Irrational Fitness | A different kind of training

The Training Vault

I will repeat here the disclaimer from our training page. It is as follows: If you are of the mindset that training should never hurt, then this is not the place for you. The videos, articles, and random training rants that occasionaly show up here are built for an elite. A lot of this stuff has a really high chance of injuring you if you don't approach it with a certain amount of fear and easy access to soft tissue work. As to where to find older articles that have been moved off this page, the videos can be accessed through either our youtube channel, or on the video page. Newsletters, and other randrom stuff eventually ends up in downloads. If there is something you remember seeing but can't find just drop us an email at info@irrationalfitness.com and we will see if we can get you access to it.

Training Log for Dry Tooling

Started Training August 15th, the first week was focused a lot on working out which movements I wasn't good at or didn't understand.
Day one I started off with a lock off to high pull on the axes which was initially far easier than using a figure four to reach higher holds. I was reaching close to 10 inches farther with a lock off which made the coveted figure four position seem a bit silly.
Some experimenting by the end of the day had me understanding that I needed to lock off my leg far higher on my arm than I had been doing if I wanted to reach up further. Then came the foot flex to lock the leg off, and last I realized my opposite hip/leg needed to be driven towards the ground. That took until the 23rd to really sink in fully.
Day one also included a bit of work reaching laterally on axes, and then swinging into a figure four position. Trying to get used to having my body absorb a swing into a single arm. A lot of work on really trying to get the weight underneath the arm that I was coming into.

Tuesday my lock off was great first thing in the morning and then non existent within a few hours, however I spent more time working the figure four and gained about 5 inches in my reach over the course of the day. I also did a bunch of pull-up work on the rings and played with archer presses back and forth, trying to get far more comfortable up there. Tuesday was also the day I started working the ring traverse that I set up. Was largely unable to get very far on it though. This was the first day that I got the figure four reach up and over the bar successfully. The evening saw me do two hours of bouldering endurance.

Wednesday, frustrated at the failure of my lock off on on arm I spent a lot of time extensively training lock offs with two and one arm. I also worked a fair number of dynamic pulls to a higher bar which went surprisingly well. On the whole m figure four had changed extensively from monday. Within three days I was gaining consistency in reach in both arms, and could hit the higher bar over half the time with my right arm. Left was still failing and I couldn't work out why. A long evening of boulder endurance work.

Thursday. A bunch of weighted pulling work, figure four gaining yet more consistency. Somehow my lock off was resurrected over night and I spent a good portion of my morning training long sets of one arm lock offs. A bit more fucking around on rings came into play as well, but on the whole the body was super sore and the training sessions were relatively short.

Weekend was off other than more bouldering on saturday [three hours] and dry tooling on Sunday at the Playground [five hours].

August 22nd.
Monday:
Introduced a couple new training elements involving simple endurance time on the axes. It seemed intuitive at first that one of the factors that would need to be worked would be simple time duration on axes. Rotating for 5s in lock off and then 5s in a hang for 1:00, 1:15, 1:30… which was awful. This in conjuncture with moving the work on my axes to the point to simulate the instability of working on points, much the way you do on actual rock. The real workout came once the 40lb weight vest was introduced to the fun. The exercise that seemed to create the greatest overall benefit was the archer pull-up on rings. This workout with a 40lb weight vest is a beast when worked on points where slow controlled movements were required. I worked up 1, 2, 3, 4 presses per side before my lats eventually couldn't go any further and then continued to work the 4 set presses. The 40lb vest was also used for figure four work, as well as the endurance hang, which left the hands numb by the time I was coming off the axes. Figure four reach was easy on both sides, easily done for continuous sets of five per side. Bought my BCAA, Creatine, and Glutamine complex to see if I can beat the pain from training. Out of Anaconda. Sadly no bouldering, as I worked that night until 9:00, I did however manage to get 8hrs sleep.

