IBL promo picture

As posted on climbing.ie:

“We’re delighted to announce that after a gap of several years that the IBL is heading north again!

Tollymore Mountain Centre (www.tollymore.com), on the edge of the Mournes, is Northern Ireland ’s National Centre for Mountaineering and Canoeing Activities. The centre is ideally located for mountain biking, hillwalking, climbing and bouldering so there’s plenty to do in the area after the competition.

The routesetters are:
Michael Duffy, Ricky Bell & Jose Argudo

The competition will be split into two sessions (like we ran in Galway) with a limit of 50 entrants per session.

The schedule for the day is:
Registration: 9am
Session 1: 9.30am – 1pm
Session 2: 1pm – 4.30pm
Prize Giving: 5pm

There will be approximately 10-12 problems to be completed.

There is a system in place which will allow OPTIONAL pre-registration via the Internet so entrants can guarantee their spot in advance. Please go to the IBL page at:

http://www.climbing.ie/index.php/ibl

* You will notice “IBL Tollymore Round 5 Fee” and an Add To Cart button. This will allow payment of the IBL entry fee by PayPal. You don’t need a PayPal account but you do need a credit card.

* In the Confirm Payment page you can add special instructions to the Merchant. Put in here whether you would like morning or afternoon.

* Please email ibl@climbing.ie to let us know that you’ve paid and whether you would prefer a morning/afternoon slot.

* Keep a printout of your receipt and bring it to the comp.

Entry fees on the day are:
Full fee: £12 (€15)
MI members/students/unwaged: £8 (€10)
Juniors: £4 (€5)

Please note that due to renovations there will be no accommodation available at Tollymore itself unfortunately.
There will be plenty of parking space available at the centre.

IBL promo picture

As a request from Damien O’Sullivan, organiser of the event:
“Now that Christmas is over it’s time to get back to business. As you all know the IBL is on in less than two weeks, all the pieces are falling into place from an organisational point of view.
I do however need to know approximate numbers of people intending to compete. If numbers are large then I will set up some extra climbs in the hall down stairs. This will involve a lot of extra work, but it will make the competition much more enjoyable and safer.
I also need to let the Water Rock House know how many people will be eating there and attending for the slide show. I really hope that if you go to the comp that you will go to Water Rock House also, the food there is really good, the owner is going us an excellent deal too. There will be a slide show, and music to dance to if that’s your thing.
I will need to know approximate numbers by next Monday, so please send me an e-mail to ……….. [go to this link for his email address - don't want to post publicly], putting IBL as the subject.
Thanks, Damo.”

As for info on the comp, “We have our plans in place and we promise you an excellent days climbing. We intend setting 18 problems, each with a hard and easy variation. There will be problems easy enough for the newest of beginners right up to the most seasoned of strong (wo)men to enjoy.”

LIMERICK, IRELAND (Irish Climbing Coaching) – We all know one…. Little Jimmy who does endless laps of the bouldering wall, hogging it for the evening and not stepping off once. He just cruises around on big holds fighting the ‘pump’ for ages at a time, all the while muttering something about ‘trying to get strong’. Though he does have this strange ability to be able to stay in the same spot (usually stuck just below the crux moves on a route) for a short eternity, Little Jimmy never does get any stronger. Why is this? For all the ‘training’ he puts in to ‘get strong’ why isn’t he some well muscled mutant cranking out one-armers every time there’s a female in the room?

Following on in our series on the basic principles of training (see No. 1: Periodisation) we’ll deal with another major factor in making your training successful, Specificity.

Specificity means that a certain type of training is specific to a certain system/muscle group/type of muscle fibre. If you wanted to improve your cycling, you wouldn’t go out and do a load of pull-ups as training would you? This is a very stark example, but the same principle applies to every aspect of training. If you want to develop your finger pocket strength, you don’t train on big slopers, or if you want to develop your power, you don’t try and do a high volume of moves in a really static manner.

So why is Little Jimmy’s training program ineffective? Maybe he wants to ‘get strong’ on big holds… True, he may only want to improve his strength on bigger holds, but the intensity at which he’s climbing (i.e. easy moves and loads of them) is wrong. It’s not specific to what he wants to achieve. His muscles are operating far below their maximum and so are not in the ideal ‘zone’ for developing strength, if he was in this ‘zone’ he’d probably only be able to string 4/5 moves together, never mind the few hundred he does during his usual sessions. Basically, Little Jimmy is working far below his maximum and at too low an intensity. So, what he’s actually training is his longer term endurance, hence his ability to hang below the crux on a route for an eternity – now if only he had the strength to do the harder moves….

This is a very general overview/taster on specificity, it can be as simple as this or considerably more complicated, depending on your goals in mind. Take a step back and have a think about what you’re currently trying to achieve and what way you’re actually going about it. If you find that you’re doing circuits on a bouldering wall, but actually want to improve your one-move lock-off strength, you need a rethink. This will become a bit clearer over the next few weeks as a few more principles are introduced. Don’t think we’re going to give everything away though – and it’s far easier to just get someone else to plan all this for you

Photo: John Harrison gets specific on steep, 2 finger pockets on a Sardinian 7c.