Friday glee thinks this is just really pretty

[rydra_wong]

The Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week.

It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun; it can be that your favourite climbing wall is expanding or that you bought new rock shoes or that you found a cool ice-climbing vid on YouTube. No glee is too small -- or too big. Members are encouraged to cheer each other on and share the squee.

N.B. Please feel free to post your glee on any day of the week; the Friday glee is just to get the ball rolling.

To enhance this week's glee: ice climbing on a frozen waterfall at the Cascade de l'Oule in France.

Comments

My glee

[rydra_wong]

I have a new personal record for number of consecutive pull-ups.

And my foot physio is progressing: I can stand on tiptoe on my left foot again.

ETA: oh, and I have glee because Fran Brown (who climbs at my wall!) got an article about her in the national papers:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/9949854/Meet-Fran-Brown-the-real-spider-woman.html

Re: My glee

[astridv]

You're gonna be a beast when you get back on the wall. ;)

Okay, now I'm inspired. Screw the crappy weather, I just did an indoor workout. But I can only dream of consecutive pull-ups at the moment... after each unassisted one I need a half-minute break. Good thing I got my trusty rubber band. My back feels better now, too. Last week was so cold, I barely ventured out at all and I just don't like training indoors and my body was starting to tense up all over.

Yay on the foot improvement!

Re: My glee

[rydra_wong]

You're gonna be a beast when you get back on the wall. ;)

Yes, I might be a tiny fraction as strong as Fran! *g*

(Seriously, she can do a one arm pull-up off the back three fingers. She trains really hard and is brutally strong.)

But I can only dream of consecutive pull-ups at the moment... after each unassisted one I need a half-minute break.

That's still highly excellent. I imagine that you'll be able to shorten the breaks over time until you get two in a row for the first time. And/or work assisted pull-ups with the rubber band.

IIRC, it took me a while to get to my second pull-up -- I liked the Bodytribe article which pointed out that initially, a pull-up is a one-rep max. But it will come!

Then, anecdotally, there seems to be another plateau that people often hit at around 6 or 7 reps (I definitely did). I ran into the suggestion of starting weighted pull-ups to break through that, and that seems pretty effective so far.

I'd kind of thought of weighted pull-ups as the kind of thing you shouldn't even think about until you could do twenty pull-ups in a row, you know, but adding a mere 4kg (so far) has made the number of unweighted pull-ups I can do in a row start to spike up again.

Re: My glee

[astridv]

Interesting article. It feels so strange that between one-rep and two-rep, there should be such a difference. When I was 18 I could do pullups forever, it didn't even feel hard. (sigh)

But last summer I could, at one point, do three in a row... I vaguely recall. So I have hope that I'll get back there once the weather becomes friendlier and I can train more regularly again.

(But it'll be a long while before I'd get any urge to add weights. ;) Right now I'm rather looking forward to shedding all these extra layers of clothing.)

Re: My glee

[rydra_wong]

When I was 18 I could do pullups forever, it didn't even feel hard. (sigh)

Ha. When I was 18, I'd have laughed in the face of anyone who'd told me I'd ever be able to do a pull-up.

But last summer I could, at one point, do three in a row... I vaguely recall. So I have hope that I'll get back there once the weather becomes friendlier and I can train more regularly again.

From what I've read, I have the impression that (assuming you haven't been off for years and years), it tends to be faster to regain strength than to gain it in the first place.

Re: My glee

[weirdquark]

I also ran into a wall around 6-7 consecutive pull-ups though part of it is that I've been gaining weight and have to keep working my way up to 5+ again. :) I figure that if I ever bother to try to lose weight I can count this as weighted pull-up training.