Tuesday:
Worked a lot of the archer press on rings with the vest. Taxing but possible which was surprising. Multiple sets of this were then superset with lever work on ring/points, transferring from a meathook, through lever, to opposite meathook. After video analysis monday I also began to do a fair bit of work from one arm lever into meathook with two hands on one axe to start getting the strength to roll up onto a shoulder to increase my reach. A fair bit of figure four press then switch arms on axes was also done with the vest. Yet while the vest is great for some stuff it limits how far you can press into your arm do to how bulky it is. Might need to find a solution for this, perhaps removing some of the weight on the front of the vest and adding ankle weights. No endurance work got done.
Bouldered for two hours.

August 24th.
Wednesday:
Super fucking sore. Let the games begin.
Best one arm lock off time was 5s with two five lb ankle weights on. Both arms equally strong there... though the right failed sooner. This could have been due to do to training the left first.
Worked the usual set of archer presses, lever crosses, and meathook work. To this was added a number of figure four sets with ankle weights. The biggest issue seemed to be getting my leg back out as the reach has become easy.
Ankle weights on and I pulled off the full ring traverse for the first time. The crucial item to add was doing figure four off of a high grip... yay for video analysis. A lot of lock offs and general pulling work has rounded things out nicely.
My entire body hates me. Whereas my arms weren't that bad this morning they no are. So far 2.5hrs or so of relatively consistent work. About to have a snack and do a little more.
Finished off with the ring traverse with ankle weights, more archer presses>

Read flashed doc

Thursday: Not sure what I did, trained though... and bouldered. Three hours bouldering and mainly rehab for training if I remember correctly.

Friday
At last a rest day after two weeks on pretty much solid. Feel a little restless for having taken it, but good to have. Noted that melatonin supplementation on a full nights sleep has left me with little to no muscle soreness, while the nights with even an hour short feel pretty bad.

Saturday:
This was a good day. Did a solid three hours training, started off in the morning with the guys and worked my archer pushes with a 40lb weight vest and superset those with dragons from my knees wearing the vest. An hour of that fun mixed in with some random pull-up work and I could barely move my arms. However, that didn't stop me from working a couple sets of meathooks on single axes, and attempting to do some figure four work with the weight vest [next to impossible at this point]. When the rest of the boys came in a couple hours later I sat down and worked on my ring traverse, more weighted archer pushes, and then worked out how to work cross presses with a band on lower rings. By far one of the nastier exercises in the bunch, trashing a portion of my med delt that I have never worked before.

Sunday:
Sport climbing at planet x for the first time in 2 months. That being said I still made it up a 35m 5.12a [not clean but such is life], and hopped on a 5.13a which felt pretty easy. Knee was fine on the walk… though didn't get much sleep Saturday night so I was a little out of it all day on Sunday.

Monday:
Slept a full eight hours but woke up feeling a little sick, back of the throat filled with the acidity of bile that just won't pass regardless of the amount of water that I drank. This didn't stop me from doing a good warm-up and then working weighted archer presses [statics in there as well], adding a push down to the press, cross presses, figure four reaches. The new addition was working a push up and off a lower axe, which felt a little awkward on my lower wrist, which might have to do with this particular axe.
I also discovered that triceps kickbacks work a very similar part of that muscle head, and so with great shame worked up to doing a fair number of 40lb sets of 5reps per arm. By this point in the day I was working the +1 a minute on axes, which I did up to 12 without a weight vest, and then 7 minutes with 40lbs. The whole drill is a lot harder when your body is beat up and you are making sure to stay super delicate on points… and then try a slight press on each one. Awful. Feeling under the weather I headed to bed to make sure I got my eight hours as opposed to heading in to boulder.

Tuesday:
Still feel a bit sick, less congestion, but more acid bile in the throat. Need to eat some more real food, the shake really didn't help at all and I have been burping it up all morning. So far today I have just worked a bit of straps with Chan while he was training, though it was more demonstration than anything else… disturbing though how easily the movements were. Also not overly sore, which means I need a heavier load with all the movements today. Definitely going to aim to get in some endurance work today, and hopefully a three hour boulder endurance/technique session.

