Injured-But Not Reserved

So for those of you that don’t know, I am currently a member of the gimp squad. Long story short, my amazing girlfriend surprised me with a new Sector 9 Wedge Platinum Series Longboard because I have been regretting the fact that I left my other one in California (yeah, she’s that cool.) Now I have a severely sprained ankle and am hobbling around on crutches (I’m not that cool.) I don’t do well with injuries. My last injury kept me out of climbing for almost 9 months and it was probably the worst 9 months of my life, obviously aside from Iraq. I have been working pretty hard as of late trying to get in shape for the alpine season, which is rapidly approaching. A confession: I’ve lived in Colorado for over a year, spent almost a month here before moving and I have never been to RMNP. Even though my good buddy Max Krimmer, who lived on my couch for the summer, was constantly nagging me to go with him, my finger injury last year kept me out of the game for the whole summer and into the fall. By the time I was climbing again the season was pretty much over and Max was no longer staying with me. I am determined not to let that happen again. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think this ankle injury is going to keep me out of the game for that long, 2-6 weeks is what I have been hearing. That isn’t a long time, but in terms of training that is an eternity. Determined not to be kept out of the game, again, I have decided to train even harder.

Obviously I won’t be climbing. I have made a promise to myself to not actually climb for at least 4 weeks, no matter how my ankle feels. I have learned that I can’t trust my own judgment when gauging how my body feels, I am just too stubborn. So welcome to my non-climbing training regiment, bouldering is a power sport so that’s what I am focusing on right now. It will consist of a mixture of campus boarding, gymnastic rings and weights. I had my first session last night at The Spot and it was honestly one of the most intense workouts I have had in a while. After a nice long warm up on the pull up bar, some light weights and a bit of stretching I attacked the campus board. I spent about 1.5 hours on the campus board, in two 45 minute increments with a 20 minute break between the two. The first session consisted of this training plan from Moon Climbing and my second session, which I put together with a little help from my buddy Ander Rockstad, was a hodge podge of campus exercises that aren’t covered in my other campus plan. By the end of the workout my forearms were thuroughly fatigued. I down campused anytime I was more then 2 feet off the ground because I didn’t want risk falling an my ankle and I am sure this helped add to the workout. Next I jumped on the gymnastic rings and did front and back levers to failure x4. Those were followed by 8 count ring flys, 3 sets of 10 reps. To burn my arms out completely I finished the work out with with 10-15 second one arm lowers, I did these to failure. The workout isn’t huge but it gets the job done. Doing this work out 3 times a week and filling in two more days with a weights workout should get me to where I want to be.

Knowing that I have to work extra hard right now to stay in shape is driving me harder then usual. I had conversations with a couple of my buddies about this last night after our session. We decided that if you’re injured (really injured) you basically have three options; stop climbing, climb through you’re injury or climb/train around you’re injury. Quiting isn’t an option. Obviously some injuries  just can’t be trained or climbed around, at least climbing related i.e. shoulder or elbow injuries; but some, like my sprained ankle can be trained around. This is key to staying motivated, at least for me. Being out of the scene can be a total mind **** for me, I don’t want to spend another 9 months playing World Of Warcraft 12 hours a day. Don’t ask.

Tags: Bouldering, Injury, Life, The Spot, Training