Climbing and goals

Because I'll probably never set foot on a Sasuke-like course before I get to some kind of official try-outs I won't know whether I'm able to, for example, beat the warped wall. So, I need to set myself some kind of goals to achieve instead.

We hear a lot about how Sasuke is about upper body strength. Certainly Stage 3 is a killer on the arms, and Stage 4 is at least 50% arms. And of course core strength is essential for just about everything, especially things like the body prop, cliffhanger, salmon ladder and any kind of spider walk.

Body prop: total core control

But watching Makoto Nagano on the earlier stages, how easily he keeps his balance and doesn't break his stride when climbing and jumping, I think it requires a lot of leg strength as well. (I had originally put it down to his sea legs and great balance gained from time on a rocking boat, but I think he's also just really really strong.)
And that's something I've really noticed myself lacking since joining the gym. Doing burpees and squat-jumps is damned hard work and it hurts afterwards. So I'm glad I know from the start that I need to work on this, rather than embarrassing myself on the first leg-heavy obstacle. (Which, in reality, is usually the very first one -- the timbers or steps. But if not that, definitely the spider jump, half pipe attack and warped wall.)

Basically I need to be all-around fit. And here I was thinking I could just get good at pushups and pullups and be done with.

So my goals for the year/mid-year (depending on how I go) are below, with the baseline of what I could do at 1 January:

1. Pushups: 100 pushups in one set.
   (Baseline: I can do 100 in 3 sets in 5 minutes. Max in a single set is about 60.)
2. Pullups: 25 pullups in one set.
   (Baseline: 9. Before I started training it was 3. So already an improvement in 3-4 months.)
3. Running: 1. Run 10km, and 2. Run 5km in under 22 minutes (~4:20 per km).
   (Baseline: About 2km. Pace is around 6:00 per km. I've dropped down a lot from 7km a year ago.)
4. Climbing: 1. Get to the top of the medium-holds on the campus board; 2. Get to the top of the large-holds on the campus board, climbing two-at-a-time; and 3. Complete a red rock climb (4th level of difficulty.)
   (Baseline: Haven't tried the medium-holds yet; got to #5 on the large-hold campus board, and was on blue climbs (2nd level of difficulty)
5. Jumping (in honour of Nagano-san): Some kind of target like 50 burpees, or 20 in 2 minutes, or something. I don't even have a baseline for this except that I'm tired after 8 burpees and struggle to complete 15 squat jumps (even with brief rests). 

But today I hit two milestones at the climbing gym, and I'm pretty darned proud of myself.

Campus Board, for illustrative purposes. Definitely not a photo of me!

Campus board. When I first tried a campus board, 30 December 2013, it was after about 2 hours of bouldering. I maybe got to number 3 on the large holds. I went back a week later, and after an hour of climbing I got both hands on number 5. Two weeks ago, on the day I joined the gym, I got both hands on 6. So today I was hell-bent on getting my hands on number 7. And I got to the top (number 9). I spent about a minute afterwards in prideful shock. Or shocked pride. Feeling good but surprised. 

A slightly smaller milestone is that I completed the last blue bouldering route which had been troubling me. So I'm now up to yellow -- the 3rd level of difficulty.

Not bad for January!