Whats your latest experiment on yourself?

Mental Training + Tactics
#1

Power to everyone,
Do you like to experiment with your training? What are you experimenting with right now, or what was your latest experiment?

I tried to training fingers in the morning for 3 months, and confirmed that i cant get recruited as well as i can in the evening. Comparing to the evening training on the same setup i`m measurably stronger. Extended this experiment to morning bouldering sessions, same result. In both situations i feel like my max strength/power is only accessible for 1-2 short bursts and its fast downhill from there. During evening sessions can definitely keep that level for longer. I found that morning training are very sensitive to the quality of sleep. My guess is that for me to effectively train in the morning i need a rock solid sleep schedule, and although mine is healthy enough (to bed by 23.00 and 7-8+ h of sleep every day) it got to be even better. So, note to self, if possible, train / perform indoor or during trips in the second part of the day.

#2

I do tons of experiments and in the beginning I was putting them up on my YouTube channel. However, this is a lot of work and not a lot of people seem to appreciate it so I’m rethinking how to get the info out there for those who are interested.

Things I’ve found:

  • Mono with CBD works best for my skin in terms of skin regeneration (better than climb on, climb skin or rhino skin)
  • Different chalks all seem to perform the same for me
  • Metolius finger tape is the tape with most friction that I’ve tested
  • Anti hydral works best for me to counteract sweaty hands
  • The training Magnus Midtbø mentions in one of his videos improved my endurance by about 30% (depending on how you measure it), but it was way too intense, almost caused an injury, and caused me to crash (CNS fatigue?)
  • A friend of mine did 7a (v6) on his first day because of his background in kung fu, where he specifically trained his fingers. He gave me some exercises that I tried for 4 weeks (throwing and catching a sand bag with my fingers shaped like a tiger claw, and doing a couple of pushups on my fingers). This increased my max hang from +20kg to +26kg, which I found to be an insane improvement

These are the things from the top of my head. In 2022, I will be much more goal oriented. Rather than seeing what works best out of a curiosity, I will try and reach a big sport climbing goal and test things to see if they help me reach my goal. Mental aspects and tactics will be a huge part of this.

#3

My experiments last a long time. I’ve seen quick gains which amount to nothing (in my rock climbing) from nearly every single short experiment I’ve done, so I stretch them out.

Still on full crimp and thematic movement learning (exploring moving in and out of different boxes and the varying degrees of tension and position required). Promising results, but I’m only about 2 years in. I suspect another 2 will show me if I’m on the right track.

Other than that, I’ve been exploring ways that we can game the system with load cells, and make it seem like gains (even to ourselves) even when it isn’t really gaining you anything. Only a few months into it, but I can already say that I’m not a fan of training with them because of how easy it is to convince yourself progress is being made when you focus on the numbers.

#4

That seems to align fairly well with what I suppose is an average biorhythm

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No on-going and experiments for me at the moment.

#5

Haha, cool stuff, can you link Magnus video? Also what is CBD? and whether you use pure antihydral or any Rhino stuff that contains antihydral?

#6

Very interesting and suspiciously precise, any links / references for that?

#7

The one about boxes is very interesting, what is your favorite session that focuses on boxes?

#8

I don’t really do set sessions per se anymore. Both the full crimp and boxes time is purely exploration related to movement when I give myself specific constraints.
For instance, body positions when in full crimp are often different than in half crimp. I’ve had 30 years of half crimping and 2 of full crimping, so I have a ton to learn about how to use them.
For the exploration of boxes, it began with making up small box problems and understanding which constraints I was bad at. Then I spent a lot of time in those positions (mostly high feet at the level of my face with either a down pull or gaston, especially if I can’t heel or toe hook. There’s a specific level of difficulty and distance between holds where this becomes incredibly hard for me to coordinate. Some moves I have to relearn over and over when I return to them, which is rare for me to encounter, and exciting when I do). Now I’m trending toward exploding out of very bunched positions on holds I find difficult while bunched, but easy while wide.
When I feel either physically or mentally fatigued, even a little, I stop that exploration and move to things I understand better.

I’m doing almost no “get stronger” experimentation. Ultimately, getting stronger is by far the easier part of all of this.

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#9

Here’s the Magnus video (and here’s me doing the training).

My experiment with anti hydral (the product, so “pure antihydral” the way you put it):

Here’s the link to mono. CBD comes from hemp, and for some reason my skin responds really well to creams that contain CBD. I’ve read some studies suggesting positive effects of CBD on skin in general, though there’s not a ton of research yet so this is far from a fact.

