Recently I bought a Training band and a rubber egg (otherwise known as a Pilates Stretching Hand Rehabilitation Ball) instead of a Fingerboard. I want to strengthen my fingers to progress as a climber. I often know what to do but finger strength is the limiting factor. Ever since I saw fingerboards in web videos and in person I have wanted to get one but at first didn’t know where to get one and then didn’t find one at an…
This morning I completed Stage 9 of the Tour de Zwift. I have now finished the challenge. In the process I went from riding on the shorter events during the first stages to taking the long options for at least the last two stages. A slow start before ramping up. I don’t start the stage as fast as others. It takes me a few minutes to warm up and I have a psychological need to know that I’m over half…
Activity trackers are designed for walking, running, canoeing and activities where you move your arms. Cycling is not one of those sports. Unless you’re cycling on a specialist bike that has handles you’ll be using your legs and your upper body will move very little. I have a workaround. My workaround is to put the activity tracker in a pocket. In so doing it counts how many times a leg “steps” and your goal for the day is not missed….
Marie Kondo’s rule that you should only keep thirty books, that you should only keep those that you personally want to read or enjoy is a silly rule because it encourages people to limit their scope and perspective on the world. Childhood One memory of my childhood is being surrounded by books and being able to look through hundreds of books, whether at home, in libraries or even mail order catalogues. As a child I loved the opportunities that books…
The more often you boulder and climb, the stronger the muscles that pull the tendons to your fingers become, and the stronger those muscles become, the higher the grade of your climbs. Hand holds are not the rungs of a ladder or via ferrata. Sometimes you can use your entire hand but at other moments you will use just the fingertips of one hand. On a climb such as this one I managed to get up two thirds to three…
The Seventh stage of the Tour De Zwift was Innsbruck, a course that some people can do in about 388 minutes. It takes me around 54 minutes. As I have not ridden this course frequently enough I decided to try to keep up with others and that meant a 20 minute best of 197 watts. My lack of familiarity with the course meant that when the climbs came up I did not push as hard or as long as I…
I have ascended the Alpe de Zwift 5 times since i started using Zwift. My first climb took about one and a half hours, and then about one hour and sixteen minutes and finally just 57 minutes. I managed to get down to 57 minutes because I participated in Stage 6 of the Tour De Zwift event. On previous rides I had ridden up the Alpe de Zwift alone. The first time I took it slow. My goal was simply…
The Garmin Vivosmart 4 is the first activity tracker that I see tracking descent as well as ascent. It is yet another fitness tracker and in theory I had no need for it as my Suunto Spartan Wrist HR Baro and my Apple Watch Series 4 do almost the same thing. I was curious to play with this device for two principle reasons. The first of these is the body battery functionality that looks at the energy we use during…
The Apple watch and other devices have integrated barometers that allow them to track changes in altitude. Iredpoint by Frogg GMBH is one app that takes advantage of this. It allows you to tell the app what type of climbing you are doing as well as the difficulty. Types of Climbing This app allows you to choose the type of climbing that you are doing. You can choose between bouldering, top rope climbing, sport climbing, trad climbing, multirope climbing, free…
The Issue For a while Facebook was the network to keep in contact with university friends after we all graduated and then it was the network to keep in contact with colleagues. Eventually it became the network where people shared news without engaging with others. It has become a network where you scroll through dozens of irrelevant posts in the hope of finding something personal, and failing. Instagram used to be the network where we could share images with friends…