RKC training 1.0: The Turkish Get Up

The real expert on this lift is Tim, and I intend on harassing him to get some clips and training info for this lift up for everyone this week. In essense the whole movement is quite simple. You lie on your back and pick up a weight, be it a person, barbell, kettle bell, or bear. Then you stand up while keeping it overhead. Then depending on your mood you either lie back down or do some other fancy movements. When the weight gets really big it is usually the best to just lie back down. Though currently there are some rumors about Tim windmilling some weights in the three digits. What the carny does in the video is demonstrate that when the weight enters the three digits that the really pretty form that everyone shows off when they play with their tiny little pink kettlebells that weigh about as much as a hamster becomes harder to keep up. That being said we have been promised that he will execute perfect form when he does this with body weight, and that he will also post some rehab clips to help people keep their bodies in shape if they decide to try this nonsense.

More to come on this and the other RKC training in the weeks to come. Subscribe to @irrationalcarny for more info on this.

Zercher Deadlifts

So I am back on a hunt for a triple body weight dead lift. At around 175lbs I need to pull 525lbs off the floor, which will not be an impossible feat but won't be done in a day. So I am currently running myself through a deadlift rehab program. The four exercises I will be focusing on include the zercher deadlift, a box dead-lift, a rack pull, and the almighty classic dead with a straight hook grip.

Yesterday we did rack pulls from the center of the knee and I racked out our bar at 565lbs. Other than inspiring the purchase of more metal plates this proved to me that the finish was not the problem with my deadlift. It also ruled out my grip as being the weak link, as I was comfortable pulling and holding the weight at the lockout. This of course left the bottom end of the dead pull as my sticking point. My solution today was the zercher dead-lift. In other words I decided that I wanted to suffer.

The Zercher dead-lift takes a slightly wider than normal leg stance, and changes one other crucial factor: the grip. With the zercher dead you lift the weight from the crook of your elbow. For very obvious reasons this makes the lift far harder than the more traditional lift. I spent most of my day pulling triples in the range of 225-265lbs and at no point did these lifts feel easy. It may be that my CNS had not yet recovered from the heavy work the day before but with the low angle, open hips, rounded back, and longer pull this was a bundle of happiness.

For those trying out the zercher dead-lift I would recommend starting with a stupid light weight. If you happen to have access to bumper plates I would recommend starting as low as possible while still getting the bar set at the proper height. This lift will destroy your posterior chain in ways you can only begin to imagine. It is a good super set with one arm-pullups, one arm statics, or any of the whole wide array of pull-ups that I have mentioned in the past.

Vert Training

This video stands as my explanation of how to accomplish the exercises in the vert program. Any issues or problems can be sent on to thecarny@irrationalfitness.com.

Warmup
0a leg swings 10, 10, 10
0b Squats 10, 10, 10
0c Jump lunges 10, 10, 10
1a Vertical Jump 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5
1b Squat Jump 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5
1c Long Jump 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5
1d Calf Jump 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5
2a Box rebound 5, 5, 5, 5, 5
3a Hockey Jump 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5 per side
3b One leg box drive 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5 per side
3c Lateral tuck jump 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5, 3-5

One Finger Lever Training

I have been looking at some intense functional core training recently and trying to determine how much hand leverage has a role in decreasing stability. On the whole the front levers on a single finger didn't take much to do. Front levers are relatively easy and with all the finger work done in the past while the load on a single pad isn't that great. If this skill can be moved down to a single finger per hand as opposed to a mono and three pads it should be a far greater accomplishment.

The experiment this week will be to see how few fingers a one arm front lever can be held with. If I get footage of a decent one I will post it up.

