Made yet another short video earlier this week. It's mainly footage from last year of a few days peak bouldering. I've really enjoyed making those little vids. I think I like scugdale balling best. Whilst none of them are of any quality, one has to start somewhere and I've enjoyed learning a bit and getting stuck into something new. As with everything I enjoy, I'd like to develop and improve at it so I'll keep plugging away and try to learn more and think/plan footage more carefully in the future. My editting can improve a lot of course too. So far I've just been using premiere elements and windows movie maker which both seem fine for most of the stuff I want to do. I've just been sticking music tracks (without too much thought) to accompany the climbing, just experimenting really but I've tried to time some bits of the tracks to the climbing - copied it from other movies, I really like watching that. I think I've come a long way already from my first Subculture Vid! I have got a couple of longer term video project ideas that hopefully I'll get good enough at capturing and editting to be able to pull off well. Anyway here's my latest, no better than any of my previous work but hopefully entertaining enough:
Peak Flow (Part I) from Ram Man on Vimeo.
My very own beastmaker2000 arrived this morning. I haven't trained for climbing at all since feb/march because of my elbows (see later). I've had a couple of sessions on Tom's Beastmaker though and I can manage ok, just hanging everything from broken locks. That's what inspired me to get one really. The sessions on Tom's confirmed what I already knew really - my fingers aren't very strong! I found it really encouraging though as I know, with minimal effort and discipline I'll be able to up my finger strength considerably. My front two are, if anything, stronger than my middle two so there's one area with plenty of room for strength gains. I can hang the monos but am a long way from being able to safely complete a set of repeaters on them say. Though I can hold them, the structure of my hand just doesn't feel strong enough to be able to be loaded with those types of grip for any duration. I haven't even tried to hang the monos with anything other than middle fingers as it feels like I'd break something if I tried. So with a careful and gradual build up I expect to see good gains here too. Anyway, I've been a bit slow to get on the beastmaker band wagon but hopefully, with a bit of hard work, it will get me stronger fingers and therefore help to get me up stuff that inspires and closer to my long term goal (and the only number that inspires me now) of Font8a (well, apart from E7 onsight maybe, oh and F8b...shit!)
Onto my biggest problem with climbing at the moment - my elbows. I've been struggling with them and whinging about them for way too long now ~ 8 months or so. I think I've climbed inside once in that time, Leeds Wall bouldering in the summer some time. I really aggrivated them early in the year when I had free access to the wall so was climbing inside a fair bit and I managed 2/3 structured campus sessions on them before they went. Also, at the same time I managed 2/3 sessions training for the hollow and idiotic goal of pure 1-armers from full lock. Anyway, that spate of foolish behaviour has plagued me with elbow pain ever since. It's the fairly classic golfer's elbow by my self diagnosis. I've been able to carry them all year really on the routes and have been doing rehab, antagonist stuff the whole time which has probably alleviated the problem to some extent. However, it's now bouldering season again and Brimham last saturday confirmed that I need to up the ante and do something about them. Enough denial, they're not good and if I can't train, I'll struggle to improve much. Also, it sometimes really detracts from climbing for me - worrying about my elbows as I'm doing moves and having to hold back. Pretty much everyone I know must be sick of hearing me whinge about them too. So anyway, here's my COA for elbow improvement/management:-
-rest (I'm trying to resist climbing and actually get a couple of weeks rest under my belt)
-rehab. hasn't cured me yet but think it helps so will carry on and up intensity, negative wrist curls. 3x12 twice a day + bicep curls + lots of stretching
-glucosamine (never tried it, ordered today - will be boshing 2000mg/day as soon as it arrives)
-powerball. it feels like it helps....
-ibugel. rubbing this stuff in there is the best the quack could come up with when I went to see him yesterday - no physio referal for me. probably useless but maybe placebo + gives a bit of a massage + no effort so will do it.
-ibuprofin. never used it for climbing but got some today and will take it before climbing or fingerboarding to keep any inflammation down. Can't do any harm?
So that's the plan. If anyone reading this has any more ideas or miracle cures, I'd love to hear them!
Hopefully by christmas, if I'm careful and diligent, I'll start to get on top of my elbows and stop whining about them!
wow, what a mammoth post, well played if you made it this far.
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