Ite, new drank: one part Alizé, one part Cristal.

Routes with monos require a specific kind of conditioning. The 1-finger kind (duh). Hangboards were made for this. The projects I’ve been working on for what seems like eternity each have monos. Here’s my latest mono programming:

Sets of Standard Mono No. 001 every four to five days like this:
session #1:
1 set @ -75lbs (weight off with pulley)
2-3 sets @ -50lbs
session #2:
1 set @ -75lbs
1 set @ -50lbs
2 sets @ -40lbs
session #3:
1 set @ -75lbs
1 set @ -55lbs
1 set @ -45lbs
1 set @ -35lbs
session #4:
1 set @ -75lbs
1 set @ -50lbs
1 set @ -35lbs
1 set @ -25lbs
Session #5+
still thinking about it…

Lately I’ve been all about variety on mono days. After a few months of bi-weekly maximum mono pull tests I predictably hit a hopeless plateau. Mindless pulling made my monos sore and sore monos cannot pull hard. Recently I’ve mixed in slopers, two-fingers, ring and middle finger pockets all throughout the sets. Most sets I’m already fairly tired before the mono pulls even start, by which point I’m working with weights well below my maximum. Only once every several sessions I’ll actually go for a couple maximum effort pulls and not before I’m plenty confident.

People get injured training monos. Many wallow in mediocrity before developing a productive formula. Intuition is important here. If it’s not feeling good I need to make myself make a change.

Standard Mono No. 001

Starting a few weeks ago, as I integrated indoor bouldering back into my life, I stopped hitting the hangboard so hard. But I want to keep up some semblance of Beastmaker 2000 prowess in the form of a weekly session focused on monos and one-arms. For monos, something like this:

Standard Mono No. 001

Starting on open-hand slopers, into 2-finger finger pockets, this routine progresses through a dozen warm up reps before a half-dozen proper mono hangs. I tried it out on Monday. Though feeling awesome would not be an option I at least wanted to feel confident, so I took off 50 lbs and went through it 3 times. I’ll try to get that down to 25 lbs and, eventually/hopefully, less.