One Year

I cannot believe that it has been one year since I was diagnosed tenosynovitis in my ring fingers...a whole year!! This week marks not only the 1 year mark of my injury, but the 6 month mark of when I began climbing again (June 2012). This week also marks when I began crossfit 6 months ago. Although my fingers are not fully healed, I am making great progress for a full recovery!

This week also marks the first week where I was able to climb on crimps again with no tape! I have been able to warm up/cooldown without tape, but I decided to try climbing some crimps like these on v3-v5's in the climbing gym, on all wall angles. No pain! I do have to admit that the next day my fingers felt sore, like a sore muscle would feel. So I am not going to climb again for a couple more days. However, this is still progress in my eyes!
 

Not only are my fingers getting better, but I feel tremendously strong! I am able to lift some pretty heavy weights in crossfit, and also do some muscle ups! Here is a little video of some of my muscle up practice:

Now that my recovery is going well, I can finally focus on climbing hard again. Last year, all of my weaknesses were due to an imbalance of musculature in my body. Now that I am doing crossfit, this is not a problem anymore. I feel very powerful on the wall and I can make moves that I could never do before.

Now, my strengths from last year have become my weaknesses. However these are easy fixes such as power endurance training and specific grip strength training. If my fingers stay healthy, these things should attained in time to reach my goals!

I'd like to share my goals for the upcoming months. I have some for climbing, for crossfit, and overall health. I feel that my life is more balanced when I create goals that are not always climbing-specific. I like crossfit and I really want to get better at it. I also care about my health much more than I ever have. So here is my list...I'd like to achieve all of my goals (except for competition scores) by the end of January.

Climbing:
- Make finals for the remaining Dark Horse competitions
- Place top 15 in both ABS/SCS Nationals
- Strive to climb with no tape by February
- Work on pinch/sloper strength
- Practice Dyno's as a part of my technical training
- To climb outside again

Crossfit:
- Increase my metcon (metabolic conditioning) so that I can finish workouts faster/more efficiently
- Learn how to kip/butterfly with pull ups
- Learn/Execute proper form for all lifts
- Learn how to do double unders; get 10 in a row
- No whining/complaining

Overall Health
- Do not overtrain, listen to body
- Perform stretching/recovery exercises everyday
- Do not get injured
- Eat a modified Paleo diet (consists of Paleo with a little more carbs that can be from some grains and rice)
- Take at least 2 rest days a week


Now that I have it all written down, I hope to start working on these goals! Training all of these things without over training is a delicate balance, but seeing as I am going on 3 months with no injuries I think I can do it!