Scottish Injury Season begins!!

Or continues. Or increases.

Okay so my elbow has been fucked all year. Fine for trad, okay for sport, bad for bouldering and indoor training.

No problem - for winter training and bouldering I'll do some gnarly pressy pushy gastony stuff.

Okay so now my right shoulder is tweaked.....do some theraband.....okay that's clearing.....reach under a desk and dislodge my left shoulder....now THAT is tweaked.

No problem - for winter training and bouldering I'll do thin fingery crimpy technical stuff.

Okay so now my left hand ring finger A2 pulley is tweaked....tender to touch....tender to crimp.

No problem - I'll just chill out and ease off any training.

Okay except I'm going to Siurana in 4 weeks and unlike the more exploratory trips to San Bartolo and Ariege/Cavallers, I'd like to be climbing fit enough to push myself a bit.

No problem - I'll do lots of fitness training and general exercise.

Oh....wait.....lol yeah like I can fucking do that :S

Okay so what can I do??

The elbow is manageable by taping, massage, stretching, warmth, eccentrics. The shoulders are manageable by theraband exercises and massage. The finger is manageable by as much rest as I can tolerate, hot/cold treatment, massage, stretching, careful taping. All of them are manageable by taking care and avoiding specific climbing that aggravates them.

The fitness problem is unavoidable except by continuously banging my head against the demoralising brick wall of absolutely physical limitations, and by some nimbly outwitting at the gym (I think swimming is out due to shoulders).

What else??

Weights - I am quite syked for weights at the moment. After all it's got lots of NUMBERS to aim for and just like climbing that's the only point of it, what more motivation do you need huh?? It's a way to push myself physically without damaging the tweaky bits and possibly even benefit them by training antagonistic and surrounding muscles. Obviously it is nowhere near as good climbing training as climbing training, but it can work the core and be a good prep for CV work, and if it's the exercise I'm doing that's a fuck of a lot better than not doing it.

Falling practise - still a huge deal for me, and still something I definitely need to train and am currently doing so a bit - a few falls each session at the wall, and I can definitely ramp that up. Okay so I've got to choose the right non-aggravating route to get to the fall zone, but the more I can do of this the better. If I get physically weaker but mentally stronger that would probably be better than the other way around.

Stretching - god I get so fucking bored by stretching, I'd rather do 2 2 hour gym sessions a week which I bloody hate, than 10 mins stretching each day. MUST TRY HARDER.

And of course the usual gentle climbing stuff - outdoors preferably, indoors stamina only. Keep moving but keep diligent and monitoring my tweaks at all time.