The why
As I am back to proper climbing again and moved to a new place in Vienna, which is 2 minutes walk from the nearest climbing gym 🥳, I decided I need to make some changes to actually progress.
I started climbing almost 7 years ago. I had a short period of time when I felt like I'm quickly improving but then it became a slow slug and stayed like that for a long time. Also got injured way too many times.
Here I need to mention Katie (now my solid climbing partner), since she was the first one to push me on the lead walls and made me realise that I'm not really behind in lead climbing compared to my bouldering grades. First time lead climbing with her she sent me up on a 6c which I (obviously) gracefully flashed.
The how
First I wanted to pay for professional coaching. I looked into Lattice which I found a bit too scientific for myself, also it's remote and requires a healthy body. Next I was looking for personal coaches in Vienna. There is not a lot of I could find. I did see one at Boulderbar that I might sign up for later when I feel my fingers healed up. I still need to assess it financially, because private coaching cost a lot of money. So with that I thought out a simple plan myself with the help of some minor research and common sense.
My goal for now is to boost my endurance, my finger strength and work on my flexibility. Because the weather turned rather cold I don't really run, on warmer days I will try to, and this left me with more energy and time on my hands.
The what and when
So for my plan I will try my best to climb 4 times a week.
This will consist of one board climbing (Kilter or Moon board available) session, which is one hour to an hour and a half after sufficient warm up. I mainly focus on easier problems in the range of 6A-6B+ on 30°-40°. The goal is to climb volume and combine dynamic and static moves to load the fingers to strengthen them.
The second session is endurance training. Top rope or autobelay and do 10 minutes on then off 3-4 times or do 4 routes 4 times with breaks between each route. The routes will be in the range of 5b-6a. Which one I do will depend on my level of energy and how much time I have. If I need to belay or try a project out I will pick the shorter less intensive variation.
The third and fourth sessions are social/fun climbing. The focus is on learning new moves from others, trying out fun climbs, projecting. These could be bouldering or lead climbing sessions and at least one of them is mandatory.
Other than these I will do some yoga/stretching at home and in the gym. Also to help my general finger health I will start to do two times per day light hangboarding again following Emil's Sub-max routine.
What I realised is that I need a training plan but also I am really bad at following super strict ones so I had to come up with something that suits me. With this I can mostly just climb but with a focus on some of my current weaknesses.