A month after a noticable improvement in my climbing, I’ve maintained the new level of performance and felt added confidence. I’ve climbed at least one new V5 route in almost every session and in many sessions I’ve climbed more than one. I also made a somewhat consistent effort to utilize heel hooks more often and had some rewarding successes.

There was a green fairly easy V5 on the 45 that started on four of the same narrow pinch blocks. It allowed a couple marginal heel hooks at the bottom.

At the cliffs there was a red ~V3 on the corner towards the back right. It has all curved edges on either side of the corner and you could use a heel hook for almost every move.

At the Gravity Vault in Poughkeepsie I did all the moves (unlinked) in a slopey overhanging V5 that had a big right hand to a sloper from a heel hook, but I was only able to stick that move once. From there it was slopers on either side of a corner so once again it was good for alternating heel hooks.

My stretching has also improved. I can get into a kinda decent forward standing bend now and really feel the stretch through my hamstrings and glutes. I’ve also been doing Pidgeon pose.

I’ve done about the same amount of antagonist training with a couple modifications. For one I’ve raised the rings for push ups because at the minimum height the difficulty is too high for me. I can’t hold good form through much more than 10 reps so I’ve raised the rings to where I can do close to 20 to spend more time in good form.

I also improved my reverse wrist curl by leaning my forearm on something to isolate the wrist extensor muscles. It’s much more consistent and stimulating.

We also did a short session on the woody in Gowanus. I sent my boulder starting on the easier starts on line 12 (I think) green sidepull, brown pinch, right green sidepull, left orange edge, right red pinch over head, left big green bubblewrap, right orange rail top. didn’t send on the hard starts white edge and blue knobby undercling

We also played a game of Add On with a guy Noah who seemed like a pretty good climber. I almost sent his crimp ladder but couldn’t match the big green edge up top. The route we made in the game might be in the Log Book as “Bible Study”.

Quite the nice month of climbing. Feels like a lot more V5 climbing is in my grasp since a month ago and I feel quite strong.