. It's nice to see the renewed search for hard or untouched bouldering by Andy Patterson, Thomas Townsend, and Dean Privett, among others.
So without further ado...

"No Hiding from the Tor"

2007-06-02T21:11:00.001-07:00

You know how sometimes a story unfolds non-linearly? That's how my birthday challenge felt...

Lena and I went to sleep at 8:00 pm Friday night after preparing everything we could for the challenge and party afterwards. We awoke at 3:30 am, ate breakfast (oatmeal), and hit the road at about 4:15 am. We got to the Owl Tor at 6:00 am. Bob, Normal Guy, and Jonathan (Kingston) had camped out the night before. I started the first route at 6:15, 15 minutes behind schedule. There was awesome light on the wall and conditions were perfect. The first 21 laps went down without incident. Each lap was taking about 5 minutes, which is what I had planned.
    On lap 22, my first lap on White Cougar, I bonked hard. It took me 25 minutes to get to the top. I drank a lot of water, took a little bit of extra rest, and tried a lap on Auto-Magic. One move in I had a massive stomach cramp. I've had a lot of these over the years, but this was by far the worst. It took me two hours to recover from. I clearly hadn't been drinking enough water. I finished the day by doing nine laps on The Power of Eating, to finish with 30 laps total.
    Lena drove me home, and I was pretty depressed. I knew I could have done better, definitely 35 laps, if I would have hydrated better. Forty was possible.

Lena arranged a great party that started about 15 minutes after we got home. She made the best macaroni and cheese I've ever had, ordered cupcakes from Jeaninne's, and brought food and beer to the climbing area. I tried to be a polite host, but I was busy wallowing in my defeat.
    Around 11:00 pm we sat down for a slideshow Jonathan had prepared. Watching his photos of the day, the story finally made sense. Jonathan had driven down from Bend, Oregon, arriving at 2:00 am and waking up at 6:00 am because, as he said, "someone's got to document this". Rob "Slappy" Norris, who I had not seen in over 12 years, also drove down from Oregon. Aaron Greene, Hans Florine and his friend drove down from the Bay area. My mom and her friends also came down. Steve Edwards and Ben Banks came from Utah. Dee and Steve Lapin and Belt came up from LA. Friends from work (Tom, Sven, Rick & Cia) that could care less about climbing drove for 4 hours to root me on (too late, since I'd already bonked). The standard climbing crew was there as well: Hawk, Paul, Elijah, Micah.
    All traveled for at least 200 miles to get to a god forsaken place of sand and heat. As Bob once said, "Everyone has friends, mine are better." Thanks to everyone, especially my lovely wife, for giving me the best birthday I can imagine.

Belt's photos

Bob's photos

Jonathan's Photos (email me for a DVD slideshow):

Wuffi

Chips in the morning sun

Chips

Lowering off Chips, its steep

Pro Skill

Pro Skill

Old Shatterhand

Hell of the Upside-down Sinners

Hell again

Hell

Ratso

Paul

Ratso

RAD

Massive stomach cramp

Chips panorama

Cliff panorama

Group photo

Fun

2007-05-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

None of my training days for the challenge were much fun, so today I took it easy, and climbed for fun. I redpointed White Cougar and played around on some other stuff.

Young and Older

2007-05-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've always liked about climbing is the variety of people I meet. Saturday was a perfect example of this: I met Andre DiFelice, a 16 year old crankenfrank from Colorado, and saw an old friend Doug Englekirk who's 45 and still cranking. Elijah, Bob Banks, Hawk, and Paul were also climbing.

It was about 85 degrees and the day went well. I managed 23 laps on 15 minute intervals. Next week I'm targeting 20-26 laps depending on weather. These training days are getting a bit monotonous, so I'm glad there's only one left before the real deal.

Thanks to Bob and Paul for the photos.

Elijah on Chips

Me on the final, scary clip of Old Shatterhand

Me on The Old Pro Skill

Top clip on Pro Skill

Doug on Anchor Punch

Andre on Chips

Me on Anchor Punch