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#10
  • Putting 5 bucks in my climbing equipment savings account every night that i go to sleep on time for the last few months. It’s been working exceptionally (like >90% compliance) ! (I only do it the Nights that I sleep alone, which is about half my nights, otherwise I’d be bankrupt sleeping on a pile of crash pads :sweat_smile:)
  • Going to try blue light blocking glasses. I struggle with early waking and I think that all that blue light might be a culprit. The research is mixed, but there has been some positive RCTs coming out the last few years.
  • Giving creatine a second chance. As a lacto-ovo vegetarian it might be worth it. Ive gained about 2.5kgs from it, but feeling stronger in my strength training. Last time I had a real big problem with dehydration caused by creatine (and dizziness as an effect of this)
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#11

Another thing you might want to consider is if it would be worth supplementing with leucine. Among the amino acids none of them triggers muscle protein synthesis (MPS) as much as leucine. If I recall correctly only two amino acids actually trigger MPS, the other being glycine. If there is anything that I’m completely sure of it is that leucine reigns supreme in the MPS context and glycine is secondary.

Then you might ask, why don’t I supplement with glycine? Well, you absolutely could, but then you should be aware that it’ll either be calming or stimulatory. It affects people differently. Again, working off of memory here, some 20% of the population become stimulated by glycine while the remaining 80% experience it to have a calming effect. I use it to help me wind-down at night or sometimes even after a training-session.

Comparing a vegetarian diet to a meat-inclusive diet leucine isn’t as bioavailable.

When protein is high, water intake should be high.

#12

As long as we’re talking supplements: this isn’t really an experiment but any excuse to share this information. A LOT of people get vitamine D deficient. I have a darker skin complex and lived in Sweden for a while, my vitamine D got extremely low and as a result I got sick 5 times a year, broke my foot just from running, and was just fatigued (and numb) all day. Taking vitamine D supplements made a huge difference. So yeah, the moral of the story could either be to take vitamine D supplements (it won’t hurt), or to check yourself for deficiencies if you have lots of weird injuries and complaints.

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#13

I mean, it can, but it is very hard to overdose. <= 10 000 IU/day is safe though

#14

Which glasses do you use? Im intereted in testing those cuz i sit behind pc whole day every day as many of us.

#15

Thanks for the input on leucine, Bologna! I’ve been considering that after hearing Tom Herbert talk about Leucine. One thing that i havent been able to reconcile though, is a lot of people talk about vegetarian diets being low on leucine, but when I actually look at the leucine contents of a lot of the foods i get my protein from (mainly soy, dairy, eggs, gluten), they are not that low in leucine. Is it the bioavailability of said leucine that is problematic rather than the total amount?

#16

I was reading the literature on bb-glasses and basically all rct studies use amber glasses. The ones I had are polycarbonate which is supposed to block 99,9% of uv and uvb (blue light). I just got them yesterday and they’re pretty trippy to wear because everything that’s blue (like Bluetooth lights etc) looks super cool and weird.

Anyway, if you’re located in the US, you can get the UVEX skyper s1933x for like 10 bucks! And those have been used in successful rct-studies.

As for my experiment with them, they actually made me wake up even earlier!!! Have to try a few more nights but I think it might have to do with advancing my circadian rhythm, so my next experiment is actually going to be using a 10 000 lux lamp in the evening to try and delay my circadian rhythm. Wish me luck!
The glasses definitely allowed me to get more sleepy while being on my computer late in the evening.

#17

Hey, I welcome the discourse. First things first, I’m not a dietician.

I hope I don’t have an unconscious bias against vegetarianism or veganism as I find both pursuits admirable and have just decided it isn’t for me. Personally, I feel better when my diet includes meat than when it is absent, and how my body feels is something that affects me a great deal mentally etc.

It is conceivable, but I wouldn’t say that I believe this to be inherently true, that since I myself eat meat that the information that I “choose” to adopt is because it doesn’t conflict with a self-serving narrative that makes it easier for me to continue making the choice of eating meat.

And I’m not giving you nutritional advice. Just continuing to offer things up for consideration. Do your own research, if you can!

I don’t have sources for everything that I say, I keep nuggets of information around, and sometimes the provenance of that information is solid (studies) and sometimes I take someone’s word for things as I otherwise have no reason to doubt them and/or have received good information from them in the past.

That’s not necessarily true. Nor is it something that I said either. What I said was,

So my answer to

would be “yes, but”

Now,

Soy, I do not know. Dairy and eggs should be fine, they are animal products after all.

If by gluten you are referring to grains such as wheat, barley, and rye I don’t think that is the best source of protein.

Grains, and beans, and the like contain fiber which will inhibit some of the nutrient uptake of that meal. I assume across all macros.

Further, I’ve seen it claimed that the amino acid leucine binds to other stuff within plants that also acts in a similar “anti-nutrient” manner and that plant protein is roughly 40% bioavailable (i.e., consume 100g of plant protein, about 40g of that will be “useable”).

I believe 3g of leucine is adequate to trigger muscle protein synthesis (MPS) and 5g has the greatest effect. Beyond which I don’t believe the effect is lower, it just reaches its peak at 5g.

This might be interesting to read Protein content and amino acid composition of commercially available plant-based protein isolates - PubMed

And here is an interesting post showing how much plants you’d need to digest to get 3g of leucine

Incidentally, it cites the same source as I linked earlier.

Depending on how much protein you are aiming for, and you don’t want to eat eggs at every meal, that’s where the supplemental protein/leucine can be a potential benefit.