Mono Training

So I was presented with some interesting information on individual finger strength that I have gone and tested out in the past week or two. The two major points of interest from the paper were that a) training individual fingers [mono holds] allows for greater gains than training all of the fingers at once, and b) the pinky is stronger than the index finger.
Now a) simply reinforced the notion that training individual fingers was a crucial part of training, however the second point was a huge discovery. As the video demonstrates rather obviously, the pull strength off of my pinkies is far better than that on my index finger. This would make our index fingers the stand alone weakest link in our finger strength, now the solution is not to switch to pulling with our three outmost fingers as the leverage doesn't work due to finger length [ie. the pinky is far shorter than the index finger, so when gripping holds the disparity in finger length makes the pinky less then useful as the third finger on a hold]. So there is obviously only one option left available, train the index finger like crazy.
The training methods I am playing with currently are largely self evident from the video clip. Straight pulls, statics, and weighted work are all coming in to play here. I am of course not neglecting my other fingers, however some extra special attention is being paid to this newly discovered weak link. If the index finger can be strengthened to the point where it is at least as strong as the pinky then a noticeable increase in crimp strength should become evident.

V10+ Crimp Traverse

The training insight of the week had been brewing for the past week or two, but was finally realized at White Buddha on boxing day. The capacity to pull up on awful holds is good, but isn't worth much if you can't move off of them. Caught with two fingers in a pocket, and three pads on a higher edge I found myself unable to move up to the next hold. Fatigue not withstanding, I actually found myself doing a pull-up at one point on the two holds, yet unable to make the movement to catch the higher hold [For those who care, I went back and sent the problem in the snow two days later]. The training solution was either to train lock-offs on compromised positions on bad holds, or to train movement to and from bad holds.
Now the first option is phenomenal if someone has the strength to hold lock offs on three pads, however most people aren't in a position to start their training there. Training a basic lock off on a bar or jug is an essential part of training, but really doesn't have the best cross over to completing the same feat on tiny crimpy holds. This is quickly evident in simply watching someone fail at pulling themselves up on the campus board while they are able to easily do twenty pull-ups on a bar.
So we have the second solution. Training a movement on and off of a bad hold, or from a bad hold to another bad hold and just going back and forth. The key thing here is movement. A straight pull is not good enough, you have to be able to bump a hand to and from a horrible hold. Given my dislike of trying to use the bouldering wall for specific movement training [there are people who insist in getting in the way 'to climb' when you are training; you need to be able to set up holds that are miserable enough; easier to gauge strength progression when you take climbing technique out of the picture], I bolted a couple bad foot holds to the pinch board at the gym [and because I needed an option at home, there are now three crimpy foot holds bolted onto the trim around my bedroom door].
The training becomes rather intuitive once a location exists to train the movement. Using my door frame as an example, one hand goes on the trim, the other on a crimp. Bump to the door frame and then back to the crimp. Bump back up and do the same with the other hand. This can be done with the combination of a pull, added weight, and of course with both hands starting on garbage, thus ensuring that you really have to fight for the movement.

The test will of course come later this week when I put the actual climbers through their paces on the new crimp traverse on the pinch board. If they find it too easy I can always add a bunch of weight and really force their bodies to adapt.

Intense Finger Training

This video didn't get shot until after about three weeks training these pull-ups, not the most encouraging statement, but it took a while for my muscles and tendons to adapt to the loading. Then there was of course the need to just become accustomed to the pain of the weight on the fingers. I have seen some guys do similar work with their fingers all the way through the loops of whatever they are using for the pull-ups, but if you stay on your pads this whole exercise just becomes brutal.
This whole series of finger tip work grew out of an obsession with trying to strengthen tendons, not just building up strength. A number of sources such as Supertraining, and much of Pavel's work talk about the need to put a pretty extreme load on the tendons if you are looking to actually see them get stronger. This was my adaptation of that idea for climbing. It is way easier to hang out and rest on a small pocket when your tendons and musclulature has become used to bearing a load much higher than your body weight. The next training video in this particular series that I hope to get out is the work I have been doing with lock offs, forgetting completely about pull-up reps and just looking for static holds in various positions and with various hand positions.

