Staying BUSY in the Summer Season!!!

  Bottom line, projecting anything difficult (bouldering-wise) in the summer months SUCKS!!!  The bugs have been brutal at times, the heat and humidity have been through the roof...but it still feels good to try hard every one and a while to see how well the constant training regime is working, or not working.

  Here is a quick breakdown of what my free time during the summer season has consisted of:

• various projects around the house (landscaping, fence work, pool maintenance, etc.)
• multiple rounds of golf (maybe 2-3 outings a week)
• recreational kayaking (at least once a week) 
• weight lifting (4 times a week)
• weighed pullups (once a week)
• outdoor climbing (at least once a week)
• indoor climbing sessions (2 times a week)
• hangboard training (2 times a week)
• campus board training (once a week)
• designing new hold shapes for Element Climbing and CheapHolds (10-15 hours a week)

Here is a breakdown of the results from everything listed above:  

1. The house work is going well but the list of projects has not been completed, yet
2. My golf game is definitely improving but there is still significant roof for further improvement
3. I can kayak for quite a long time without getting fatigued 
4. All of my major lifts have gone up significantly (personal all-time bests in bench press, shoulder press, squat, deadlift, and barbell curl)...but with that has come some pretty good size/mass gain.  I have gained about 10 pounds in the past 10 weeks 
5. My weighted pullups have increased each week for the past 10 weeks.  I do a warm up set at bodyweight for 10 reps then do the following reps with added weight:  8, 6, 4, 6, 8 and bodyweight again to cool off.  When I started it was 15lb for 8, 25lb for 6 and 35lb for 4 and then back to 25lb for 6 and 15lb for 8 then bodyweight for 10.  I am now at 32.5lb-8 reps/42.5lb-6 reps/52.5lb-4 reps for the 8/6/4/6/8 split 
6. The outdoor sessions have been enjoyable simply because I am outside on real rock but it has been nearly impossible to do anything that is very difficult or demanding.  These sessions have been more focused on high volume climbing then difficult climbing
7. I am seeing good improvements on the home wall but the added body-weight can definitely be felt.  It will be interesting to see how much stronger my fingers feel at the end of the summer when I cut back down for the fall climbing season
8. The campus board is finally my "friend" for the first time ever since I started climbing in 2004!  I actually look forward to the campus sessions and tracking my progress.  I am confident that this training will transfer well to strength outdoors this fall.
9. Designing new holds is always refreshing and when CheapHolds.com unveils my Crater series set for them later this summer/fall I think that people are really going to enjoy them.  As of right now, there are 125 hand holds and 20 foot holds in the entire Crater series lineup...so psyched!!! 

I can't finish a blog post without some sort of media, so below is a video I put together that will serve as a beta/sequence refresher for me for better climbing conditions since I have not been able to successfully climb this problem.  This video is of a sick V8 that Evan Race established at the State Brook Mountain Boulders in Arietta, New York called Champagne and Cocaine (V8).  State Brook was mentioned in the Adirondack Bouldering Guidebook but didn't have any problems established until after the book printing.  It would be a safe assumption that this place will blow up this fall when development can commence again!

Media Update: