How to lose friends and alienate people (My training tips)

OK, It's high time I shared some of my completely non-scientific, home-grown training wisdom. It's pretty good if you want to create a tall thin climber who can do crimps and literally nothing else. Needless to say, the author should not be held liable for any accident, injury or death(!) caused by performing these incredibly basic and self-evident training techniques. Also, go easy on the crimps, build up slowly and back off right away if you get even a tiny tweak. It's not worth the hassle of developing a real finger injury. Also, my training is not the kind where you train on plastic for months to slay the dragon. I don't think I'd have the patience to stay away from rock for that long. This will maintain your strength while leaving you rested enough to project outdoors.

ciudad universitaria wall- more basic than a pumpkin spiced latte

1. The buttery biscuit base. It's important to lay down a base of general fitness after a long summer being poor and unemployed (just me?) so head to your nearest overhang, and climb on it. For me this is September, I'm in Madrid but work doesn't start for another month. So I climb, two days on, one day off for the entire month. My sessions are two and a half hours, depending on skin (a lot of my stuff is geared toward having the worst skin in Spain) but you might be able to do more. I mix it up by doing a more bouldery session the first day, and a more endurance related one on the second. You can also switch between Woodsing (pulling on tiny crimps all the time) and Webbing (compression, pinches and slopers). On the rest day stretch, or go for a run if you're feeling ambitious. By the end of the month, you should be feeling like eighties Jerry.

2. Pick some projects. I like to project things in pairs. Generally projecting only one thing is a bit demotivating and a great way to get an overuse injury by doing the same crux a million times a week. I like mine to be in different areas, and also different difficulties. I do two sessions on rock a week, so it's perfect. Fail on one, and by the time you've packed up your crashpad, you're already psyched to battle the next one later in the week. Also, have some consolation boulders nearby. When you fall on that move for the tenth time, you're gonna need to take your anger out on something.

3. Find yourself. I spent a long time trying and failing to be Jan Hojer, when I'm actually Dave Graham. Obviously it'd be preferable to be like Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana and have the best of both worlds, but ultimately you can't cheat body shape. I have an incredibly static body shape, so bulking up like Sharma or Hojer would have been incredibly difficult. Now I only work core, fingers and flexibility, Carlo Traversi talks about finding your own style in this interview. It's right on the money. Now I'm trying to be more Grahamesque(?), strong fingers and core, and lots of tricks to keep my feet on. Obviously vary this depending on your dimensions. The joy of climbing is that you can tick the same boulders using completely different styles. I'm always jealous of short dynamic people.

4. Flexin'  Now Macleod says in 9 out of 10 that it's not worth obsessing about and I generally agree, but he probably hasn't seen a reeeaallly inflexible person trying to get a heel up.(hilarious by the way)  It's a small difference, but sometimes a small difference is all you need. Also, it's so easy to do, why would you not? Focus on legs and actual stuff that you'd do on the wall. It also helps with recovery, injury prevention and all that boring stuff.

5. Abs. Do them whenever you can, destroy them, do them till you feel sick. I usually get them done in between sets on the fingerboard. Most of them are stolen from this Romain Desgranges training video. Also, get the front lever, do the front lever, lots. It's the most sport specific exercise you can do. Hanging leg lifts if you can't or if you're tired, also jumping into a front lever and lowering as slowly as possible. Basically, abs affect every aspect of climbing from holding a swing to how secure you feel on a move, so if in doubt, sit ups. More recently I've noticed that high intensity works better for me than pure quantity. So now I try to condense what would be a fifteen minute routine with rests into a five minute routine, going straight from one set to the next.

Crimps AND core! I keep on breaking footholds to make it harder too...

6. 'Finger strength is everything' said Malcom Smith. It was true then, and it's true now. Get a fingerboard and hang on it a lot. I get on the smallest edges and half crimp them for as long as possible. Rinse and repeat. Also crimp front levers are weirdly easier than jug front levers, maybe because the whole arm is locked. Usually I do basic hangs for about half an hour before I start to tempt injury. One type of variant you can do is start dropping fingers from your line-up. Loosing the pinkie is pretty straightforward for me because mine is a stubby cocktail sausage. After this, try back three, which is really weird if you have a short pinkie. After that, get injured pretty much. I did a pretty beastly two finger half crimp hang a couple of months ago but I tweaked and had to back off. Another way is to add weight, buy a cheap weight belt. I'm pretty into the front three weight belt combination right now. Another sure fire way to get injured is to try and do that thing Daniel Woods does in Reel Rock. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Finally, I'm also a big fan of crimp pull ups, especially on my board, which is a slippery devil, so you have to do it sloooowly. About my board,(sponsor plug alert) I have a wooden SAN Power fingerboard, which is amazing. It doesn't trash your skin like resin, and there's less friction so you're forced to try hard. I also don't have to use as much chalk, it absorbs all my skin grease like a dream.

Warming up in Alange

7. Warm up you idiot. No seriously, stretch, climb some easy boulders and generally get ready. Get yourself a little wooden thingy like mine. I know, I know, I was sceptical at first too. 'I'll never use that!' I said naively, convinced it was all just a clever marketing technique to make climbers buy more stuff. Now I'm definitely in the pro-wooden thingy camp. Especially if you're pressed for time, a few crimp hangs while your setting up crashpads will warm you up without wasting precious skin.

all pros use this

8. Poo tea! My darkest secret. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has turned up to the project feeling a little fuller than normal. It's not just the weight, which is relatively insignificant, it's also horrible to try and do a core move when you're full, you can't tense properly for fear of...well. Have some laxative tea the night before, empty yourself in the morning, and send! You don't get that kind of sound advice from Neil Gresham, do ya?

9. Campus board. I've never really done it regularly, but I think it's the way forward, for me at least. Three of my biggest weaknesses are dynamism, big moves and coordination, all of which can be trained by campusing. It's also on wood which is another plus. I went to a friend's gym: the recently opened BoulderMadrid over Christmas and had a good play on their board for the first time in ages. Now every Friday is campus Friday. I do two hours (or until I bleed) and that's enough really.  Anyway, I filmed a couple of exercises on my phone, feel free to call me weak in the comments!