Weighted Rope Climbs

It seems a little over the top that I always talk about how much stuff hurts, and perhaps it is just that I am soft and weak... but climbing our particular ropes with 70 odd pounds dangling between ones legs really hurts. Since getting the partial climb with the 70 I have gone back and gotten all the way to the top, but that isn't coming out as a video until I can put it in as the warm-up to climbing with the 88lb kb afterwards. As to training this, I would recommend that people use a bunch of chalk, get a good dipping belt, and start small. If a rope climb isn't effortless than doing this with added weight can be brutal, especially when you know you really can't fail with it.

Forced Evolution Excerpt on... "Eating More Slowly and Enjoying Food"

"This goes back to the basic premise that I have been trying to build; that you need to enjoy the food you are eating if you are to stick with any dietary regime. These days in North America most people eat their food way too fast. Normally this is a rant that is coming from those people who are concerned with the failiure of the family unit and with the appaling state of North American culture, yet there is a big nutritional issue here as well. The issue I am trying to highlight here actually has very little to do with where you are eating, or who you are eating with, but pertains very specifically to how we eat and how we digest food.
So lets step back and assume that you are about to sit down and consume a piece of grilled salmon marinated in lemon and garlic along with a stunning greek salad made from fresh garden vegetables. If we don't mindlessly plunge into the meal but actually take some time to look at the meal, to smell the aroma of the food we'll quickly begin to salivate. I mean, I am salivating just thinking about this food, so lets assume that when you look at well cooked tasty food you start producing saliva. This is the first step to digestion. For your body to be able to properly process and digest foods it needs to be mixed with saliva. If you toss food into your mouth, chew twice and swallow then you are getting these huge chunks of food being shoved down your esaphagus without the oh so essential saliva. Compare that to eating slowly and actually chewing food. We get the pieces of food into much smaller pieces, plus all of the food gets mixed with saliva which kick starts the whole process of digestion. So many people end up skipping this step and before you know it they have limited their bodies capacity to actually get the nutrients out of the food we are eating. When so much of the North American diet is already pretty low on nutrients, to further limit our capacity to actually digest foods by eating too quickly is really bad idea.
A good standard to take note of is this. If you commonly drink a lot of water while you are eating there is a good chance that you are literally using the water to wash food down your esaphagus. A huge issue that signals that you not getting enough saliva in with the food. As a rule of some, some dieticians actually argue that you should limite intake of water with meals as it is likely to dilute the acids in your stomach that play such a huge role in breaking down food. This situation obviously spirals quickly out of control if you are not chewing food into small enough pieces, not getting the saliva needed to start digestion, and then diluting the stomach acids that have to take up the slack due to the large pieces of unsalivated [probably not a word] that are getting dropped into it.
A classic example of this would be the post-workout shake. That essential hit of carbs and proteins is so often wasted. Rarely do I see trainees enjoying that shake. Rather they pound it as quickly as they can to avoid tasting the nasty chalky taste of low quality bulking proteins. Just because it is a liquid doesn't mean it shouldn't be swirled around in your mouth. I mean it isn't wine, but it actually needs to be consumed as if you were at a tasting. If it tastes awful, buy a better quality product or start mixing in fruit.
So back to the beginning, enjoying food. If we slow down and actually taste and enjoy the food we are eating then all these basic bodily functions work the way they are supposed to. Plus this cool thing happens when we actually stop to eat food, we start caring more about what we eat. If the texture and flavor aren't great it isn't a huge issue if you can polish the whole meal of in under five minutes. However if you find yourself stopping on a regular basis to savor the food and it tasts like sawdust, then you are going to have to learn to cook a little better. You are going to have to care a little bit more about what you put in your body."